City of Saints

I was walking to the park a few blocks from my hotel room when I spotted the guy standing in the street.

I was a little shaky, having just arrived in Montreal following a nearly sleepless night that was compounded by a Xanax haze that I endure every time I fly.

But despite the fatigue and the shock at being in a new city, I noticed something unusual about this man, something a little off, and then I focused my bleary eyes and realized what was going on.

He was naked.

I looked again and saw that this fellow had joined a group of five other equally naked guys.

Now Xanax is a powerful drug, but it ain’t that powerful, so I knew that I was not hallucinating.

Those dudes were definitely nude, which seemed rather odd to me, but then I was new in town, and perhaps this was some local custom that the guidebooks hadn’t mentioned.

I later learned that the naked guys were part of a climate change demonstration and I guess the message is that global warming is going to get so bad that we won’t need clothes anymore.

I kept walking until I found a bench at the other end of the park, and I was just getting comfortable when someone started blasting music from across the street.

Now I was angry. This may be another sign of aging, but I don’t care if you walk around with your dong hanging out, just turn down the goddamn music.

No matter. I was in town to have a good time and that’s just what I did, a most glorious, wonderful week in a beautiful city with my lovely sister.

Reach Up and Touch the Sky

Montreal is only a 90-minute white knuckle (for me) flight from New York, yet I felt as if I had traveled to some distant European city.

The town has many nicknames, including The 514, which comes from the area code; The Paris of North America, La Metropole, and Sin City, a reference to the old Prohibition days when the booze kept flowing in Canada while America went dry.

But I think my favorite nickname for Montreal is “The City of Hundred Steeples” and we certainly saw many beautiful churches during our trip.

Two of the standouts were Notre Dame Basilica, where we attended a laser light show, and St. Joseph Oratory of Mount Royal, a national shrine in the Cote-des-Neiges neighborhood, which is not only Canada’s largest church, but one of the largest churches in the world.

The Oratory is also the highest building in Montreal, and it offers some fantastic views of the city. My sister and I ended up spending our last full day at the place and we did not regret that decision at all.

We also walked through some funky neighborhoods, visited the Biosphere, which was designed by Buckminster Fuller for the Expo 67 world’s fair, took in the Museum of Fine Arts, met many lovely people, and gradually figured out the subway system—except for one screw-up on our last day that was my fault.

(FYI, if you do go to Montreal, please note that McGill Street and McGill Avenue are two different locations are rather far apart.)

In addition, we took a day trip to Quebec, which is like something from a dream with its cobblestone streets and old buildings, including the Chateau Frontenac, which looks like a castle and where the best rooms go for $5,000 per night.

Quebec has a personal significance from my family because our parents honeymooned there in 1950. It was amazing thinking of them as a young couple just starting out in life.

We also visited a church on July 16, the anniversary of our mother’s death, to light candles and say prayers in her memory.

At night I watched TV, where I got to see The Simpsons in French and discovered Hudson and Rex, a police drama about a detective and his faithful German shepherd.

South Johnny and the Asbury Jukes had a song in 1976 called “I Don’t Want to Go Home” and that sums up my feelings about Montreal. The week went by much too fast.

Looking back, I still can’t believe how much I dreaded taking this trip. I was so hooked on my precious routine that I didn’t want to step outside of my comfort zone for just seven days.

I think Montreal is proof that God has a sense of humor. I’ve spent most of my adult life whining about the winter and vowing every year to move to L.A. and then I end up falling in love with one of the coldest cities in North America.

Of course, you probably won’t see too many naked guys during the winter, so there’s that.

I was also able—almost—to forget about the hideous political climate in America.

I didn’t watch any news from the U.S., I skipped the GOP convention, and as far as the assassination attempt, well, you can hardly be surprised that this happened in a country that extolls violence and hands out assault rifles to every able body maniac in sight.

Yeah, it’s cold in Montreal, there are asshats everywhere you go, and I definitely suffer from the Grass is Greener Syndrome, but I still think I could be a lot happier there.

Now I try to get a lesson from every vacation and there’s a chapel in St. Joseph’s Oratory that features scores of canes and crutches left behind by pilgrims during the life of Brother Andre, the church’s founder.

It occurred to me later that it’s high time I gave up my various crutches—fear, resentment, regret, anger, bitterness—all the poisonous emotions I lean on instead of making good on my long list of promises.

So, I’m going to work on dropping those emotional crutches of mine. But I’m keeping my pants on.