My Reaction to the First Meeting of the Feller Reunion Committee:
Here's some (food for thought) addressed to the cream of the crop,
the top of the heap. It was great reuniting after so many years.
We seem to be a good group who are gung ho to make this event happen and
to do it big.
A few of you I did not know, a few I recognized and the others I found
you through your smile, voice and eyes and the past came soaring back like
a boomerang. I was shy, scared and excited to meet you. Happily
we all came together as if we were seeing each other on a regular basis.
We bonded together.
After we introduced ourselves, showed pictures and shared memories,
I sat at the table studying each person.
There was: Albert with his bright eyes and easy to get along with nature.
Nice meeting you.
Arthur seems down to earth and practical. I enjoyed speaking with you.
Brian(Bri) my good friends for 40 years and a good listener.
He was very serious Friday night. I guess he was thinking.
Ian - who can read me like a book and is a good psychologist. He seems
to like being the leader and is very opinionated. He has a nice sparkle
in his eyes.
Richard - what can I say about Richard. He carries his height very
well standing straight and tall. He has a great smile which is very infectious.I
didn't recognize you until Ian said look at him on the profile and when
you smiled there you were.
Peter is like Dick Clark. He doesn't age and is good looking. What
is your secret?
Jean Claude has always been a deep thinker. He is very smart and seems
to think faster than he speaks. I think we have a genius here.
Jocelyne - a name I knew who lived off site. We passed each other in
school but I never had the privilege of knowing her personally. She seems
like a really nice person, very sympathetic. Only after sitting beside
her in the meeting that her face finally clicked in my brain.
Michel - still drop dead gorgeous and a true leader. I think you are
well educated.
Isabelle - a get down to business gal. I'd like to be your friend.
Nice to meet you.
When I look back to that time in our lives (teenage years) each of us
had been sent to a private boarding school for various reasons. Job transfers,
divorce, death, the rich who didnt want to have their children under foot,
the school happened to be down the road, to try to have the school straighten
out a child that was a rebel, a delinquent or a child who was running around
with the wrong crowd, shyness, etc. etc.
We all came from various backgrounds: rich, poor, protestant, catholic,
all colors of skin and speaking various languages and from different parts
of the world.
What happened at Feller? It was like going to camp. We were told
what our schedule would be each hour of the day and there were teachers
and prefects to make sure we towed the line. It was like boot camp.
We all woke up at the same time and our day started together.
Everyone had a set time to prepare for breakfast, make beds etc. We
were made to line up to go to the dining room and we had to take turns
waiting on tables. Everyone had to go to chapel. No excuses.
As our teachers came from various denominations and it was the staff that
took turns giving the devotional we heard about every type of religion
imaginable. We ate together, took classes together, took siestas at the
same time, studied together , excercised together, went to the same store
and hung around TOGETHER"
What we were learning without realizing was how to be a team player
, how to cut the apron strings, learn to think for ourselves, use our imagination,
become independent, mature and that in order to survive we had to find
a common thread to hold us together.
We were all brothers and sisters no matter what our race, color creed,
language. We had respect for each other but at our young ages
we were just having fun and lived day by day learning life's lessons without
realizing it.
Now 39 years later to find certain individuals is quite a thrill because
we basically have the same values and this is the glue that will always
keep us together.
We were a mixed bag and we were all thrown into the same pot and simmered
together.
I REMEMBER:
My first night at Feller . I arrived in November. I was pulled
aside by Carolyn McDougall and she told me which boys were taken and
were out of bounds.
Segregated classes
Uniforms
Beets which I couldn't stomach and ate for the two years I was there
and still eat today.
The salt-peter in the potatoes which was supposed to keep the boys
hormones from raging. I thought that that grey matter was because
the potatoes had been boiled too long.
6a.m. exercises. Groan, groan. Who was the bright eyes that thought
of that? Murray Wilson perhaps??? Maybe a teacher.It sure woke us up on
a chilly day.
Judy Doe was one of my roommates and she would curl my hair each night
in a duck sweep which was the hairdo of the day. It consisted of
turning pieces of hair around her finger and securing it with a bobby pin.
Since I have fine baby hair I have no idea how she did it.
After eating our fine dining in the dining room we would trek off to
the store to buy some real food: a Mae West and a pepsi.
Remember a teacher Mrs. Hoar? She had thick ankles and we nicknamed
her (bacon legs).
The only thing worth eating was the cake since I have a sweet tooth.
I would sneak down into the kitchen just before bedtime and Mr. Lacome
would give me cake with lots of air holes in it.
How about the French choir?? We were pretty good, huh!!! I think we
were eight people. I loved to sing so I joined even though I didn't
know a word of French. I sang my heart out and hoped the others would
drown out my words which I couldn't pronounce. When we went to other
churches to sing it was during the evening. After our perormance we were
fed lots of goodies. Soon we got wise because we wanted to
taste everything. We would check out the food and we would decide
on which cake we liked best which was usually cut into 8 pieces and we
were eight. We would each put a piece on our plate along with cookies,
etc
Then we would each hide our pieces of cake, in what I do not remember
and when we got back to school we pieced the cake back together. Mrs. Brouillet
was always looking at us with a critical eye and if she saw us she never
said anything. Maybe she secretly enjoyed watching our pranks. Too
bad she is not around to ask.
Do you remember Olstrom's physics class in the basement of the gym.
Most of the time our class wasn't interested in attending. We were
supposed to go down the respective tubes: the girls down the girls' tube
and the boys down the boys'. When we heard Mr. Olstrom coming down
the boys' tube the girls and boys would run up the girls' tube. Olstrom
would only use the boys' tube so he never could catch us. NO WONDER we
didn't pass that subject.
It was fun when my father took me to St. Jean on the bus to the restaurant
and Reitmans. As my mother joined my father only one year after I
went to Feller he bought me clothes and let me eat things that she would
never have approved of. That was our secret.
Carolyn McDougall helped me fit it. Since I only owned one long
shag skirt (that sure didnt make me look smaller). She would lend
me her mini skirt so I felt part of the gang.
Once I asked Madame Brouillet how long it would take me to learn French.
She told me she had been studying it for 39 years and still had more to
learn. I automatically thought she was French, but she was married
to a French man.
Sorry to have been so long winded. You guys asked for it.