In July, I fulfilled a commitment and accompanied Guylaine Tanguay to her show at the 100e anniversary of Girardville, in Lac-Saint-Jean. Guylaine is from the village, like my mother’s family, the Bolducs, and I myself lived there for a while when I was young.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
So far so good.
Where it gets complicated is that Guylaine made me promise, live on TV, to go and sing country with her on this occasion. Phew! Too many witnesses, no way to escape. And I promise, I promise, I was brought up like that.
Singing is the generic expression of my performance. In fact, the whole thing sounded more like a Gregorian chant for a beginner with a cold.
Of course, there were intonations coming out of my mouth, but the whole thing was an indefinable vocal porridge. A big test for everyone.
I was applauded, rather Guylaine let’s say, but Aunt Pauline and the Bolducs put in the effort. Of the proud. The dignity of the family had to be preserved.
All in all, it was a very nice evening and a stay of a few hours that brought back to life a most bizarre vestige of my memory.
It’s that, you see, in the great deeds of the history of Christianity, there were the Crusades, of course, and the religious Schism of Girardville.
Google, the godless!
In short, a Homeric quibble in the 1930s over the choice of the site for the erection of the new parish church. In the Grand Rang, or elsewhere. I make it short, the bishop snubs the Grand Rank and chooses elsewhere.
And there, heresy! Some of the inhabitants of Grand Rang revolted, defrocked and changed their religion. They become PROTESTANTS! Imagine, in the middle of Catholic land!
Believing at the time that a Protestant was inevitably dangerous, I wasn’t even sure it was a human.
And so, when my grandfather, who lived in Grand Rang, took me shopping with him to the general store, this one located opposite the place of worship of the famous Protestants, I was always expecting , when I think about it, to see the kinds of characters in Margaret Atwood’s novel coming out of it at best, The Scarlet Maidor at worst a hydra form of the series Stranger Things, for example.
That was before I understood that it was not a species, but a confession to be Protestant.
That said, Girardville has never experienced a Catholic-Huguenot style religious war. An uneventful cohabitation in this needy country.
To come back to Guylaine, she was the absolute and brilliant mistress of her show that night, and I was lagging behind, of course.
But the last time I had to dare the song in front of an audience, I had managed to take control of my destiny.
I must however denounce the one who had put me in this mess, he deserves it so much!
Because he had had to sing there himself before, and thinking that having suffered, he absolutely had to share the affliction, Marc Tardif had suggested my name for a benefit event, on the pretext, I presume, that with a microphone , I looked like Elvis.
Yes yes ! The former captain of the Nordiques! Cursed Marc Tardif! We expect from the great Marc a pass on the palette, not a coyote pass.
Clean topmy Marc, but life is long, like my memory…
I had chosen Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. Just that. No, I didn’t take myself for a cherry tail.
But a week before D-Day, now panic grips me you ! I can imagine only one solution to get out of it: make myself small and favor lip synchronization.
Lip sync = Lip-Sync. A splendor of the French language.
I send a desperate SOS to a friend and we agree that I must be “accompanied” on stage. We invite a gospel group from Quebec, wonderful voices. It should buzz loudly behind it.
And a one-night co-star, because tense I risk dyslexia and atony. We call on a girl from Quebec, Mélissa Bédard. A strong and spectacular voice, Melissa! And generous as it is not possible. We are in business !
Result, in total few people heard me, and I won the pantomime contest.
The evening was all in all stressful for me, but the public would have appreciated, it seems, laughed rather, and the Maison Le Petit Blanchon and its foundation got off with a paying evening.
I was very proud of it in the end, because this marvelous organization welcomes children under 8 who already have a heavy past.
Children who have had traumatic experiences related to problems of neglect, physical or sexual abuse, or repeated abandonment. No wonder they have mental health, conduct and attachment issues.
Well yes, it all exists! Who said we were born equal?
I would scream my life just thinking about it.
Thank you, cursed Marc Tardif!
We’ll have a duo eventually… Love me tender!
Between us
If you search, you may not find Girardville on the map. Its existence is often absent.
Cartographers are ungrateful, or ignorant.
Inevitable in a village of this size, Guylaine and I discovered a family relationship. My grandfather, Adjutor Bolduc, was married to Maria Tanguay, my grandmother, who was the sister of Guylaine’s grandfather, Jos Tanguay.
You follow me ?
But the talent and the voice did not follow for all the descendants. Unequal, heredity.