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Larry Muffin At Home

~ Remembering that life is a comedy and the world is a small town.

Larry Muffin At Home

Tag Archives: children

おぼろづきよ (Hazy Moon)

08 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by larrymuffin in Shoka

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

children, Damrau, Japan, Montreal, Music, Nagano, Orchestre

This week we mark a sad anniversary, 75 years ago the USA dropped the first Atomic bomb on Hiroshima and a second one on Nagasaki a few days later, killing instantly hundred of thousands of people by incinerating them and leaving the wounded to suffer for years with the effects of radiation. Today about 136,000 are still alive from that event and it is thought that it is difficult to keep alive the memory of this first Atomic explosion as they die off. More countries now have Atomic weapons far more powerful than the original ones, enough to blow up and kill all life on Earth over 300 times.

I visited Japan twice and had the opportunity to travel by the famous bullet train around the country. It is a wonderful place and so much to see and experience. Love the food and the people, the culture and traditions. I cannot say enough good things about Japan.

When I lived in Beijing I would watch the news on the Japanese National Broadcaster NHK and also a soap on television. It was very interesting to see how they present the news with much calm and with a neutral tone of voice. I also followed other programs one was a the television soap I followed about a Doctor and his wife and kids living in a town outside Tokyo. The story of their lives revolved around the wife and how she saw the family dynamic. It was all very nice keeping a normal pace, there was none of the over the top dramatic, grabbing for a laugh or open family conflict etc often seen in Western television. Even at the end of the series when her husband dies of what was possibly a heart attack, it was presented as a matter of fact, something that happens in life and with sorrow, reflection on the past but the assurance that life will go on.

This morning I was listening to the early radio music show on Radio-Canada from Montreal and they had this piece which caught my attention.

The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal produced in 2014 this very nice record of music for Japanese Children, Shoka. This music is universal and travels well. I also think that if offers calm in this pandemic period, something everyone can appreciate.

Oborozuyi, hazy moon.  Diana Damrau, soprano sings with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Choir of Les Enfants de Montréal under conductor Kent Nagano.

 

 

Here is another selection with soprano Diana Damrau.

ななつのこ (nanatsuko) Summer Life

What a week it has been

09 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by larrymuffin in Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

children, Denis Beaulieu, Drummond street, Family, Green ave, heir, Holt Renfrew, Montreal, Peel street, Ritz Carlton Hotel, Rosemount Ave., Son, Westmount

As I am getting older, I will be 60 in 7 months, I find that I am happy to have little on my social agenda. I am retired and I have been very active in the last 3 years with various volunteer jobs. However this summer we had 9 weeks of interminable renovations and then suddenly my father died. I feel like I want to get off the merry go round. I am very tired and not sleeping well. Blame it on too many emotions and memories. Too much to do to sort out my late father’s affairs and belongings, finding the right people to dispose of things, etc. I am not alone in this task, my sister and brother-in-law are also extremely helpful and very well organized.

10 rosemount

It’s mental fatigue more than anything else, maybe a slight depression. Loosing a parent is like a part of us has died.

As I travelled within the City going from the North side of the Mont Royal to the Western Side I criss-cross streets and neighbourhoods between Montreal and Westmount, everything reminds me of my childhood, my old schools, the streets, etc. The Office where my mother worked in Real Estate in Westmount and the stories of houses and people she met. Shops where my father liked to do everyday shopping, restaurants, people he knew, he spoke to everyone. Even the last street he lived on Rosemount, a street of large mansions, he knew all the neighbours, who they were and their family stories, if anyone told him something he would remember it did not matter if the conversation occurred last week or 20 years ago. He certainly had a sense of observation and he knew Montreal.

ave rosemount

Thursday last was the appraiser who took what was going to auction and then Friday the Charity to whom the rest of his belongings went to. The apartment is now empty and I walked around it one last time, it felt very strange. This is what he wanted, he was against expensive funerals and chose to give his body to science and his belongings to charity. We the children respected his wishes simply because it was his will and he would have been disappointed in us if we had not.

inventory

I do not know how much time it will take to put the events of July 2015 behind me. A neighbour told me that it could take several months. My Mom died two years ago this September and I still think of her. I think that with Dad it will be the same, they remain a presence despite having entered the afterlife.

After completing my task at Dad’s apartment I went to the Museum of Fine Arts of Montreal on Friday to see the Rodin exhibit, the museum is on Sherbrooke Street one of the main arteries of Montreal, in the heart of the district my Dad liked so much.

I will write on Rodin and the secret of his Atelier in another post, it was beautifully curated and gave me a new understanding of Rodin the sculptor and how he worked, something I had not seen before in other exhibits.

images-3

Requiescat in Pace

16 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by larrymuffin in Uncategorized

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

Canada., children, Dad, Death, Denis Beaulieu, Family, Funeral, Montreal, mourning, Peace, sadness, Son, Westmount

Eternal Rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

The header of this posting is dedicated to my father, Denis C. Beaulieu, the painting by Newell C. Wyeth is entitled; Lobstering off Black Spruce Ledge.

He loved the dish Lobster Thermidor and he also loved anything to do with the Sea.

On the afternoon of Sunday 12 July my father died suddenly while shopping in one of his favourite stores, Holt Renfrew in Montreal. He was transported to the Hotel Dieu de Montreal, the oldest hospital in the city founded 1645. My siblings and I cannot say enough good about the kindness, care and thoughtfulness of the hospital emergency staff.  We are very grateful for their attention and care they gave to our father despite the fact that he was beyond help. Death came very quickly and he did not suffer according to the three doctors and ambulance para-medics who attended him.

Rollande and Denis wedding

My parents wedding 18 June 1955 

Our mother had died on 28 September 2013 after a very lenghty illness. My father was suffering from increasing poor health with an accumulation of heart and lung problems aggravated by old age, he was 85. The weather on Sunday was very humid 90% and very hot around 32C a lethal combination for someone like him.

I arrived in Montreal from Ottawa around 19:30 hrs, I do not really remember the highway drive down, my mind so preoccupied and hoping that I might arrive before he left this world. He died around 18:00. It was strangely peaceful to sit with him for several hours in the hospital room. We had during his lifetime sat in the same room at home in silence both of us reading and exchanging a few words. The two of us had gone to Greece 5 years ago for his 80th birthday, during our trip he and I would often look at the scenery in silence. It was a similar experience and I was able to say my quiet goodbyes. I was happy to have this opportunity, just me and Dad.

Dad Mykonos

My mother always said and it became a family joke, that we were, him and I so alike in mannerisms, figure of speech and voice, people often would think it was my father calling on the phone when in fact it was me. Now it is even stranger as I phone his friends I am quick to tell them it is me calling for fear they might think it was him and I would have to correct them and then announced his death.

Dad Acropolis

After leaving the hospital, I was the first to arrive at his apartment in Westmount and looking around everything was in its habitual place just waiting his return, he had just left for a few hours for shopping, never to return. I just sat there and looked around so many memories in the various objects, many of them going back to my childhood.

My father had an incredible career in the Hotel Industry in Canada from 1960.  He was a natural salesman and in marketing he always knew how to present his product and sell it. He also had the memory of an elephant and was able to recall names,places and events, even conversations years later. It was eerie but would fascinate clients who recalling events could not believe that he remembered so many things about them. As children we often lived at the hotel he managed and I being the oldest was able to observe his style, he had a lot of style, from the clothes he wore to the cars he drove, to interior decoration to design in general, to flower arrangements, to the food served or drinks, or the way he lived, life with Dad was never ordinary.

He was a man of opinions and as much as he could charm the birds off the trees, he could be harsh in his criticism if it had to do with hotels or restaurants and or shoddy service. He always believed that if a client paid, he was entitled to full value and then some. Cutting corners to make a fast profit was never his policy and would not put up with anyone even a colleague suggesting it. He was dismayed by today’s hospitality business and the poor service generally, considering the prices charged. He was lucky to work in the hotel field at a time when hotel service was still steeped in tradition unlike today.

Many of his clients through the years were famous people and often repeat customers. I got to meet some of them. He would get to know what they liked and kept notes. When the client arrived they would find the room with a bouquet of flowers they liked or with an item such as fresh juices or that special liquor bottle they favoured. His clients never forgot, he made them feel at ease and would get to know them personally and even be privy to confidences.

Denis-and-Laurent-small

Dad and me, He is 30 years old and I am 5 years old. His first born,I am named after his own father who had died prematurely in 1954. This wonderful picture was taken by my uncle, we are reading a book together.

As a father he tried to give us some basics, he firmly believed that hard work would be rewarded. Every job even menial, his example, picking up city garbage deserved to be done well. He also wanted us to know the value of a dollar and look for good value in anything we bought. It was not always easy to be his son, he always had high expectations and would not put up with whatever, you always had to do better.  I remember once he had a client who was the heir to a huge corporate fortune who was always complaining that he was so bored. My father could not understand why this fellow did not try to find something meaningful to do despite his fortune. This was an example for us not to follow, no matter what happened in life, always try to be useful to others.

I remember when I was sixteen my father found me a job in Lausanne, Switzerland, the seat of the famous hotel school. He sent me to a friend of his to work at the resort hotel his family managed on Lac Leman (lake Geneva). My father gave me a one way ticket and when I asked about the return portion, he told me that since I would be working I could come back once I had secured enough money to buy a return ticket, it is called learning to manage a budget. I was stunned. For several months I learned the hotel business, getting up at dawn to prepare the dining room for breakfast, polishing silverware and arranging table settings under the eagle eye of the Maitre d’Hotel, everything had to be perfect. I worked long hours sometimes up to 18 hours a day, 6 days a week and we were fed mostly, pig tripe in tomato sauce, not a bad dish, but not one of my favorites. I learned a lot during those months and did not at the time, fully appreciate it. But these were the kind of experiences my father thought were important to prepare us kids against the vagaries of life.

Dad athenes 1

It is strange to think that he is gone. I think even Montreal will not look the same to me without him and mom. I won’t be able to have those conversations with him about restaurants, world politics and whatever or just sit with him in silence. I owe my Dad a great deal and I am very proud of him, I did not always agree with him but in the end as Mom would say, you are his son that cannot be denied.

Typical of him, there will be no funeral and he gave his body to the medical Faculty of McGill University. He did ask that we give a party in his memory, invite his friends and we must serve Champagne, that is what we will do.

Hotels he managed in his career; Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City 1960, Chateau Champlain, Hotel Bonaventure (construction phase and Opening 1966) Montreal.  Four Seasons Hotel Montreal. King Edward (re-construction and re-opening) Toronto 1974, Hotel Meridien Montreal 1976, Hotel Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, Hotel Pierre, New York, Hotel Fairfax, 2100 Massachusetts ave. Washington DC in the Reagan years., Hotel St-Paul, in St-Paul, MN, Hotel Bristol, Paris, Hotel Stafford, London and then for many years the Private Club of the Royal Bank of Canada on the 41st floor of Place Ville Marie in Montreal.

45.488345 -73.594428

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