Canadian taxpayers victims of another fighter aircraft misadventure

Imagine being the absolute best at something: sports, cooking, gambling, whatever. Then, on the verge of taking your superiority to the level where you achieve fabulous wealth and worldwide fame, you are forced by some ignorant functionary to scrap your plans and actually destroy all the evidence so that you could never reach that level again.

Well, in the 1950s, here in Canada, that’s exactly what happened with the Avro Arrow CF-105 fighter aircraft program. From the day the plans for the supersonic interceptor were submitted to the then-Liberal government of Louis St. Laurent in May 1953, till its abrupt cancellation on the verge of major production, on February 20, 1959 by the Conservative government of John Diefenbaker, the Arrow was the finest fighter aircraft in the world.

If you are an aircraft buff, as I am, this is an incredibly painful part of aviation history to think about. The Arrow had no peers, set international flight records, and would still be competitive today. A delta-winged interceptor conceived to prevent advanced Russian high-speed, high-altitude atomic bombers from flying into Canada over the North Pole, where there was no radar at that time, the Malton, Ontario-built Arrow was quickly the darling of the media and the envy of governments worldwide. The Arrow project also required the development of powerful new engines to give the plane the thrust required to reach its unheard-of Mach 2.5 speeds and 50,000 feet altitudes, so the Iroquois engine was designed and manufactured. France had an order in for 200 of these engines, an order that was cancelled when the news of the Arrow’s cancellation was leaked.

By the 1959 cancellation date, since known as Black Friday, several Arrows, including a “Mark 2” version using the Iroquois engine, had been flight tested – the first one by the late test pilot Janusz (Jan) Zurakowski on March 25, 1958, with performances that were both successful and astounding. Five Mark 1 aircraft were manufactured in all, numbered as RL 201 – RL 205, with RL 206, the solitary Mark 2, the final Arrow to come off the line. Then, it was all gone. The Conservatives ordered the destruction of everything, including all the aircraft, smaller models, blueprints... though there are rumours that one complete aircraft had been hidden away and is still around somewhere. Surviving blueprints have permitted the creation of a full-sized, static model of the Arrow that was rolled out in 2008 at the former CFB Downsview military base in Toronto, Ontario. Ottawa’s Canadian Aviation and Space Museum also has a surviving nose section and the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa has an original Arrow nose cone and ejector seat.

The Conservative government has never come forward with the real reason for the cancellation, but conspiracy theories abound. They used cost as a reason and, indeed, it was prohibitive, with a projected $1.1 billion earmarked for Arrow had it gone through as planned. But that was hardly unreasonable for a plane that would have created an entire new industry for Canada, one which likely would have positioned us as a world aviation power today. As it was, $33 million had to be paid out in cancellation fees. And the ensuing CIM-10 BOMARC missile program, which the Americans had convinced the Canadians to join (justified by claims that missiles were replacing fighter aircraft as nuclear deterrents) on behalf of NATO, ultimately cost Canadians hundreds of millions of dollars by the time it was phased out by the Liberal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1971.

So, considering its role in the destruction of the successful development of the stellar Arrow fighter, it is most disconcerting that it is a Conservative government that is today embarking on yet another fighter jet misadventure. Unless you have been in a coma, you have likely heard that Canada has placed an order worth $9 BILLION for a fleet of 65 advanced, single-engine F-35 jet fighters. Canada has already advanced $160 million in the development of the F-35 and $350 million worth of contracts have gone out to Canadian suppliers for the various parts.

Yet, there is much anger afoot. The contracts were not put out to tender, a cardinal contravention of rules in free, Western societies, and there seems to be the same “sucking-up-to-the-Americans” methodology involved here as was the case with the Arrow and other military projects (“Star Wars” missile defence shield, anyone?).

What concerns me most is that bureaucrats are involved, in this case Canadian defence minister Peter McKay. A lawyer of criminal and family law by trade, I’d like to know what McKay’s credentials are that gives him the knowledge to plan the defence of our entire population.

Yes, I have no doubt that Mr. McKay is a very bright man and he is certainly proving that by giving us terrific retorts while he is being resoundly criticized for the manner in which his government is handling this controversy. I’d be a lot happier if a military man, someone of unquestioned brilliance and battlefield ethics, like a Romeo Dallaire, was Minister of National Defence. But inexperienced bureaucrats heading up major portfolios make me extremely nervous.

Case in point: While touring the Northwest Territories with the Giant Colon last year (you can Google it and read the rave reviews), I was in Yellowknife exhibiting on March 21, 2009 and we held a press conference attended by the Honourable Sandy Lee, NWT’s health minister. She spoke and then I said a few words to the media and answered a few questions. I mentioned that what was learned via the Giant Colon’s visits country-wide would hopefully help prevent deaths from colorectal cancer by finding potential cancers before they metastasized. You know that word, right? Everyone does... it means before cancerous cells spread to other parts of the body. It is a VERY basic term.

Later, while talking to Ms. Lee and the media while walking through the Giant Colon, the minister took me aside and said, and I quote, “While you were speaking, there was a word you used that I did not understand.” I asked her which one and she tried to repeat it... “metas.... mat....,” to which I asked, “Metastasized?” With a perfectly straight face (and really, a serious rubberized Jim Carry imitation was what my face wanted to do), I explained what it meant to the HEALTH minister of the NWT, which has some of the highest cancer rates in the country.

Very scary. And here we are, entrusting the defence of our country to another bureaucrat and another Conservative government with a sorry and intentionally clandestine record on the subject to begin with. This aircraft situation appears to be Arrow all over again and we have a right to ask questions and demand answers before it is too late.

Visiting your old high school haunt has you coming of age all over again

Yesterday I did something seemingly benign, yet something that dredged up a lot more emotion than I thought I had lying dormant inside me. I walked through my old high school and took pictures. Now, this institution was not just any high school. Wagar High, which opened in the Montreal suburb/municipality of Cote Saint-Luc in 1963 or so, owns a bit of a legendary spot in the annals of secondary education in this city.

From its opening until its closure about four years ago, Wagar was, in its heyday, one of the hotbeds of intellectual activity in Montreal. Until its final years, Wagar’s students perennially placed at or near the top rungs of the academic ladder among English-speaking institutions in the province of Quebec. And while not known for its sporting skills, Wagar teams always competed ably in sports such as basketball and, for a time until the early 1970s, high school football.

While a secular school, Wagar was comprised primarily of Jewish teens from the surrounding cities of Cote Saint-Luc, Hampstead and Montreal West, as well as from the Montreal suburb of Notre Dame de Grace (NDG), where I lived. During the years I attended, 1970 – 1974, enrolment was not open to students outside these geographic parts of town. Yet, my graduating Grade 11 (Secondary V) class of 1974 had something like 300 students, the school thriving, vibrant and packed with students spanning grades 8 – 11. In our time, junior high – Grade 7 - did not yet exist at the secondary level.

I was admittedly not a huge fan of Wagar while a student. Then again, I wasn’t much of a student period. I enjoyed the learning component of school, but not the rules and regulations that went along with the process. Today there are schools for people like me, for kids who don’t fit into traditional academia but, when left to their own (supervised) devices, are able to be successful, creative and move on to meaningful careers. I also didn’t really “fit in” back then, hailing from an outside area, NDG, when most of my peers knew one another from their elementary school years in Cote Saint-Luc. I was an outsider, a state-of-mind that was further complicated by my extreme shyness. It was hard for me to make friends back then, even harder to realize the normal rites of passage, like dating girls. But I succeeded on both counts.

So, here I was, back to scene of the crime. And as I walked through the school, my footsteps echoing through the now empty halls, I had an emotional reaction. My eyes filled with tears, the result of mourning for my lost youth, I presume. In the auditorium, I remembered sitting proudly, watching my Grade 10 girlfriend Marla Tobin dancing as a chorus member of the musical South Pacific. I still have the programme. I recalled hanging in the halls and the cafeteria with my buddies Joel, Joey, Richard and Stanley, a group of guys with whom I am only friends with Joel to this day. I couldn’t remember where my locker was, but I think it was on the third floor, where the old banks of grey lockers still stand like silent sentinels, tired-looking but somehow still relevant. Funny how a mere school locker – which in effect is your own private office - can be meaningful so many years later.

Then there is the gymnasium, which surprised me because it is so much larger than I remembered it. I bumped into the school janitor yesterday, a man who started working there in 1981, seven years after I departed. He told me that the gym floors had been damaged, so they had set down new ones. Still, the sounds of the floor hockey “doughnuts” hitting my extended appendages as I tended goal came back to me, as did massive, former semi-pro football player and gym teacher Judd Porter’s menacing Texan drawl.

Of all the interesting sensations, however, those that I felt walking into the modest library were the strongest. The principal for the school’s main current tenant, Marymount Adult Centre (the other tenant is John Grant High School, for special needs students, that offers them an incredible, cutting-edge job program), had informed me that Wagar had simply left their original library books behind when the school was closed. And to me that meant only one thing: the library cards inside had been signed out by the people I went to school with. I spent one solid hour rifling through one book after another, looking for names I knew. And I found quite a few, including one for a book on rookie NHL goalie Gerry Desjardins taken out on May 11, 1973 by my old friend Lenny Litwin. Lenny lived on Prince of Wales, a few houses down the street from me, and was like my younger brother. We both loved hockey goalies growing up and seeing his name on the card sent a thrill through me. We lost touch over 30 years ago, so, for me, this was totally a sentimental “lost youth” moment.

I took some more pictures and placed the whole slew of them on Facebook for many of the old Wagar alum to peruse, knowing that these images would rekindle some feelings in them, as well. For those of you who didn’t attend Wagar, it’s no loss... if you want to remember, sometimes achingly so, take a walk through your old high school if it’s still around, but wait at least three decades. If you left five years ago or less, you probably think it’s the last place you’d ever want to see again, just like I did.

At my age, however, I challenge you to experience this and not be extremely moved. As we turn the corner onto the final stretch of our mortal lives, the years that most helped define us become more precious all the time. As I endure some of the fiercest struggles of my life today, my years at Wagar were likely among the finest I have ever lived.

If only I knew so back then. Man, ain’t that the truth.

New life: Boon or disaster?

Of all the bad award shows I have ever seen, the most moronic and irrelevant one is playing behind me as I write this: The AVN Awards, organized by Adult Video News. It’s the ultimate homage to the adult film industry, the denizens of which may be artificially beautiful to look at but are brain-dead, for the most part. Case in point – up now is the Male Performer of the Year Award, which is basically a reward for being endowed with, or subsequently bestowed, supersized genitalia. Manuel Ferreira was the winner from a list of about 20 freaks with enhanced organs and thankfully I can change the channel now that the suspense has dissipated.

Bare with me before you close this window, because this is not a dissertation on porn... I am simply using it as background because it turned up on my TMN channel as I was surfing the Web. I just changed the channel for what may as well be an Oscar-winning film, in comparison: Halloween IV.

But seriously, this adult film awards sham is the ideal tool for illustrating how far we have fallen as a race - when this is what has an audience giving an individual a standing ovation, it’s time to smite Sodom and Gomorrah once again. So, all of this hoopla, for essentially nothing of any consequence, got me pondering even more deeply the hottest news in history, pretty much... the first act of Creation since God did it, what, 20 billion years ago? Now it’s a group of American laboratory gods who are responsible, although I suppose God had a hand in a ‘various degrees of separation” sort of way.

If you haven’t heard yet, a team of scientists in Maryland, led by veteran geneticist Craig Venter, has managed to create artificial cells in their lab and then splice human DNA into them. In the words of Venter, who has purportedly been trying to create synthetic life for 15 years now, “we ended up with the world’s first synthetic cell powered and controlled totally by a synthetic chromosome made from four bottles of chemicals.” It’s amazing... and also somewhat ominous.

They have actually CREATED life, the way Dr. Frankenstein did on screen in the 1931 movie that features the good doctor, played by British actor Colin Clive, shouting “It’s alive” over and over again. I don’t know about you, but this is such staggering news that I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around it. This is NOT science-fiction, or a cloned sheep that didn’t live up to expectations, at least I don’t think so. It’s not the absurdist Raelians proclaiming that they have created a baby from alien DNA, or some Scientology ridiculousness dreamt up by late sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard, in my opinion THE biggest religious scam in history. And there have been a lot of them.

This is human life, artificial though it may be, with the potential to be used in untold ways, some useful and benevolent and others horrifically nightmarish. The scenarios are endless. Mind you, if what makes us human involves the belief that an omnipotent Creator wielded the paint-brush of universal life, this is nothing but science. If life on Earth is, however, the result of alien spores being tossed earthbound from a nearby planet like Mars, however, this is simply life being created in a lab rather than originating from Martian soil.

Still, it’s life and with life comes potential, for both good and evil. I suppose it all depends on who takes those cells and manipulates them... the medical field, or the industrial-military complex, perhaps? We can all hope that this becomes a boon for humankind and doesn’t ultimately wind up destroying us all. Personally, however, when I look around at what this world has turned into during MY brief lifetime, any new life can’t be a bad thing.

Congratulations to the New Creators. Please don’t let us down.

Two birthdays - Enough to make even Sherlock crazy

I recently celebrated my 53rd birthday, on April 26. I was born in 1957. As many people reading this may know, I am adopted. The way my parents told me about my beginnings, I was two days old when I was brought to them, my biological parents having been killed in a car accident while my mother was pregnant, after I was saved from her dying womb. Very romantic, I agree, and a story oft-related to adoptees of that era. Lie number one was augmented by the fable that I was born at the Jewish General Hospital here in Montreal, whereas I discovered much later on that it had been the Royal Victoria Hospital.

I have spent my adult years dealing with my adoption, often having a difficult time with it. Don’t get me wrong: I loved my parents and they loved me, to the point of ridiculousness. I was their world. So, I have no doubt that any fibs they told me were intended to keep me “safe” from some horrid fate. Don’t ask me what that could have been. If my mother had been a 16-year old whore, so be it. If she was a demon, okay, when do I start collecting souls? Whatever the reason, however, they took this secret with them to their respective graves in 1981 and 1984, as did my mother’s sister, my aunt, in 2007.

I have gotten to the point in MY life where I can accept the fact I will never know who gave birth to me. I don’t like it, but what’s the point of sabotaging my life over it? I have caused myself and others who loved me extreme pain due to the way these feelings made me act. As has been suggested to me by people who care, I should get over it, already, and I am trying my best.

But there are certain things that have come to light in recent years that are hard to wrap my head around. The first was the fact that, while I was raised a Jew, by a Holocaust survivor mother, no less, I was likely not born to a Jewish mother. It is the circumstances surrounding those early days that has caused me to write this blog entry. Like most Jewish males, I was circumcised. The ritual is supposed to take place eight days after birth. My late mother kept a diary about “The bundle of joy,” which is what she entitled it. And in that diary she wrote details about my “Brit Milah”... on MAY 24!

Now, I have always assumed that my bris was almost a month late because of some tie-up, perhaps related to health reasons. I mean, maybe there was simply TOO MUCH to cut off? But I digress...

For you Holmes-loving (Sherlock, not John...) amateur sleuths, I will add another important detail. When I was a child, my parents always threw a birthday party for me on May 18. I never really questioned that date, but I was told by my mother that I was always sick in the springtime, so May 18’s warmer weather made a party more logical at that time. Two birthdays... Can you confuse a kid more than that?

I will do the math for you. Born May 18, my bris would have been held on May 26, if the eight day rule is followed. But the diary page for my bris held six days later, on May 24, contained the names of three holy men: the mohel, or circumciser, a major religious figure of the day named Cantor Nathan Mendelson, the main circumciser of male Jewish babies of that era in Montreal; our family rabbi, A. Bernard Leffell, and; Gedalia Schacter, a good friend of my parents who was religious. These three men were there in order to form a Beit Din, or Rabbinical Court, for the purpose of ritual conversion. At my bris, I was ritually converted to Judaism, because I was either not born to a Jewish mother, in fact, or they were not certain who the mother was.

The latter is highly unlikely, as I discovered the record of a cheque written out to Royal Victoria Anaesthesiologists on April 25, 1957, the day before the birthday that is listed on my birth certificate. I have always assumed this was proof that I was born on April 26th, the cheque written by my father to cover the cost of the anaesthesiologist who participated in my birth. Now, all I think it proves is that I was born at the Vic. The cheque could have been written in advance of the birthing procedure 23 days later.

I suppose that, since this Rabbinical Court had certain members who were not Orthodox Jews, it was not a purely legally-binding entity according to Jewish law, or Halacha, so what difference did it make if the bris was held two days early? The first cut was the deepest and that was the main point, I guess, damn the legalities.

It is really easy to tell me to ignore this, to move on, to get over it. Most of you, however, know the bare-bone facts about your conception and much more. You certainly know your correct birthday, what religion you are and whether your adoptive father was your biological father, after all. See, that’s another suspicion I have. As I age, my father and I look a LOT alike. My theory is that, because my mother came out of the Holocaust damaged and likely could not have children, she allowed by father to have sex with and impregnate a young woman so that they could have a child. Remember that in 1957, “in vitro” was a Latin term and nothing more. No test tube babies or cloned sheep in those days, people. So, the fun, fabulous and carnal act of fornication was a necessary thing. Go figure.

I am very limited as to what I can do to uncover the truth about my birth. Since the Quebec government absolutely drags its heels on opening biological files in this province – and on this matter it doesn’t matter who is in power, the radical, independence-mongering Parti Quebecois or the current governing, federalist-leaning Parti Liberal du Quebec – I cannot get to the paperwork that might at least give me my actual date of birth. .. and perhaps answer some other questions, as well.

So, next week, on May 18, I intend to go out for dinner once more, to celebrate my birth with some close friends. It may not actually BE my birthday, but until I have some actual proof on the matter, the facts speak for themselves. All I can say is “No shit, Sherlock” this is one hell of a mystery.

It all results in my having a really bad day now and then. Can you blame me?

Forty years after becoming a man, why volunteering makes so much sense

It’s May 9 today, the anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah back in 1970, the Hebrew ritual where a boy assumes the responsibilities of a “man” at age 13. Translated, it means Son of the Commandment. It’s a pretty old ritual, older than most of the ones we follow today on this good Earth. And I felt it was an appropriate time to discuss something that has become dearer to my heart as I get older, in light of a question a friend asked me recently.

“Why are you doing this again?” he queried. I had just told him that I was training to become a VCOP – Volunteer Citizens on Patrol – in my Quebec community of Cote Saint-Luc. VCOPs are fairly common in communities elsewhere in Canada and across the U.S., but not so much in my home province. It’s a fairly important task, as our force aids other important services, such as paramedics, public security, fire-fighters and the police, by adding extra trained eyes and ears to city streets day and night. We patrol in official equipped vehicles, on foot patrol, and more recently, on mopeds, in teams of two, for a minimum of six hours per month.

After I passed the Red Cross’s Emergency Medical Responder course and did volunteer ambulance shifts as a stagiaire with EMS Cote Saint-Luc last year, I truly realized how essential volunteers are to their communities and to the population-at-large. I had to leave EMS after getting the job that had me taking The Giant Colon Tour across Canada, but because I enjoyed volunteering so much, the VCOP corps seemed to be the next best thing. I am about to complete my training and will soon be clad in VCOP yellow and orange and fulfilling my monthly requirements. I’m quite looking forward to it.

So, when my good friend asked me the aforementioned question, it gave me pause to consider how many more people just don’t “get” it. Here we are, at a time when young students MUST complete a certain number of hours volunteering for various causes in order to graduate from secondary school and there are actually parents of these kids questioning “why are you doing this again?” I was, and still am, stunned by the ignorance of this simple question.

So, on this anniversary of the day I became a man, sort of, 40 years ago, it occurred to me that to become a man must include assuming some of the key responsibilities of manhood. And giving to society instead of just taking, which far too many people are still wont to do during these very selfish times, seems to be at the very foundation of what keeps us surviving. Otherwise, imagine a world without volunteers, where no one would lift a hand to help their fellows unless there was a fiscal or other benefit involved. Without volunteers, society would pretty much grind to a halt, as hospital resources were taxed to bursting, as non-profit organizations closed their doors, as many communities lost the very life blood that kept them afloat.

We ALL should be forced to volunteer somewhere at some point in our lives. Believe me, every one of us has things to do, or we are too tired, or depressed, or just plain sick of everything going on around us, to want to jump up and rush off giving of our time, for free to top it off. Life isn’t getting easier, that’s for sure. But deep inside, there is this need to help people, somewhere past the wall of selfishness that screams “but what about me?” If you are already volunteering, you know how good it feels. It transcends the desire for self-fulfillment on one hand, but actually creates a new sense of self-fulfillment on the other. Volunteering makes me feel that my Bar Mitzvah wasn’t a big waste of time, after all. There have been many times since when I really questioned what it was all about. At least my circumcision had some health benefits to back it up.

So, my friend, in answer to your question, that’s just about the best reason for “doing this” that I can think of. Come join me in the van. I’ll do shifts with you anytime and I think you’d look fabulous in yellow and orange.

Meditations on the threshold of 53

So, here I am, on the cusp of 53. Fifty was kinda weird, like entering some alien territory: it had me dunking my big toe into the tepid waters first. This current state-of-affairs is one part “same old, same old,” the other slightly terrifying. Let’s just say I have had better times.

I have the luxury of looking back on my life: I say “luxury” because I can still do it. Lots of people I know (or know of) have died by now, which is mind-boggling at a time when the medical field seems to be regressing while proclaiming how many advances are being made. Yeah, they cracked the genome, so what? How many people do YOU know who have died of cancer already? I know several, many of whom died way, waaay too young.

My dear mother, may she rest in peace, died in 1984 (at a young 68) from CNS Vasculitis, brought on by an allergic reaction to Septra-class antibiotics. The reaction caused the blood vessels in her brain to atrophy and become all squiggly instead of straight, resulting in a lack of proper blood flow to her brain. This presented as sudden senility and in just five weeks she progressed from someone suffering slight dementia, to blind and not knowing who I was, to comatose.
Let’s just say that, for me, I could not write as nightmarish a horror story with all my creative senses on full steam. It was really awful. Even that is not as awful, however, as losing a friend in the prime of their young life, like Laine Coxford. Or Ellen Cohen. Or any of the individuals I know in name only who die tragically, far before their time.

If you get to this age, there is a lot of obscenity to consider when you ponder life. It’s cruel. The happy moments narrow proportionately to age, as everything becomes more challenging with every passing year and the sheer stupidity of those we rely on to lessen our loads – read government bureaucrats here – increases. Yet I would not trade a moment of life, not yet, anyways, for the alternative. Death MAY mean eternal bliss, who knows? I’m not so sure about the 78 virgins in heaven part, mind you... but then again, which guy in his right mind would WANT 78 virgins, anyhow, even with an eternity before him during which to keep them happy? Talk about daunting!

I remember hearing a doctor in a hospital telling the family of a sick, elderly individual that they would do everything possible to keep this person happy. And one family member commented: “Happiness is overrated, anyhow. What’s happy?” It made me think then... and I am thinking about this again: happiness is within you and that’s about it. No ONE can make you happy, because it is far too transient an emotion. It is an oasis in your pool of neurons... it does not last.

You get a gift, it makes you smile momentarily and now and then it might make you smile again. But no amount of gifts, money, food, success, power – none of these things – can make you truly HAPPY, or shield you from all the sorrow, pain, doubt or mishaps that are part of the human condition. People will betray you. Your body will weaken and get sick. All those moments of which we are proud or gleeful will fade with time.

If you allow that knowledge to prepare you for whatever is coming, good or bad, and you live life with no expectations at all, just doing your best to get by, you will survive as well as you possibly can. Be GOOD to people. Pet a dog. Smell a flower. Meditate and remember to breathe properly: I think Buddhism has it down right.

So, on the lip of 53, I can admit that I am surviving and I have made it here, through good times and bad. I have been lucky, very lucky, to have struggled this far despite some challenges, although the road ahead seems steep to me at times. Yet I have known great love, the pleasure and luxury of having some very good and loyal friends, some careers, experiences and voyages that I will never forget. In truth, I think I am more fortunate than many people I know. If it were to end tomorrow, I would smile in the knowledge of all those things.

Thinking about all of that, I actually feel happy... and that’s a pretty grand thing.

Like career change, never too late for a good confession

This blog entry has been awaiting birth for about 43 years now. Let’s call it a revelation, or, possibly, a confession I make to the world and seek absolution for. If I had a priest, I think you will agree he’d be mighty proud of me.

The story begins about 48 years ago, when my cousin and I, both under five at the time and six months apart in age, he being the elder, started hanging out. He – let’s call him Sam (a pseudonym) – lived in Chomedy, just off the island of Montreal in the municipality of Laval and I adored him.

Chomedy wasn’t as developed then as it is today. The fields near Sam’s house were devoid of human life and there were actually cattle skulls and skeletons there, which makes me wonder today what actually went on there. Was it land upon which the beasts were slaughtered, their remains later disposed of there as well? But I digress.

Because Sam’s place wasn’t so close (Montreal’s below-ground expressway hadn’t been built yet, so getting there took longer), seeing Sam was a big deal for me. The drive, right past the historic, now-defunct Parc Belmont amusement park in my father’s powder blue 1961 Comet, was a seemingly-endless adventure for me. And spending time with Sam, which I liked to do weekends when the opportunity arose, was like magic. He was the brother I never had and I loved him like one.

During the summer, Sam’s mom (my mother’s sister and a second mother to me until several years ago, when she died at 94), Sam, my mom and I were driven by my dad to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, some six hours away and a favourite destination of Quebecers since the 1800s, when direct train service linked Montreal and Maine. He dropped us off and we spent a month there, while he returned several times on weekends, when he did not work. Sam and I had the time of our young lives, our days spent on the pristine seven-mile long beach and our nights in the town’s most famous attraction, Palace Playland, an amusement park featuring a massive pinball arcade – it was the era before video games, after all – where you could pose as a pinball wizard and tilt the night away, or Ski-Ball dozens of times in order to win tickets you could later exchange for the tackiest prizes. The park still exists to this very day, as does a section of the famous Pier that dates back to the 1800s.

Old Orchard wasn’t the only spot we vacationed every summer.... and herein lies the crux of my tale. The Laurentian mountain cottage community of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts is just 45 minutes away from Montreal by car and we would spend a week or two there, as well. We would stay at Lodge Lac des Sables, built right on the lake and owned by the Weinrich family. And here, our days were spent fishing off the small pier owned by the Lodge, shooting targets with our BB rifles next door at the municipal beach and walking the short distance to town to buy treats at Dairy Queen, take a ride on the Alouette site-seeing boat or see movies in the Alahambra and Roxy theatres, musky, cool, cob-webbed places that offered perfect refuge on a hot summer’s day.

We would also visit the small Canadian Tire store in town and here is where my confession comes in. Despite the fact I grew up to become anything BUT a criminal, please remember that Sam could do no wrong in my eyes. So, when he suggested we steal Rappala Minnow lures, too pricy for 10-12 year old boys to afford, I jumped at the chance. This was my chance to prove to Sam that I was as cool as he was... and I didn’t let him down. There were no closed circuit cameras then and, really, your chances of getting caught were quite low, unless you were a bumbling thief. I’m not sure how many lures we stole that one summer in particular, but it was quite a few and all I recall is that they worked like a charm on the doomed bass, sunfish and trout of Lac des Sables.

I haven’t been in touch with Sam for about 25 years. He ditched my aunt (the woman who raised this asthmatic boy from the day she married my uncle, when his son Sam was three) and when my motel owner uncle died, leaving what I heard was more than a million dollars to Sam and his now ex-wife, they moved to the Bahamas. I am not sure if he has any regrets today about stealing those fishing lures and for all I know he did far worse than that during his lifetime. I am not even sure whether Sam is still alive. But I certainly am and, on behalf of both of us, I offer apologies to Canadian Tire. I see you have done well as a corporation despite the loss of that particular revenue, but it was wrong of us in any event. Children, do NOT try this at home...

So, padre, how was my first-ever confession? Thank you for listening.