Alex Bacopoulos
I hold the best vivid memories of my years at the U de M (1970-1979). There were some special colleagues that I remember very well from that time and that I admire to this day. To mention a few: Paul Bratley, Bob Cleroux, Jan Gecsei, Pierre Robert (who hired us all), Jean Vaucher, Stan Selkow and, more recently, Guy Lapalme. At a next opportunity I’ll tell anecdotal stories about Mark Gold and Ray Zahar.

I also remember the dear students with 20+ cousins each, their enthusiasm in discovering the new - at the time - world of computers and having a head start in the digital revolution to come. My French was so bad that my students (in the midst of Loi 101, independence, souveraineté, etc.) pleaded with me to teach in English ! André Dubuque, was my first PhD student at U de M. He quickly became chairman au Département d’informatique à l’Université Laval and, Jean V. informs me, he has subsequently been very successful indeed in the “real” world of producing Informatique. Félicitations André !

During my 9 year stay I also enjoyed learning many things Québécois (le sirop d’érable, la slush, la boisson caribou, mon pays c’est la neige, la poutine, les ‘‘maudits -------- ’, etc, etc.). I made good friends and imported to Greece a pure-laine Québécoise, Diane Viau, and her artistic baby boy Mathieu, whom I helped raise in his formative years until the age of ten. With Diane, in Greece we had a beautiful and talented daughter, Alexandra-Katerina, now 22 years old, an Honours student at McGill. Katerina has been coming to Athens every Christmas and summer vacation since 1990. Mathieu, 26, was here in Athens most of 2006. He is a doctoral student of Art History and Pre-Columbian Archaeology in Manchester, U.K. Besides the academic aspects, during my stay in Montreal I also enjoyed things “politique” –---- un pays in accelerated transition to understand its history and its modern identity.

In perspective, I have been lucky to have lived the 60s experience at the US Universities, the 70s in Québec and the 80s in Athens, Greece (where a May 68-type of revolution pas-si- tranquille took place).

Hopefully this “celebration retrouvailles” will provide our new students with some perspective of the DIRO “then”, when P.C.’s had just appeared with sloooow speeds and expeeeensive mini memories.

With cherished reminiscence.

Alex Bacopoulos

Alex et Alexandra

Alex Bacopoulos a obtenu son doctorat de l'Université de Wisconsin à Madison en 1966. Après Montréal, il est retourné en Grèce au National Technical University.