Fly White Dove Fly

I listen to these songs and I can't help but feel that
our time , growing up was the greatest time.

We stood and fought for peace and love.
We wore flowers in our hair and tried going back to nature.

I enjoyed getting dressed in long frilly skirts and going down town for shopping and watching all the young people gather to watch White Rabbit being performed in Place Ville Marie.

So many groups came to Montreal at that time. It was a vibrant place to live and I remember how much I loved our Mayor Drapeau. He was known as the little Napoleon who loved his city to the point of threatening to separate from Quebec, if they pushed things on him he did not like .

He brought Expo 67, saw to it we had an under ground metro system. Place Des Arts had the best entertainers. We had the greatest hockey games and life was just thriving in the city at that time. Montreal was growing and growing big internationally. I think it was the best city in the whole country and the whole world , it being MY town. lol

It was a aspecial era, when people were caught between the old and the new. No where on earth could you walk and smell the smells and feel the people, the vibrancy and the life like it was in those days.

I remember going to the old flea markets and they were full of war memorabilia: water Canteens, gas masks, boots, uniforms , rifles, bicycles, old farm equipment, you name it they had it.
It was so interesting and I would touch each item and wonder who it belonged to, who died and what did the item have to tell us about itself.
The farmers bazaars brought in live animals and we could by by the bushel or bag, anything you wanted. It was so much fun to shop this way as opposed to today going to a pristine store.

We went to the baker for bread and his factory made all kind of bread and buns. We watched as the huge machines turned and kneaded the dough for the day and he had little white kittens running around . The place was spotless with wood floors and high ceilings.
On the roof he kept two german shepherd dogs who were guard dogs and watched how we entered and left.

OK It was also a time when drugs were big.
Hiding behind drugs was not a good thing and I am glad I never did that.
In fact I was a little too young to really understand the problem in Vietnam.
We just had a lot of draft dodgers running across the border to Canada and we welcomed them.
We all cried for Kennedy getting shot but I did not understand what was going on to make it so important that he needed to be shot for it.

It was a time when Quebec was having its' own quiet revolution. The French blamed the English for not giving them jobs and forcing them to speak English regard less of the fact most English kids learned French. They did not learn anything at school except religion.

So little time was spent doing languages, science and math required to get a job. Of course they turned it into something political and even with so many changes, today they still try to stir the pot.
For a long time I saw signs of Nazism in the eyes of the leaders. They wanted to take over through patriotism and then do some ethnic cleansing.
I am not sure that part of it is over, to this day. It just might not be in the interest of all the immigrants living there, to help separate Quebec from Canada. Today did these leaders stay in Quebec or leave to live in other parts of the world?

My books consisted of reading philosophy , Shakespeares' tragedies, books on Nazi Germany, The Gulag, Stalin, Hiroshima, China changing to communism and lots of classical /romance novels. I would spend hours on my balcony on a bench my Dad made, reading ,with a bushel of McKintosh Apples beside me. They were and still are, the best apples.
I had such a thirst to learn but not to express myself as I was not too sure I knew everything and questioning the superiority of others was not a good thing to do in those days.

I remember wanting to see War and Peace so bad but knew getting permission from my parents would not be easy and I had to go twice because it was too long as an 8 hour movie. They had to cut it in two sessions.
I was not allowed to go alone, so I had to ask a friend and she was grounded . Her parents allowed her to go with me because they knew I never got into trouble. So...........
This is how you get into trouble.

I got to the movie theater and she shows up with her friends and tells me they want to go clubbing instead. I told her we are supposed to go to the movies. She was too young for clubs anyway.

Well ended up they went their way and I was supposed to turn around and go home because I was not allowed into a dark movie theater alone.
I decided to go to the movies and when I got home I was interrogated by my parents to make sure I saw the movie.
After they saw I did, they didn't think to ask me about my friend and thankfully I did not have to lie.
I was not very happy with my friend though.
I did go to see the next part of the movie but I don't remember if I went with anyone. Maybe my parents assumed I went with her. lol or maybe I got someone else to go with me.
Had they found out I was alone, I would have been in a pickle for sure.

I was a little white dove in my flower painted frilly skirt.
I was spreading my wings to fly.
It felt good to feel the freedom and be a part of a time
when we were soo vocal about universal peace and love

Have a great day.