Sunday, November 30, 2008

Yeah, I taught 'em this!

Last week, a mom from my class sent me this video clip of two of my students (William and Sébastien) playing the "cups game" I taught them (last year). It's so gosh darn cute I asked if I could put it on my blog!

YouTube - Will, Seb et les verres

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Carrying the flame...

My 6th graders, all 5 of them, had the pleasant task of presenting a play about Saint Martin for our school's annual lantern walk festival. Since 5 students wasn't really enough to do the traditional play, I decided we would present the play with shadow puppets. The kids and I made all the puppets and created the scene.

Here are two scenes filmed during one of our last rehearsals (the music and the lighting transitions in the actual performance were flawless). In the first video, Saint Martin famously cuts his coat in two and gives one half to a poor beggar who is suffering in the cold.



In the second video, Saint Martin is visited during his sleep by angels who praise his selfless act and encourage him to leave his life as a soldier to serve God.



The play ends with Saint Martin expressing his feelings of peace and joy as he leaves behind his life of combat to carry "la flamme de la fraternité."

What a nice message for today's twelve year-olds to share with their school community.

The play is followed by a traditional lantern walk. All the students in grades 1-8 create a lantern during the preceding days and then after the play (held in the evening), the lanterns are lit and the students and teachers head out, joined by many parents and siblings, for a walk around the neighborhood to bring light to a dark late-fall evening (much to the surprise and pleasure of our neighbors). We crunch our way through the blanket of fallen leaves that covers the sidewalks and sing traditional Saint Martin songs. My favorite line from one of the songs is "La lumière, je l'accueille des étoiles, la lune et le soleil, qui se reflètent sur la Terre." (I welcome the light of the stars, moon and sun that is reflected on earth.) Hot apple cider awaits us upon our return to school.

A crisp fall evening filled with warmth, light, brotherhood and peace--one of life's beautiful moments, to be sure.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Halloween 2008

Here is another poem (that makes two in a row!). This one has an accompanying video and was written by someone considerably more well-known (and more skilled) than me. Happy Halloween!


A Noiseless Patient Spider

By Walt Whitman 1819-1892

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

Monday, October 27, 2008

clin d'œil 7

Ode to a cold
by Bijou
My head is pounding.
My ears are clogged.
My throat is sore.
My mind is fogged.
My muscles ache.
My nose is stuffy.
My forehead is damp.
My eyes are puffy.
My chest is congested.
My feet are freezing.
My taste buds are weak.
My lungs are wheezing...
Achoo!
I can't stop sneezing.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Splendor in the leaves

Bo and I had the most lovely Saturday. One of the great things about life in the city is getting away from the city from time to time. We went for a hike and then zipped around and visited a few parks featuring waterfalls in the Lanaudière region of Quebec, about two hours from Montréal. The sky was crisp and blue. The temperature was around 50 degrees. The surroundings were beautiful, but breathing the fresh fall air was the best part!

The drive was gorgeous. Once we were off the island of Montréal, it was as if we were traveling in a tunnel of fall colors!

On the way up we saw this cool hollowed-out old tree that looked as if it had a zipper in it:

When we reached the top of the mountain, the trail was bordered on both sides by a crunchy carpet of lichens and mosses that manage to grow on the rocky crests.


We ate lunch at the top of the mountain as we looked out over the lake down below. As we headed down the other side of the mountain we were treated to many more views of the lake. I love birch trees!!!






Twenty-five years ago, Bo, with a crew of other young woodsy people, helped a pair of lumberjacks build this little log cabin. We were happy to find a group of five campers not only enjoying it, but also doing some needed cleaning.







After making our way back to the car, we traveled through a few tiny villages before visiting these waterfalls. The sun was rather low in the sky and my legs were like jello from the hike, but I enjoyed the falls nonetheless.




The summer that Bo worked on the cabin, he went swimming here once. It's strictly verboten these days.
Looking up at the sky...Looking down at the ground...

Last stop, another spectacular waterfall.

We were so happy all day long. Good thing we took advantage of this amazing day: there's snow in the forecast for tomorrow.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

For William Ward

I got the news yesterday that my friend and former colleague, William Ward, succumbed on Sunday to his long bout with cancer. He was 61 years old. And even though it has been almost three years since I had the privilege of working side by side with Mr. Ward, I am greatly saddened by this loss.

William was perennially greeting someone. Not a soul could walk by without receiving a warm hello, a smile and a handshake (or if you were lucky, a hug). Every greeting was full of kindness and sincerity. His love and appreciation of the people around him overflowed. One could say it emanated from his very being.

William gave his entire adult life to two things: his family and the education of children and teachers. I knew William as a husband, father and grandfather, but mostly I knew William as a classroom teacher at Hawthorne Valley School, a Waldorf school in Ghent, NY. William taught children for nearly 28 years and taught future teachers for many of those years as well. But one could learn many lessons from William just in knowing him. As his colleague for two and a half years, his example reminded me about the importance of love and humor in the classroom. William's dedication to his group of students was tremendous. He showed me and those around him the true meaning of teaching as a calling, not just a job. William wasn't perfect and strove constantly to grow and improve at his vocation...this too was an example to others. He learned from his wealth of experiences and was open to sharing this wealth with those around him.

William was creative and joyful; be it during committee work, faculty meetings or in the day-to-day of teaching. He was quick to understand, quick to forgive and quick to laugh. He was incredibly reflective and able to see the bright side in any situation. William was, fortunately for future teachers and children, able to put a bit of his wisdom into writing. He published many plays for children as well as articles on different aspects of Waldorf pedagogy. He also recently wrote a book, Traveling Light, about his journey with cancer.

William touched so many lives. As I stood before my class today, I thought of William. It was wonderful to realize that lessons I learned from him have touched my current students as well. I send my love and sympathy to William's wife, my friend and former colleague, Andy; his family; and the Hawthorne Valley community in this time of sadness. My heart is with them as they celebrate the life of one of its pillars.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

clin d'œil 6

I went to the AMC Forum today (yes, that's THE Forum where the Canadiens (hockey team) famously played) to see a unique film. It was a limited release film of the last performance of the long-running Broadway show RENT. I hadn't seen the show or the regular movie and I thought it was great. The voices were so powerful and the storyline was very moving (maybe I'm one of the last people to see this for the first time...) I was looking online at some of the lyrics and decided to share one song with you here in one of those scroll-y things (mainly because I wanted to see what one of those scroll-y things would look like in my blog...it is, however, a fantastic song).



Update: Oct. 4th...went out and bought the soundtrack after spending the last week humming the songs constantly. Yay.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

"My class is so cool!"

I've been back with my students for a little over two weeks now. The "back-to-school" days with my students have been absolutely great. I have the same core group of students as last year, I have one new girl and three students left the class. Because I know them already so well, we've been able to get right back to work...and play.

My students and I often share humorous stories at lunch time. The other day, a fifth grader told this joke:
A conversation between husband and wife:
Wife: "When I die will you find another wife?"
Husband: "No, of course not my dear, you are my soul mate."
Wife: "But I want you to be happy. Promise me you'll move on and find another companion."
Husband: (reluctantly) "OK, I promise."
Wife: "Will your new wife sleep in our bed?"
Husband: "Um I suppose so..."
Wife: "You mean she'll use our bathroom and even my closet?"
Husband: "Yeah, probably."
Wife: "Will you even let her use my golf clubs?"
Husband: "No, she's a lefty."
Ha ha ha!

Another day, I don't remember how we got on the subject, we were talking about marshmallows and I decided to try to convince my students that the big round plastic-covered hay bales were giant marshmallows on a marshmallow farm. I had the idea when Bo and I were driving through Québec this summer and I saw many fields strewn with such hay bales. I wanted to take a picture but didn't have batteries for the camera or something. My students were incredulous but because they trust me so much they started doubting their own doubts and pointed out that marshmallows have no seeds. I told them that one needs only to plant some mini-marshmallows and they would grow.


Then one student asked how long they would take to grow and I told them that if they planted them now, unfortunately they wouldn't live to see their crop as it takes about 100 years for marshmallows to sprout. With a big grin on my face I just kept insisting and you could tell they didn't quite know what to think. They knew it was impossible, but they wanted to believe me. It was really funny and quite endearing at the same time.

I also read aloud to them from time to time the tales and misadventures of Le Petit Nicolas. He's the main character and narrator in a series of very funny French children's books. Nicolas says about his teacher "She's so nice and so pretty when we're not being rascals!" If he were talking about my class he'd say: "Elle est drôlement chouette ma classe!"

Monday, September 15, 2008

Summer 2008 wrap-up

A somewhat random photo essay...

Fall is almost here. I've been back to work for a few weeks now. I noticed it's been almost a month since I've shared anything new in Montréal-la-la. I had so many ideas for clins d'œil, or even full posts to tell you about my summer, but I don't like to things too out of date so I submit to you a large quantity of photos that show some of my adventures this summer:

Late June, a field trip with my students to the Musée Marguerite-Bourgeoys. Madame Bourgeoys was an early settler of and founded the first school on the island of Montréal.

Later in June, Bo spotted this heron right around the corner from the school where I used to work in Maplewood, Minnesota.

Also in Minnesota, here is the construction crew building the new 35W bridge (to replace the one that collapsed). You see downtown Minneapolis in the background. Bo took this picture, I think it's neat.

This one's dedicated to my pal KO. She and I used to talk about running away (from the East Coast) and going somewhere in the middle of nowhere which we decided at the time was Wisconsin. We wanted to buy cheese hats I remember. Years later I moved to Minnesota, just a hop, skip and a jump from the WI-MN state line and she married a guy from Wisconsin. Funny. This summer while passing through America's dairyland I picked up this bag of cheese curds at a roadside cheese stand and nibbled on them while thinking of her.

Just a fun, trying to be artsy shot of my car reflected in a milk truck while driving through, you guessed it, Wisconsin.

Fourth of July fireworks in Jay, NY. (I took a little video too, but like the last one, it's sideways, and some guy's car alarm kept going off from the sound of the fireworks so the audio's not great either. I'll get the hang of it eventually).

I took this picture while on my first bicycle ride with the new bike I bought in July. I ate my lunch at the Parc des Rapides which overlooks the Lachine rapids. It's only about a 15-20 minute ride from our apartment on bike trails along the St. Lawrence river the whole way. I went there several times this summer. There were TONS of blue herons everywhere. The rapids don't look quite so impressive in this photo, but they really are...they're rough and roaring and foamy. Next summer I want to take one of the raft rides they offer. Wheee!

Just outside of Quebec City in early August, Bo and I visited les chutes de la Chaudière. It was gorgeous! Massive amounts of water. Some of which is used to produce electricity.

The light at the end of this tunnel takes you to class at Laval University in Quebec City where all of the buildings are connected by tunnels because of the long harsh winters. This one is very bomb shelter looking but it also made me think of "Mork and Mindy" because of it's egg shape.

Farewell summer 2008. It's been nice knowin' ya!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

clin d'œil 5

Théâtre in the parc...

Last weekend, Bo and I, joined by two of our friends, François and Catherine, attended a free outdoor performance of Shakespeare's "The Tempest." It was one of a few dozen performances that took place around Montréal. We were planning to try to see the French version at one of the other possible locations, but never made it. So even though it was in English, the location was ideal: in the park along the river in Verdun, the borough we live in. We brought our chairs and ate our supper while waiting for the performance to begin. The summer evening proved a little chilly when the sun went down. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the performance very much.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Le moulin à images

The city of Quebec is in the midst of celebrating its 400th birthday. In 1608, Samuel de Champlain created a permanent colonial settlement, part of la Nouvelle France. They are celebrating big time. The whole year and especially this summer have been filled with unique activities. (You may have heard about Paul McCartney's free concert attended by 200,000 or so; Céline Dion and Cirque de Soleil are later this year and are not free).

Another huge undertaking is a visual extravaganza called "le moulin à images" (the image mill). For forty minutes, images (moving and non...) that tell four centuries of history are projected along 600 meters of concrete grain silos.


Yes, grain silos. An unusual backdrop to be sure. (Just in front of the white roof at center left of the photo, you can see the end of the wharf where we viewed the show). Apparently, the creators took the curvature of the silos into consideration so when they wanted the image to appear flat, it did, but in addition they very often took advantage of the vertical elements of the silos. The silos became fence posts, missiles, candles, even cigarettes at different moments of the presentation. There were other special effects like water and fire and smoke used at several appropriate moments. Very original.


The show was spectacular. I was wide-eyed and smiling the entire time. I found myself bursting into applause or laughter at different moments. It was stunning.


Practically speaking, it was at once an exhilarating and tiring evening. Bo and I met up with Bo's brother and his wife. We chose a spot together on one of the wharves which turned out to be a fantastic spot and then we waited. Did I say we waited? We waited for two and a half hours, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, on the wharf. Sometimes in a little bit of rain. It was nice to be in such good company for the wait.


In addition to the special 400th birthday festivities this year, every year, Quebec City hosts Les Fêtes de la Nouvelle France. Instead of a renaissance festival as you see in so many very un-renaissance-y places all over North America, Quebec City decided to embrace its own history with ten days of dressing up in costumes and re-creating the atmosphere of yore. They have begun a tradition, borrowed from Europe, of a parade of "giants." These are papier maché puppets that stand at least 4 meters (13 ft.) tall. Each is worn by a human who carries the structure sometimes weighing as much as 90 kilos (200 lbs.), but typically around 50 (110 lbs.) or so, on his shoulders. Here are Charles LeMoyne and Jeanne Mance, two early settlers of La Nouvelle France.


This year because of the added attraction of the 400th birthday celebration, giants came from several countries in Europe to help celebrate. The giants from Quebec generally represent figures from Quebec's history. The characters from Europe were often dressed in traditional garb or costumes which represented other worldly themes (we saw one pair named War and Peace). Every so often several of the giants took to the dance floor, which is what they do best. I'll leave you with a video. (Sorry about my poor filming skills...I always forget that I have to take the film horizontally...it's still fun...).

Friday, August 1, 2008

la Coupe Rogers

Bo's boss used to work for a tennis magazine and he offered us free tickets to the first round of la Coupe Rogers. It's one of the bigger tournaments and it's held right here in Montréal. In fact, every ticket came with two free rides on the métro. Rogers is a big telecommunications company in Canada that sponsors the tournament. The tickets were for the secondary stadium, not the main one, so I didn't see the biggest names (both Williams sisters and Davenport withdrew anyway), but the matches are usually more hotly contested on the Banque Nationale court.

As you can see, the stands are practically empty (because it was a Tuesday and because it was only the first round of play). Which means you can sit pretty much wherever you want as long as you're willing to move if the person who actually holds the tickets to your seat comes along. Here's one fellow spectator who seems to be considering her options very carefully: "Hmmm, now where should I sit?" I followed the shade a bit (there wasn't much of it to follow). But I moved around and sat closer to the action for a while too. Only a teeny bit of sunburn.

I arrived right as the first match was beginning, here's a photo of Maria Kirilenko, a Russian player currently ranked 20th in the world. She beat Anne Keothavong from Great Britain rather easily.

The second match I watched was Canada vs. the USA. Who do I root for? Jill Craybas, the 33 year-old American beat Sharon Fichman the 18 year-old from Toronto

in her first big tournament. If you look up to the pair of guys with hats on, that's where the ball is that Craybas is about to serve.

The last match I watched (Bo joined me for this one) was Flavia Pennetta, from Italy and ranked 18th in the world, vs. Olga Savchuk, who is Ukrainian. It was an exciting match. Savchuk, clearly the underdog, beat Pennetta 6-1 in the first set. Pennetta fought tooth and nail to win the second set 7-5 and kept the momentum just enough to eek out the third set 6-4. Pennetta was an excellent server and had at least a half a dozen aces, the only aces I saw all day. Here she is receiving.


It was a fun day. Next year the women will play in Toronto and the men will come play in Montréal, it alternates year to year. I may sign up to be a volunteer. Got me thinking a bit about tennis again. Yesterday I played for the first time in about five years (the 2nd time in about ten years or more!) with one of Bo's friends. I can feel it today. I'm not planning on waiting another five years this time. Anyone for tennis?

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Downtown drive-bys: the answers

Spoiler alert!

Thank you to Ms. Doll and Mr. Frog for playing...

Here are the long-awaited (?!) results of the quiz:

#1 Minneapolis, MN
#2 St. Paul, MN
#3 Chicago, IL
#4 Cleveland, OH
#5 Buffalo, NY

particularly interesting

Too interesting for me to resist...via my cousin:
The American house has been TV-centered for three generations. It is the focus of family life, and the life of the house correspondingly turns inward, away from whatever occurs beyond its four walls. (TV rooms are called ‘family rooms’ in builder’s lingo. A friend who is an architect explained to me: “People don’t want to admit that what the family does together is watch TV.”) At the same time, the television is the family’s chief connection with the outside world. The physical envelope of the house itself no longer connects their lives to the outside in any active way: rather, it seals them off from it. The outside world has become an abstraction filtered through television, just as the weather is an abstraction filtered through air conditioning.

James Howard Kunstler (via warmgun)



Monday, July 14, 2008

Downtown drive-bys: a photo quiz!

Here are some quick shots we took of different downtowns we passed by or through during our trip. All of these photos were taken through, or hanging outside of, the window of a motorized vehicle (in most cases, my car). How many can you recognize?
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
Answers revealed in a future post!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

What a GREAT trip!

Thanks to a teachers' conference in Minneapolis that paid for our gas money, Bo and I took a good ol' road trip (one could even say a belated honeymoon...). To make a long story short (and to leave room for future posts on the subject), we drove from Montréal to Minneapolis and back, stopping many times along the way over the course of 15 days. We headed west through Ontario, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Northern Wisconsin into Minnesota and then returned by way of the more southern route through Southern Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, Northern Indiana, Northern Ohio, a little corner of Pennsylvania and all the way across New York State before returning to Montreal, creating a big loop. One of the exciting perks of this loop was hitting all five of the Great Lakes. Here's a look at what we saw...

Above: Lake Huron as seen from Thessalon, ON. We stopped and ate a picnic lunch here on day 2. It also happens to be the site of a customs and border patrol office. Kind of funny that we ate lunch at a border crossing given our situation...we later crossed the border at Sault Ste. Marie and for a change got to see the inside of a different customs office than our usual one on Rte. 15 (87).

Above: Lake Superior as seen from a roadside vista just outside of Marquette, MI also on day 2. We're actually look at a large bay and you can see the clouds coming in. It was a good thing we got this picture when we did, the clouds rolled in and the temperature went down into the 40's.

Above: Lake Michigan as seen from the marina in downtown Chicago on day 8. If you looked behind me as I took this picture you would have seen black clouds among the well-known skyscrapers preparing to unleash a downpour on tourists like Bo and I. We got soaked, but it was worth it, and even fun.

Above: That's right, Lake Erie. On day 10, we visited the Erie Basin Marina near downtown Buffalo with one of my dear friends (who I've known since college and don't get to see often enough) and her children. We enjoyed a picnic, climbed 83 steps to an observation tower and enjoyed hunting for treasures on a little beach.


Above: Last but not least, this sunset was captured on the shore of Lake Ontario near Pulaski, NY. This last in the series was during the last light of day 12 before we took a sharp right and drove among the many lesser, but still great, lakes of the Northern Adirondacks.

I was, we were, as you can imagine, really excited to get to see all the Great Lakes during this one trip. Add the fact that we visited many of the major cities on these lakes and several major rivers, and you can call this a river-and-lake economy immersion trip. Bo was totally in his element. Being that I was on vacation, visiting with faraway friends and showing all my old hangouts to Bo (not to mention swimming in as many hotel pools as I could), I guess I was in my element too.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Eggs-actly my point

I didn't really think that my pigeon story was extremely original (kind of like the pun in the title of this post!), I just knew that in my daily life, it was entertaining.

My mom forwarded this to me...

Pigeon Eggs

...don't know how she stumbled upon it...it never occurred to me to look for other similar stories even though I knew they must be out there.

It goes back a few years...ahh, the universality of the human, er, pigeon experience.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

It's all Pandora's fault.

I recently studied Greek mythology with my students. Here is a translation of one source's version of all of the "bad stuff" that Pandora released from her infamous box to plague humanity forevermore...You have to read it all the way to the end...it's hilarious. In fact I suggest you read it aloud to someone, it's even funnier!
"Old age, hard labor, sickness, vices, anger, envy, covetousness, jealousy, sarcasm, cynicism, violence, intolerance, injustice, infidelity, famine, drought, pestilence, war, religious persecution, apartheid, taxes, pollution, inflation, unemployment, fascism, racism, sexism, terrorism, communism, nepotism, cubism, patriotism, nihilism, totalitarianism, plagiarism, vandalism, tourism, dogma and schizophrenia, kleptomania, claustrophobia, xenophobia and hypochondria, insomnia and megalomania, narrow-mindedness and lack of conscience, egoism and swindling, corruption and censoring, gluttony and pornography, delinquency and vulgarity, bureaucracy and complacency, obesity and acne, diplomatic immunity and traffic jams, electoral campaigns and urban development, modern architecture, fast food, elevator music, amusement parks, organized crime, advertising, alcoholism and drugs, sodium monoglutamate, nicotine and nuclear energy, data processing, fanaticism, insanity and rain, metal garbage cans and many, many other things."

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Score one for the humans.

In Montréal, as in most big cities there are pigeons. A lot of them. They are generally flying rats that eat anything, poop a lot and are rather noisy. Sometimes, to a newcomer or a child for example, they can be pretty, but in everyday life, they are more nuisance than gift of nature. Don't get me wrong, I love nature, but I also love my sleep and the pigeons who are attracted by our back balcony seemingly love to rob me of it.

We knew that the possibility of the presence of pigeons existed at this apartment when we saw that the former tenant had this guy hanging from a cord. That's our bedroom window. Yes, lucky me, I have a view of a big plastic bird. I haven't named him. I think I will. Any suggestions? We learned pretty quickly that the fake owl does nothing to keep the pigeons away, although I've never actually seen a pigeon land on the owl, so in that sense I guess it is effective.

Then I had the idea of hanging some shiny, reflective things from the balcony and I purchased this St. Patrick's day garland at Dollarama. It makes green flashes of light dance through the kitchen in the afternoon.
Still thinking I was on the right track, I wondered what other shiny things I could hang from the balcony. I looked forward to future holidays so I could purchase additional garlands at Dollarama. Then one day while waiting for a bus I saw, as I've seen more than a few times, a CD sitting in the road. It had obviously seen better days and I thought it would be good recycling to re-purpose the unplayable disk as pigeon deterrent. The best part is the handwritten title of the home-burned CD, (which unfortunately washed off over time): Bomb Ass White Booty. I kid you not.I had grand ideas of collecting any abandoned CD or other durable shiny thing and creating a shiny reflective moving curtain or sculpture if you will. But I soon abandoned my artistic thoughts when we began to see little piles of twigs in the corners of our balcony. I have no photos of these "nests under construction" because we disposed of them promptly, not wanting the enemy to make himself any more at home on our balcony than he or she already was.

We destroyed a dozen or so half-built nests, each time hoping the pigeons would get the message. Then one day last week we got a response:

A freakin' EGG! No nest, no ruckus. Just an egg sitting on our balcony. It's actually bigger than I thought it would be. Check out the photo of the egg next to an ordinary walnut.
We snatched it up and I put it in the refrigerator where it sits today. Yes, we disrupted the precious cycle of nature. And no, I'm not planning to make an omelette, nor am I planning to feed it to my cat. My friend Doug would encourage me to "eat locally," but I liken it to cooking up the mice I caught in my former house in the country. Bo is going to figure out what to do with it. Eventually it may just end up in the trash, I suppose. But we can nonetheless hold our heads high knowing there is one less pigeon in Montréal.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

clin d'œil 4


Columbia County, NY. There's no place like home. I have been fortunate to call many places home in my life and a little piece of my heart holds the memories of each one. This weekend, I took a group of my students from Montreal on a trip to this rural region of NY State that I called home for four years. It was fun to share it with them.