by Jeff Noonan
Over the weekend, I had a long telephone conversation with Mom. She was really excited that I had gone to Canada and found a friend. After all, Mom was still a Canadian citizen, and she still had a lot of loyalty to her homeland. She also told me that things had gotten a lot better at home for her. She had finally asserted her independence with Dad, and he was not the threat that he had been. She also told me that Kathy was helping her a lot with the younger children, and that was allowing her to work more. She was particularly happy to tell me that she was actually current with all of her bills and hadn’t been cut off from her favorite grocery store in over a year. That was, for both of us, a major accomplishment.
Mom’s best friend, for the past twenty years or so, had been one of the St. Regis grocers that had been forced to cut off our family’s credit time and time again. This had naturally placed a lot of strain on the relationship, but Mom was very proud to report that they were, once again, the best of friends. This was really good news for me because the grocer lady, Ida, had always been very good to me, and I liked her a lot.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Vive Quebec Libre’
It seemed like forever before my next trip to Quebec rolled around. I was supremely nervous. Had I misread the signs? Would I be welcome in this far northern French-Canadian stronghold? Wouldn’t her father, the university professor, see right through the uneducated sailor and throw me out of their lives? What the hell was I getting into? I almost cancelled the trip because I was so nervous. Probably the only reason that I didn’t cancel was the fact that I had talked so much about it with my friends that it would have been humiliating to not go through with it. So I got underway.
It was quite a trip. Danielle had warned me to fill up with gas before leaving Quebec City on the way through. She was right. Shortly after leaving Quebec City, I entered what the girls had called Laurentides Park.
The sign said “Reserve Faunique Des Laurentides,” so I assumed I was in the right place and kept driving. Danielle had not been wrong about either the distance or the scenery. It was about 130 miles through this park and it was all mountainous. I passed by one of the most beautiful lakes that I had ever seen, Lac Jacques Cartier.
This country could easily tie Montana for beauty, I thought. It was stunning. In fact, it seemed much more pristine than even Montana. The rivers and waters were crystal clear and I saw no sign of the kind of clear-cut logging that had devastated much of Montana. Canada had obviously set this huge area aside for a reason, and I, for one, really appreciated the effort.
Finally I came out of the park and began seeing signs of life. Danielle had drawn me a rough map and I followed it from here. My road atlas didn’t show the town of Kenogami, but she had told me that it lay between the larger town of Chicoutimi and Jonquire, so I headed for them. Soon I found roads and landmarks that showed up on her hand-drawn map and I zoomed in from there.
I really felt like a fool when I walked up to the door of her home that day. What should I say? I spoke no French, and that was obviously the only operative language within 200 miles of this place. I was out of my depth here. I almost turned around and headed for the safety of Maine.
But somehow I found myself knocking on a door that was attached to what looked like an older row home. An attractive middle-aged lady answered the door with a, “Oue?”
I managed to stammer out, “Does Danielle live here?”
Her face broke into a smile that lit up the whole area. She answered in rapid-fire French with about a billion words, the only ones of which I understood were “Oui” and “Jeff?”
I smiled and said, “Yes, Jeff,” and pointed at my chest.
She then turned and shouted, in the manner of mothers everywhere, “Danielle, C’est ami, Jeff!”
Danielle came to the door, beaming at me. “You really did come!” Then mass confusion reigned. Danielle introduced me to her mother, the lady who had answered the door. By the time that was done, and I had been ushered into the living room, Danielle’s father and three brothers were there. Apparently, an American sailor was quite a curiosity in this part of the world. Of course, I was wearing civilian clothes, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. Her father, Georges, helped her interpret for the brothers, although the oldest one, Pierre, seemed to get along quite well in English. Her mother and the two younger boys spoke no English, so communicating with them soon became a source of hilarity for all of us. The family was warm and welcoming, and my fears soon faded.
It was getting late in the afternoon by now, and I was immediately invited to dinner with the family. The dinner was something that I had never heard of before—a French-Canadian specialty called pork pie. It sounded atrocious to me, so I tried to ease out of it by telling them that I had to go downtown and find a room. That didn’t work at all. Nothing I said would dissuade them from not only dinner, but also the fact that I should stay at their home while I was in the area.
Since I couldn’t get out of it, I decided to shut my mouth and try to get the pork pie down. I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, their pork pie, which was made with carefully spiced and baked ground pork, soon became one of my favorite meals. It was absolutely delicious!
The dinner conversation was very pleasant. Danielle’s mother, Muriel, was a very interesting person who, using Danielle and Georges as translators, grilled me on my background, goals, and life in general. But she did it so pleasantly that I did not mind in the least. She was making sure that her daughter was safe, and I certainly didn’t blame her for that.
When she was satisfied, she deftly turned the conversation to their family and other local relatives. By the time dinner was over, I knew a good bit about the family and felt that I had achieved a bit of a rapport with Muriel. Actually, I liked her, and I felt that the feeling was mutual.
The father, Georges, was a just as friendly, but was more interested in politics, quizzing me on my political views and wanting to hear about my father’s political involvement. (Of course, I made no mention of Dad’s alcohol problems, just his political life.) Georges was a short, stocky, man who was apparently solely focused on politics and the Free Quebec movement. His entire dinner conversation was on this topic.
Georges told me that, as a college professor, he had been one of the earliest members of the Alliance Laurentienne, the original movement founded in 1957 to free Quebec from Canada. By the time I arrived on the scene in 1964, the movement had evolved into two groups known as the RIN and the FLQ. The RIN was relatively moderate, trying to achieve independence by political means, but the FLQ was a much more extreme group that had no compunctions about violence and advocated armed insurrection if necessary to achieve independence. Georges claimed to be a member of the RIN, but he spoke very fondly of the FLQ people he knew and the things that they were doing.
I found out that the family had one relative who was not French; an Englishman who had married Georges’s sister and who was adored by the family. I thought that was very interesting since Georges had made it very clear to me at dinner that he was, almost devoutly, opposed to all of what he called “English Canada.” I remember being baffled by the fact that he was so radically opposed to their government, but was still tolerant of the English uncle and was so very hospitable to an American who spoke no French.
It was a dichotomy to me at the time, but I found out later that Americans and Englishmen (from Great Britain) were considered acceptable company, even allies, by the French-Canadian separatists. In their eyes, the enemy was any citizen of Canada who did not speak French.
After dinner, Danielle volunteered to show me the area so we climbed into my car and headed out. She didn’t want to drive, so I did, following her directions to all of the area points of interest. As before, we had a wonderful conversation, complete with some laughs and a lot of personal information. I learned that she was from a large extended French-Canadian family, most of who were here in the Kenogami/Chicoutimi area.
Danielle and I stopped at a local night club fo
r a drink and ran into Yvonne and some other friends. I was a bit of a celebrity with them since Americans were very uncommon in this lost little part of Canada. I enjoyed it tremendously.
By the time we got home, Danielle’s parents had fixed a bed for me in their den (far, far away from their daughter’s room), and I was soon asleep, exhausted from the trip and the events of the evening.
I was awakened the next morning by Danielle’s brother, Pierre, who told me that they were getting ready for church. “Do you like to go with us?” he said.
I thought fast on that one. I knew that the French-Canadian people were overwhelmingly Catholic, and that was probably where they were planning to go. I had never been in a Catholic church before, but how bad could it be?
I knew that it would probably be important to the family, so I said, “Sure” and proceeded to get dressed. I had brought some slacks and a nice shirt, but nothing better, so I wasn’t sure about the clothes. But Georges assured me that I would be fine, so I went with them.
On the way, I whispered to Danielle that I didn’t know anything about a Catholic service, so she kept me from getting in any big trouble. Since the service was in Latin and French, I just did what I was told and pretended to understand it. I sat when I should have knelt and knelt when I should have stood, but overall, I passed the test and escaped alive.
When church was over, we all went to an aunt’s home for a lunch in their garden. I remember thinking that it had to be considered the aunt’s home, not the uncles, because this aunt was obviously in charge of anyone and everyone within her sphere of influence, which appeared to be continent-wide. The word “matriarch” fit her perfectly. She and her husband, a local banker, were obviously wealthy, and she was very much the boss. This was an interesting cultural phenomenon to me, particularly after being raised by the old boxer and his trained-to-be-submissive wife. Actually I didn’t mind the arrangement except that the husband was too meek and looked almost afraid to be there or say anything. I remember thinking, Why does there always have to be domination and submission? Why can’t they be partners?
I have to admit that I watched Danielle very carefully while I was around this aunt. But, although Danielle seemed to really adore her aunt, she didn’t seem at all interested in emulating her. That was fine with me. I was looking for a partner, not a boss.
It was also very interesting that, whenever I was present, the family switched, as much as was possible, to English. They were very polite about this, and I appreciated it. Georges told me that it was out of respect for America and Americans. It also helped that I was awkwardly attempting to pick up some phrases in French. They really appreciated my efforts, small as they were, and they invariably stopped whatever they were doing to help me with this.
I didn’t have to be back to Bath until Tuesday, so we spent the day lazily visiting with Danielle’s family and relatives. It was a nice day, although I heard a tremendous amount of political discussion. It seemed that everyone in their circle of family and friends were seriously involved in the movement to free Quebec from Canada. In fact, the only two matters of discussion were the oppression of French Canadians and the fact that I was from a far-away, mythical, and magical land called “Montana.” They were really interested in everything about my family and my home state. I kept the conversation light and concentrated mostly on Montana, only touching on the surface in the discussions about my family.
As the hours wore on, I noticed that Georges and his brother-in-law, the banker, were having some heated discussions. I had no idea what they were discussing until I happened to be standing close to them at one point.
Since I was in the vicinity, the banker courteously switched to English and said, “Come on, Georges, things aren’t that bad here.”
At that Georges exploded, “No, things are not bad if you are a rich banker who can buy his way out of their shit. But we are not all like you. What does it matter to you if our children have to work in crap jobs because we have to speak English to even be a salesman? Unless they read English, they cannot even take a driver’s test! God damn it—we can’t even get a mortgage contract that is written in French, and our people are forever being screwed because they can’t even read the fine print, let alone understand it!” He went on, “Don’t you see that our people are discriminated against as surely as if we were a bunch of darkies in Mississippi? But we aren’t even as well off as they are. At least they have freedom riders trying to help them. In this country, if you speak French, you have no help and no rights. We’re not as well off as black sharecroppers in Mississippi.”
About this time, Matriarch Aunt intervened, telling him, “Georges, you know that I agree with you, but this isn’t the time or place for our tempers to get loose.” Then she turned to her husband and said something very quietly in French. The discussion stopped immediately.
Because my father had been so involved with the Democratic Party back in Montana, I had thought that I understood politics and political causes, but I had never experienced anything like this. These people were seriously and intensely committed to their cause. Some of them actually seemed ready to go to war. I was very careful not to offend anyone or make any comments that could be misconstrued. I wasn’t uncomfortable, just careful.
The next morning, I left for Bath, but not without promising to return in two weeks when I got my next long weekend. Danielle’s mother, Muriel, even fixed me a lunch to eat on the way home. It had been a magical weekend…one that gave me a lot to think about.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A Frenetic Engagement
It was July when I first met Danielle in Quebec City, and it was after the New Year when the Belknap left Boston heading south. My memory of this six month period is obscured by the haze that comes with doing too much too fast for too long. For me, these months can best be described as a frenetic maelstrom of events; events that came at me so continuously and rapidly that they have rolled together in my memory banks over the passing years. During this half-year, I think that I must have been living harder and faster than any time in my life. But it was all voluntary, and I know that I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.
The ship was in Bath until the last week of October, going through sea trials and pre-commissioning testing. I was working long, long hours in the shipyard, and whenever I could get two days free I was in Kenogami. Several times, I drove from Bath to Kenogami after work on a Friday just so I could go out with Danielle on Saturday and drive back on Sunday. It was an absolutely crazy schedule, but somehow I survived it.
Sometime that fall, I proposed to Danielle, and she accepted. We agreed on a long engagement because of my ship’s schedule and all of the Catholic rituals we had to go through in order to be married in the church. I really wish I could remember details of this time period, but they are lost in my jumbled memory of the hectic schedule that I was living then. I just know that I was happier than I could remember ever having been. My life was truly coming together. I was respected in my field of work, and I was engaged to a good woman. The memories of life with my father were fading fast, although I still had recurring nightmares.
I do remember telling the news to both of our parents. When we broke the news to Danielle’s parents, her father and mother were both happy. Georges, in his typical fashion, did tell me that, “If you hurt my little girl, I will sic the FLQ on you, and they will do you great bodily harm!” But he was smiling when he said it. Muriel and I were good friends by now (in spite of our language barrier), and she was overjoyed.
After we told her parents, Danielle and I, together, called my mother and told her what we were planning. Mom was overjoyed that I had found someone, particularly since my fiancée was a Canadian. Mom pressed us to set a date because, in her words, “I am coming to that wedding even if I have to steal the money to get there.” She was actually crying on the phone while she talked, and Danielle had some trouble understanding her, but we worked it out. That weekend, we took a lot of pictures and mailed some of them
to Mom. Then, as usual, I headed for Bath.
Over the next weeks, as the ship’s schedule firmed up, we picked a date for the planned wedding. We selected July 3, 1965, as the date. The ship would be back from Guantanamo and done with its first missile firings then. It would be in Norfolk Naval Shipyard then, and I shouldn’t have a problem getting leave. I checked with Chief Hall and Lieutenant Hurt before I made plans, of course. It was too early for them to give a firm commitment, but they thought the timing would work, so we laid the plans.
The ship came together a lot faster than I wanted it to, and in late October, we took it to Boston. It was an interesting cruise from Bath to Boston because the ship’s sonar dome, normally a huge, bulbous, underwater outcropping beneath the ship’s bow, was tied down on the ship’s foc’sle. The Belknap drew too much water to install it in Bath. If the dome had been installed, the ship would have gone aground attempting to transit down the Kennebec River from Bath to the Atlantic Ocean.
USS Belknap (DLG-26) was commissioned on November 7, 1964, at Pier Eleven in Boston Naval Shipyard. Then we went into dry dock to install the sonar dome, while my crew began installing all of the missile system changes that had been backlogged awaiting commissioning. The workload was tremendously demanding, but Mark and I made arrangements to get away for three-day weekends every other weekend while we were in Boston. That meant that we had to work at least twelve-hour days whenever we were on the ship, but neither of us minded as long as we could go “home” as often as possible. It really helped that both of us had been through this hectic post-commissioning period a few times before. We were able to get the job done with a minimum of rework and, in this complex work environment; our experience saved a lot of time and energy for both us and our crews.
The ship stood down for a liberal leave period over the Christmas and New Year Holidays. I took advantage of the stand-down to take leave and go to Kenogami. During this period, I met with the priest who was scheduled to marry us. Since I was going to be gone, he gave me a correspondence course to complete that was designed to teach infidels like myself about the intricacies of Catholic doctrine. I also had to swear that I would allow our children to be raised in the Catholic faith. Since I wasn’t particularly religious, that didn’t bother me, and we got over the “priest hurdles” rapidly enough. The wedding was firmly scheduled for July 3, and invitations went out.