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I grew up in Chomedey, a suburb of Montreal the local Greeks sometimes called ‘Tsomedey” but which Montreal snobs called “the armpit of Montreal.” Chomedey was located on the Island of Laval, a city in its own right and separated from the Island of Montreal by what Montrealers called “the Back River,” a condescending term that kept the St. Lawrence River quite separate in the minds of Montrealers. Ironically, the neighbourhood of Chomedey was named for the founder of Montreal, some old French explorer Paul de Chomedey Sieur de Maisonneuve, though there was no Chomedey sector in Montreal. Returning to my hometown on a fact-finding mission with plans to visit three libraries (or archives) the same day, I started with my old high school library where I had also volunteered as an aspiring librarian. The new librarian replacing Pierre Larocque had set aside some yearbooks that yielded several photocopied pages and a few discoveries.
It was a beautiful June day, perfect for walking the verdant Souvenir Road west to my next destination, the Catholic church on Souvenir, west of Curé-Labelle. What would a Jewish boy be doing near a Catholic church or its adjoining cemetery? That was the same question to which I hoped to find an answer in their parish archives. I knocked at the church door around noon but nobody answered. I figured people might be away at lunch so I lingered a while until a man approached and I was hopeful he might be the priest. I was disappointed he turned out to be the groundskeeper. I told him my story; he took my name and number and offered to ask the priest to call me back.
Seeing to the business of my own lunch, I resumed my journey westward on Souvenir Road until arriving at the Jerusalem of Greek-owned pizzerias and treasured memory of my youth, Atomic Pizza. It had changed quite a bit and discarded the sparse greasy spoon decorations and was now a respectable restaurant, nicely decorated with Hellenic themed blue-and-white interiors, patio seating outdoors and a big screen television to watch the 2014 World Cup of Soccer.
I immersed myself in their new menu and opted for the souvlaki platter: authentic Greek salad (not like the imitation stuff they have in Brooklyn) swimming in olive oil; pork souvlaki cooked to perfection with Greek spices on pita bread with onions tomatoes and swimming in Tzatziki sauce (yogurt with garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, lemon juice, dill, mint, parsley and thyme) then placed on a bed of rice pilaf sided by roasted Greek potatoes. For dessert, a generous portion of Greek baklava swimming in honey with cinnamon and nuts. Why not finish that off with a Greek coffee and two creamers? It was all so delicious! I paid, thanked them profusely and set off on foot to my next destination.
The Alain-Grandbois Public Library on Samson boulevard was a twenty-nine minute trip by foot. My plan was to walk in a nearly straight line right down 100th Avenue, the street I grew up on in the 1970s. What an excellent walk to help digest my lunch. I didn’t get too far before a sensation of gastric distress began rising as a murmur from my tummy. I wondered if I could make it or would I have to turn back to the restaurant? “No, never turn back” I thought. Naturally, I could make it intact and with my self-respect. Mind you, I had been experiencing an increasingly “delicate tummy” highlighted by that incident downtown at the Jazz Festival’s underground parking (I don’t drive a car) following a trip to Chinatown. Who could have known Kung Pao chicken could be so spicy?
The houses on 100th Avenue were just as I remembered them: neatly kept in white rows like slices of Birthday cake, each with a clean and empty green garbage pail in front. Surely, they wouldn’t mind if… I made it as far as Normandie and kitty-corner across from my childhood home. “Mommy?” I thought. Surely, my mother could help me, no pun intended. Through a Tzatziki-induced delirium, I felt I could leave my body and peer inside the apartment and see myself sitting in that bathroom as a three-year old boy. But that was the stuff of childhood dreams and in any case, we left that wonderful three-bedroom apartment in 1975 and mother doesn’t live there anymore. What if the people who lived there now were away and had left their doors open? I knew exactly where to find the bathroom! But instead, my flight over the rooftops in Chomedey drew my gaze beyond that house to that of our neighbours on D’Alençon Crescent. I remembered how our good neighbour Rose Silver had been nice to me and naturally, Rose would let me in and allow me use their bathroom and find relief. Nah, Rose Silver had long since shuffled off to Toronto.
Returning to the present momentarily, I looked all around for options and noticed the woman in the apartment window behind was observing me suspiciously. I wondered if maybe I could have forgotten my baseball cap there thirty years earlier and could I use that as an excuse to weasel my way into her apartment, ask her for a glass of water and then slip into the bathroom unnoticed. My mind was still active enough in creating fantasy scenarios to appease my stomach. Just then, she retreated from her window and reached for the phone. I was an outsider in my own home town! I lurched forward and walked on to Samson, trying to keep it all “together”. After a few more strides like this when the sensation was nearly unbearable, I heard a hugely loud and GURGLING sequence of borborygmi sounds coming from my gut when simultaneously, my stomach flipped over and somehow inverted on itself. All the juices from the olive oil, pork grease, Tzatziki and honey that had been swirling on top somehow found their way down to the next level beneath on their adventurous journey of digestion.
The discomfort was mostly passed and I was able to walk almost normally to the Samson Library. Once arrived at the end of my ordeal, I told the reference librarian my reference needs and that I’d like to use the men’s room first. She pointed at a large wooden table in the reading room and said “You can just use the table here.” Surprised, I explained in more detail my intentions for the men’s room and she was embarrassed. We shared a big laugh. Their facilities were quite comfortable and I spent at least an hour there. Naturally, she didn’t have the Laval phone books I wanted but she told me where they were archived: at the provincial library in Montreal where I found them the next day. All these years later, I still love souvlaki but I never did hear back from the Catholic priest. Was it something about my name?
Frederick Klein
June 5, 2025
