Reunion Highlights

La gang de Temiscaming

 

I felt a little trepidation as we walked into Mon Resto for the reunion dinner. Forty-six years is a long time. Lots of water -- maybe too much? -- under the bridge. I was a little nervous that my few days of "thinking in French" and occasionally listening to Radio-Canada would restore my fluency to an acceptable level.

I soon realized that though years had passed, people were very recognizable. Unique voices, facial expressions, little mannerisms resurfaced and instantly identified the teenagers they were the last time we met. Among the pleasures of the evening:,

• The organization skills and big, outgoing personality of Diane Gingras who hosted the event with Lise Lefebvre Campbell. The Gingras family was well represented, with Richard Gingras and Louise Gingras Robinson. Big treat to see the Gingras matriarch, Madame Laurette Gingras, looking so well and fit.
• Lise Lefebvre Campbell, who took fabulous pictures of all us us.
• Lorraine Théberge, who is even more energetic and expressive than she was forty years ago.
• The contingent from the old nighbourhood above the pipeline, where I lived till I was twelve. Two of the Raymond sisters, Valera and Doreen, now Meunier; Pat Vaillancourt, whose brother Bucky was a grade school classmate; Dixie (Lee) Merleau Mainville; the McGowan twins, Beatrice Paquin and Leatrice McGowan.
• My guitar teacher, Glenn Mathieu, and his wife, Louise Raymond Mathieu, who lived in a lower level apartment when they were newlyweds.
• Edward Hospodar and his lovely Chatham wife, Betty, one of the many connections to New Brunswick in town when I was growing up.
• Grade school classmates Lorraine Violette Cusson, Louise Benoit, Lise Laframboise Raymond, Marcia Belisle, Nicole Heroux Gregoire.
• High school classmates Suzanne Collins-Simpson and Linda O'Rourke.
• Ski club stories with Pierre Racine.
• Thorne catch-up with Bob Simpson, Suzanne Collins' husband. Bob provided news of the Pharands, the Floreys,
• Talking with Suzanne Guindon-Vaillancourt, the daughter of Sylvio Guindon, my high school chemistry teacher. I told Suzanne that I still quote her dad on marriage: "You don't just marry the person; you marry the whole family".
• Brenda Young Rannou and her husband, Bob Rannou, whose voice and demeanor are so much like his dad's.
• Annette and Couch Moreau, whom I didn't really know in Temiscaming but I've followed their FB adventures for several years.
• Everyone I talked with! I enjoyed catching up with you. I'm in awe of the lives you've lived and the people you've become.

Among those we missed were Denise Proulx-Almquist and Kent Almquist, as well as several other expected guests who turned around at Deep River because a fatal accident closed the highway for most of Friday. Tragically, the victim was from Temiscaming and a close relative of one of the attendees. The accident will forever color otherwise very happy memories of a fantastic evening.