My trip back in time in my last blog may seem unrelated to my cancer journey and yet it has everything to do with it. And so, may I continue to play the archeologist unearthing the early framework of Brebeuf College.
Initially, classes were limited to the second floor of the building as the main floor and the cafeteria were still under construction that September. The school was built along an elementary school model and was designed for a student population of 450. No wonder the east side school parking lot and lower field were cluttered with portables as the school population swelled to over 1200 in the early 1990’s.
Like most private schools at the time, the initial course offerings were all at the academic level and included Latin and Greek as well as the more traditional courses like English, History and Science. Music, Art and Drama were not introduced until well after I had graduated from the school in 1967. Maybe that accounts for my tin ear and my penchant for drawing stickmen as I doodle. My favourite subject, Math, was a real disappointment for me in Grade 10 as the entire year was devoted to Euclidean geometry, a topic which mercifully vanished from the curriculum years later.
We lived in a black and white world back in the 60’s, a world where school rules were rigid and uncompromising. Detentions or jugs (judgment under God) after school were served for minor offenses like incomplete homework or uniform infractions while more serious transgressions like swearing or insolent behaviour were handled by the infamous Saturday morning jugs.
Academics reigned supreme and competition for top marks was encouraged. One Jesuit tradition that supported this academic zeal was the Reading of the Marks. After the November and March semesters, all students were assembled in the gym for a ritual that made me squirm. Each student’s name was called out followed by his overall exam average. My marks were usually quite good yet I took no pleasure in having that announced to the entire school. At the other end of the spectrum were those students who struggled academically. Talk about bruising egos. One student in particular was notorious for his poor marks and the entire gym would fall silent as his name was read out; Umberto L, 37% and 6 failures. I always wondered whatever happened to Umberto and was delighted to learn just recently that he is a sucessful contractor who works on multi-million dollar projects in Markham. What a hero! Needless to say, the mark reading assemblies were discontinued as the school population increased along with Jesuit sensibilities.
Despite having fewer than two hundred students in those early days, Brebeuf boasted a wide variety of clubs and activities including a school newspaper, a drama club, a debating team, a sodality, as well as a student council. The fact that we were too small to host school dances initially was fine for someone like me who thought girls lived on a different planet.
Sports at the school included basketball, hockey and intramural tackle football. The football league was a real thrill for me and quite a step up from the under 100 pound touch league I played in at St. Michael’s the previous year. Any sign of dementia or Alzheimer’s on my part these days is directly attributable to the haphazard way helmets were distributed to players before each game. Five years later, that fledgling league would provide the genesis for an outstanding football program at Brebeuf, a program that produced two CFL football stars in the persons of Larry Uteck and Mark Bragagnolo. Our hockey team took more time to become a competitive force but Brebeuf had respectable basketball teams from the very beginning.
Back to the future. Steeles Avenue is now a busy four-lane city thoroughfare surrounded by city sprawl. However, the Brebeuf campus remains relatively unchanged as does the spirit at the school. Recently, I received the school newsletter and was amazed at the two hundred and eighty four students on the honour roll and over one hundred school clubs and activities.
And so, do I have a special message for students at the school now? Absolutely …and it’s simply this… Brebeufian Forever!
You belong to a network of thousands who have gone before you, a network that stretches from Disney studios in Los Angeles, to OR rooms in Australia, to skyscrapers on Wall Street, to chem labs in Hong Kong, to lecture halls at Queen’s, to church altars in Toronto.
You are part of something very special and that something may serve you well for the rest of your life. Brebeuf has afforded me an education, a career and now a support system during my cancer time. If you let it, it can make all the difference in your life too.
No comments:
Post a Comment