I was 15 years old, one month shy of maturity at 16, at least that’s what I thought. I had never even been kissed but the possibility looked promising. A girl from Fort Coulonge, French and Catholic, was in Westmeath visiting a friend. She was the cutest little thing, curly red hair and freckles, reminding me of Little Orphan Annie from the comic strips. We fell for each other – hard. Not able to speak each other’s language, we mostly communicated by sign language and touch, touch the preferred way.
Then that magic moment came, the one that I had longed for but was scared skinny of as well. We were on the sidewalk nearing the big red brick church at the end of town, sweaty hand in sweaty hand, not because of the warm evening but because of anticipation. I had nothing to compare our kiss too! Afterwards when she wept, I thought I had blown it. It was only emotion though as it was her first kiss too but she liked it. Love seemed wonderful for a month until it came to an abrupt halt like an elevator does and she got off and returned to the Quebec side.
The next chapter naturally was ‘girls’, not home-town girls, but La Passe ones. Flirting with them became an obsession; dancing with them in the town hall, rapturous. I asked one for a date. She needed permission from the priest since I wasn’t Catholic. She called back, “I can go with you but I must be in by 11.” We went to the drive-in movie on Saturday night, cut it short (we weren’t paying attention to it anyway) because of the time constraint. Returning to La Passe via Beachburg I ran out of gas – one mile from the service station (where Lilly’s is now). We walked back, woke someone up, borrowed a tank of gas but didn’t have enough money to pay for it. I left my wrist watch as a bond until I returned with the cash. My date was nearly two hours late getting home. I knew without asking that it was to be the first and last date we ever had.
The glamour of La Passe continued on however. After an enjoyable dance in the hall one night, things turned nasty outside where I had parked my dad’s car. The resentful La Passe guys surrounded that old vehicle, clamouring for myself and two friends to get out and fight for our honour – what honour could that have been? One friend took a punch to the head because one door of the car couldn’t be locked. In a panic, I gunned the engine, slowly drove into the group forcing them to back off. They did so reluctantly. I sped up, not relaxing the gas pedal until we were home. Miraculously there no injuries. Any jaunts made to La Passe afterwards included a baseball bat in the back seat of the car in fear of another altercation. It never came about!
My grandmother, bless her soul, was biased against any faith but her own. If I met a new girl, her first question was, “Is she a Protestant?” If I said, ‘No’, I got the cold shoulder like she had perfected the manoeuvre herself. During a chat once, I became shrewder and asked, “Do you think Hindu’s and Muslims will get to heaven after they die”? She said, “Of course not, they worship false idols, not like we do in our religion.” “What about Jews?” She replied, “They aren’t true believers like us.” “What about the Catholics then?” Grandma said, “I’m afraid they won’t make it to heaven either.” I pointed out that her friend and neighbour was an organist in the Catholic Church like she was in hers. “Surely she will make it?” After a moment of coyness, she spoke quietly, “Well, she might!”
The funniest situation between the two faiths happened during a Federal
Election campaign some years later. The Liberal contender, vying against an incumbent PC, headed to Westmeath one Sunday morning to meet and greet worshippers after the Catholic mass. Unfamiliar with our area, he mistakenly stopped at the first church he spotted, which was the United Church. The service was full so he asked my father if he could move in some so he could sit down. Minutes later he asked him, “What church is this?” He was gracious enough to stay to the end. I recall back then that Catholics likely endorsed the Liberal Party (maybe a French Canadian Catholic connection). Naturally, the Protestants lined up behind the Conservatives. Even in high school in the big city (Pembroke), students there also puzzled about this paradox. Yet in recent memory, churches have become more ‘conservative’ in their political stance that any other assembly of voters.
When I look back on the sixties and the adult’s intolerance of the other faiths, I wondered if my friends and I were visionaries surrounded by people who couldn’t see!
