![\"L'\u00c9glise](\"http:\/\/richardaseguin.com\/fra\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/A_Church_in_Rockland_Ontario.jpg\")
<\/a>The Tr\u00e8s-Sainte-Trinit\u00e9 church in Rockland<\/p><\/div>Sundays back then were different than they are now. Most businesses were closed and everything was silent and hushed in town. Families spent time together, at church or around a dining room table and a good family meal. The
\n\u201cquiet revolution” had not completely obliterated our religious values and people had not yet become the bland consumers they are now. You read a book, went for walks, called up a friend, and prepared for the hard week that forever loomed on the horizon. <\/p>\n
But there was always Saturday, a day that stood apart from all the other days of the week. If you had a girl, you took her out. If you didn\u2019t, you went to the places where girls congregated, invariably some kind of dance hall. For me, it was the second floor of the Clarence Creek Arena, where a disc jockey played the wonderful R&B music coming out of Stax Records in Memphis, with artists like Otis Redding, Booker T. and the MGs, Wilson Pickett, Albert King, The Staple Singers, Rufus Thomas and his fabulous daughter Carla Thomas.
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<\/a>The Legion<\/p><\/div>In Rockland, bands from Ottawa occasionally came down to play in the main room of the Legion Hall. Local kids developed their own venues, hangouts like La Chandelle in the basement of the church, which also featured bands from Ottawa.. Across the street from the church, an old building that had served as City Hall, clerk\u2019s office and municipal
<\/a>La Bastille, with the old arena at the right<\/p><\/div> prison had also been transformed into a youth haven called La Bastille. In the east end of town, La Ste-Famille, a former elementary school building, became a thriving cultural center providing artistic activities for young and old. My fondest memory of this period is seeing the whole town come together to produce my first album \u2013 we went to Montreal to record it, had 1,000 vinyl copies printed in Ottawa and the album cover was designed at La Ste-Famille. People cut and silkscreened burlap and the ladies of the town volunteered their evenings to operate sewing machines that produced the burlap bags in which my first album was sold. It was a community project. I was so proud of my town and its wonderful people.
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<\/a>La Ste-Famille<\/p><\/div>
\nRockland had character back then and was not the dormitory town for civil servants it has now become. There were small town attractions, like the Cartier theater run by the B\u00e9land family. The theatre showed two different films each week, one Monday to Thursday and one on the weekend, in addition to the upcoming attractions, serials and, of course, cartoons. There was also the billiard room run by the St-Jacques family. Like Lafleur\u2019s neighbouring haberdashery, a second-generation store, the pool hall had tall tin ceilings and magnificent hardwood walls and floors, with a fragrance like no other.
<\/a>Le Castel<\/p><\/div>When he was a teenager, my father used to go see silent movies that were screened in the back of the main room at St-Jacques, especially when they had a Charlie Chaplin movie, his favourite. On the main street at the height of l’Escale, our secondary school, there was Le Castel restaurant, which was always filled with hungry students. The benches around the walls each had a coin-operated juke box with the latest hits.<\/p>\n
I played in a few rock groups, first with my good friends Martin Cunningham, Pierre Lafleur and Roch Tass\u00e9 – we called ourselves The Ravens. To read more about The Ravens and to hear us play The Rolling Stones\u2019 \u201cThe Last Time,\u201d click here<\/a>. I then played with my brother Bob and my good friend Tom Butterworth in a group called The Trend. Later on, Tom and I joined a group with local singer Andr\u00e9 \u201cGus\u201d Gosselin. There was also a popular group called The Elusive Butterflies (in the fashion of the day) which featured local guitarist Denis Bergeron and singer Don Boudria, who later became the Member of Parliament for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell in Jean Chr\u00e9tien\u2019s government. I also learned a lot just by watching two elite guitarists from Rockland, Denis Tessier and Ga\u00ebtan \u201cPete\u201d Danis. Pete went on to play for the popular country singers Bob and Marie King and Pierre Lafleur and I followed Pete wherever he played, mostly in the hotels of Buckingham (Qc) and Bourget (Ont).
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