I was recently contacted by one of the readers of this blog. He was in grade nine when I was in grade seven thanking me for keeping this blog and putting it together.
He said, " Your efforts have brought back to life many memories of those long-ago days as we, from those days, are now in the autumn of our lifetimes!"
Curiosity got the best of me, so looked him up in the yearbooks. It turned out I was familiar with a fair number of people who were in his class - Bob Houston, Gretchen Bickerstaff, Darrel Duchene and Libby Stark to name just a few.
I responded back, to tell him I had located his home room class, recognizing some classmates I had known. I mentioned that these days, Bob has definitely come out 'on top' and is a good friend and client of mine and that I remembered the others too.
He expressed a similar fascination that I have, - the interest in seeing how others lives have unfolded since back then. It was clear that he, like many, wish to protect his privacy in this age of hackers etc. but at the same time, enjoy the occasional 'bumping into people (jn person) out of the blue' and discovering who they might be now.
The unique thing that got me to write this entry though, was thinking of Gretchen Bickerstaff.
For the next day or two, the image of her kept coming back, when I had not thought of her in so many years. I was haunted in a most favorable way by a memory.
She lived down the street from me in Seigniory Park for a little while, having moved over from 'the heights'. If I recall correctly, high school had been a thing of the past for a few years at that time and I was in University.
I remember having my morning coffee and preparing my books to leave, when looking out the front window seeing this vision. You never knew who you were going see, since we lived by an access path to Saint Francis and the bus stops.
Coming down Montcalm, headed my way was a slim young woman, walking - no swaying - she just had this way!
I found myself accelerating my pace, shifting gears, throwing my stuff together in a panic.
And there she was- her! The girl who had always been two grades ahead of me, she, who would pass in the halls seeing me stare, moth to flame, (like so many others) and give, no - bestow- a slight smile, couched in a blush and cast her eyes downward so as not to have me construe the visual acknowledgement, as a greeting where one would actually have to say something. Alas...
I thought, "What the hell! High-school is over now, so why can't I strike up a conversation? opportunities knock,"
I tore out so fast and caught up with her - fear be damned! We walked together to the stop. She was polite, calm and not off-putting. In fact, it seemed that she did not mind a little company, so we sat together on the bus going into the city. Every morning I would wait until I could see her and then bomb out of the house. I would even go to McGill three hours earlier than I had to, just for this morning ritual. There was nothing more than the conversation and morning transit through space and time, over the Pont-Mercier, but then again, there was - for a young man, it was sheer magic.
Of course I have no idea what happened to her, what her life must be like now. According to the gentleman who sent me the email, he had been in touch with her a few years back and thought she was in New York these days.
But why am I writing this? I think, it is because I am fascinated. Literally fascinated, by the power of this memory itself, of someone I deemed to be special. Not someone I was in love with, or anything like that - but someone who seemed magical in her own right.
I'm sure we all have memories similar to this.
I am willing to bet there are some, like Gretchen, who had many admirers. And, for those admirers today, also have special images that occasionally haunt softly, their past, like the caress of a warm breeze, somewhere between moments passing.
For me there are a host of other recollections, not specifically pursuing the romantic, yet, for a young man back then I am sure I had vain hopes, as we all do. But now, in my 'day to day' existence, be it in the financial / investment world, driving in the car, or just doing the dishes, occasionally a vivid memory - triggered by a song or fleeting glance of a stranger on Saint Catherine Street, a memory of someone like this one today is triggered and gives my life in the mundane, a sparkle.
