A translation by Judith Turcotte.
Introduction
Over the next few weeks, I will be publishing a series of texts on my life. These are not an autobiography, perish the thought. I simply wish to share certain events of my life that may help better understand my generation. I decided to initiate these publications while my memory is intact and while I still like to write. I have no illusions; my texts will especially interest the people of my generation; we must stick together. At a certain age, we become exiles of active society and for many, we find ourselves in segregated residences for the elderly.
A Large Family
I am the eldest of a family of six children. I was the cutest for the first 21 months of my life until the arrival of my brother, Paul. The child production ceased in my family when my mother, Odette and my father, Jean-Louis, decided to send the priest, who maintained that the only goal in the sexual act is to procreate, out to pasture. We are in the fifties. For our family, this resistance of our parents represented the beginning of the end of our religious practice. What a relief! For us it was no longer obligatory to attend mass on Sunday morning. This ritual was conducted in Latin at the time. There was nothing to understand. At the time, a tradition, happily at risk of disappearing, expected that the first-born in the family be destined to a religious life; a narrow escape.
I was therefore the eldest, followed by Paul, Pierre, Louise, Danielle and Richard. We all grew up in Saint Lambert and took advantage of the different sports offered by the municipality. I am the only one who did not work as a lifeguard at the pools. One summer, there was a Gratton working at each of the Saint Lambert pools. I was fourteen years of age when the Seaway pool was built. I learnt how to swim there but not well enough to become a lifeguard. Before the construction of the Seaway pool, my father brought me a few times to the Saint Lambert beach on the river shores. I detested the place: too much concrete, an obnoxious scent of moisture, very cold water and a river bed filled with pebbles and large stones.