You hear Saint Louis before you see him. He wanders the lower Plateau with his dog Cookie singing his French songs. 

  I met Louis appropriately enough in the Carré Saint-Louis three years ago shortly after returning to Montreal from Alberta. That first day we chatted about Life and the meandering paths each of us had taken to arrive on that particular bench on that particular day facing the splashing wrought iron fountain. 

  Since that first encounter I’ve run into him on a fairly regular basis. And like I said, you always hear him first. Sometimes I might be sitting on a park bench when the deep throated sound of his operatic voice rises above the din of the street. Other times I am walking and I follow his incantatory strains until we greet one another with a smile, handshake, or sometimes a hug. 

  Last time we met he was carrying a thick portfolio under his arm and was a little farther from his natural habitat. 

  “Where have you been?” I asked. 

  “I’m just coming back from my course,” he said. 

  “Your course?” I asked, surprised that he’d be taking a class.

  But my French is not perfect and he corrected me. 

  “Not course, court.” 

  “Ahhhh,” I said, laughing. 

  The city bylaw officers and the courts are always after him because while singing his songs he walks Cookie without a leash. That’s a no-no. And since retiring many years ago he’s signed the condominium he lives in over to his daughter and therefore owns little to nothing. As the old saying goes and the courts and bylaw officers have learned: ‘you can’t get blood from a stone.’ 

  Keep singing your song, dear Saint Louis. 

  You are the antidote to a troubled world!