Recently, I went for a snowmobile ride with my father Gratien, 84 years old, straight as an oak despite the health problems of the last months. The more difficult months made me appreciate each moment spent with him even more. That’s why I was smiling in my helmet the other day when I watched him ride with me on his snowmobile.
I thought I was really lucky to be able to experience that. I remembered all those winter moments that I love so much. I remembered my childhood at the cottage. I used to spend my days riding my Sno-Jet in the back field. Not tall enough to sit on it, I had to kneel on the bench to grab the handles. Not strong enough to start it, my dad had to do it for me. When I look back on it, I still get that feeling of immense freedom. I could go wherever I wanted when I wanted. I was no longer the little child that wasn’t big enough to sit down.
I was something of an adult. Hooked to the Sno-Jet, everything was possible… Until my scarf got stuck in the carburetor and the engine choked. Misery! I then had to walk back to the cottage and ask my father to come and take it away. When I arrived at the cottage, I would sit with my father, my uncles and the little Laurentians and wait. Sometimes I managed to get a sip of beer. Okay. I know I was little, but a sip …. never killed a little guy in a skidoo. When my father decided to come and bring me this, it was with his coat wide open, with my uncle Milien’s Sno-Prince in the carpet and me hanging on to him that we went to my freedom vehicle. He would take it back to me without crying and go back to chatting with the uncles.
As a teenager, I didn’t go to the cottage as much, but I still had this passion for snowmobiling. When I came home from school in high school, I would rush to get on my father’s Blizzard. To me, this machine was the most beautiful thing humans have ever built. Black, yellow, orange with such well designed curves, that Skidoo haunted me. I remember running out of the bus to get on the Blizzard as fast as possible. I would go to the Cabane à Hill to get a hot chocolate and come back for dinner. My first real feeling of pure speed was on that bus. Excited and scared at the same time. It was exhilarating.
My father trusted me. On the old Sno-Jet or the Blizzard, he let me go on my own. That confidence built part of the self-assurance I still carry with me today.
Thanks Dad. I love you.
