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The Feller Riot: I saw a picture on the site about no holding hands and would like to inform those who do not know how that rule came about. In the year of the Feller riot of 1956 there was a teacher by the name of Mr Emile Lemoine. Anyway, he was the one who came up with the rule that there was to be no more holding hands. Up to that point it was allowed on the Sunday walks and at other functions at school. To quote Mr Lemoine, his reasoning for such a thing was that "you start with holding hands and the next thing the girl is pregnant". He was floor master on the second floor where grade 10 and 11(of which I was a member) were at the time. We knew him very well and had a meeting with him and that is what we were explained. Of course not many were happy with this new rule and that is why the Feller riot of 56 happened. The boys decided they would protest a few days later when everyone realized it was for real. I spent four years there and never saw anythig like it. All the garabage cans on the floors were dumped all along the halls everywhere, down the stairs, in the bathtubs, the water was turned on in the tubs and and left running to flood the bathrooms. The boys tube to the gym had every window broken. For those of you who remember they were large with many small panes in them. It took about 2 weeks to repair them. All this happened during the winter time and believe me it was cold coming back from the gym when you were all sweaty. Mr Boisvert was not very happy when he came out of his house to see what all the noise was about ( yes it was that loud that night ) when he started walking on broken glass that some had put all the way around the u in front of the school by breaking any bottle or anything else made of glass that could be found. The odd thing about this is that I do not recall what punishment we all had for our night of protest. |
| The Paper Chase:
We did beat this rule however later on in the spring. Each year we had a paper chase. This event was organized by the students council. On the council was my cousin Rachel St James and Olive Kunzli (who has been my wife for almost 42 years) and the rest I don't recall just now. Anyway the crux of the story is that it was for all high school and it was up to them to set up the teams and which teacher was the leader of each. For some reason that I do not know to this day is how the faculty did not object to the setup. The council set it up so that all the 'couples' were on the same team and our teacher was Mr Cram. Don't get ahead of me here. Mr Cram did start with us. The chase took us all the way to and through the sugar bush and beyond, back around by the signal tower somewhere. Mr Cram keep up with us for about the first 15 minutes and went back to the school. After a few "detours" and "unscheduled stops" we rushed back thinking we would be far behind everyone else. To our surprise ( and to everyone else ) we were the first ones back and won the paper chase. |
| The lost keys:
On a different note I remember the lost keys episode. Mr Lamb who was house master at the time, had a key for every door or lock in the school. These he kept on a key ring which he always had on one of his fingers and kept playing with them. I mean he never went anywhere or did anything without them on his fingers. He taught manual training and while showing how to saw a piece of wood the keys were there. I saw him referee basketball games with the whistle in one hand and the keys on a finger of the other. Well lo and behold one day in the dining room it was anounced that Mr Lamb's keys were missing. Everyone was informed that whoever had them better come forward and hand them in right there and then and they would not be punished or be expelled. No one know about them so no one said anything. We were told to file out of the dining room and go directy to the chapel. Teachers had lined up to be sure no one went anywhere but the chapel. Everyone sat there for 4 hours while they made a room search. We all wanted to know who had them and were told to be quiet numerous times. The keys did not turn up in the search. For the next few days we all wanted to know who had the keys because we knew they included the ones for the iron doors. They finally appeared about 2 weeks later. Mr Lamb had them handed to him by a day student who said he found them outside. We later found out he was the one that had them all the time but was afraid to use them or tell anyone he had them. Too bad because a lot of people could have made good use of them. |
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