Part way through B.J. Byers’ concert last Saturday night in Uxbridge, the young pianist finished one of his toughest pieces – an etude by Chopin. He wiped the perspiration from his face with a towel, smiled broadly – as if he had just conquered Everest – and acknowledged the packed house at Trinity United Church.
“There was once a time, I wouldn’t have been able to face this,” Byers said. “I would have just turned and run away.”
I saw my mother do it. I saw my grandmother do it even more. It wasn’t something my grandfather ever did. And I never saw my father do it. Although, after he died in 2004, we did find some of my father’s military papers from the Second World War when he served a sergeant in the army medical corps. And those papers suggested he knew how to do it. On his Honorable Discharge papers when he left the U.S. Army in December 1945, his attestation revealed that he had done it.
“Civilian occupation,” the discharge papers revealed, “Sewing machine operator.” (more…)
About a week ago, a friend up the street visited my next-door neighbour on a mission. With his pickup truck empty, save for his chainsaw and a can of gas, He began a day-long project dissecting the remains of a piece of history. A maple tree that had stood near the street at the corner of Ronnie Egan’s property for nearly a century had dropped too many dead or dying upper limbs to be safe anymore. So the township decided for the benefit of all concerned that the tree should come down.
“I cried the day they took it down,” Ronnie Egan admitted to me. “It was very sad to see it go.”
Last summer, I made an interesting discovery. Not surprising, since I was conducting research. But what I found wasn’t quite what I expected. Although it was actually quite close to home. I happened to be researching in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where, I discovered, they’ve been experimenting with something relatively new in their part of the world. What’s more, they’ve made a YouTube video about it.
“All about roundabouts,” the video says. “Getting in and getting out…”
A few years ago, a good friend of ours in town began working on some special projects. They were pieces of handyman work. Things such as ramps alongside staircases, wider doorways inside houses and railings and handles for people with temporary or permanent disabilities. He got the work because Kate Thompson-Hawks (from Durham Access-to-Care) knew that he understood the needs of her clients.
“We knew you’d be fair,” she said, “and you’d do a good job.”
Even in liberated communities, there are some areas still considered off-limits to certain people. Children aren’t often seen in pubs. Most women don’t hang out in repair garages. And men don’t generally frequent manicure and pedicure salons. The same could be said of men in sewing shops and the like. In fact, last Saturday afternoon when I decided to pay a courtesy visit to the Quilters Cupboard in Uxbridge, Ont., I got a predicable response when I entered.
“Hey ladies,” a voice announced from inside the store, “a man has just entered the shop.” Most got a chuckle out of the remark. Me included.
On Nov. 16, 1860, George Davies made history. The lighthouse keeper climbed the newly constructed, 15-metre-high, conical tower of Fisgard Lighthouse at the entrance to Esquimalt naval harbour on Vancouver Island. His appointment not only helped the British claim sovereignty of the Pacific Coast, it also made a statement about public investment in literacy. In addition to his salary for the nightly lamp lighting atop Fisgard, keeper Davies received a $150 stipend to purchase magazines and books.
“It is of the utmost importance to the interests of the Lighthouse Service,” the Governor of Vancouver Island stated at the time, “that the minds and intellects of the lighthouse keepers should not be allowed to stagnate in their isolated and … desolate stations.”