Grannies | The Press

I spent three wonderful years studying sociology at Université Laval. Our collection of merry social lads of the time included two women whom we affectionately called “the grannies”, a nickname which they had obviously not denied. Two girls from Beauce, about ten years older than us boys.

Women who had decided to improve their lives by going back to school. Character.

We saw each other again in the last few months, a reunion dinner. For all, careers in social services and education. In my less serious case, I became a politician…

Apart from the envelope which, for all of us, has taken some slack, the grannies have not changed. Authentic Beauceronnes: rebellious, rather dirty tongues, and funny as inventions.

One of the two had just thrown another man out. He pissed her off. They all piss him off, and always have. ” Next ! », as Jacques Brel sang.

The other, the quintessence of the activist.

Feminist, humanist, separatist not step-by-step, “ist” in everything. A bad character! At the time, when she differed in opinion with the teachers, she would join them on the podium to argue. The show it gave! Lenin at the podium. We were bawling!

Brilliant, and adorable, at second glance, because at first, cracking like their region.

I tell you about them because they have been important in our lives, for us guys. They put us in their hands, the bosses, forged us for life on our relationships with women.

We greenhorns, guardians of our certainties, fine talkers and love, but concerning women, probably too often the sons of our fathers. Even if we were convinced otherwise.

The kind to tell our weekends to grannies, Monday morning. Our little exploits, we thought, with the opposite sex. Or, possibly, our introspections on the subject, our experiences which turned into water sausage, where we collected the tail between the two legs…

The grannies listened attentively, rather respectfully, because they had already heard something, then described to us our clumsiness, our inexperience and our ignorance of women.

They brought us ideas, in fact. They were good shoulders, but we had to figure things out quickly.

Very magnanimous with young people, but intractable on the merits: the equal and fair place of women in society. At the slightest breach on the subject, we were picked up like weaklings. Boom! Another kick in the little man’s ass! They had to lift us up, out of love, as they kept saying, and the sooner the better.

We had to read and reread So be it, by Benoîte Groulx. If certain socio colleagues liked to interpret everything with a Marxist grid, and thus had to know each verse of the Capitalour words and our works, to us, were filtered and dissected differently.

For grannies, three years of baccalaureate studies would not be too much.

Aside, speaking of Marx. When I was living with my parents, my father, one day, repaired what I used as a desk. On it lay two books: Manifest of the Communist Party And German ideology by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Compulsory readings in my classes.

Imagine the reaction of a father to the sight of the books. A practicing Catholic, having not finished primary school. It was overflowing, like the floods of the Chaudière River in the kingdom of grandmas. For him, his son, who had become a communist, had everything of a terrorist.

The rebirth of the FLQ, in its own house!

Regis Rose!

I start from where, to explain to him that he should not immediately call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) of the time? A joke, of course. But tell you how distraught and disappointed he was.

Poor him! A simple mechanic, he never understood what sociology was. He would have so dreamed of me becoming an engineer, preferably mechanical, it goes without saying, to show them, his bosses, the ganders!

Mayor of Quebec, it was no worse for Maurice, but engineer… Me who needs assistance to change a light bulb.

Coming back to the grannies, we also learned to avoid bravado about sex issues in front of them, because we were being picked up and back.

“And you think of pleasing little girls in this way? You rototillers, apprentices, Planet of the Apes! “We took a big 10 minutes for misbehavior. Days with a paw in the air, to get over it…

I tell you about it because I think we are blessed to have met these two women on our way. I guess we had a good background, so they decided to put some effort into it.

I want to tell them that they made us, some kids, better people, but above all, I think, much better males.

Thank you, the Beauce baronesses!

We love you !