Humiliations of a Couch Potato on the Playing Fields of St. Lambert

Flashbacks, John McNeish

By John McNeish, C’65 – My first athletic memory left a lasting mark on my life. On beautiful sunny day in spring: dressed in a brown snowsuit, immobile head to toe like a broken leg in a blow-up ski splint, I am standing on two cheese cutters on the ice in a corner of the L’Esperance rink — – L’esperance meaning “hope”, God’s little joke — near the melting ruins of the annual ice castle.

Child Labour in a Small Middle Class Town

Flashbacks, John McNeish

By John McNeish, C’65 – I recently read about modern teenagers who have no chores around their home and therefore “grow up” without knowing how to take care of themselves. This was not the case in St Lambert in the 1950 & 60’s. We had a mother who pretended to be weak and helpless, but who cunningly led us through the McNeish Family Labour Exchange and Apprenticeship Programme, which traded food and lodging, clothing and school supplies for hard labour and intense training.