Posts with the Toronto Star tag

Barris Beat

Wiser for their years

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Cinesphere at Ontario Place

I’d forgotten he was still around. I’d forgotten he was the second-longest-serving premier (14 years) in Ontario history. I’d forgotten he’d won four consecutive elections in the province. And – even though I never agreed with his party’s political philosophy – I’d also forgotten how clear-headed the man could be when it came to considering issues affecting the people. Then, the other day Bill Davis’s perspective came back to me when the Toronto Star quoted him,

“Ontario Place was conceived as a family place, with attractions, entertainment, food services, play and theatre areas all aimed at the family,” Davis told the Star.

At 89 years of age, former premier Davis (1971-1985) has nothing to prove. (more…)

Barris Beat

Smoke and mirrors

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Aurora Borealis as captured by Canadian National Geographic photo.

I had only been in the city a few days. When I arrived in Saskatoon that winter of 1972, I had a job – as a TV producer in the audio-visual centre of the University of Saskatchewan – but I didn’t have a place to stay. A friend directed me top a house rented by some U of S students. I met with them and and they said I could move into the available room – a kitchen on the second floor. They told me to bring my stuff a few days later.

I arrived at my new lodgings only to discover a phalanx of RCMP cruisers barricading my way into the house.

“Who are you?” asked one of the officers. “What’s your connection to this place? Clearly, I had walked into the middle of a police raid.

“I’m just moving in,” I explained. I later learned that the house where I was about to reside in Saskatoon was home to one of the busiest soft drug distribution points in the city.

(more…)

Barris Beat

Curb-onomics

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
One man’s trash…

It just looked like a pile of paper from the outside. And I guess because it was paper, it sort of weighed a lot. But the plastic bag I used to haul all that paper to the curb had probably previously hauled groceries from a local store so it could take the weight. And if you looked inside that bag, you’d have seen a number of famous people – John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill and the Apollo 11 astronauts – all captured on the front pages of old newspapers with headlines such as:

“Kennedy Assassinated,” lamented the Globe and Mail in 1963.

“Churchill Mourned,” announced the Toronto Star in 1965.

“Man Steps On The Moon,” read the Toronto Telegram on July 21 1969. And the newsprint of the Tely, some of you will remember, was coloured pink! (more…)

Barris Beat

Not even in the Greys

Written by Ted Barris on . 2 Comments
First on radio, then on TV’s “Hockey Night in Canada,” play-by-play announcer Foster Hewitt gave audiences a sense of being right in front of the action.

Monday night I was driving. I was on the edge of the range of the radio station broadcasting the Leafs-Bruins Stanley Cup playoff game. It was late in the third period. The signal faded momentarily just as play-by-play announcer Joe Bowen’s voice rose in intensity describing an up-ice pass from Mitch Marner to Patrick Marleau. And just before the radio signal dropped out completely I heard Bowen shout out his patented exclamation:

“Holy Mackinaw! What an enormous goal!” With that goal, the Leafs won the game, 4-2. (more…)

Barris Beat

Statue of limitations

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Col. Henry King Burgwyn Jr. – photo University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The basics of the story were chiselled into the brass plaque in front of us. It described the heroic advance of a young colonel in the Civil War. More important, beside the plaque, in this little gulley known as Willoughby Run in the middle of Gettysburg National Military Park, one of my dearest historian friends, Paul Van Nest, described the final charge of an officer with the 26th North Carolina Regiment on July 1, 1863.

“His name was Henry King Burgwyn Jr.,” Van Nest said. “He was just 21 years of age, the youngest colonel in the Confederate Army. It was his last charge.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Bowing to young leaders

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Monte Winter announcing he’ll be stepping down after 32 years’ service in Ontario Legislature. Toronto Star

A few weeks ago, I read a story about the end of an era. A man who’d come from a family-run gourmet meat business and then had been elected to the Ontario Legislature in 1985, was stepping down. Monte Kwinter had served his constituents in the riding of York Centre for 32 years, but now he was retiring. The Toronto Star’s Robert Benzie asked the former solicitor general about his decision to leave.

“I am proud of what we accomplished during that time in my riding,” Kwinter told Benzie. But then the 86-year-old Member of Provincial Parliament added something I didn’t expect when he said:

“It’s time to turn over the reins to a new generation.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Icon at a gas bar

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

It’s the sort of thing I do mindlessly. Pull up next to the pumps. Pop the gas tank cover lever next to my driver’s seat. Walk around to the pump. Pick up the nozzle. Press the self-serve request for gas. And fill my gas tank. Then, just as mindlessly, I walk into the gas bar booth to pay for my gas. Only this time, when I entered the booth, I was almost bowled over by the music blaring inside.

“There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run,” an unmistakable voice was singing from the booth speakers.

And I nodded my head so the booth attendant would realize I heartily approved. And then I asked him why that music, why that loud?

“Because this month is Canada’s 150th,” he said with a pinch of patriotism. “And after all, it IS the greatest Canadian song ever.” (more…)

Barris Beat

The value of teaching music

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
View from the back of the Agincourt Collegiate band … with music teacher John Rutherford conducting. (May 1967)

Most of the time I sat among the back seats in the rehearsal room. But that’s OK. As long as I kept one eye on the music charts in front of me and the other down front where conductor John Rutherford stood, I knew I’d stay in step with the rest of the group. I just had to wait for Mr. Rutherford’s downbeat and I was part of the performance. And that meant a lot to me. He’d often begin the rehearsal with the same words of encouragement.

“OK,” Rutherford would say. “Let’s make a little magic.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Was it stolen valour?

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Unknown to historians, Charles Loewen addressed the logistical challenge of landing an army in wartime France.

Early in 1943, the military planners in London, England, coped with the ebb and flow of the Second World War, but they did so secretly. Squirrelled away in his tiny office at the British War Office, an experienced Canadian-born artillery officer grappled with a logistics problem about an upcoming military operation. But the stress proved overwhelming for hm. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t focus. To switch his mind off before bed, he tried reading detective stories. Then, he tried something completely different.

“I set up a fly-tying table,” Charles Falkland Loewen wrote in his memoirs, “and before going to bed sat down to tie a fly or two. I found that this absorbed one’s complete attention … and really unbuttoned my mind from current problems.” (more…)

Barris Beat

The REAL ‘We the North’

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
From a grade school primer reader, All Sails Set, a sketch from the story about Canada’s winningest basketball team.

Over the weekend, I read with moderate interest about the latest woes facing the Toronto Raptors pro basketball team. All week long, the Raptors’ brain trust was grappling with the news that Kyle Lowry’s wrist surgery might put the Raptors’ all-star point guard on the shelf for the rest of the season. Here’s now the Toronto Star’s Bruce Arthur put the loss of Lowry:

“It’s like a team losing both its brain and the biggest part of its heart.” (more…)