Montreal Ghosts Toastmaster Talk

 I have a confession to make, when I travel around  Montreal I see ghosts!

  Mr Chairman, fellow Toastmaster and most welcome guests, I’m not alone in seeing ghosts in
 Montreal.  Indeed this city is the most haunted in Canada, if not North America.  On Mont Royal the
 first nations would bury their dead and an Algonquian warrior has been spotted there.  A decapitated
  Mary Gallagher comes every 7 years to Griffintown looking for her lost head, a phantom horse-drawn
 carriage appears on St Paul Street in Old Montreal, Dorchester Square covers in a mass grave and
 Beaupré the Giant whose corpse was on display in a museum now wanders the theatre 
Monument-National.

But those are just the famous ones, the ghosts who choose to haunt me are not well
 known.  They first contacted me via this Notman photograph.

 

These ghosts saw both my strengths and of my weaknesses, and took possession of me.  I was the 
perfect  mark for their plans. The club they had created in Montreal thrived till the end of the 19th
century. Back then these ghosts were well known, respected.  It was the gilded age and in the 1890’s 
they were part of a movement that was the center of attention.  Then something they did not expect
 happened, the bicycle became commonplace, no longer new and exciting like electric trolleys
 or automobiles. They became forgotten, ghosts that few were aware had ever existed.
 They seemed truly dead and buried.

    But, the ghosts did not rest in peace, the electric trolley disappeared from Montreal and cars
 are no longer seen as the new exciting way of the future. Cycling in Montreal is  undergoing  a 
renaissance. Every where there are new cycling paths, heated debates are overheard between 
those who love or hate it.  These ghosts took possession me. My thoughts became a haunted 
house of their making!

    They forced me read in their diabolical minute book, instructing me as to which covenants 
were to be obeyed.  In an attempt to appease them I refound the club, based upon their rules. 

   However even that was not enough to satisfy these ghosts, it was just the start. They had
“Fixtures” up to 4 times a week announcing these rides in Newspaper ads.  They demanded
 that the new club also perform these rites! I was told to announce new Fixtures on the internet 
and to call the webpage a  Fixture calendar.  They have high expectations on the new club.

    In addition to Fixtures they had a mania for minutes of meeting.  Any assembly of members that
 achieved quorum was a meeting and every meeting required minutes.  Fixture rides all had to be
 documented in the Minute book.   I did all I could to appease these ghosts but they were never 
satisfied.

    One of them, Louis Rubenstein, constantly whines to me “Why doesn’t anyone know who  I am? 
 I was a world champion figure skater, a well known Montreal Alderman, in addition to 
being a famous cyclist.   Now there is only one lousy memorial drinking fountain with my name 
upon it in all Montreal!"

 In order to satisfy these ghostly egos, the club abandoned the real names and identities 
of the current members. The new minutes are written as if it was the actual ghosts have
 come back to life in the 21th century.   Maybe it is true, other members of this modern
 club appeared to be haunted as well..

Images of old meeting places the club used to use become super imposed by the ghosts 
upon us, blurring the distinction among us between past and present, living and ghost.

    We needed help, these ghosts keep demanding more and more from the living.  Each ghost
 has a story to tell, who they were, what they had done.  This madness is spreading, total 
strangers email me telling me now how they too have been commanded by the cycling ghosts 
who want their life stories to be told.

The ghosts are demanding, yet fair.  The cause they are promoting is right for our times.  Signs that help is on its way are becoming apparent . Planned Fixture rides and Minutes of Meeting are appearing on the website without my help. The Montreal Bicycle Club seems poised to rise again. The ghosts may triumph yet!