February 13, 2021: With the Covid-inspired lockdown still in effect here in Ontario, seven weeks running with no end announced yet, I wanted to go back to a happier time. In recent weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about times when I’ve gotten together with friends to share memories and laughs. I wondered briefly which moments stick out the most and it didn’t take me long to focus on a huge university reunion from just 16 months ago. I started this piece not long after returning from Montreal. Now seemed like a great time to finish it and smile at the thought of better times, then and in the near future.

From Langley Hall To Here

In walked Joe. The ever-elusive Joe. The same wiry, soulful, curly-haired Joe who once lived on next to no money, ate his morning porridge from a borrowed dented pot with a broken-off handle, and made a giant tub of Price Club peanut butter last an entire school year.

With his arrival, on this Saturday mid-afternoon in Montreal (October 12, 2019) – on the 24th floor of Hotel le Cantlie Suites – the moment was finally real. The reunion of the original Pitsters plus friends, from Langley Hall circa 1991, was here.

The other eight of us had already made at least one appearance each and it was a mind-blowing moment as each one joined the gathering: at the hotel, at lunch at Schwartz’s deli, at the Concordia University bookstore. It was like a dream where an important person from your distant past randomly shows up and you wake up saying to yourself “What the hell is Andy doing in my dream?”

Speaking of Andy, the celebrations started when I got to the hotel Friday evening and met him, Brian and Rob outside. Along with Joe, we were the Pitsters: the basement dwellers, the self-proclaimed kings of the dungeon. Around Langley Hall, this distinction made us infamous. We were trouble, apparently. We never could figure out exactly why but we never bothered to deny the leverage it gave us: no one that we didn’t like or invite ever came down to visit us. Our squalid sanctuary was the foundation for our many shared experiences, including many late-night hours of listening to loud music and endless mocking … of everything, especially each other.

That place was the rhyme, reason and entire explanation for why 29 years later Rob and I (best friends now) organized this once-in-a-lifetime event. We set a date and put out the word: “Guys, this took nearly 30 years to happen and may not happen again for a long time, if at all.” Word came back from one guy after another. Most everyone could make it. The Facebook buzz was building.

We came together from places near – Montreal itself, for Ashraf and Carl – and far – Andy, Chris, Dave and Joe from Toronto, Rob from Edmonton, Brian from Vancouver, and me from Burlington – to reminisce, eat, drink, play pool, visit old haunts and Montreal highlights, and to just have fun.

‘This is the Pit; We Live Here in the Fucking Shit’

I don’t know who ingeniously nicknamed “The Pit” nor if it took much imagination to come up with the moniker. What else would you call a short row of old basement student apartments that was sprayed bi-monthly for silverfish? Where you kept windows propped open amidst a Montreal winter because the radiators worked too well. Where, honestly, the amenities were few and the level of sanitary was barely above livable. Where the rent was as close to negligible as the year 1991 permitted. And … where five young guys lived, and their select group of friends gathered, during a colourful and unforgettable time in their lives.

‘The Fucking Shit’ came about because Rob used to wave his finger at things dismissively and vaguely proclaim that “it’s over there, in the fucking shit.” It might have seemed to be a ridiculous way of expressing himself but since we knew and understood Rob, we felt it was his way of saying “Don’t bother me with trivial nonsense. I have important things to think about.”

The moniker was impressive enough that Andy’s younger brother wrote a slow-jam alt-rock song about it. The main lyric goes: “This is the Pit. We Live Here in the Fucking Shit.” Andy still has it on his phone and played it for us.

Back then, if you didn’t know or weren’t dating anyone who lived in the Pit, and you weren’t the cleaning staff, you were urged to look for a clear signal that we – namely Brian – approved of your presence. If you got the idea that we didn’t like you, you simply didn’t venture anywhere near us. It was that simple. And why would you come close? The laundry room, adjacent to the Pit’s entrance, was the only reason to pass nearby. The TV room was down the hall and the huge games room was a couple of turns further away.

Incidentally, the games room was where we often gathered to “shoot stick” on the snooker table that substituted for a pool table. No one bothered us there either. It’s as if we had an invisible forcefield around us while we gathered.

Beer was always consumed but you didn’t dare spill a drop near the snooker table. For one, if we ruined the table, it was truly ‘done for’ because no one would soon repair it. Similarly, you couldn’t spill beer on the ground – or anywhere for that matter – because wasting beer got you a major ribbing – primarily from Brian.

Much of the rest of the building was … well, we didn’t care much about it. Everyone we did talk about – the seedy characters, mostly – came into our lives somewhere between the building entrance and our individual Pit doorways.

Then there was the Mariette residence; the other side of the building, the tame all-female response to our co-ed crudeness. Surprisingly, perhaps astonishingly, we were well-liked over there and some of the girls became friends and, for a time, girlfriends.

The Weekend’s Itinerary

There were less and then there were more of us, at times just four and up to the full nine on the main event, Saturday evening. That evening we feasted at Le Boucan Smokehouse on Notre-Dame, then decided to play pool on St-Catherine. That was the only time we had Joe, who’d made a special stopover on his way back from Europe.

The rest of the time we made use of the most fun city in the world. We watched hockey at a sports bar, ate lunch at world renowned Schwartz’s Deli, bought bagels at legendary Fairmount Bagel, visited both campuses of Concordia University and ogled the changes, paid personal homage to Langley Hall, now a well-refurbished retirement home. We also saw a few of our old apartments post Langley Hall, had a long lunch at Carl’s place with his lovely family, spent a great afternoon in Old Montreal, ate dinner at the legendary Bar-B-Barn, had a spectacular breakfast at l’Avenue, and looked around and around and around.

On the last day, it was just Rob and I. We had a great hike in Parc Mont-Royal and had dinner at a way overpriced sushi place. We finished off the next day with lunch at Reuben’s deli. Then, lamentably, we set off for home.

The Reminiscences

A lot of living happens in 29 years. There’s no way to re-hash even a small chunk of it in a single weekend. So we didn’t much try. We just had a damn good time. There were moments of poignancy: One guy’s mother had recently died; another’s wife had a major cancer scare. But mostly there were a lot of smiles and laughs.

It was like old times and yet it wasn’t. We were the same yet totally different. Everyone was greyer but mostly we’d all made it through life pretty well so far. It seems we all carved out decent niches. This we knew in advance from our online interactions. When we gathered, we didn’t talk too much about each of our career directions because it wasn’t the point of the weekend.

We visited Langley Hall on the Saturday afternoon and everyone had a good long look at the place that will forever bear our imprints. It’s now called Résidence Lev-Tov. Presumably no one younger than 65 lives there. Brian took the longest look, down to his old room, Room 2. I wish I would have asked him if he could still hear AC/DC blasting from his stereo, the loudest one in Rez.

The brickwork looked a little glossier than years ago and the windows and roof were newer. I suspect the silverfish are long gone. We all concluded that the insides now bear little resemblance to the barely passable sanitation of the early 90s. The buoyant spirits of our past, however, are sealed in there for all eternity.

We all had queries, with no easy answers, about our shared history. I don’t recall the exact queries but they sounded like this: What do you think happened to [that freak] who lived on the first floor? Where do you think [any particular girl] ended up? How much longer do you figure the snooker table lasted? Do you think the people who live in the Pit now would freak out if they knew what we did there?

I took over a hundred photos over the four days. I don’t want to miss out on remembering where we went and what happened during each part of each day. I have a shot of me and Ashraf against the backdrop of the former apartment we shared together on St-Marc. It was being torn down and a new building – presumably a condominium – would go up in its place. Like Langley, that ode to my past is gone. As is Monsieur Hot-Dog, the fast food place that once stood moments away. And much of Concordia University is different now: more buildings, different landscaping, cool new statues and a vastly improved football field. But the restaurant Souvlaki George is still there, albeit under new ownership. Carl says it’s crap now, unlike 29 years ago where it was a great place for an affordable dinner, Greek style.

The Memorable Moments Way Back Then

We laughed about the kitchen wall, where we used to write outlandish things that one of us – me, namely – said. Back then, we didn’t much care about getting in trouble for defacing the place. We were just having fun. Once anything outlandish came out of your mouth within earshot of any of the other guys, there was barely a five-second pause before you heard a pronounced, “Write it on the wall!” If I remember correctly, Andy gets credit for the idea.

We talked about all the hockey we watched. Jeez, we sure watched a lot of hockey on the TV in Rob’s room. Hockey Night in Canada was a Pit staple but we called it by our own short form: HNIC (pronounced H-Nick). We all knew what it meant, then and now.

I reminded Joe about the incident he’d rather forget. I was sick when the five of us gathered in my room. Joe was lying on my futon while I was across the room in my chair. I felt the sneeze come on and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My head tilted back and then vaulted forward. Out it came: a giant loogie that spun end over end and landed with a light splat on Joe’s neck. It was hilarious then and it still is now. Joe took it in stride and I believe he continues to understand that it makes for a good story.

We laughed about the time Chris was the first floor RA (resident assistant) and came down to us shaking his head in consternation. He said he was asked to tell [a certain foreign student] that he needed to shower more often because other residents complained about his body odour. “How do you tell a guy that he stinks”? We felt his pain, even in reliving the situation.

We recalled the Rez toga party in the basement, where bed sheets were put to interesting use as makeshift costumes. I reflected on stepping on a thumb tack and being too drunk to feel the pain, until the booze wore off.

We reminded Chris, Dave and Ashraf how ‘fortunate’ they were in being allowed to come down to the Pit and share in our delinquency. They were three of our favourites because they had the requisite sense of humour to handle us. They didn’t judge, or at least didn’t reveal their judgement.

We recalled the stupid Rez ‘dishes rule’ that saw the ‘powers-that-be’ try to fight us because we insisted on leaving our dishes out to dry. Our position was that the Pit was different than the other three floors because we were isolated and no one else came down to use our kitchen. The Rez administration tried to throw out our dishes and we – namely Brian – fought them on it. I wish I could remember the outcome.

There was the time that I bet Brian on the duration of the Second World War. I dumbly insisted that it lasted from 1941-45. He knew better and made the bet quickly. I soon realized my mistake and tried to weasel out of it, fearing losing a precious $20. He let me go with a stern warning of the consequences of saying stupid shit.

We wished that a few others could have been there this unforgettable weekend. Without naming names, two are from the East Coast. One still lives there while the other is in California. Another is from Wales and lives in Taiwan. There were others mentioned as well and I may be remiss in not recalling their names now.

Carl was initially my friend from Hingston, the other Concordia residence. He shares our sense of humour. He didn’t know all of the old stories but he sure laughed a lot at hearing them for the first time. I hope you’re laughing just as hard now.

‘An honest man’s pillow is his peace of mind’

We all loved rock and roll but had radically different tastes. Yet there was one particular song that we played loudly and proudly, belting out the lyrics in unison. It reminds me more of those years than any other song. It’s John Mellencamp’s ‘Minutes to Memories.’ It’s not his most famous song but to us, it’s unmistakably his best. It probably got played more times down there in the Pit than anything else. As much as any Led Zeppelin or AC/DC track. That’s a lot!

The thing is, the song isn’t relevant to a bunch of young university guys, unless you consider that it rocks like few others. It’s the recollections of an old man recounted to a younger man (presumably, Mellencamp) on a long bus ride through the US Midwest. It’s about learning from the past and trying to live the right way, without regret – like it says in the most memorable line: “An honest man’s pillow is his peace of mind.”

I know the song still means a ton to me. It’s one of my all-time favourites and it’s all because of those years. I don’t know if it would even stand out for me if not for those guys and those times at Langley.

But what does the songs say about us mangy Pitsters? It’s an unabashedly sincere tune. Does it mean we’re not as much fun as we thought? I hope that’s not true. It could mean we’re sincere to a fault underneath all the humour. After all, I’m guessing you can’t get a bunch of aging busy guys together from across our massive country if there’s not some real sentiment under the surface. Drinking and laughs alone don’t add up nearly that much three decades later.

True memories do. And so, to these guys, every one of them, I say, we’ve built more memories now. Hopefully they mean as much to you as they do to me. Let’s do it again, whenever possible. Five more years max. I’ll be in touch. In the meantime never forget, as ‘Coug’ said: “You are young and you are the future, so suck it up and tough it out and be the best you can.”