The French explorer Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635) founded a French settlement in Quebec City in 1608. He adopted the Algonquin name of Quebec. Champlain came to be called “The Father of New France,” since he served as its administrator for the rest of his life. Quebec is home to the earliest known French settlement in North America, Fort Charlesbourg-Royal, established in 1541 by explorer Jacques Cartier (1491-1557) with some 400 persons, but abandoned less than a year later due to the hostility of the natives and the harsh winter. The name “Canada” was given to the colony that developed around the settlement at Quebec. Although the Acadian settlement at Port-Royal was established three years earlier, Quebec came to be known as the cradle of North America’s Francophone population, since this location seemed favorable to the establishment of a permanent colony. In 1629 it was captured by English privateers during the Anglo-French War. As part of the ongoing negotiations following the end of the Anglo-French War in 1632, the English King Charles I agreed to return captured lands in exchange for Louis XIII paying his wife’s dowry. In 1665, there were 550 people in 70 houses living in the city. One-quarter of the people were members of religious orders. Quebec was the headquarters of many raids against New England during the French and Indian Wars. In 1690 the city was attacked by the English, but was successfully defended. In the last of its conflicts, the French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War), Quebec was captured by the British in 1759, and held until the end of the war in 1763. At the end of French rule, Quebec was a town of 8,000 inhabitants, surrounded by forests, villages, fields, and pastures. The Americans’ failure to take Quebec in 1775 led to the end of their campaign in Canada. The American invasion failed, however, and the war resulted in a permanent split of British North America into two entitles, the newly independent United States of America, and those colonies (including Quebec) that remained under British control, which would later become the country of Canada. The city itself was not attacked during the War of 1812, when the United States again attempted to annex Canadian lands. Until the late 18th century, Québec was the most populous city in present-day Canada. From 1841 to 1867, the capital of the Province of Canada rotated between Kingston, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Quebec City. In 1867, Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as the definite capital of the Dominion of Canada, while Quebec City was confirmed as the capital of the newly created province of Quebec. During World War II, two conferences were held in Quebec City in 1943 and 1944, where a large part of the D-Day landing plans were made during those meetings. Quebec City was built on the north bank of the Saint Lawrence River, where it narrows and meets the mouth of the Saint-Charles River. The Plains of Abraham are located on the southeastern extremity of the plateau, where high stone walls were integrated during colonial days. The great majority of city residents are native French speakers, 91%, since only 2% are Anglophones. Quebec City’s Winter Carnival is the world’s largest winter festival. Quebec City has the oldest educational institution for women in North America, led by the Ursulines of Quebec, which is now a private elementary school. The Quebec Nordiques of the NHL moved to become the Colorado Avalanche in 1995. Have you ever been to a French speaking city?
A trip to Quebec City
While all the excitement was in Montreal, I decided to go to the more picturesque Quebec City, the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec with a population of about half a million, the second-largest city in the province, after Montreal. We visited the old historic parts of Quebec, one of the oldest European settlements in North America, often called “New France.” The “Historic District of Old Québec” was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985. Quebec City is the only fortified city north of Mexico whose walls still exist. 90% of the population in Quebec City are still French speakers. Quebec City had the look and feel of a European city with its cobblestones, churches, stone buildings, and winding streets lined with shops and restaurants. Charles Dickens once described Quebec City as the “Gibraltar of North America.” Porte Saint-Louis and Porte Saint-Jean are the two main gates through the walls from the modern section of downtown. West of the walls is the Parliament Hill area, and to the south the Plains of Abraham. The upper and lower town are linked by numerous stairs. The Canadian Pacific Railway company set up a series of “château” style hotels to encourage tourism. There is a walkway along the edge of the cliff, offering views of the Saint Lawrence River. The Parliament Building is the meeting place of the Parliament of Quebec. The Notre-Dame de Québec Cathedral is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec. There are 37 National Historic Sites of Canada in Quebec City. The Université Laval (Laval University) is in the southwestern part of the city, in the borough of Sainte-Foy, where we were staying, as we spent three nights at the St. Foye Holiday Inn. During that time, we also traveled along the St. Lawrence River, and even into New Brunswick, along the state of Maine border of the USA. Finally, for the opening of the Olympics of Montreal, we watched them on TV from our hotel room. It was cheaper and more relaxing. Then it was back to Montreal, that was about 150 miles away. We were about to have two full days of preliminary Olympic events in Montreal, while staying at the Hotel Pierre in Montreal for three nights. Also staying there were the Romanian wrestlers and weight lifters. Have you ever been to Quebec City?
Getting Olympic tickets in Montreal
Next it was on to Montreal, Quebec, about another 124 miles from Ottawa, with a population of 1,800,000. There in Montreal, we bought our Olympic tickets. We were not going to the Opening ceremony. Instead, I bought tickets for four individual preliminary events, basketball, volleyball, water polo, and soccer. I got them at the Eaton’s Department Store in downtown Montreal on July 14, while the opening ceremony was on July 17. I just lined up at this big department store where they had lines for the individual Olympic games. I spoke a little French so that it was no problem for me. I both two tickets for four events since Joy did not need a ticket. On the morning of July 19, we went to Water Polo at 9:30 AM in the morning and Soccer at 4:00 PM in the afternoon. On July 20, we went to basketball at 2:00 PM and volleyball at 7:30 PM. My only worry was trying to get from one venue to another. The basketball tickets were $8.00 each but it included a men’s and women’s game. The soccer or football game tickets was $6.00 each but it was at the Olympic Stadium. The volleyball tickets were $5.00 each, but also included both a woman’s and a men’s game. Finally, the water polo tickets were $5.00 each but included three games. I was paying $48.00 for the whole family to see eight preliminary Olympic events. That seemed like a real bargain. However, the most expensive tickets were the Opening and Closing Ceremony at $40.00 each, which I did not buy. Thus, we were set for the Olympics to begin. Now it was time to explore more of Canada before our events happened. Have you ever bought Olympic tickets?
On to Ottawa
After our time with the Fricke’s in Michigan, we headed for Ottawa, the capital of Canada. We traveled into Canada at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. We traveled through Ontario until we hit North Bay, Ontario, the gateway to the north, as a railroad center with an airport, about 220 miles from both Ottawa and Toronto. North Bay has a population of about 50,000. We stayed at the Imperial Hotel in North Bay. Margaret, Joy, and I got to Ottawa the next day, where we stayed at the Ottawa Holiday Inn, as we toured the capital of Canada, Ottawa, that has a population of about 1,000,000 people. We saw the changing of the guard at Parliament Hall, and the Olympia Flame on its way to Montreal. I have nine more postcards from Ottawa. Have you ever been in the capital of another country?
Happy New Year – 2025!
2025 is here. I have already lived a quarter century of the twenty-first century. I can remember 1950, the half century of the twentieth century. Of course, most people remember 2000, the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century. Seventy-five years seems like a long time ago. I remember thinking in 1950 about twenty-five years before that and how 1925 seemed so much in the past. I had missed the roaring twenties and the great depression. I could barely remember World War II. Seventy-five years prior to 1950 was 1875. That was ancient history. My father was born in 1898 and my mother in 1906, and they were old to me in 1950, as a ten year old. I remember the optimism of the late 1940s and 1950s. Maybe it was me and my family. By the 1960s, the deaths of the Kennedy brothers, and Martin Luther King Jr, led to a series of disruptions. Protests against the Vietnam War and for civil rights were all over the place. Thus, the second half of the twentieth century was a series of ups and downs. By the end of the twentieth century, technology was making children smarter than their parents. Now in the twenty-first century, we seem to be mad at each other. We had the disputed election of 2000, the airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then we have had the topsy turvy presidents of Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden. Recently, the protests of the 1960s were on college campuses again. We as Americans never seem satisfied. Something is always wrong. Someone is not being treated fairly. That is what I have learned about the first quarter of the twenty-first century. We used to dream about the future twenty-first century with space travel. Instead, the great technology has led to Tik-Tock and animosity. Who can predict the next quarter century. Right now, I am 25 years away from the middle of the twenty-first century. I was never sure that I would make it to the millennium of 2000 at age 60. Now I have achieved a quarter century of the third millennium at age 85, so who knows if I will live to a 110. That is hopeful thinking as we celebrate the beginning on 2025. Have a happy new year! What was your best and worst year of your life?
A trip to Mackinac Island
The six of us, the three Fricke girls, Margaret, Joy, and I, traveled to Mackinac Island by ferry boat, to a resort island, covering about 4 square miles in Lake Huron, at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas. Fort Mackinac was constructed on this island by the British during the American Revolutionary War, and became the site of two battles during the War of 1812, before the northern border was settled and the USA gained this island in its territory by the Treaty of Ghent, Holland, in 1815. In the late 19th century, Mackinac Island became a popular tourist attraction and summer colony, well known for numerous cultural events. Many of the structures on this island have undergone extensive historical preservation and restoration. Because of its historic significance, the entire island is listed as a National Historic Landmark, since 1960. Perhaps it is most known for its Victorian Grand Hotel that opened in 1887, and a ban on all motor vehicles. Like many historic places in the Great Lakes region, Mackinac Island’s name derives from a Native American language, in this case the Ojibwa language, meaning a big turtle. John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company was centered on Mackinac Island after the War of 1812 and exported beaver pelts for thirty years. Following the Civil War, the island became a popular tourist destination for residents of major cities on the Great Lakes. Much of the federal land on Mackinac Island was designated as the second national park, three years after Yellowstone National Park was named as the first national park. To accommodate an influx of tourists in the 1880s, boat and railroad companies built hotels, including this Grand Hotel. Island residents established souvenir shops to profit from the tourist trade. Many wealthy business people also built summer “cottages” along the island’s bluffs for extended stays. When the federal government left the island in 1895, it transferred all the federal land, including Fort Mackinac, to the state of Michigan as Michigan’s first state park. Motor vehicles were restricted in 1898 because of concerns for the health and safety of the island’s residents, a ban that continues to the present day, with exceptions only for city emergency vehicles. According to the 2020 US Census, the island has a year-round population of 583. However, the population grows considerably during the summer from tourists and seasonal workers from May 1st to October 31. Travel on the island is either by foot, bicycle, horse, or horse-drawn carriage. Roller skates and roller blades are also allowed, except in the downtown area. There is a Governors House on Mackinac Island, that was built in 1902. The Governor of Michigan, while in office, can use this residence as a vacation home. Each July there are two sailboat races from Port Huron, Michigan, and the Chicago Yacht Club, to Mackinac Island, that has been going on for over a 100-years with between 200-250 boats competing. Both these races are among the longest freshwater sailing races in the world. Another special event that Mackinac Island is known for is the Mackinac Island Fudge Festival which takes place in August. Two movies have been made on this island, the 1947 film This Time for Keeps with Esther Williams and the 1980 film Somewhere in Time. In 2022 Travel and Leisure named Mackinac Island the best island in the continental U.S. to visit. I have over 12 postcards from this island. Have you ever been to Mackinac Island?
The first phase of our 1976 trip to Wisconsin and Michigan
I have the scrap book of our trip to the 1976 Olympics and Canada. The first phase of our trip was to drive up to Milwaukee, where we put the car on a boat ferry called the Spartan that crossed Lake Michigan to land in Ludington, Michigan, where we stayed at a Holiday Inn there. Unfortunately, Margaret, not Joy or myself, got sea sick on the trip across the choppy Lake Michigan waters. She was happy to be at a hotel that night. The next day, we traveled to Upper Michigan via, Manistee, Traverse City, Charlevoix, and the 1957 Mackinaw Bridge. These were all small towns except for Traverse City. However, we stayed with the Fricke family, that lived on Crestwood Ave in Matteson, just around the corner from Allemong Drive. They had a camper and a campsite in Brevort, Michigan, on the shores of Lake Michigan, on the upper Peninsula of Michigan. Margaret was good friends with Delores Fricke. Their three teenage girls, especially the older ones, had often baby-sat Joy, so that this was like a Matteson reunion, but it was camping. The next day, we set out with the three Fricke girls on a trip to Mackinac Island from St. Ignace. That night we returned to camp and spent a second night camping with the Fricke family in a campsite. Baby Joy was able to get around in her umbrella stroller. The Fricke girls wanted to take care of her. Have you ever been to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the UP?
I planned our vacation to Canada for the 1976 Olympics
In the meantime, each year I would meticulously plan our two-week vacations. Up to now, we had either gone to South Dakota to visit Margaret’s family, where we took a trip to Mount Rushmore, or to New Jersey, my family, with a visit to the Jersey shore at Ashbury Park. My idea was that I would ask Margaret, and later Joy, if they wanted to go to some individual place. If they agreed on that place, I would plan the various stops along the road there to stop for sightseeing or overnight. The importance was not just the destination but to enjoy the trip along the way with little sight-seeing tours. I would research the places, and then plan accordingly. Sometimes it was a big hit. Other times, it was a big miss. I soon got to know the preferences of Margaret and Joy of where to stop along the way. Thus, I set out to plan our 1976 vacation around the Olympics in Montreal. We would go to the Olympics but stop along the way getting there. Margaret was happy about our trip to Las Vegas in 1975, where we got to see eight or nine shows in four days. Thus, she let me do the planning. This time, we would be taking Joy along with us, since she was about two and a half years old. She got a lot of attention at the various games in Montreal and she seemed to enjoy herself, since she was a good back seat rider in her car seat. After every trip, I made a scrap book of our adventures, using postcards from the various places. Margaret would take the photos. I would save programs or information about the various places. Have you ever been to Canada?
Additional garage
There was one other home improvement project. We had agreed that we needed a two-car garage. We only had a single attached garage. I was not worried. I was not going to do any of this work. I called a couple of people for estimates. I think that we ended up paying about $3,000 for the additional garage. They all had plans. I decided on this one guy. I am not sure if he was a contractor with Kaufman and Broad or not. Anyway, I remember that there were two problems. Should we have one large garage door or two? Where would we get siding to match the siding we had on the house. The first question was simple enough. We already had a one car garage, so it would be simpler to add another one car garage so that there would be two garage doors, each with their own electric door opener. This made sense and it was cheaper. Somehow this guy was able to get the same siding as we had on the house. However, there was one problem, there were a couple years of aging on the house so that it would not be a perfect match. I told him that it was good enough for me. Both problems were solved. I think that this contractor finished it in a week or so. I was happy to pay him the money just so I would not have to worry about that. At the same time we extended the driveways of the Vlachs with ourselves so that they were side by side driveways that looked like they were part of the same driveway. A little asphalt will solve a lot of problems. That is when I realized that we would have to put a topping on our black asphalt driveways every couple of years to keep them smooth and clean. Once again, I was happy to pay for that as long as I did not have to do it. Thus, within a couple of years we had the finishing touches on our new house. We had a two-car garage and a finished basement and we had been there only two years. We even had a toddler Joy to crawl around in it. Have you ever had a garage built?
The end of the ABA with the merger with NBA
The American Basketball Association (ABA) was a professional basketball league from 1967 to 1976, when it merged with the National Basketball Association (NBA). Four ABA teams joined the NBA, while the other players from the seven other teams when into a draft pool. This also led to the introduction of the NBA 3-point shot in 1979. The ABA was conceived at a time when numerous upstart leagues were challenging professional sports leagues in the United States. The NBA was the youngest of the major leagues, since it only began in 1946. The ABA distinguished itself from its older counterpart with a more wide-open, flashy style of offensive play, with the use of a three-point field goal. The ABA used a colorful red, white, and blue ball, instead of the NBA’s traditional orange ball. In the 1973–74 season, the ABA also adopted the no-disqualification foul rule instead of fouling out after six infractions. The emergence of the ABA boosted the salaries of referees just as it did the salaries of players. The ABA Teams like the Nets, Colonels, Pacers, Spurs, Nuggets, and Stars, had higher attendance on average than most of the NBA teams at that time, excluding the Lakers, Knicks, Celtics, the Super Sonics, and the Bucks. The freewheeling style of the ABA eventually caught on with fans, but the lack of a national television contract and protracted financial losses would spell doom for the ABA as an independent circuit. In 1976, its last year of existence, the ABA pioneered the now-popular slam dunk contest at its all-star game in Denver. The league succeeded in forcing a merger with the NBA in the 1976 offseason. Four ABA teams were absorbed into the older league: the New York Nets, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and San Antonio Spurs. The Nets had to settle for an arena in Piscataway, New Jersey, and were forced to sell the contract of Julius Erving to the Philadelphia 76ers. George Mikan and Dave DeBusschere had been ABA commissioners. One of the primary contributions of the ABA to modern NBA was the introduction of the Hardship Rule, which would later become the framework for the current NBA draft eligibility system that allows players to declare for the NBA after being one year removed from their high school graduation, instead of their graduating college class. Some of the famous players from the ABA were Connie Hawkins, Roger Brown, Zelmo Beaty, Freddie Lewis, George McGinnis, Julius Erving, Artis Gilmore, Marvin Barnes, Rick Barry, Larry Brown, Don Buse, M.L. Carr, Jim Chones, Mack Calvin, Billy Cunningham, Louie Dampier, Mel Daniels, Warren Davis, Mike D’Antoni, Donnie Freeman, George Gervin, Mike Green, Cliff Hagan, Jerry Harkness, Connie Hawkins, Spencer Haywood, Darnell Hillman, Les Hunter, George Irvine, Dan Issel, Tony Jackson, Gus Johnson, Bobby Jones, Caldwell Jones, Jimmy Jones, Larry Jones, George Karl, Larry Kenon, Billy Knight, Mike Lewis, Maurice Lucas, Moses Malone, Ted McClain, Jim McDaniels, George McGinnis, Bill Melchionni, Larry Miller, Doug Moe, Rick Mount, Willie Murrell, Swen Nater, Mark Olberding, Tom Owens, Billy Paultz, Flynn Robinson, Ray Scott, Ralph Simpson, Al Smith, George Stone, Brian Taylor, Fatty Taylor, David Thompson, George Thompson, Dave Twardzik, Marvin Webster, Charlie Williams, Chuck Williams, and Fly Williams. They also had some prominent coaches. Did you ever hear about the ABA?
Gene Finnegan Remembers Living Eighty Wonderful Years 