Thursday, November 1, 2012
All Saints Day
Do I need to be reminded what day it is today?
Sainte- Sophie, Sainte Julie, Sainte Agathe, Sainte-Marguerite, Sainte-Lucie, Sainte-Adele,
Saint-Jerome are only a few of the many small towns and villages named after saints, here in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec.
Then there are the places named Val-David, Val-Morin, Val-des Lacs....Val-this and Val-that. I live in one of the valley villages with a population of 3000 scattered over an area of 39 square km. They tell me that it was a booming village years ago. Hills for winter sports, big hotels for good food and drink and vast cottage land for city folks.
Now, I need to drive 4km to the nearest food store. After 2km ride I cross streets named
St.Adolphe, Ste. Marie, St.Michel, Ste.Adele, Ste.Agathe, St. Jean-Baptiste, St.Charles. and St.Andre, one after the other, and then the street names become 'saintless' again.
Back where I grew up they would say "Heiliges Blechle, that many saints surround you"?
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4 comments:
My Irish aunties have a saint for every occasion. I once walked with 75 year old Nuala through Cologne cathedral and it took us hours because she had to point out and pray to all of these statues everywhere.
Nuala, what a beautiful name. You knew how to make her happy.
The word Laurentian takes me back on a 65-year time warp. For a long time the only item of physical geography I knew about Canada was that the Laurentian Shield existed. I'm ashamed of this. Since then I've visited Canada a couple of times and I've found that my knowledge of French, twenty-five years in the accumulation, isn't worth a damn there. Also, in a plane flying typically at 30,000 ft (say 5 miles) west towards Calgary, but still a long way off, it's possible to look down and pick out the end of a dead-straight road fifty miles away. Finally, Canada has the jolliest, friendliest, youngest (probably handsomest but I'm not that way inclined) male ski-lift attendants in the world.
RR!
My brother travelled this dead-straight road on bicycle from Ottawa to Vancouver at age 65. 5 weeks one way.
My daughters never told me about those ski-lift attendants and neither did my friend Jacques.
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