Author: Bill

There will be lots of places to see pictures of the food and the performers at the annual celebration of everything Greek, but where else can you find details about the crowd that attended… with names, even.

Brendan and Julianna, son and daughter-in-law of my friends Crawf and Ulli, invited me to join them and their friends Emily, Thomas and their kids Charlotte and Owen for my first experience of the Taste of the Danforth street fest. Julianna’s mom is still here from Korea, helping her with her early days as a new mother, so this was also my first chance to meet her and Hayden, the new baby.
Thank you all for including me in your day. It was perfect weather and perfect company.
Oh OK, one food shot. Here’s what I tasted on the Danforth…

I’m not sure exactly where he is but the family went on an outing to Cowichan, B.C. yesterday, so my guess is that he’s at a marine display there.
Carson is the eldest son of our niece Stephanie and her husband Trevor. He’s about 64 years younger than me but he could teach me a few things about looking cool.
Photo credit: Danica

I like libraries, so I suggested that John Robert Colombo and I explore the Beach Branch while his wife Ruth shopped for sandals. We paused outside to examine Wordsworth, the bronze owl. It looked stylistically similar to the Lion/Griffin pair flanking the entrance to the College Street Lillian H Smith Branch. Sure enough… made by the same architect/artisan team of Phillip H. Carter and Ludzer Vandermolen and installed in 2005 as part of the library renovation and expansion.
Colombo’s expression is hard to read. Is he just humouring my photo request? Or does he have some doubts about the owl? I’ll go with the latter, because doubts are in order. The librarian inside pointed out that the owl is female (baby owls hide at her feet), yet the unheeding public chose “Wordsworth” the winner in the naming contest. “Should have been a female name,” the librarian asserted. Well, yes, but technically, since Wordsworth is a surname, let’s say it’s uni-sex. Moving right along…

Striking paint job, eh? It looks even more vibrant against all the greenery showing through windows that look out onto adjacent park.
I took the photo from a small mezzanine, to show the second floor which had been closed to the public for many years before the refurbishment. A new addition on the west side expands shelf space considerably and adds a window-lit reading area with big, comfortable chairs.
It’s a Carnegie library. One of the great things about visiting with Colombo is his encyclopedic knowledge. He was able to flesh out my “Carnegie” labelling with the fact that the great and lasting program of philanthropy had been enacted in order to whitewash Carnegie’s reputation as a ruthless union buster.
For years

I knew it would be big from a number-of-jokes point of view. There are over 1000 of them. But when I received a couple of physical copies today, the overall dimensions came as a surprise. The cover is as as big as a sheet of typing paper. I was expecting something paperback size. Thick, to be sure, but smaller.
Anyway, I’m delighted with the way my cover came out and it should show up well on the shelves. Here’s the write-up on John Robert Colombo’s site.

I just received an email containing a fake link to a “fax” I could pick up online by clicking to view it in my PDF reader. It looked scammy, so I didn’t click, of course. Google says it’s been around for a while. It delivers the Zbot trojan virus, so just trash it without clicking any links.

It wasn’t hard to get up early… I felt like a kid at Christmas and couldn’t wait to get onto the bike paths with my new wheels. I posed the bike on the rocks for a beauty shot and photographed it from the nice, smooth asphalt path.
Today was all about learning how the gear levers work, and where the various paths lead. I still need practice to get the rust off my riding skills, even though I’m just going for easy, comfortable loafs.

The Bean Sisters (the nickname is a story for another time) Anna and Danica show a bit of provincial patriotism as they wait for the annual Symphony Splash to begin.

Just look at that sky full of summer clouds! The Simpsons sky, as brother-in-law Paul likes to observe.
Peter Bartosh inspired me to get back on my old bike and follow him down to Queen’s Quay. Pretty crowded right downtown, especially near the ferry to the Toronto Islands, but mostly a green, easy,open path ride. The east side waterfront is a mix of industrial activity, some parkland and a lot of seemingly vacant acres overgrown (very pleasantly) with weeds and native trees.
Along the way, I discovered a professional soccer pitch (two fields, actually), a place where motorcyclists take their ride tests, a Go-Kart track and a driving range with what appears to a drive-in movie screen(?). In short, there’s a lot going on down there that I had no idea about. A bike is really the best way to see it all.

Danica has unearthed an original airbrush painting Helen did (right) and I’m glad we have it. The work isn’t anything special aesthetically but the title on the back reveals Helen’s wish to justify the aboriginal motifs that she used so frequently in her paintings.

Perhaps “justify” is the wrong word. I don’t think Helen ever had any qualms about borrowing art ideas from others, but the title suggests to me that she may have wanted to explain her personal history with native art. That’s Helen as a baby, in the arms of her mother Fanny.

The ashes of Alan Mercer, husband of storyteller Joan Bodger, are said to have been stealthily placed under the foundations of the Lillian H. Smith branch of the public library on College near Spadina. Joan Bodger had one of her young protégés do the deed at night, climbing over the construction fence and down into the pit.
Friend and prolific author John Robert Colombo has published many, many tales of haunted Canadian buildings. I wonder if he knows about the Mercer ashes. The source of my tale was a kind passerby. I thought to ask his name but then decided it was better left a mystery.

Handsome bronzes of a winged lion and a griffin flank the arched entry way. Such figures were used historically to guard tombs and sacred spaces. How appropriate. I include the shot of yours truly because Colombo says I include too few… usually because I’m the one behind the camera. In this case, Bill Byres was the photographer.