NEW FOR MAY 2005 - Photos from the 50th year anniversary party and multi-year reunion.
A bit of background...
I grew up in the old, established neighbourhood of Cedar Park, in the City of Pointe Claire, a suburb of the West Island section of Montreal. The house I lived in on Cedar Avenue (which actually did have cedar trees on it!) was built in 1901, and I can even remember when it still had push-button light switches! The elementary school I went to was (appropriately enough) Cedar Park, and it was two doors down from my house. I couldn't get away with anything there, as I had been preceded by three older siblings, so the teachers knew what to watch for with us Rehders... [grin] When I was 14 we (well, my mom and my younger brother and I) moved a few streets away to Winston Circle. By then, I was attending John Rennie High School, about a mile north.
I needn't go into the vicissitudes of school life (we've all been there), but being involved with the Music Department at JRHS was a wonderful thing. Both the Band Director, Mr. Atwood, and the Choir Director, Mrs. Farquharson were great people, and how they put up with all those teenage energies swirling around them I'll never know!
I was in the music dept. at that school from age 12 to 17. While I had received music instruction from the age of six, it was during my time here that I learned to be a musician. I worked my way through Beginner Band in Gr. 7, Junior Band and Choir in Gr. 8, then Senior Band, Choir, and Stage (Dance) Band for Grs. 9-11 (which is the final year in Quebec high schools). I even sang in the barbershop quartet from Gr. 8 on, and that was a great lesson in learning how to blend and harmonize. I became quite the geek, helping set up the stage for each show (since all the drums and timpani had to be hauled up to the auditorium anyway), and eventually I started winning the various little Citizenship and Music awards handed out to my fellow keeners. This culminated in my winning the S. E. McKyes Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in my final year.
While I guess I can be as shameless as the next artist with regards to self-promotion, I've never really been comfortable in saying "I got all this recognition!". But since we're talking about a long time ago, and also having attended our big reunion, I think I can now have a fond look back at the "fame" I achieved while at JR. My momentos still reside in the carboard box I packed up in '76, which has been opened maybe once a decade. Below are photos of the awards, newspaper clippings, and even a concert programme contained therein (and yes, I should have scanned the papers instead of using my camera, but oh well...).
Paper version of the McKyes Award
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Citizenship award '76
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Citizenship award '75
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award pins, still in their boxes (should I eBay them?)
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press clipping
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press clipping
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 press clipping |
 Wally's notes on my award |
 concert program from '75 |
It was at John Rennie that I first wrote music, writing a tune for the stage band in Gr. 10. It was fairly simple, but had a pretty good rock groove, and I was thrilled that Mr. Atwood (Uncle Wally to us) thought it good enough for the band to play, so much so that he included it at what felt like every concert! That next summer I wrote out the music for a piece for the senior concert band, which (due to the size of school with 2200 students) consisted of at least 80 musicians! When I got back to school for Gr. 11 I presented it to Wally with full score and all the parts written out. Bless his heart, he said "sure, let's try this one too!", and it also became part of our concert repertoire that year. It was such an amazing feeling to play that piece and hear the good noise we all made.
During our final year my friend Dave Vincent and I started a jazz-rock band called THC. Now THC is the name of the component of marijauna that makes it, umm, "interesting", but we said the initials really stood for "The Horn Connection", since we had four horn players in the band and played music by groups like Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears. That band (and our barbershop quartet) continued on after high-school, but the horn-based music was unfortunately becoming less and less popular in the late 70s, and I eventually bowed out around '78, and a year later got into my "downtown" professional career. I stayed in touch with some of the guys, reuniting to play with them for a bit in '82 (when the band was renamed "Blueline"), but then I lost touch with everyone once I moved to Toronto in '84 with my then-partner. In 2005 I found out to my amazement that one of the band members was still keeping the group going!
I made great friends through the music dept. - folks like Dave (who I considered my best friend), Laurie, Pat, Diane, Norm, Dawn, Sue, Bronya, and Ruth. After high school was over most of us drifted off to other places to do other things. Accelerating this dispersal was the fact that this was Quebec at the height of the Parti Quebecois separatist government, and many anglos were leaving for greener and less politically-charged pastures.
Fast-forward to this century...
In the summer of '01 I got a phone call out of the blue from Norm Champoux. He was in touch with his old friend Doug, and we decided to start trying to find others. A month or so later I discovered the JRHS group on Yahoo, as well as finding alumni listings via the school's website. Well, I sent out a bunch of emails, and got in touch with people I hadn't seen in 25 years! In March '02, I went to Toronto to visit family, and had a little re-union with Norm, Doug, and Laurie. When we met up it was like no time had pased at all, and we ended up spending almost 5 hours in the restaurant, yappin' away, saying "remember this?' or "do you recall when so-and-so..." It was a lot of fun!
(Click on the photo for the larger image.)
On the weekend of September 6/7 '02, I headed to the Toronto area once again, this time to perform in a festival with the TF Band. We played a Friday night show, plus a Saturday afternoon one. Well, at this last show I got to see even more faces from the past, because in addition to Norm and his wife, and Laurie and friends showing up, so did my old pal Sue, and Margo, the daughter of our band director! They enjoyed our show (or so they claimed!), and we all had fun reconnecting again. If anyone reading this has ever had the wish to get in touch with old friends, all I can say is that the effort is worth it! I'm so glad to have gained this connection to my past, and that my old friends and I can continue on into the future.
Here are some links for any JRHS types that haven't yet found the rest of us:
John Rennie Yahoo Group - You have to sign up wth Yahoo if you aren't already a member, but it's worth it! See all sorts of photos that have been uploaded, browse the member's directory for old friends, and of course, take part in the discussions!
John Rennie Reunion Site - A great site with links to each year. Any alumnus can add their name and contact info.
John Rennie Website - The school's official site.
