Grandpa, Part 2

The last missive concerning Jules, my grandfather, was anecdotal, myself repeating what stories I’d been told. Even as I wrote it, I knew I ought to write a follow-up, sharing some of my more personal experiences.

My grandfather was a tease. He could be gruff too, somewhat short of temper, I’m told; but he was always kind and gentle, all the times I ever saw him. And a tease. Anyone who knew him will probably say as much. My father was the same, and, I think, I suppose I don’t fall far from that tree.

I recall sitting on my grandfather’s lap. He asked me if I wanted a sip of ginger ale, his voice somewhat raspy, that of a long-term smoker, which he was. His face lit up with mischief as he asked, an expression I knew all too well. I was having none of that. I knew it wasn’t ginger ale, and told him so. “That’s beer,” I told him.

“No,” he said, trying and failing to sound serious, “it’s ginger ale. Here,” he said. “Taste it.” And he’d place the glass under my nose.

“Look at it,” I said, gentle pushing it away, leaning back. I did not like the small of beer. Too sharp. And it stung my nose. “Look at the suds.”

“That’s whipped cream,” he explained.

“No it’s not!” I said.

I did eventually plunge my nose into his glass, to confirm to myself that he was teasing me. When I came back up for air, my nose was wrinkled. “That’s beer,” I said, my nose still wrinkled. Of course, he laughed.

Somewhat later, when his flexibility was less than it had been, I used to kneel down in front of him to help him put on and take off his shoes. The elderly imp used to curl his toes while I did it, making the effort difficult, if not impossible. Once I figured out what he was doing, I’d look up into his eyes to see if I could see that mischievous glint in them. It was. “Stop that,” I’d command him. He’d just laugh, and do it again. Exasperated, I’d call out, “Mom! He’s doing it again.”

“Grandpa, stop curling your toes,” she’d tell him, expecting that he’d do as he pleased, would do what he would, regardless what anyone said. And that he would, eventually. Of course, that just made him laugh all the harder, that raspy chuckle shaking him.

I remember him in his place, in his chair in the dining room, the cards set out before him in solitaire. Listening. Calling out to my grandmother. Holding court at Christmas time. He’d call me to him, to that chair. I’d come close, and he’d gather me up, and then he’d pass me a two-dollar bill, slipping it covertly into my palm. He always seemed to have a two-dollar bill ready when we came to visit. This is for you, he’d say. Don’t tell anybody. Everyone saw. Everyone heard. But it was our little secret, just the same.

Grandpa

"Good old grandsire ... we shall be joyful of thy company."

William Shakespeare

Jules Leonard. My father’s father. Jules emigrated from Belgium at a young age. Born in Brussels, he came to Canada in 1906 at the age of 3, and his family settled in Saskatchewan. You’ll have to forgive any errors I make, my father was not the most curious of creatures, certainly not in the case of his family’s history, so I’m threading together the few facts I know, just about all from my Grandmother when I’d grown older, and asked her about her past (Gramma, was always brief about such things; I wonder if she thought that the past not something to dwell on, the present and her family always her primary concern), a couple from my mother, from what little she knows and related me over the years.

Jules worked for the railroad when he was a young man, and at some given time within those younger years, he attended a cotillion. That’s a French country dance for we young’uns. And as fate would have it, he met a young lady there, a young woman named Blanche, and though he managed to dance a couple times with her, she insisted that she be escorted home by the gentleman she’d arrived with, and not by Jules. But persistence wins the prize. Jules set his eye on Blanche and began to court her, and a while later, the two settled in Timmins, Ontario, where Jules worked at the MacIntyre Mine, along with his brother-in-law Frank, and Blanche set about bringing 6 kids into the world: Lorraine, Laverne, Ronald, Jerome, Edgar (my father), and then, after a brief span of 9 years, Derek.

Jules worked underground for about 10 years (total guess), Frank in the bit shop. Both decided mining was a death sentence, as it was in those days, it was—most miners bled out into their lungs and drowned in their own blood by their early 40s from silicosis, black lung, as they liked to call it.

Frank bought a motel in North Bay, never had any kids, but embraced his sister-in-law Blanche’s, and her grandkids, as his own, as much as anyone could.

Jules struggled to make ends meet. Five kids (as there were then) were financial burden enough, but he also had to contend with Blanche wiring money back home to Saskatchewan, back to a brother who’d been caught red-handed embezzling from his company and had only been spared prison under the promise to pay back the amount in full, money he apparently did not have.

Jules eventually moved to Cochrane, and re-entered into service with CN, and pulled more than his share of overtime while with them. Blanche had taken ill upon the onset of her change of life, and had been so ill that she’d received the last rites in her 40s. Times were tough. The future dire.

Enter Mec Gauthier (Poppa). Poppa sold medicine to Jules at a hefty discount, and told Jules that he had to get out of the house they were living in. There was an open sewer running alongside their property, not a particularly healthy place to live. So, when my parents married, and moved to Toronto for a brief period, Jules bought their house on 16^th Avenue, the much beloved house I remember as theirs. Blanche remained in poor health, always had need of medication, even after Jules had retired. But she did improve. I remember her suffering headaches, Jules never too far from her side.

The Route Downtown

I’d walked to and from the downtown core so many times over the years while growing up on Hart Street, I could walk it in my sleep. And have.

The route I took passed through much of the “old town,” so there were a lot of back lanes, and I put them to good use. I probably shaved about 5 minutes off my time, considering the wide arcs I’d have had to walk round were they not there. Before I’d make the trek, either to or from, I’d check the time. The Howard-Lee bus departed from the depot every half hour back then, not like now, when the bus departs every hour (no wonder no one takes it anymore, given the inconvenience of the service, nowadays; I could rant on this for a while, but I doubt the town would waver from its tired old use-it-or-lose-it arguments). If the bus was due to leave downtown, or arrive at my bus stop within 10 minutes, I would take it; otherwise, I would begin walking. I walked fairly fast, back then (I suppose most adolescents do, having litres of adrenaline and hormones to burn off), and if I had a head start on the bus, I would usually beat it to my destination, or arrive at about the same time. That was a fare saved, a huge deal when existing on a limited allowance, or working for less than minimum wage, later on (more on that in memories to come). One had to count one’s pennies if they were to add up to quarters, the currency of choice for the arcade generation.

Here was the route. Follow on Google Maps, if you’ve a mind to. I’d leave my house (560 Hart), mount the hill up to Howard, where I would enter the first laneway. That back lane crossed Leone, and continued on until it exited back onto Hart Street, go figure (many steps saved). Hart merged onto Patricia. Where Patricia merged/ended at 8th Ave, I followed another back lane to Cherry Street, rounded the corner onto 7th, just in view of Toke (you know that intersection; it’s the one with the Art Deco house on the inside corner), followed 7th to Hemlock, then Hemlock to 5^th, past St. Matthews Anglican, past Spruce, cutting across the 101 Mall’s parking lot to Algonquin, and then onto Pine, and there was Downtown and Top Hats. The bus stop, on Cedar, was just a short alley’s walk away.

There was a blue-eyed husky along the way. I named him Blue, because of the blue kerchief tied around his neck. Not terribly imaginative, I know, but he wasn’t my dog (Piper was my dog then, a feisty West Highland White). I’d always stop to greet Blue, crouch down and scratch him behind his ears, accept the expected licks, and if I were leaving from home, I’d always pocket a couple of treats for him. He was a lonely dog, I think, tied up in a back alley, with little foot traffic to keep his interest. And sadly, one day he was gone. His dog house remained, the rope that held him too, but he was no longer alongside there to greet me, having faded to a memory I still cherish.

One day, after Blue had left this world, I was walking home, lost in my thoughts. A moment passed. And when I looked up, I found I was spilling out of the lane at the top of Hart Street. The last thing I was conscious of was rounding the Art Deco corner at 7th and Cherry. I’d walked almost half way home on autopilot. So, yes, I’d walked home in my sleep.

Track & Field

Or just track, in my case. I was always fast, faster than most in my class, anyway; so, it was only natural that I would enroll in track and field, or more specifically, the 100 and 200. Never long distances. Maybe it was because I came from a smoker’s house, but I lacked the lungs for it. I was usually placed in long jump, but I always seemed to either leap too early, or be disqualified for stepping on the board. I was hopeless at field. When attempting shot put, I’d have to dance out of the way to avoid crushing my toes. Javelin was not much better. Maybe I ought to have spent time in the gym, but I wasn’t interested in pumping iron. I had some at home. They were largely ignored, excellent at collecting dust in the corner. I tried hurtles, but we trained indoors at O’Gorman, and we only had room in the gym to set up three, and a mat against the wall. So, we’d have to crash into the far wall when training to keep enough momentum to clear the third hurdle. I always crashed into the fourth when in competition; I suppose that was that flinch instinct kicking in, expecting a wall to rise up and slap into me.

Track was late in the season, so I never made it into the yearbook. Those who ran cross-country in the autumn did, but never us in track and field. Too late to make the printers, I suppose.

My first meet was at RMSS, my first time on an asphalt track, too. I did alright, considering my never having ever worn cleats before, well enough to not lag behind, fast enough to finish with the field, but that was all. What I remember was an RMSS senior turning his dirty tube socks around so that the dirty bottom was on top. I wondered why he did that. It must have felt wrong, what with the heels all stretched out, not to mention the crusty feel they must have had.

I improved with age. Winning heats. Never quite coming out on top, but I remember always making it to the finals, and usually crossing fourth.

And then there was the joy of seeing friends who attended other schools, hanging with them, lazing out in the sun between races.

On one occasion, and I think it was the only time I’d ever seen him since Pinecrest, I watched an old friend, Mike (no idea what his last name was), running in the 400 meter. He was a short guy, muscular, long flaming hair flying behind him. I called out, “Go, Mike, go,” to him; he glanced over, but I don’t know if he recognized me as he passed. Time passes, people move on, and who knows, maybe he didn’t like me much back in Grade school. Or maybe he moved away, because, like I said, I never did see him again.

I do recall my less than finest moment. I was set to run the lead leg of the 200 m relay (not to brag, but we placed our two fastest runners in the lead and final leg, or so I’d like to believe). I surveyed the field, the competition, got set in my lane, one of the outer lanes, and anticipating the gun. There was the sharp snap, and I took off the moment I heard the shot. I focused on the race at hand, and when I ran, the world faded away, until there was only the pumping of my arms, the pounding of my feet on the track, my rapid breathing, my eyes on the lane ahead. What I remember most of the 200 was that you couldn’t see the other lanes, so when in the outer lanes, you couldn’t gage how you were faring against the inner lanes, so you had to really focus on maintaining speed, and on gaining speed. I thought I was doing pretty well. As far as I could tell, I was so far ahead that I couldn’t see anyone in my peripheral vision. What I did see, was my team mate, Mark Charette, the next leg on my team, running back toward me, waving his arms. I looked up, then around, then back. Not a soul. I was alone.

“What?” I asked, I yelled. I knew what.

“False start!” Mark said. Not my fault, either.

I was shocked, then furious in a heartbeat. I’d just ran 100 meters of a race for nothing. I threw the baton down. Cursed, almost threw a fit. Retrieved the baton. And sulked back to the starting point. Hoping and failing to get my wind back.

When the second start fired, I was slow to start, too aware of time, the gun, and another potential false start. And found myself too winded to do much better than to keep pace with the other lanes.

The Arcade

We lived in them, investing a petty penny in them, one quarter at a time. Not on pinball, though. Pong gripped us at a young age, and we were the video arcade generation. I remember four arcades we haunted, specifically, vividly, their sound, their smell, their occasional breeze of cannabis, although I can only remember the names of two.

The first arcade I ever found myself in was in the basement of the 101 mall, name unknown. It was primarily a pinball arcade, having a long row of them running from entry to the back wall, but hidden from view, back behind the klaxon and whoop and lights of the pinballs, and lurking behind a couple pillars, there were a few Atari stand-up games, Asteroids, among them. Asteroids requires no explanation, not to my age group. It’s forever imbedded in our minds, I think. I can’t say what the others games were.

The second was Fun and Games in the Timmins Square. It was a long narrow room, both walls lined with games, the change attendant patrolling its length, the cash and kiosk in the middle. I recall Tempest there. Tempest may require some description; I doubt many people remember it, but I loved that game, maybe more than all the others. It had a simple display, even for the time, but it was an adrenaline rush. It took place on a three-dimensional surface, sometimes wrapped into a tube, which was viewed from one end and was divided into a dozen or more segments or lanes. The higher the level, the more lanes, and the faster the play. Enemies entered at the far and crawled, then raced, up the lanes, laying spikes behind them, trying to reach the top to drag the player down into the abyss. What I remember most was that if you spun the level selector at the beginning of the game as fast as it would spin, you would warp up to the highest levels, skipping the lower, less octane fueled beginning. There were others I played, but that was the one I always sought out.

The third was Andy’s Amusements. There were long lines of pinball machines in that one too, but we ignored them and plunged to the poorly lit back where there were ranks of Defender and Stargate games. The games through more light into that dealers’ paradise than the overheads; maybe, by design.

The final one was Top Hats. Of them all, my favourite was Top Hats. Top Hats was our night club. It was our place to be and to be seen, always full on weekends, day and night, the bike racks full, the people spilling out of the open glass doors in summer, out onto the sidewalk, some smoking, all aiming to look cool. In the winter, the glass was dripping, steaming, but never freezing, such was the heat we threw. Coats piled high alongside the machines, jammed in between. And like all arcades, it was loud. Remember how loud they were? The machines blared, the music thrummed, the bass beat, and we were all shouting to be heard over the din and all the other voices reaching out, themselves; and there was laughter. Sometimes we were three deep waiting for a turn on the games: Defender, Stargate, and Pac-man usually had the longest lines. I don’t believe they ever made money on Dragon Quest, though. Waste of space, that game. Too expensive at 50 cents a play, and the laser disk was skippy, and no one had a clue how to play it, but we all tried once or twice, just the same.

I still remember that thrill I felt when I came upon it. How I scanned the crowd, checked out the girls, hung out, bought pop and chips, and got high on adrenalin. How some played, like John Lavric and Renato Romey, with an outward calm that was truly Zen and somehow awe inspiring, only to lose it at the end; while others, like Garry Martin and I, cursed, (okay, Garry didn’t curse, but he found a way) and glared back at the machine as it taunted us with its lights, its music, and ultimately, its threat of GAME OVER!

Entering High School

New beginnings, another reset, as it were.

We all meet a new batch of people when we enter high school, I imagine, as kids change school systems, kids move from other towns, and groups of kids from other middle schools are destined for the same high school but had yet to meet one another. I’m not sure if that last bit applied to TH&VS or RMSS, then; they may have already been set back at the beginning of middle school. Not so in O’Gorman’s case, where St. Theresa met Sacred Heart.

Once again, I found myself in an odd place. I suppose I may have always been a loner at heart, or maybe just an ambivert, but I found my attention split between two, and sometimes three, clusters of friends, and this not counting what would become my core friends, those who I worked with and hung out with, we lifeguards from the Archie Dillon Sportsplex. I still had those friends from St. Theresa: Garry Martin, Chris Cooper, John Lavric, a group that had been rather depleted at the end of Grade 7, when many of our friends and acquaintances had transferred to the public system (when suddenly their parents discovered that they would have had to pay extra for their kids to continue on in the separate system). A few more transferred at the end of Grade 8, too, not many, but a few. No matter, at the beginning of Grade 9 our numbers swelled again. Not by a lot; O’Gorman was not a big school, by any stretch of the imagination, just two single story L-shaped buildings, and at that time, a single portable. Back then, there was only one, just a short frigid skip from the warmth of the main building, years before O’Gorman gained its former nickname, Portable High, after it finally gained full funding from the government and its populace exploded and its athletic field disappeared under the weight of those scattered ranks of prefab buildings.

Groups of friends shuffled, congealed anew. There were new athletic groups (track, cross-country, basketball, hockey), new geeks (drama, public speaking), new populars, new freaks. Smokers, snowmobilers, gearheads, muscle heads, and potheads. Hard to believe, considering the size of the place.

Where did I fit in? Somewhere between the geeks and freaks, the track, and the musicians. Not that I played. But I had begun to develop an enormous record collection, remarkable considering how little I made working at the pool, in comparison with those who worked for their fathers in construction, and those working at the grocery stores. But that was later. Initially, we all survived on allowances. And there was a divide there, too. Rich, affluent, middle class, working class, working poor.

Where was I most comfortable? The pool, amongst the fishes. In basements, turntables spinning. At the video arcades. Everyone else, everywhere else, was irrelevant.

School Dances

School dances were my first experience of formal courting of the opposite sex. There were other, different, experiences, prior, but they were private, far less public affairs. Some pleasant, quick spontaneous kisses on the cheek and then maybe on the lips, and such; and some were not, one I would consider a bit of a violation to my person, a bit of show and tell I was by no means ready for, at the time. When I begged off, was held down and forced to participate. That’s right, boys can be violated, too.

My first dance was my Grade 8 graduation. I had no idea what to expect. I realized there would be dancing. But how did one go about it? There were so many doubts. So many unknowns. I was asking myself the same questions, beforehand, that I suspect most of the other boys, and girls, were. Was I popular enough, handsome enough, attractive enough that girls would want to dance with me, were foremost in my mind. My sister tried to prepare me for the ordeal. She taught me to dance, and we practiced in our basement to those albums we had. She tried to reassure me, too, told me to not be afraid, that the girls were just and nervous as I was, and asked, “why wouldn’t they want to dance with you?” I’d have none of her reassurance. It wasn’t like I had a girlfriend. For those few who did, they knew there was someone willing to dance with them. Not so the lion’s share of us.

It was held in the afternoon, in the gym, and was no longer than an hour and a half. All the lights were left on, so it was painfully bright, not quite the ambiance I was hoping for. I recall one girl, as afraid and as lacking in confidence and self-worth as, I imagine, I felt. She was a big girl. Not as attractive as most. She was not popular, had no clique to protect her from her own fears and doubts. I saw her crying, a phalanx of girls around her, most of whom who usually wouldn’t give her the time of day, failing at first to set her as ease. I heard her say, “Nobody wants me here,” through her tears, her words broken by sobs. My heart broke for her. She was expressing those same thoughts I, myself, was tormenting myself with.

I did ask a girl to dance, eventually. With only an hour and a half to do so, I couldn’t wait too long, or it would be too late and I’d have to admit failure to my sister, who would surely ask how I fared, a fate I wished to avoid. I watched the first boys, though, to see how it was done. New territory to discover, and all that. I waited for cover, until there were quite a few kids already dancing. That way if the girl refused, the whole school wouldn’t be witness to my failure. And the first girl I asked did. It was like a shot to the heart. I retreated back to the boys’ wall, defeated. But I did venture out after a couple more songs, as there was no way I was going to be the last boy left standing all by his self against that lonely wall. There was no way I was going to be left to live down that humiliation! Luckily, the next girl I asked accepted. Was she just being polite? Did she too just need to get out onto the dance floor to get the ordeal over with? I don’t know, but that first hurdle had been faced and negotiated.

Later, in high school, dances were held monthly. I can’t say they were ever routine, that I ever faced them with practiced confidence, because I never did. I’d arrive and hook up with my friends, we’d always begin by gathering along the wall opposite the girls, and then after a few songs, we’d watch the first few brave souls as they would venture across the floor and ask the first girls to dance. That was always routine. After years of this, I discovered that as one of the older boys it was up to me to be one of those first, but I never did cross that floor alone, as far as I can remember. When I did, I did so with a few others, who were likely as nervous as I was. Safety in numbers, and all that. It was always a harrowing experience, at best, requiring all my courage to be gathered up and wrapped around me. Weak knees carried me across that distance, my heart in my throat. What if she said no? It happened, sometimes. Then the question arose: did I then ask another right away, like maybe the girl seated next to her who had just refused me? She’d likely be that first decliner’s friend, and would definitely refuse me, too. Should I ask another, three or four down the line? Would she say no, as well, insulted that she was considered second choice? Or would I skulk back to the wall that I’d just left, defeated and humiliated before my peers, and the amusement or horror of those younger boys gathering their courage, and watching, as I once had? And if I did, how long until I’d have to venture out again? One had to. Face, required that one had to.

Most times, the girl who I really wanted to dance with was not the first I asked. That required even more courage, afraid she would say no and ruin my whole evening. When she did, she would be the one I would ask most often, then. I wonder now if the girls ever knew that, knew what we were about, knew our minds, and could read us like open books.

But once those first songs were over, the floor was invariably filled, and the ordeal was easier. We were all having fun, inhibitions were dropped, Rock Lobster had lathered us with sweat, and we might venture a little petting before the teachers stepped in to break us up, as they couldn’t actually hose us down.

Nanny

Hilda Gauthier, my mother’s mother. My Nanny was a career woman. She had always worked. She didn’t do housework, not really, she puttered on occasion, and straightened papers, but she didn’t have time for such things, so she hired live-in maids when my mother was young, and then housekeepers and cooks later on, the last of which was Mrs. D., who worked for her for years, the only one I’d ever known.

As you might expect, Hilda had not been a hands-on mother. Not that she was distant. She wasn’t. She just didn’t know how to express her love. I think that may be why she was never a tactile grandmother with Karen and I. We knew she loved us, adored us, but she was more comfortable in the company of adults. And yet she was always happy to see us, was always generous and lavished us with gifts, and visited us with regularity in Timmins, usually for a week at a time.

Back in the ‘20s, Hilda had begun working at Bell, the telephone company, when her mother, Susan, took in Mec, my grandfather-to-be, as a boarder, and saw an opportunity for her daughter in him. Mec would be a pharmacist, not a working man living from paycheck to paycheck, but a proper professional. I’m not sure what Hilda thought of Mec in those first years, he was 11 years her senior, but she eventually did marry Mec, despite their age difference. And moved north with him to Matheson. Which must have been a shock. Matheson was not Toronto. Matheson must have seemed the savage frontier, the very edge of habitation and barely civilization. And Matheson was French. There were very few people for her to talk to, I imagine. So, moving to Cochrane was probably a wish come true to her. English. A railroad town. And their own business. Their money. Her own money. While in Toronto, Susan used to meet her at Bell, palm out for her paycheck.

In time, they flourished, prospered, bought and drove a car back up north when the road from the south to the north was completed, and later still, they adopted my mother, raised her, or reared her, in any event. The housekeepers and later Mrs. D. may have had more than a hand in raising my mother.

Hilda may not have been an overtly tactile and lavishly emotionally loving mother, but she was always there for my mother. She and Mec helped my parents when they married; financed a house for them; used their social and political connections to make arrangements for my parents when their first, developmentally challenged child was born. She was a live-in babysitter for my sister and I when needed, no matter how harrowing the experience of dealing with me may have been for her, at times. She was there to listen whenever my mother needed to talk, never judged. She bought my parents a Caribbean vacation for their 30th anniversary.

She may not have lavished us with hugs, she may not have said “I love you” often, but she found her own ways to express it.

Poppa

Joseph Meclea Gauthier, Mec to his friends. My mother’s father. Poppa had retired to his bed, and all my memories of him were in that bed.

When we came to Cochrane to visit, we always stayed at my mother’s parents. Karen and I would get out of the car and run up to the house, a large green painted, cinderblock building, mount the stairs two at a time, and greet Nanny at the door. We’d leave our bags to our parents to carry. They were probably heavy for little kids, you can’t convince me otherwise. Having kissed Nanny, we’d race up the flight of creaky stairs to our Poppa’s room. I’d jump onto the bed with him, hug him and kiss him. He was a small man, rail thin, sporting a somewhat longish beard, making him a new age hipster, way before his time. He was the only man I knew with a beard. I’d seen others, it was the early ‘70s then, so they were scattered about, but it was also Northern Ontario, and barely out of the ‘50s despite the date.

Poppa should not be judged by his largely unkept state, or his having retired to his bed. He cut quite the figure in his time, despite that small frame. Born in Quebec, he mostly grew up there before his family moved to Ontario. It was rustic here, then. Matheson, Cochrane, and Timmins hadn’t been around that long. There were few roads, none of them connecting the North to the South. Indoor plumbing may have been a luxury when he was young. His father bought the Stanley Hotel in Matheson, his mother was a school teacher, a family of note in the North, middle-class. They valued education in a time when most people in the North quit school after grade 7. They insisted on it, sending their boys south to school in Toronto, a rare occurrence in those days.

Mec and his brother became pharmacists, graduates of the U of T. He met my grandmother while in Toronto, married in 1926, and settled back in Matheson first and then in Cochrane once he’d bought a pharmacy there. He was one of the first people to drive a car north from Toronto to Cochrane once the road north was finally completed in 1927, a trek that took 9 days, I’m told, 3 to North Bay, then 5 to Cochrane. He was an important figure in his community, never turning people away without their prescriptions, medicines he had to mix and dispense, himself. He kept a book of what was owed him, but he was paid in eggs and chickens and cut meat on occasion, often probably. He was in charge of rationing in Cochrane during the Second World War. He counted Judges and the leaders of the town among his friends, and a certain railroad worker named Jules Leonard, as well.

His memory and his welcoming hugs warm me still.