The author is a historian, sociologist, writer and retired teacher from the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi in the history, sociology, anthropology, political science and international cooperation programs. His research focuses on collective imaginations.
The beginnings of summer are always a party for me. A party filled with emotions, memories, bright mornings, even if the years have covered them with a small layer of melancholy. I then think back to my childhood, so distant already, to my family, to the little house that brought us together. And to the games that occupied us.
Our sister took care of her side (the girls did not get involved in the games of the boys, and vice versa). As for us, the four brothers, I believe that today we would have been diagnosed as hyperactive (at best). We had almost nothing to amuse ourselves with, but we were very inventive; there was always something going on. Our long walks balanced on the bevelled fences and our “leaps of death” terrified passers-by. Our wrestling galas had their regulars, as did our visou competitions (which did not always end well). Our Olympics were even more famous, people came from three or four streets around.
On Sunday after mass, however, life ceased in our neighborhood. It was at this time that a shadow fell over our arenas. We dreamed of children our age who, in pretty shady houses, frolicked all day in sunny lakes and, when evening came, abandoned themselves to a slumber bewitched by the scents and songs of the forest… But the next day, we found our marks. The morning awaited us with the search for a “treasure” buried in a secret place the previous summer, the perilous climb of two or three sheds from which we could contemplate the universe, a “leg – a very technical discipline in which we mastered all the subtleties.
Claude and I were the youngest. A few times a week, we went to pick hazelnuts in the Coulée des Beux (always muddy and infested with insects). We sold them to Lucien, our gang leader, who traded in them. Good boss, he paid us by giving us back part of our “pick up”. We found him strong in business.
There was a small hippodrome (the “Round”) on the outskirts of the town. Claude and I were regulars. Following Lucien’s example, we conducted our own business. During the races, we roamed the bleachers to pick up empty beer bottles. We resold them at the bar of the “Round” at three units for a penny. In addition, once the races were over, the horses had to walk for half an hour (to cooler). We hired ourselves as guides, thus collecting other income which we then squandered madly in reveals, popsicles and Saguenay Dry.
An incident occurred one day when we were operating in the stands. At the time, Claude and I were almost the same size. To save money, mom, who sewed our clothes, dressed us both in the same fabric and the same color. However, Claude was the twin of our sister Claudette (it takes a bit long to explain my case…). One day, someone said to us: “Are you guys twins? » And I answered: « Not me, only him… » From that day on, I thought I noticed that our suppliers looked at us a little askance.
Horse racing had entered our lives in a different way thanks to the inventiveness of Lucien and Roch (the other big brother), who took it into their heads to organize competitions. Claude and I acted as horses, Lucien and Roch as jockeys. They passed us a kind of hitch on the back with a number on the head and cords under the arms. They even whipped us with a twig, like at the “Round”. Taking the matter to heart, we whinnied to make it more true.
The thing had that novelty that the jockeys were the stars. If Claude or I emerged victorious (and alive) from the tortures they imposed on us around the neighborhood, it was always one of the two jockeys who was crowned.
I go over many other episodes, such as the spinning top tests, the knife blades we made by laying old nails on the rails of the railway that passed near our house, the “waggin” of a little neighbor that we had borrowed to reproduce a demolition derby. The poor boy had gone home very pitiful with a few pieces of plank under his arm…
When we left the house in the morning, our mother would say to us: “Above all, don’t hurt yourself there. She worried for nothing, except for the serious burns that Lucien one day inflicted on himself while trying to make us fries on the sly, the wrist that Roch fractured in the final of a memorable match of struggle, the scares Claude had given us when he had fallen from the roof of a shed, the car that had hit me when I was exploring a neighborhood near ours (I had regained consciousness at the clinic), not to mention the innumerable strains and sprains that Mom treated with boiled bacon rinds which worked wonders.
Sometimes, however, it was necessary to call upon the indispensable Uncle Henri, the carpenter-puller of teeth, who, in his spare time, also made himself sticky. We considered ourselves lucky when, after his skilful manipulations, we were not left with a dislocated shoulder, two or three crooked ribs or some dislocated knee or ankle.
With age, my childhood never left me. It is a beacon that never ceases to illuminate. And what he gives to see never ceases to move me: the candor, the purity, the simple and quiet happiness, with the anticipation of tomorrow and the assurance that it will be beautiful.
Are we not the child of our childhood?