HENRY J. BORGATTI

[Editor, Evening Tribune]

Nostalgia forces me to write these few lines, after a walk I took through the streets of the city of Welland. I preface my remarks with the title:

“La rentree des classes”

Each year I watch the young boys and girls filing back to school again, I cannot help but feel the tug of memories deep within me. Indeed, as Anatole, France, so vividly recounted a similar experience. I also feel as he did while life silently by, that life slips silently by, that: c’est pourquoi a mesure que je viellist. Je m’interesse de plus en plus a la rentree des classes.”

Fond memory recalls those halcyon days of the late ‘30s when I too as a youth went busily along to my studies at the local schools in the City of Welland. Having shared personally, today, a little of what constitutes present day school life, I can almost assuredly state that I would never exchange the experiences of my youth, as a student, with those of the youth of today.

How well I remember the High School campus near the winding Welland River, where we fished and swam and played. Yes, I even had my own basswood canoe and often, with a faithful friend, we paddled to O”Reilly’s and Beckett’s bridges. How could I forget those frosty days of skating for miles and miles along the rush-rimmed fun-giving river. My childhood friends and I spent many happy hours at the Coyle’s station, Pike’s stream, the Welland Canal, the Welland River, and even daring each other at the approaching trolley on the old NS and T bridge tracks behind the former Welland Hospital.

Today’s drug ridden culture extant among our youth brings to light the great unhappiness that has become part and parcel of their heritage. This I believe is the price that society hs paid for ushering in the age of technology-the transition from a rural-like community to full and final modern urbanization.

Philosophy, ethics, morality, even religion have failed to keep pace with the rapid advances of our computer age. Our children are too far removed from the simple pleasures of the simple life that can be that can be found in the God given natural beauty of the surrounding country. This generation, it appears, in order to escape the vicissitudes of life, find their escape in drugs, rebellion and diffidence.

Our schools at one time were institutions of learning and with no frills. We had respect for our parents and teachers, we had respect for authority and discipline, for the police and the laws of the land. Our value systems and our value judgements are under brutal attack. Too many of us could care less; we welcome the welfare state. The quest and drive for the second car, the summer home, a larger swimming pool, along with the concomitant subtleties of “credit card,” financing have destroyed our abilities to live the simpler life. We have lost the art of entertaining, rather today, we must be entertained by the gadgetry of materialism,

As I lay in my bed that night, tossing and turning, there came to my mind that beautiful poem:

“Off in the stilly night,
‘Ere slumbers chain has bound me
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
The friends that shone, now dimmed and gone
And all but be departed.”

It was then that I started to think of my teachers.

Let this, my letter, serve as a fitting tribute. To the memory of some of the truly fine teachers that have guided be in the days of my youth.

I remember Mr. Ponting, principal of First St.School and Miss Mathieson, Miss Ball and others. And Mr. Pirine, janitor, bless him.

I remember Mr. Lang from Queen St. School, he was good with the strap.

Who remembers the “Victorian Age” spinster, Miss McVicker, from Aqueduct St. School. How beautiful her history lessons on the past glory of the British Empire.

My high school days I recall most vividly. We all looked forward to visits from John Flowers, superintendent of schools.

There was Guy E. Johnson, principal, who took over a class occasionally. No finer teachers existed than Jennie Brennan, teacher of Latin, Miss Keeler, teacher of French; that handsome fatherly white-haired Mr. Cameron, teacher of Botany. There were also Miss Head, teacher of Chemistry; and who could forget “Baldy” Robbins for Upper School Math, and Physics. There were other I could also name.

Hot tears flow past my cheeks and I yearned to go back to those happy days –but I know cannot be.

Ou sont lead neiges d’antan?