You can take the boy out of NDG but...

This post will only be of interest to a select few but I figured I'd throw it out there.
I joined an amusing Facebook group recently: NDG'ERS BORN BETWEEN 1960 AND 1985.
For sure the years have softened the focus a bit but I have strong, uniformly positive memories of growing up in Notre Dame de Grace, a multi-ethnic neighborhood slightly west of downtown Montreal.
So when I saw a couple of old friends among the roughly 200 'members' contibuting thoughts to the message board, pivotal events, mentors, 'the best friggin suvlaki shop in North America' etc I felt compelled to write.
The board only allows briefs, 1000 characters or less, so this is a somewhat longer version of that list.
For most of you these images won't make a whole lot of sense; for others though all I've gotta say is "Cinema V" or "The Carb" to set heads nodding.
Cheers
Grinch on Tour

I grew up on Grey Ave below the Villa Maria and later Cote St. Antoine opposite NDG Park, the axis around which my childhood and teenage years rotated. Some memories:
- Late-70s on the mound throwing smoke for Mosquito, Pee-Wee and Bantam-level baseball, and shagging flies with friends in the tall, buggy grass in left;
- Brutal British Bulldog (‘Mawwwseee’) and kick-hockey sessions in DOC school yard loosely monitored by the skeletal Brother Martin with his bell, leather strap and the wall-mounted collection of dead bugs outside his office;
- Smoking mum’s Rothmans Kings in the long-gone Claremont Theatre and then wandering over to the Trainatorium gag-shop next door for cigarette loads, garlic-flavored “Dentyne” bubble-gum and u-build plastic model Spitfires and Fokkers to paint and hang with fishing line from a bedroom ceiling amidst KISS Army and Skateboarder Magazine posters;
- The awesome skate ramp (circ ’79/80) with four-feet of vertical in the NDG Community centre, and chlorine migraines from the indoor pool next door;
- Park hockey and half a lifetime in Confederation (now Doug Harvey) arena including brutal 5:30 a.m. starts sharpening skates in Wilson’s pro-shop;
- Shops we knew as Blue Windows and The Greek at Decarie/NDG Ave that we robbed blind as elementary school kids, then skulked back to as young teens to buy cigarettes and porn mags;
- Summer evenings of "Panic", eluding the opposing team's hunters as they scoured the alleyways behind Grey Avenue, watching them gather their prisoners to be take to the 'safe' tree on Perry Wigram's front lawn. And mini-Grinch, sweating, scabby-kneed and covered in cobwebs and dried oak leaves nunched beneath a nearby porch ready to sprint from safety to 'free' his captives teammates;
- Launching plastecine dinosaurs from the roof of my buddy Kevin's apartment building into the crowds of "retards" at the McKay Centre for Deaf and Crippled Children below;
- Playing CCK (chase-catch-kiss) with the prettiest girls in Grades five and six. Guys, why did we run? Why did we hide? And where are you now Laurie Park?
- Standing on Oxford St. outside St Augustine's school one morning in July ‘79 with my baseball mitt waiting for Skylab to crash to earth (in Australia as it turned out). I had in mind a report about there being gold in that thar spaceship;
- All those years hauling a sled/wagon to deliver 120 copies of the 260-page (Saturday) edition of The Montreal Star under the watch of the mad depot manager Mrs. Radu;
- The high school winters avoiding skinheads and others who’d pound a scrawny kid in a maroon Loyola jacket and dress pants out of principle;
- My dog Trudy barrel-rolling down Cote St. Antoine after being hit by a speeding fire truck from the hall on Prud’homme, then ignoring a broken hip to continue the chase for a grey squirrel. The was one hell of a dog;
- Watching old-timer cops laugh off the clouds of ganja hanging over those early, rockin’ Sunday in the Park afternoons;
- The (real) Monkland Tav, the covered 105 bus stop opposite the post office at Wilson and Sherbrooke, Cinema V and The Carb(inier) brasserie in the basement of Alexis Neon Plaza that offered 2-for-1 $5 (solid glass) pitchers and cheap food: all fine drinking establishments when you’re broke and 16.