Parading the Streets

I just started to write this blog post and stopped in mid sentance then hit the delete key.  I was going to start off saying 45 years ago Christmas time was different.  The 45 year thing stopped me dead in my tracks.  Wow, oh well on with the blog. I certainly have memories of Christmas but also of the time leading up to and around that special date. Back in the 50's my dad purchased two properties comprising about 400 acres in and near Sundridge Ontario.  As a teenager that was the middle of nowhere and at least a 5 hour boring drive from Oakville.  No tv, no radio, except WABC on the skip in the summer time.  That said, I do have some fond memories of going to Sundridge with friends such as Gary Welna and John Nash.  I have posted on Facebook some pictures of Welna and I swimming at Starvation Lake (great name eh!) and going through a sugar bush in the spring. My father, ever the entrepenuer, grew Christmas trees on one of the farms.  Each N...

As we get older why do we fixate on the past.  It is not uncommon for one of my friends on Facebook to mention an event or something special about growing up in our home town of Bronte.  The nice part is these memories are always about the good times, the fun times.  Some how our mind acts as a filter leaving behind the reisdue of those bad or uncomfortable experiences. Our lifestyles have changed over the last 50 years.  We are more affluent and have more stuff, but in many ways we are not as happy.  As kids we spent most of our time outside.  Whether fishing up the Bronte Creek at the abutments, swimming at the Bronte Pier diving board or playing road hockey in the Fall and skating on the creek in the Winter. One of my fondest memories was hanging out at the old Riverside Restaurant.  In many ways it was our "Arnolds".  At one end there were windows overlooking Bronte Creek and the bridge on Lakeshore Road.  That special spot was home t...