Transistor Radios: Monastic Cells

Les Canadiens De Montreal Dept: Many years ago, a number of my high-school classmates and I were taken on a religious retreat deep into the city's East End. As I recall nearly a half-century later, the intended purpose of the serene outing was to determine if any of us had a calling for priestly life, according to Montreal Gazette. Meals, on the other hand, were shared in absolute quiet, while familiar earthly distractions were not sanctioned. However, being dyed-in-the-wool Habs supporters, several of us managed to sneak into our respective monastic cells tiny transistor radios, so in vogue in the early 1960s. With mine tucked meticulously and deceptively under my pillow, I was able in the late evening to keep track of one of my more secular obsessions - les Canadiens de Montreal and gazette columnist Jason Magder's recent striking revelation that he is "obsessed" with his smartphone comes as little surprise to anyone with eyes to observe this incredible world in which we live. Indeed, Magder's public confession "There's some rotten bits in Apple," Opinion, Jan. 6 provides an occasion for my own anecdotal musings on the subject of modern communication technologies and the almost desperate attachment of the young to them. I do not remember if any new "recruits" were in fact found for the cause, but what I do steadfastly recollect was the strict discipline imposed upon us at the time. Reflection, meditation and prayer were encouraged, and throughout what seemed an endless weekend a deafening silence was very much the order of the day. Only in the austere chapel was the soundlessness occasionally broken by the direful lamentations of Gregorian chant. As reported in the news.
@t high school classmates, reflection meditation