Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines

Mon Petit Coin   by   Norm Léveillée

Harris Village
Memories in a Franco-Canadian-American Institution

This month, I will go back into my mind to relive activities that I enjoyed with both of my "pépères" - my grandfathers. Again, these activities took place in my Harris Village.

One of these activities was "jeu de cartes" - playing cards. My "Pépère Joseph Léveillée" taught me how to play cribbage. He was a great teacher since I learned how to play well enough to beat him on many occasions. Or, did he really let me win! I wasn't sure. But I did always return home with a coin in my pocket, whether I won or not.

I would walk "down the hill" to the center of Harris Village. I wrote "down the hill" because at age 7 years old, my family moved from the heart center of the village up the hill on 54 Harris Street. My father was offered a bigger house which had indoor plumbing. For a Harris Village resident, this was really a move up into a different social stratisphere, so everyone thought. For my parents, it just meant a higher rent, from 50 cents to one dollar weekly. That move, however, provided me with an occassion to have to learn English, because my neighbor on the right of our duplex spoke only English. For the first year or so, we played together and we talked to each other, he in English, I in French.

Let me return to my lessons in cribbage. Pépère Joseph had been retired for quite some time because he was in his late 70's when we started playing cards together. I remember mostly that we played on the porch of his home on Broad Street, facing Mill Street where I was born and lived the first seven years of my life. He was very quiet and serious, so I thought, when we engaged in the contest of our minds. He was sharp in wisdom and age; I was sharp in naïvety and innocense at age 11 years. He would always let me deal first since I would get the crib hand. At first, it was confusing to say the least, in trying to count out the "15's" when dropping a card on the table; even worse was the counting of the various scores after each hand had been played. Eventually, with his guiding hand, I got the gist of the game and enjoyed it tremendously especiall when I beat the master.

 

I played cards with my other "Pépère Gédéon Bélanger", who lived at 68 Mill Street in Harris Village. But this game was much easier than cribbage. We would take away one of the queen cards. We divided the cards one of us having 25, the other 26. We then proceeded into the game by laying down all the matches that we had. Then, with this done, we picked a card from the other, one at a time. Again, we laid down the matches. The one left with the last "queen" was the winner. The name of the game was "La Pisseuse", which, when I learned English, I got to know that it isn't a very nice word to say or write in public.

In my teaching career, I attained some positions of importance. When that happend and I felt that my head was getting too big for my hat, I recalled one other activity that I did with Pépère Gédéon. About a mile away from Harris Village, there was the Harris Dump, where all the garbage of the area was stored, an open area allowed during these times. When my grandfather had retired from his job as yardman for the Interlaken Mills, he frequently collected "used rags" for the "Ragman" who came by the village once a week. When I was about ten years old, my pépère would allow me to accompany him to the dump to look for rags so that we could sell them to the "Ragman". I would make about 10 cents per week doing this. I learned that there were many useful objects to be found in the "dump". I was not the only youngster to do that. Many of my cousins did the same. When we got older, we used to go shoot the rats that lived there, in this open dump pit. So, when I think myself important, I remember my beginnings - a dump picker.

One other favorite activity that I enjoyed with my Pépère Léveillée was to go see baseball games, especially the professional teams in Boston. My father, my uncle Delomne and I were avid Red Sox fans. I listened to most every game on the radio and later watched the game on television when we first got our TV set in 1948. I read about them in the newspapers. I talked about the Sox with my friends. When we played baseball, we took on the persona of our favorite players; mine was Ted Williams. However, my grandfather was a Boston Braves fan. Each summer, we took the train to Boston on two, sometimes four, occassions to attend one of the Boston games: first to watch the Boston Braves, then to cheer on the Boston Red Sox. My grandfather and I always bantered about which team was the better - the Braves or the Red Sox. It was obvious who thought which was the better team. My grandfather was kind of outweighed with three of us Red Sox fans against him, the sole Braves fan among our family fan club.

I relate these activities to my grandchildren now so that they can understand and feel that their great-grandfathers were real persons, and that in their own special way, they influenced me and helped me form my character, much like what I am trying to do with my own grandchildren this day.

Amitiés & Zôbi Widôbaid & Métañdossañtz8añgan & Nidi-nwendaginag,
Norm

Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines
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Created 1 Feb 2003