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Volume 003

I feel it's that time again to bug you guys with a newsletter. I find it hard to write about news without anybody making any. But, old news is better than no news and about the same as new news... ya right.

An Old Boy wrote us about Westmount High School dances:

Twist Contest

It is the autumn of 1961. Westmount High School.

Music being played on the radio in Montreal on stations like CKGM included songs like Runaway- Del Shannon, Last Night - The Mar-Keys, Will You Love Me Tomorrow? - The Shirelles, Mother In Law-Ernie K. Doe, Stand By Me-Ben E. King. If you were at Weredale at the time, and not Catholic, the new Westmount High was where you went to school. About once a month, there was a Friday night dance at the school in the gym. For some of us going to the dance was partly getting out of Dodge for a few hours. Many of us were in all boys classes and starting to get a little more curious about girls. We saw them in the hallways but didn't have much contact.

We were wise enough to know that we were "marked" in the social scheme of things in high school. Everyone else knew we were from Weredale. Or so it seemed. There certainly was a bit a wariness at times. This seemed to ease a bit if we didn't come across as threatening.

I don't think any of us Weredale boys expected to meet a girl at the dance and be invited into her home. Or start going steady. Not that Westmount High was all that Richy Rich anyway. It was a mixture of kids from families that were low income and others that had money but not enough to pay for a private school education. My guess is that other parents thought that a mainstream education was good enough for their kids, having attended a public school themselves. And of course there were a few who thought that they were better off financially than they really were.

Weredale boys had their little cliques. Sometimes just two or three people. Often about mutual survival. This is how we would turn up at the dances. Standing together in small groups, sometimes interacting with other classmates. Hardly any of us had the nerve to walk across the gym by ourselves and pick out a girl and ask her dance. Being rejected in front of our peers was not cool. Too big of a risk.

Most of us were rubes when it came to the opposite sex. At one of those dances, a blonde (yes I remember) asked me to dance and I spent a few minutes talking to her afterwards. I didn't have a clue about how to dance but was thrilled that she had picked me out. Thrilled and very nervous.Most of the time was spent watching others on the dance floor. The tunes were great. And there was electricity in the air.

There was one night that I remember particularly. There was a bit of a commotion and the dance floor kind of parted with everyone surrounding two guys in suits. Suits? Wow! It was two guys doing the twist. Both had been at Weredale and both I think had started working.

If my memory serves me right their names were Norman Walker and Michael DeTomasso. The suits they wore were sharkskin that had a bit of a shine. Their pants were cuffless and called "continentals" that showed about 6 inches of white socks. Their ties were thin and solid colour and they both wore shiny black pointed Italian shoes. They had tie pins under the knots in their ties. Their hair was meticulously groomed and slick with Brylcreem or something similar. Norman Walker had a pompadour.

This was going to be a twist contest. It was like a scene out of West Side Story. These guys were not doing the tame Chubby Checker stuff. They came to kill. And get attention. The leg that wasn't on the floor would get almost chin high. The crowd was into it. I am sure some of the Weredale boys were thinking... "Hey! These are our guys!"

I can't remember what song was playing but it couldn't have been much more than the standard two minutes and few seconds. It seemed like a marathon. When it was over there were two really sweaty guys puffed out in fancy duds.

Certainly the high point in those dances almost 50 years ago. And the beat goes on.

Colin Paterson, Weredale House and Westmount High 61-63

Lordy Lord Lord

Which brings us to a very good year for one gifted athlete 1968 the year King Lord ruled the roost where he lived and the high school he attended. This picture is a Basketball Team shot featuring H.Lord and three other Old boys that I can identify. Steven Barrett, Reggie Meech, and Norman Hambrook.

This shot showing his basketball skills:

But where he really stood out the most was his running ability as a half back on the senior Football team. Give this guy a football and nobody could stop him. He was definitively the talk of this football team that year and I think he won the MVP award.

His popularity at Westmount High the year of 1968, his graduating year earned him the prestigious honor of being crowned Prom King and the inspiration that he showed me and I'm sure a lot of other kids has stayed with me all my life. Thanks King Lord for showing the leadership and just that cool strut that you got. By the way, he still insists that you refer to him as King Lord... well Howard, you know what you can do.
Volume 002

Just Like John

No more pleas, as they don't work. The Hutline has been up just a little over a year now, and according to Google Analytics we're still showing about 450 hits per month. The interest is still there despite the signups on the Old Boys List.

I don't know about you guys but every so often I either think about an old boy or think about Weredale House where I lived a long time ago. There are so many stories, good and bad, and remembering them either brings a smile to your face or gets you upset. As I write this newsletter, I'm remembering this old boy, John Matoucha, coming into the home and for some reason he was bullied more than any other boy that I can remember ever getting picked on. He had his nose broken as well as needing his jaw wired in order to fix it. Not a day went by without seeing him with black eyes or a fat lip. As I look back now it was probably the fact that he would not fight back but preferred to try and walk away. He never had a bad word to say about anybody. In my books he was truly a Warrior. He inspired me that no matter what happens you have to push on. He always came back to most reunions with a huge smile on his face kind of like showing that nothing ever happened to him. For me I was never really proud of this place but I'm not ashamed of it either, probably just like John. So thank you Mr. Matoucha for your brave antics and showing me what a good person you were.

The dining hall is on fire!

When asking Jimmy Koutsoufis about the fire at camp this was some of his response:

hey bobby,

How and why the dining hall burnt down...summer of '65 i think? Come to think of it, i never really gave it much thought as it being a mystery 'n all. Shucks, i remember wakin' up in the hut (eeries?) 'n seein' the light of the fire shinin' through the screen door, with all dem shouts from the rest of the hutline. When i got me outside, i sure freaked when i saw the burnin' flames of the hall through the trees. It all happened so fast, and before we knew it, we got bussed off back to the city...

Yeah bro, that would make a good article for the archives. Especially if we had personal inputs from other guys with their own perspectives.

He went on saying a whole lot more that I just could not print here, but was definitely a good read. So, like he says, anybody know how this fire started?

Stuff that may happen

From the very beginning of this site I wanted to do a cartoon caper depicting everyday mayhem of life in the home. I just could not find an affordable toon artist to do this until now. She is an amateur artist that has at least shown some interest, so we may start this very soon. Jimmy, wether he realizes it or not has given me the name of the cartoon that we will use so thanks to him for that and keep your stories coming as we may use them in the cartoon caper.

Also from the beginning of the site we were suppose to get a mountain of pictures of the 125th Reunion of Weredale house but the person that has these pics has been procrastinating on how to get them to me so I have not received them as of yet. But I'm sure this will happen in the near future. I have had numerous emails suggesting some sort of interactive stuff such as a forum or message drops so that we can all read, but my problem with this is that I would have to be here daily to try and monitor or even keep the peace editing what I thought was true or false, I'm trying to keep the site holy "smile" I have not ruled this out but just not right now. So I am trying to keep the Hutline interesting and up to date with your help, keep up the interest. I would tell you to make the Hutline your homepage but hey, who the hell wants to be back in the home? But do come back often because I do not want to forget you guys.

Have a Safe and Happy Holidays and thank you so much to the boys that wrote the stories and sent the pictures and a very special thank you to my son for building the Hutline.
Volume 001
Event: We would like to let Old Boys know of a small get together for a beer and supper at the Griffintown Pub on Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 5:30pm. Corner of Notre Dame and Mountain St. All are welcomed. Andrea K., William Flaschner and a few other notable Old Boys will attend to rekindle memories and have a few laughs.
The Plea

Welcome to the Hut Line,

We would like to say thanks for supporting the web site and hopefully you can pass the word on and get some old boys to 'Join the List'. We launched the site September 10, 2009 just to keep the spirit alive, because deep down there is a little voice that every so often says "were the boys who make no noise?", what ever that means? Through the years being a computer enthusiast I often thought about building a site for a means of getting in touch with old boys that no longer lived in Montreal, after having left the home forty years ago and thinking probably most people have acquired a computer by now, except for Jerry Cummings and also the demise of the Weredale Old Boys Association it seemed like a good time to as I have already mentioned, to keep the spirit alive. There are a few more reasons that prompted me to start a site but I will not get into that right now. We are a dying breed and there will probably never be a Home on the scale that it was ever again. The site will never get any bigger than who is left and the way I see it we are dropping like flies. "There may be flies on some of you guys but there aint no flies on us" With that said, in my opinion this maybe our last hurrah, so get an old boy to join the list and help support a good idea.

Camp Weredale at 75

I attended the reunion for commemorating the camp at 75 years old and it was so good to feel that bond of friendship that I can only get when meeting fifty or so Weredale Old boys. I'm sure Mrs.Craig and Chief would be proud that most of us have not forgotten the place that these two people dedicated most of their lives to have kept them in our thoughts. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for all their time, hard work and a lifetime of dedication to this Home and to the founding of this Camp. It was great to see this new Totem Pole erected at the foot of the dining hall, truly a Weredale Old Boy will be the one to appreciate this gesture and also thanks to the artist that put in the work to make it a significant symbol of this camp.

V.F.McAdam (Chief) - August 23, 1946

The Hutline

Our primary goal and I can't stress this enough is to get as many Old Boys to "Join the List" as possible, and the secondary goal is to see the contacts being made through our email. We use Google Analytics a service provided by Google to study the traffic on the site and on average we are getting about 500 hits a month. If this was a site to make money I would be broke by now, but given the amount of old boys existing in this world it's not a bad turn out for people using the site, the average time on the site is about 5 minutes. Even though these stats are not bad the primary goal is being neglected, only 35 sign ups in about 6 months. Hopefully that will change in the coming months as I opted to get a least 100 old boys to join the list in one year from launching the Hutline, or more than likely I will take it down from lack of interest. But I still believe that the site is such a great idea and I still have a few very interesting upgrades that will jolt the memories and keep you coming back for more. I want to thank Ron Haynes , Glen Dorey, Peter White, Ed Eby and Richard Claveau for contributing the pictures and their time. Without the pics, this site would not exist. If anyone has pictures, artwork, ideas, or a good story that they would like to see in the Hutline just get in touch through the site.

Thanks for everyone that has taken an interest and come back soon to the Hutline.