It was a very cloudy October 23 evening in 1964. I had arranged with some youthful members of my high school astronomy club, the Amateur Astronomers Association, to meet at St. Ignatius Park in West Montreal to observe this interesting meteor shower. To encourage our observations, Isabel Williamson from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada planned to meet us at the park and record what we saw and did.

It was completely cloudy. Most people would have just canceled the watch, but not Miss Williamson, as she was always referred to. “Even if we just go through the motions,” she explained, “the watch will have educational value.” So we gathered at the park, warm clothing, deck chairs, and clouds, and began observing. There were four observers, one for each cardinal direction, and Miss Williamson acted as recorder. We sat and watched clouds and learned from the expert how to observe meteors. Miss Williamson knew what she was doing. She had organized dozens of meteor watches over the years, including one, on October 9, 1946, that netted more than 2000 meteors and the Chant medal, the highest Canadian honor given to an amateur astronomer.

During the night in the park some other kids came by and saw us sitting there in the cold on lawn chairs.