What makes a place a home territory?
Perhaps it's a time and not the place in and of itself?

I remember first moving to Chateauguay in 1963 in wicked mid February.

My parents purchased a model home next to and slightly to the side of Seigneury Park Country Club. The roads were full of pot holes then and the the trees were many. It was a very new development with some very new home models -more vertical in orientation rather than the spread of a New England or Ocean side bungalo. They were novel for Chateauguay.

After a number of years, this area became home to me and the centre of my being with many friends and acquaintences. The neighborhood community was focussed upon the pool and club house both in winter and summer.

I found that the rest of Chateauguay with it's separate neighborhoods - Colonia, Terrace, Parkview, The Heights, West End. Chateauguay North , The Basin all had similar cohesion and I believe it was due to the community activities surrounding water, pools, canoes, and rinks. But in each area I entered, I felt like a stranger. These places were not home to me and not until very much later in high school did I feel that greater Chateauguay was part of my being. This was of course, due to the fact that I was becoming more aware of other neighborhoods outside our collective environment - Ville de Lery, Woodlands, Maple Grove, Beauharnois to the west and Kahnawake to the North East.

Once again, as I ventured forth and met new friends in their domains I felt as a stranger in strange lands, pushing the limits of my awareness yet at the same time causing me to take posession in a sense, of Chateauguay as a whole with it's differing neighborhood parts.

By discovering outsiders and new places, Chateuaguy as a whole was becoming smaller to me and far more comfortable as names such as Houston, Hillock, Moody, Cushing from WestEnd or D'Aguilar, Mitchell and McGurk over by des Marguerites past the Centre or, Doumaraesque, Martin, Duchene, Holt, Kaye, Birch, Packer, Leroux, Robichaude, Starkey in Colonia, Ranger, Bushe, Deliva, Daze, Garnier, Craig, Ross, Crawford, Sailor, in Parkview, Perry, Fletcher, Farmer, Bissonette, Rennie, Hewitt, Poirier, Toth, Jones, McManus, and Gulkin in Seigneury Park, Finnerty, Wilding, Larsen and Birch in Northern Circle and Oliver, Boshart, Hart, Gilmore, Butt, Artagnon, Behrens, Mountain, Stuart, Rankin, Riley and Reid in the Heights and many others gave shape and texture if not a wonderful character to the Chateauguay we called home.

Today I was cycling around the bike paths of Chateauguay with Jane pointing out things which mark my memory.

I pointed out what used to be the pool at Seigniroy Park now buried beneath a Hyundai dealership. We passed through Colonia on Craik street where there was eveidence of a pool where the ball park still stands.

We returned to the Terrace, passing by the two new houses which sit atop what used to be the baby pool their respective back yards with fresh green sods covering the memories of the shallow end and deep end of our old community Terrace pool.

We stopped our bikes and remembered how Dave Maclean, myself along with Danny Cooney, Peter MacHardy, Peter Roy and many others from the neighborhood (Bobbit, Gurholt, Meaney) year after year ran that community pool with it's outdoor activities- swim lessons, racing team, camp nights, movie nights and dances.

"God we were lucky." Jane said . "Our kids were lucky. Nowadays there are pools in many back yards. And people have their own private domains just outside the back door."

This, while not bad, is not quite as good as what the children once had.

There is something to be said for heat build-up, the walk or ride over to the local pool, nearing it, the screams of excited children, whistles of the life guards, the sound system with the latest songs, 'eau de pool water' blended with fragrance of ice cream, popsicles, hot dogs and suntan lotion. You just never knew who would turn up at the pool.

And there was something else too- something significant. Older people would talk to younger ones. We were all together and exposed to varied social, cultural elements; English, French, men women, boys, girls, small, big, shaply or not, white, black, rich and poor - we were all together at our community watering hole, which helped to develop our outer natures as community beings.

But nothing could beat just lying on the hot concrete as the sun baked the water off one's browning limbs as we talked with our summer friends. It made going home in the evening all the better after a bar-b-q at the pool.

It just seems that Chateauguay and all developments with community pools were enriched - the whole being far greater than the parts. There was a belonging where now there is fragmentation.

I do not know if the Canoe Club still exists or not. I often hear stories of the times the people of 'the heights' had over there. I never really knew about this place until later. Most unfortunate. But I did belong to the Carlyle Tennis Club. Herbie Hart taught me how to serve!

There was a magic in the summer for many of us, perhaps the magic of a time. But I'm afraid that -that time -has gone.

Ah -but we can remember!

Jacob Sings "Over Malta"

This clip is taken at the "Grannies For Africa" Beaver Lake Picnic

Jan McConnell, Dr.Klaus Mindi, Dr.Nina Mindi, Linda, Hazel Finlay appear as Jacob sings one of his originals. He did a set of 10 songs ranging from covers to his own works.

Grannies from Canada along with the Stephen Lewis Foundation send supplies and support to the Grannies in Africa who have become the parents to Grandchildren. The Parents of the children have been massacred by AIDS. A whole strata of their society has simply vanished and continues to vaporize. While the cure exists to a great extent and the preventive knowledge is there, cultural, economic, commercial, physical and political realities subvert the timing of solution.

Life is short

and fragile.

Take care of the gift -the spark inside you

and those sparks inside the ones

who care for you.

As the trajectory

of the firefly etched upon the dark

or shooting star upon the night

the way is lit but not long

to our sight.

Take no one you love

for granted -

treasure, share and respect each moment of their being.

Avoid those things that would cause you

to lose your way.

LM