Greg Welstead

 

My friend, Greg Welstead, (centre, green shirt) on his first day at the University of Guelph, September 1983. I wanted to send him it when I scanned this but I found he died in 2012 in an auto accident in BC. I've got another better one taken at the same time, but haven't been able to find it. He lived across from me at 101 Neeve, second floor, in a 19th century limestone house. Made lots of things by hand, like a bunk bed and a wine rack our friend had roped him into making for a restaurant. He was always showing me his latest tool. He went back to school as a mature student and studied hard, like he always did. He'd been a 'Big Brother' to a local youth, and when he found he was going to be a father he started reading books on parenting. He told me to buy the Olympus Trip 35 I used here - it had a light leak. When I was in Akwesasne during the Oka Crisis in 1990 I saw a Quebec provincial police officer still wearing a Trip 35 at a checkpoint on the fairly imaginary US-Canada border that runs through the reserve at St. Regis, one of four officers, one other Quebec officer and two Mounties who would stand at the four corners of the car and look in. I don't know if the guy with the Trip 35 was using it for work or for souvenirs.

The Bo Tree

Written in 2024 - The Bo Tree was a vegetarian restaurant in Guelph that opened in 1983. I think the address would have been 98 Macdonell but that block has been remodeled since then. It was run by James Fry and Virginia SmallFry (Her original name was Small). It only lasted a year or so, but it was the first vegetarian restaurant in the region. Their son Dylan was born in a little apartment around the corner. They lived near me in Guelph and I met James' dad and grandad. All three were English. His grandad told me stories of being a merchant sailor going to Murmansk during the war as part of a convoy to keep the Soviet Union supplied.  They also had the first Laserdisc player I saw - they played "Eating Raoul" and "Pink Floyd's the Wall". Goldie Sherman, Guelph potter and dancer who played with Jane Siberry was friends with them.

View from my Apartment, 1983

View from my apartment,  8 Ontario, Guelph, of the house next door in pouring rain, just before I moved out.

Pennsic War XII - 1983

Hand lettered sign - I rescued it from the dumpster after war was over. The 'streets' that were formed by the camps got their own names. Still keep it on the wall in my room as a souvenir!

These are some photos I took in 1983 at the Society For Creative Anachronism's Pennsic War, at Coopers Lake Campground near Butler, Pennsylvania. I don't know the names of most of the people in the photos - I was just tagging along. Done with an Olympus Trip 35 that had a light leak, sorry!

The late Sheldon Lofthouse

Lofthouse was later charged with gross indecency in a washroom sex case that went to the Supreme Court of Canada. I didn't know he was gay at the time - he was sharing his tent with a woman, but later I would see him in the showers at the University of Guelph even though he wasn't doing any sports activities there. At first he said the shower at his place was broken, but later after he'd moved and was still in the showers he said he just wanted to feel clean.