Battered but beautiful

Let’s not give up on Montreal

Hi, everyone: It’s been centuries since I wrote, but I’ve known you forever — because I live right beneath your feet. I’m your city — Montreal! — contacting you for the first time in ages.

I don’t normally write because there’s no need: You water my streets, feed my parking meters (too much) and fill my potholes (sometimes). I feel “the love” more than most cities.

But what the heck is going on lately? Suddenly I feel like I’m living in a soap opera — All My City’s Children — with new melodramas, revelations and resignations every week. I’m feeling stressed out, like I’m cracking up — and I don’t just mean my roads and sidewalks.

My city government is in ruins, my mayor has resigned in disgrace and my reputation is in tatters. I’m normally a charming, discreet town that doesn’t makes headlines — I prefer to be a well-kept secret, not a drama queen like today.

My troubles started last March when I was in a festive spring mood, as my snow melted and my terrasses warmed up. Then, suddenly, student protesters were marching down half my streets, vandals were smashing my windows, cops were pepper-spraying my citizens and I found myself all over the international news — even mentioned at the UN in the same paragraph as Russia, Zimbabwe and North Korea. That hurt!

Yet this was only the start of my tempestuous new life. Next thing I knew my premier called a snap election and I was in the middle of it. The Parti Québécois said I sounded too English and it wanted to reform me by regulating everything from CEGEPs to English womb tunes.

For awhile, I worried it wanted to take the “all” out of Montreal.

Pardon my anglais but I’ve had English in my veins since long before Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity, then co-founded this newspaper. Of course, I’m a French-speaking city — le soul en Amérique du Nord et j’en suits fire — but I speak fluent English, too.

That’s why I’m pronounced both Montréal and “Montreal.”

The entire election gave me migraines — too much tension and division — but it ended on a note of peace and a premier who promised a truce. But next thing I knew, I was in the news again as Hurricane Charbonneau hit my shores — battering my image once more, knocking out most of the powers at City Hall, as well as flooding the Canadian media with stories of my plight.

I’d already known my roads were decaying, my overpasses crumbling and my arteries blocked (by construction barriers) — but I figured that’s what happens when you’re 370 years old like me. Who knew gangsters were stealing my asphalt with the help of my own City Hall?

I worry what will hit me next. A plague of locusts, or a local version: winter-resistant mosquitoes? Maybe even an earthquake — oops, I forgot, I just went through one of those, too. At least I didn’t get hit by hurricane Sandy, then a snowstorm, like my cousin New York.

But just yesterday my financial guru, Michael Apple- baum, quit my executive committee after his party chose a “temporary mayor” who even I’ve never heard of. Applebaum was a natural for the job but he has an old-time anglo accent — so apparently he couldn’t pass the French pronunciation test by correctly saying:

“Je vais accueillir un écureuil et un chevreuil sur ma rue à Longueuil.”

I don’t actually care what accent my mayor has as long as he’s honest and fights for me. And frankly, I’d like a premier who cares about me too, not just my language — and who unites my citizens, not divides them. Also a prime minister who promotes both my languages right across Canada. But at least I’ve still got Obama next door.

So don’t give up on me, Montrealers — I think my best days are still ahead of me. I’m awfully lively for my age — full of zing and younger at heart than most brash young cities on the continent. I’ve got a fabulous downtown, lots of unique neighbourhoods and a mountain at my heart that makes me mysterious.

I’ve got two great world languages that we should be celebrating, not fighting over. And if I do say so myself I’m a romantic, unpredictable, intriguing, exciting, special town — battered but beautiful, full of potholes but full of life. And I want to party again — soon!

Meanwhile, at least there’s a bit of good news. My local Mafia members have recently started shooting each other like my biker gangs once did — just before they all fled to Toronto. Maybe that’s where my gangsters will move, too, since their gig here is ending.

Now if they could just take along take my politicians. Desperately yours, Ms. Montreal