Happy like Ulysses, has made a fine voyage -
Or like this that won the Golden Fleece -
And then returned, full of purpose and reason. - Joachim Du Bellay
There is a man more complete than that which has traveled extensively,
twenty times that changed the shape of his thinking and his life.
Alphonse de Lamartine - Preview of Journey to the East
Taque-tac-tac ... ... hobs hobs-tac ...
I doze. The ceram-tac monotonous iron wheels on their steel strip me drowsy. His sudden silence woke me up. Where we are ? Somewhere between New York and Albany. I'm with the brother Real. This morning we left early from the hotel. The big trip is over. The journey Montreal / New York is no longer part of the trip. It's back to the country.
For the first time since my departure from the port of Montreal on 16 September 1958, homesickness seized my bowels. A special excitement accompanies it. I have some impatience, as time stretches like a draw Ste-Catherine is stretched between its two arms.
In mid-June, I left Rome. I did not return yet back home, I continued the journey. In the train that brought me from Rome to Paris the night, I was still open eyes of wonder.
For a month and a half in Paris, I was the cultural tourist anxious to lift the curtains across new horizons. On the Queen Elizabeth, from Cherbourg to New York, the sea, even spread, reiterated its number of fascination she had served three years earlier.
New York, I saw for the first time, I also bewitched. Shocked, I spent nearly an hour before the Guernica Guggenheim Museum . I did not need explanation. The famous painting of Picasso's famous no less inhabited me. I downloaded it in the silence of silent admiration. Already in 1937, the great English painter announced the new times we have not even finished digesting. And while New York, born in the "Roaring Twenties", emitting waves that were consistent with my chemistry. The audacity of the Empire State building , the Statue of Freedom, the frenzy of 45th Avenue ...
New York for me marked the end of the trip. As its apotheosis. Ceram-tac-tac ... ... hobs hobs-tock ... The train leaves. This is the returned home.
I'm focused like a cloud. By thought, I fly over the house of Hormisdas that dissolves into that of Lucien. Charm of traditions! Our family, all that is more traditionally Quebec: four married, four in community and others follow the traditional pattern: three schoolteachers and a nurse. I remember fussing Monday morning, Claire, Teresa, and soon Carmen Gisela, convent girls black skirts and pleated and starched white collar. They detract from the rule of the past. They do two years of Normal School in St-Hyacinthe, instead of one year at Nicolet. They teach not in a country school but in town, one in Drummondville, two at St. Nicephorus, a school run by the Sisters. They earn $ 800 a year and staying at the convent.
There are signs. The threat of creating a union job cuts. More hope for them. They must migrate to the big city, Montreal. This will be their salvation. They will be hired and quickly double or triple their salaries. $ 3,000 / year in 1960. The traditional structure already cracked and it will explode soon. And even once married, they may continue to teach!
For boys, it's similar to the same. The three who complete their primary education only go to sites in the winter, carve out a trade, start a family and own their home. Four were admitted to Juvénat Brothers of the Sacred Heart.
I like to imagine how they had to grow quickly in three years! I'll see them again soon. I can not wait. A hurry that camouflaged somehow some anxiety. I repeat that of a place in their midst. I see the house, barn, bakery, I make the path of the small school ... Everything is as fixed in my memory. Color and flavor of chocolate and strawberry mousse ...
But there is a leaven that will soon change everything in the rang St-Alexandre. It's the little school that is closing around the same time as the cheese is Berchmans and pork industry. But anticipate. Outside, the wind change. At a speed exceeding that of the train.
Taque tac-tac-ceram ... ... ... ceram-tock, my dream is cut.
arrested again! "We are in Albany" said Brother Dir. Albany? For me, a name more than a city. The batteries in my curiosity inspire other scenes. Time for a crust and ceram-tac ... leaves, and me with him in my dreams, dozing between the past and the future uncertain ....
Figure Mauritius Duplessis, radiating and evanescent as in the days of rural electrification appears in the corner of a display policy. Fleeting image of his grave as we had arrived in Rome, soon replaced by that of the stars of the time, Jean Lesage's "Master at home", and Rene Levesque who speaks truthfully and nine. Focus, we reserve electricity ... so this little man? Quebec a less rural, more electrifying ...
In my daydreams fluids, images hover above the ceram-tac. Church and politics intermingle, playing leapfrog. Cardinal Leger, we kneel for the Family Rosary, at seven o'clock every night. This is a must. The city, sports, weekends are eating already enlisted the rosary.
On Sunday, I see churches filled to the last row of benches. Fade ... Some are even opening their doors on Saturday afternoon at five o'clock. This Mass also has to fulfill the Sunday obligation. The ceram-tock beats routines round the country and the progress of renewals. Island of Montreal and Ile Ste-Hélène line up like an assembly line. Jean Drapeau, the mic every week, radio, speaks with passion. Ceram-tac-tac ... ... hobs hobs-tac ... and everything is sinking into the mists of a fertile soil in budding.
Granby, Mount Sacred Heart Novitiate, the brother Florentien and others marched in turn to the rhythm of ceram-tac-tac ... ... hobs hobs-tac. This is my destination, the place of my appointment, as the vocabulary of the time. I learned in Paris in a letter from Brother Provincial, Brother Gerald, who had written several times in Rome on onion paper, washed blue, "by air". I am disappointed and worried. How to give novices the bud in me life so fragile? No classes on Christian perfection! Oh no! In the Bible ... I'm disappointed, but what else? Latin at Chertsey? Or Rosemere?
Ten ceram-tock again, and my bindings are stalled. Then, suddenly, without that I have never understood why or how this is "my shoes" of Felix Leclerc adjusts to the pace of wheels on the rails. Felix, the pride of Quebec unborn. I let myself be pampered by singing his songs spring, images that recall the colors of the "Sweet France", its kings and castles enchant little happiness while her trimmed its staff, its sorrows, his grief and his rags makes me dream.
frail and timid on a tray in Montreal, a certain Jean-Pierre Ferland sings "Your Face" while in Saguenay, Robert Charlebois begins to scratch his guitar. Claude Léveillé drags his old piano to the end of the world and rubs his shoes white horse. Gilbert Becaud already flirting scenes with Quebec while Merry Troubadours, the Companions of the song and Charles Trenet disappear on tiptoe behind the scenes of the past.
Marcel Dubé "Zone" and "A Simple Soldier enchanted me. Just two or three ceram-tac for him to come back to haunt me. I'm sick of the "Miser," I know it by heart. The "Gentleman" does not make me laugh more. Curious, Molière melts in my ceram-tac with the image of Claudel, Paul's name. It ranks first among the winners of my crushes Theatre: "The Hostage", played on a makeshift stage at St. Louis-des-French of Rome. A very small ceram-tock, time to collect my thoughts on the emotions experienced while. We talk to the fall of the "Annunciation" here in Montreal. I'll have to go see it!
Taque-tac-tac ... ... hobs hobs-tac ... 
A snowy blur on my screen and it is, after the image of "wild" under fixed, the brother of Gregory that appears. Animated, and he followed coach "His second story window, the game between the juniors to the team from the village of Chertsey on an outdoor rink with high embankments of snow. Maurice Richard, Toe Blake, Canadians, six NHL clubs, the Canadian-Boston rivalry, Michel Normandin, René Lecavalier a succession of images and time on the ice ... the country's hockey in Quebec, vitality, ready to bud nicely.
The engine runs slowly, panting. Outside the weather is gray, pierced with a few drops of water. This gives rise to the image Fernand Seguin that fascinates children and adults on the small screen. Slippers, science will become a few years later, "Salt of the week" and feed the curiosity of many spectators. Hubble, Hubert Reeves, the galaxies are not yet on the scene, but they are in the egg, they hoped to come.
Again, I return to my reality of the day, the hobs of the endless tit-over tab. That our world is so rich and full. This dream of knowing everything calm my frenzy to reach. We're still on American soil. I look through the exploration of the past three years old.
"A man and his sin," "Pension Velder", "the Stranger" are lining up single file at the counter of my attentions. Wilfrid Lemoyne and Judith Jasmin invite me for a walk around the world.
atmosphere of the country recognized by my instincts woke. We're almost on Canadian soil. Plattsburg is being announced. It's as if I had one foot in Quebec. I get up and walk a bit. The train defies my nervousness. It seems slow. It never stops coming. Happen is as long as it was based on three years ago.
Montreal resurfaced. The "suburb m'lasse" the Canada Cement, Hector Street and the riverfront, the stadium Delorimier which, unfortunately, already cleared of its Royal ...
Nearby Fullum, the procurement office, Rosary brother, the provincial sails to large community which extends into Saskatchewan. Already the wind eats her work. Brother Gerald who replaces him has to learn to manage the decline.
time stretches, it is still too long. Other locomotives taunting us in passing on our side. When will we get there? It is 4:30 p.m. ET poireautons us forever.
Finally at 17:00 we went down after passing through a network of railroads crossed. Montreal is dirty in his backyard from Central Station!
Brother Hubert awaited us. He drops me off at the school residence Best Fullum Street, this Friday August 18. Throughout the journey between the station and the residence of the brothers, I must defend myself against a pervasive feeling. After Rome, Paris and New York that Montreal seems so small! Country town or large village?
The next day, I take the bus to take me Drummondville Bourgeois or dad, according to an inveterate habit, pick me for the rank-Alexandre St little changed. There is however a hint that heralds great upheavals. We will no longer bring the milk to the cheese factory, a truck that picks up the cans on the roadside. First shock of passing time, chanted slamming the ceram-tac which is past.
On Saturday evening, before the family together is the prize. I'm a little embarrassed. I had a budget of fifty dollars to buy souvenirs from Rome to each member of the family. A small image, a rosary, a marble ornament and blessing of the Pope. Them, before I left, had amassed $ 120 to get a Smith Corona typewriter that I do not even brought back. Poverty does not always coincide with the vow of poverty (1).
I sleep in Quebec, the cradle of my childhood. I dream of my childhood. But, pending in the night air, there are clouds fluttering, harbingers of shocking revolutions. My neurons were captured. They translate into dreams that erupt from all sides and film strip running fast. Tomorrow will be a different day.
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(1) De Lourdes I brought my sister Monique, who did his novitiate with the Sisters of the Assumption of Nicolet, a statue of the Virgin . The statue was sealed and should contain water from Lourdes. This little present was very pleased to Monique. Shortly after, my parents will visit him at Nicolet. They see objects in the watch piety to sell the statue that I had given to Monica. Mom inquired. Monique could not keep the statue because he was told, the vow of poverty she would soon rule prohibited him from keeping things "our own". No comment.
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The Jean-Claude chronic
DIRECTORY 1960-1961
No. 55 For admission to the novitiate, they increase levels of education than before.
It promotes the spiritual resources for the brothers: retreats, recollections, second novitiate, novitiate, one of whose major objectives is to ensure persistence.
A brother of the Sacred Heart participate in the Commission on Ecumenical religious establishment by CRC (Canadian Religious Conference)
There are races and academic qualifications among brothers .
Georgius's brother made its mark in the promotion of handicrafts across the province of Quebec.
We abandoned the cassock for visits to town; it is the black suit and black tie.
There are six houses closures.
previous seven Canadian provinces :
- 1540 professed
- 83 novices
- 1263 juniors
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Next issue: # 29 - No new wine into old wineskins 
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