St. Augustine Catholic Church, 11 April 2011

I remember when I attended St, Augustine Catholic Church, it was for my grandmother's funeral. I can remember the approximate date, it was 26 April 1965, the day before my fifteenth birthday. But I don't remember going to the cemetery for the burial, one forgets so many things and wonders "where was I?" "what was I doing?" “ why didn't I go?" "who was I with?" There must have been other funerals that day, my grandmother's casket was one of several and I remember the priest who officiated. This was the church of my Auntie Mabel; she died in 1960. My grandmother was Protestant and never went to church, she could marry my Catholic grandfather on the condition that she raise the children as Catholics, but on Sunday mornings she said her boys needed their sleep and most of her children were nominal Catholics and married Protestants. 

It was an Irish Catholic church.

 

14 May 2011, driving home from work

The old Champlain Bridge

Cranes used during the construction of the super-hospital

See those cranes on the horizon? That was the first major construction in Montreal
for many years; what we call the "neverrendums", two referendums on Quebec 
separation from Canada, had killed investment in Quebec

Driving home from work on 18th of March 2011

Until the end of 2011, when I retired, this was my drive home from work: beginning with the highway along the St. Laurence River, then crossing the old Champlain Bridge (now demolished and a new Champlain Bridge constructed there), and then along the highway to my exit, Sherbrooke Street West, passing the old NDG post office. . . .

My drive home from work in March 2011(five)

Departure...

On the Champlain Bridge...

On the Decarie Expressway...

Downtown Montreal in the distance...

My exit...

Getting off at the Sherbrooke Street exit, then west on Sherbrooke and home...

It is true, even I find this drive home from the south shore of Montreal, across the Champlain Bridge (recently announced to be in need of demolition and a new bridge constructed at a cost of $6B; Pont Champlain, the busiest bridge in Canada with over 100,000 vehicles using it every day), then along the Decarie Expressway, so bleak and depressing as to make me wonder how much longer I can stand the drive... To think that I began this drive in 1976 when the bridge was only 16 years old, and now it is considered, by some, to no longer be safe. It would crumble in the event of an earthquake. I, too, am getting old.