Ontario Handgun Championships

 I went to a gun club near Kitchener, Ontario for a story in the mid-90s. It was really hard back then to get a pistol permit in Canada, and now there's a freeze on new purchases unless you're in a club that does training for events in the Olympics. A psychology professor from U of Waterloo invited me. He did say he was in a bit of minority  as an academic gun owner. It surprised me that in freestyle shooting they all weren't shooting .22s, but some people preferred larger calibres.

Pressed flowers

I don't know how these came into my possession - they are pressed plants with notes in Danish from 1946 and 1950 - they were in a folder with a dedication in English that said they were given by a mother to her daughter, both with typical Danish names, in 1979, and another note, probably in the daughter's handwriting, saying how she wanted to mount them for display, but which obviously never happened. They tell a story of a childhood hobby, migration to another country, a gift to a daughter born there, and what else? They had to have gone to a book sale or something for me to have found them, I think in a second hand comics emporium that was on Macdonell Street in Guelph in the 90s. There is a retirement home started by Danes south of Guelph in Puslinch called Sunset Villa, which also has a campground and a restaurant.
 

Bumper crop of cherries

Lots of cherries from dwarf tree - I only had a few last year, but this year another tree near it bloomed, so it got pollenated by another variety, which it needed. Sour cherries. Not a lot of Japanese beetles this year.

 

Colourful sailboat, Toronto, 1990s

Colourful sailboat that was moored at the foot of Yonge Street, Toronto, in the 1990s.

 

I'm in one of the crowd scenes

' Cheese on Top' - can be seen on Bell Fibe - https://tv.bell.ca/watch/vodAsset-8GMQW 

Cliff, Texas, c. 1993

Cliff, Texas, c. 1993

 

Wellesley Restaurant, 464 Sherbourne St, Toronto, Ontario, c. 1995

It's probably a Sunday. The saying, maybe by Leacock, was that you could shoot a cannon down Yonge Street on Sunday without hurting anyone, since the Lord's Day Act and provincial laws kept most things closed then unless it was a designated tourist area like Chinatown. Although those laws had been overturned, it still was dead downtown even in the early 90s. The next photos are of my friend, artist and musician Cheryl Jonah, and myself - I'm not sure if they were taken in the Wellesley, but they were on the same roll of film and it looks like the type of restaurant the place was:

Yes kids, in my day you could smoke in restaurants!

I liked this one!