If you ever cross paths with someone from Montreal who has become very, very old, here's a few useful topic discussion starters from that eternal fountain of wisdom, the one and only Al Palmer.Do you remember back when your number was listed as an East number?
Remember when you learned to use a dial phone at one of the instruction branches Bell opened around town?
Remember ogling chorus at the movie-vaudeville theatre on the north side of Mount Royal just east of Papineau?
Remember playing the horses at the Fashion Race Course, or before that King's Park?
Remember paying 10 cents for a stein of beer and plate of free sandwiches?
Remember when most of Quebec's downhill skiing was done on Mount Royal?
Remember when every church had its own basketball team?
And finally: do you remember thinking that Russell Bowie is the greatest hockey player that ever lived?
To answer that last one, Bowie was a purely amateur player who refused to take payment for his fine play for the Montreal Victorias. He was born in Montreal and lived here his entire life, scoring 239 goals in 80 games before retiring in 1909. He was so far ahead of the next-best player that its argued that he was ice hockey's greatest-ever statistical outlier.
Also, let it be noted that it's the 65 th anniversary of Al Palmer's Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street, so let's finally rename a street after him.
In case you want to know what the book is about, here's the plot: drunken journalist meets big breasted farm girl, loses her to gangster impresario, and gets her back when she realizes that the new boyfriend has hidden drugs in her jewelry.