NEWSLETTER #3 ON THE ROAD AGAIN TO FIND OLD CHUMS By Gord Lovelace Well, we’re winding down the summer travel season, but there is a new purpose added to these seasonal jaunts—dropping in on the normal police line-up of suspects from the Old Gang. Fred Belanger and Joan Binet went back home and tracked down, among others, Wendy Gummer and Camil Samson plus Eleanor Perry and Ray Morrisette. Tony Lou and Terry Loucks are in the region likely causing untold mayhem. I caught up with Gaston “Bo” Rioux in Rimouski on a tour of the Gaspe last month. This week, I took a break from my fishing (mainly, drinking) camp and detoured to nearby St. George NB to drop in on Danny Washburn and his wife Arlette Brassard from Arvida, married for more than four decades and both retired from teaching. Dan has a pool table in the basement and expressed a certain frustration in not having anyone with whom to play snooker. I was no help because I have never played snooker without a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other, so forget how I held the cue…. At any rate, they’re looking forward to next June’s party. This renewal of contact after so many years is both pleasant and familiar. When we were gearing up for blueberry reunions in 1984 and 1989, there were dozens of mini-bashes in Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, Magog and other wastelands starved for entertainment and displays of superior dancing skills. There were scores more drop-ins between individuals and we have today so many new ways to keep in touch. (I contacted Heather Hargreaves recently through Skype, but she did not have video capability and therefore didn’t faint seeing my grizzled face on her monitor.) Tom Turnbull reports our contact list is running around 200 souls with new info arriving every day to show we have 60 people planning to attend—and that’s with 10 months to go. Tom Tremaine will be giving us a hand to check out some of the hotel venues big enough to handle our event. Eleanor Perry tracked down Bobbie Gauthier for us and we couldn’t be more pleased. Bob played a huge role in earlier reunions and even hosted a Viking invasion of his cottage on one memorable occasion. (Hugh West put on a demonstration of break-dancing that he won’t be repeating without the help of Dreamworks special-effects animation…). See you next week.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 12:54:59 +0000
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