| 7 Years - 12 Years Australia I lived in Montreal until 1971 at which point my family moved to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. This was mainly motivated by my Mother's unceasing quest for the ultimate place to live (also known as "Grass is greener on the other side" syndrome). The plane trip introduced me to the concept of timezones, my father pointing out that we actually arrived the day before we took off. Australia is very different than Canada, of course. One of the first days we were there we visited with an Australian family. The mother was telling me how she would soon be giving the children "their tea". I was quite surprised that children drank tea in Australia. Later I realized that "tea" actually meant "supper". I quite enjoyed living in Australia and have fond memories of going to school barefoot, something that is not an option in Montreal. There were many novelties for a Canadian boy such as lizards which could be caught and tortured. In montreal we could rarely catch anything larger than a housefly. Speaking of insects, Australia also has a much more impressive collection of cockroaches than Montreal, the mild climate allowing them to grow to proportions not seen in Canada. Killing such creatures requires a weapon no less substantial than a large shoe. They also have a bunch of wierd wildlife like kangaroos which they make a big deal out of but which I believe are really just big bunny rabits. Our neighbours in Australia, who were also the landlords of our house, had an above ground swimming pool in their backyard which we used to spend a lot of time in. A favorite game was to have one person paddle through in an inner tube while everybody else would attempt to knock him over by jumping on the tube from the poolside. Other activities involved building forts, riding bikes and avoiding vegemite. In Australia I attended the end of grade two and started grade three. I initially suffered ridicule for calling the "rubbish bin" a "garbage can" but I quickly learned to fit in and soon acquired an Australian accent. Back to Montreal Despite this seemingly idyllic existence, it didn't take long for my mother to decide that she preferred Canada to Australia after all so we returned back to Montreal in 1972. For the return trip we took a ship called Ellinis of the Chandris lines. This trip was quite fun for an eight year old, there were many amusements for children. Among other things we had bingo games with chocolate bars as the prizes. There was a swimming pool with no diving due to the rocking motion of the ship and a movie theatre. Breakfast was served very early and my parents used to bring me back food since I could never wake early enough to make it. There was a tremendous masquerade party when we crossed the equator. My sister dressed up as sme sort of Hula dancer and I sported a replica of the Ellinis on my head with the words "old tub" written across (remember to include picture). Once back in Montreal I attended Sir Arthur Currie school (affectionately known as SAC) and played baseball and hockey for Gilbert Layton park and quickly lost my Australian accent. Both the park and the school were located near to where we lived on Rosedale Avenue between Chester and Fielding in Notre Dame de Grace. In the summers I used to hang around the park, most of the time on my bike. We would play baseball and baseball-derived games like 500. The park also had croquet, horseshoes, and shuffleboard. There was always some "big" kid in charge of the equipment; I guess it was a summer job. By the end of the summer I was always tanned a very dark brown from having spent the whole time outdoors. We weren't yet aware of the risk of skin cancer; sun was believed to be "healthy". In the spring/fall/winter we played hockey and street hockey, both organized and pick-up. Sometimes we would become so involved in these games that we would skip supper, something I certainly wouldn't dream of doing now. At one point I was captain of my hockey team and won the MVP award. It was a pretty bad team, however. The baseball team was better and I did win MVP of that as well. In the spring we used to search through the melting snow surrounding the hockey rink looking for lost hockey pucks. During recess we played a game called champ in the schoolyard which involved four squares painted on the ground and a tennis ball. My best friend's name was Brian Camacho. He was a heavyset guy who was often ridiculed for his weight. Despite this he was a good athlete. The last time I saw him when was his family visited ours in Ontario when I was in high school. I have had no contact with him since then. When I was in grade four I had a fairly serious accident. I was playing pick-up hockey on the Gilbert Layton rink and I awoke in the changeroom feeling very groggy with a policeman asking me which pair of boots belonged to me. I identified a pair and the police took me to the hospital. I was diagnosed with a fractured skull and a concussion. I was in the hospital for several days and for the first couple was awakened every hour or so in order to have my blood pressure checked as there was fear of a brain hemmorage. When I was released I discovered that the boots which I had thought were mine were the same model but a larger size. I pity the poor guy who had to get home from the ice rink with my small boots. I never figured out what happened to cause the concussion but I must have fallen and banged my head. For the next year or so my mother demanded that I wear my helmet every time I stepped out on the ice, even if it was just to skate. I guess I don't blame her. Of course, this was a time when wearing a bicycle helmet was completely unknown. I was a paper delivery boy in Montreal. However, I couldn't get a route with a good paper like the "Montreal Star" or "gazette" so I had to settle for delivering a free weekly (which may have been called the "Monitor"). In addition to paying poorly there was no "collection", so no tips. I was an avid collector of hockey cards in this period of my life and up until April 2001 I still had many of the cards I bought in the early 1970's. Unfortunately these were stolen when my house was burglarized. I also collected something called Wacky Packs back then which were stickers which satirized various products. These stickers had an interesting fate which I will describe at a later point in this biography. Despite living in Montreal I was a Boston Bruins fan. The Bruins were a great rival of the Habs at that time so this was quite unusual. I liked the Bruins because they had my favorite player, Bobby Orr. Of course, I was not alone in my adulation of Orr, he was the Wayne Gretzky of his time. When our school library obtained a copy of "Here Comes Bobby Orr" (?), which was basically a book showing Bobby Orr putting on his equipment, the sign up list ran to several pages. In grade seven I went to French Immersion at a school which I believe was called Royal Vale. Even though I attended this school for only about two months, I remember writing the lines "ici on parle francais" about a zillion times as punishment for speaking english. Near the end of October 1976 my family moved to Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. I distinctly remember missing halloween because of this. Next Return to Biography Index Back to Philippe's Home |