I’m in Montreal for a Best Western convention. I used to visit this Quebec city frequently in the ‘70s, when I lived in Burlington, Vermont, only 90 miles south. I always liked Montreal; I remember coming here with Susan Linsky and Peggy Kuchta and Donald Rafael from Burlington. Susan was a friend, Peggy was more than that, and Don was a buddy. Black, too. I remember one morning in the early hippie ‘70s when we all woke up for breakfast and Don literally skipped down the street saying he felt free. No prejudice, at least not the American kind, was apparent here. Still isn’t, and the city, which feels way foreign and mostly French, is as diverse and appealing as it ever was.

The east side is French, the west side English. I used to walk down St. Catherine, the key commercial boulevard (like Michigan Avenue in Chicago), enjoying the crush and variety and commerce. Still true. I also used to hang out around McGill College, in the English section. That’s where I and some coworkers used to go to get sexual education printed material for Planned Parenthood of Vermont, where I was a counselor in the earliest ‘70s, before Roe Wade. You had to go to Canada for freedom in the sexual sense, too. Montreal’s a sexy city. Feels free, like we used to in America.

It’s friendly, too. I went to the Bay, a big department store on St. Catherine, in search of winter cargo pants. Couldn’t find them. A guy I asked about them made some suggestions and when I told him I didn’t know how to get to where he advised, he took me there. We spent 15 minutes talking and walking. I don’t know whether I’ll ever see Suilun again, but I’ll remember him. Montreal’s a civilized city, at least most of the time.

Not always, though. I got here on Saturday the 13th and stayed at a Candlewood, a limited-service InterContinental hotel. The place was OK, except that there was a fire on the second floor early in the morning, rousting all the guests, who had to be evacuated. There we all were, in the cold, for about 45 minutes. It was literally alarming. The drunken young louts who kept mock-fighting didn’t raise the calmness level.

This morning, however, the Candlewood let everybody stay beyond their scheduled departure times. That almost made up for the chaos of the morning.

It’s been a month since I posted. I’m negligent. I’m apologizing to myself. I have to think through this blog. Is it a store? A diary? An outlet? Maybe if I get better at linking and importing, blogging will be easier and more natural. Anyhow. Time to catch up. It’s been a busy month, as usual.

The biggest event was my friend Jack visiting from Boston for three days at the beginning of October. He’d never been to Cleveland. I hadn’t seen him since ‘04, when I last went to Boston to tie up business stemming from my father’s death in late ‘03. But we’ve kept in touch, as we have ever since we met in 1965 at Boston State Hospital in Mattapan, where we were sent to “cure” us of narcotics addiction. It didn’t work for either of us, at least not then. But we made lifelong friends of each other.

In 2001, Jack broke his neck in an accident at work; he slipped on paint. It permanently disabled him. A settlement with his former employer has given his family a degree of comfort, but it didn’t make Jack whole. The accident, combined with drug and alcohol use far heavier than mine ever was, seems to have damaged him deeply. His short-term memory is shaky, and because he can’t work, he hasn’t really engaged for the past six years. He told me his visit to Cleveland made him more relaxed than he had been in years; what life at home is like I can’t imagine, though his wife is a well-organized sweetie, his son a gifted artist. It’s how he spends his days that’s disturbing, and I worry for him.

When I brought him to the airport, he was apprehensive and timorous, not the Jack I used to know. He wasn’t confident I knew where we were going. He wasn’t sure he’d remembered to pack everything (in fact, I had to send him his phone charger later). I love him. I also felt like I did toward the end with my father: more competent than him, caring and angry. The anger part is the problem I have to resolve. I don’t want to see Jack this way. I want him back in life, so we can talk like we used to and assume each other is strong like we were.

Part of the issue is growing old. When I met Jack we were in our early 20s (he’s six months younger than I am) and felt immortal. Seeing him in Cleveland brought home our mortality, the fact that we’re on time’s downside. I’m going to work on my patience and affection and see if I can tamp down an anger that can have no possible beneficial effect. It was great to see Jack, stressful though it was at times. It wasn’t so great to see how I reacted to him.