Posts with the Uxbridge-Scott Museum tag

Barris Beat

Passage out of childhood

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

For some it’s the first ride on the Ferris wheel or the bumping cars. It might be that first night public skating and holding hands with someone of the opposite sex. For a lot of young people it’s Prom night. I guess it depends on when the parents in the equation think the son or daughter is ready to move from childhood toward adulthood. For me, that move came at an unusual moment. It came, after harassing my mother for months, when she finally relented.

“OK, OK,” she said. “You can go, but you have to go with friends.”

You see, when I was about 10 or 12 years old, the place we considered the ultimate destination was the Royal Ontario Museum. (more…)

Barris Beat

Victories of heart and territory

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
Mother Canada mourns her dead: key element of Walter Allward sculpture at Vimy Ridge memorial in France.
Mother Canada mourns her dead atop Vimy Ridge memorial in France.

It’s not often a person walks in the footsteps of an ancestor. Nor are there many opportunities to sense the sights, sounds and smells that someone who lived nearly a century ago experienced.

Recently, I read about such an experience when I was asked to endorse an application by a member of our community for the Beaverbrook Vimy Prize. As part of her application, Rebecca MacDonald, 17, wrote about her great-grandfather, Walter James MacDonald, an engineer in the 13th Canadian Mounted Police who served at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917.

“Standing in the trenches and the fields of Vimy Ridge, I could feel his spirit,” she wrote.

(more…)