A City with History: Tomorrow we drive off to la vieille Ville de Quebec for a conference. This is a City with a large history of its own and which has also played a big part in my personal history. At 18 years of age I had headed off alone to a grand old hotel on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River to work during my summer break. I was about to enter my senior year of high school - grade 13.
It was on the train heading east out of Quebec City that I met the man from Montreal with whom I would have my first sexual encounters. It was with young vibrant Quebecois working with me that I spent a great deal of time-off in the old walled City.
This was the summer of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia and of the Quebec separatist flourish. We were all would-be freedom fighters, dreamers and laughing, intense philosophising youth. It was a summer of happy love and induced shame that would keep me closetted for a number of years yet. But six years later it was a Quebec City, Roman monk who would bring me joyfully out again and encourage me to live my life with integrity.
I have not visited this walled City for over 27 years and I go now with my lover of almost 25 years with vivid, lingering memories of anything is possible.