Church and rainbows

The original St. Elias Church. 10193 Heritage Road Brampton, Ontario, probably 1998. The church was destroyed in a fire in April 5, 2014, but has been rebuilt (uncropped view)

Teasels were introduced to Canada to raise the nape on woolen goods with their spikey heads. They are now a common weed.

 

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!

 

Maximilian Sunflower (Helianthus maximiliani), Texas, 1993

Maximilian Sunflower (Helianthus maximiliani), Texas, 1993. Named after Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, a German prince and naturalist who travelled in North America in the 19th Century and catalogued many plants, and recorded the lives of native peoples.

 

Happy Hair

Happy, Texas 1993. Happy Hair, now closed but was on 200 E Main, which is the same building the post office is in. I spoke with the mayor of this town of a few hundred people. Very friendly older woman, probably did everything for the town. Happy is shrinking - losing 10% population a year due to water shortages. Much of downtown is boarded up.

 

CN Tower and Tulip Tree

Street with tulip tree in bloom, CN tower, Toronto, Ontario, 1997

 

Viking Polaris going downstream, 12.30 pm, July 7, 2026

 

Viking Polaris going downstream, 12.30 pm, July 7, 2026

Ray Davies, c. 1994

Ray Davies reading from his autobiography 'X-Ray' c. 1994, Toronto. He talked about driving through a desert in America with someone with a phone in their car in the 60s or 70s, and the driver, who he wouldn't name, picking up the phone, talking rudely to someone, then hanging up and telling Davies that was Elvis.

 

Young Cancer victim at RCMP Musical Ride

c.1994. She had a form of leukemia and in order to cure her, doctors had to destroy her bone marrow and replace it with donated marrow. The odds were against her, but she made a recovery, and this is her a few months after treatment at an RCMP Musical Ride.

 

Big pants at the fire

Fire somewhere in Ontario, 1990s. Some kids really did wear pants with the crotch a few inches above their ankles

 

Anti-fur protest, Toronto 1994

Anti-fur protest, Toronto, Spadina?, c. 1994

 

Fireworks, not the Fourth of July or Canada Day

Fireworks in Black and white. Probably southern Ontario, c. 1993 or 1994, not Fourth of July or Canada Day. I was just driving along and saw them and set up a tripod.

 

Angelo Moore, Fishbone, Toronto, c.1991

 

Strawberry Moon

June 29, 2026

 

Fatal accident on 401, near Milton

c,1996, Car slid under trailer. I think the Mansfield bars (named after Jayne Mansfield, who died in a similar way) had crumpled. It was on a Saturday near Milton, Ontario so I think the guy wearing a cowboy outfit was called in on the weekend. 1990s

 

Brenda Elliott, MPP for Guelph Wellington

Brenda Elliott, Member of Ontario provincial parliament, sometime after 1995, probably in Guelph.  Held seat as Progressive Conservative from 1995 to 2003.  Minister of Environment and Energy and  Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

 

August 25, around 1996, double suicide on tracks near Baden

There's no way of stopping a train quickly - it takes about 1/4 of a mile at least. The engineer saw what he thought were trash bags on the line ahead of him, then one sat up and tried to run. Since the crime scene was 1/4 mile long there were about 50 officers searching for clues. They found a busted cassette tape but no player. It was a young man and a woman. The engineer wasn't able to talk. 

One thing I remember was seeing a tagged evidence bag of bloody rags on the trunk of a cruiser right next to a box of Timbits (donut holes),

The Star usually didn't publish suicides, but it wasn't known when they assigned me it,

 

Fairy Ring

  Fairy Ring Champignons (Marasmius oreades), le Marasme des Oréades, Faux Mousseron, Bouton de guêtre, Cariolette.

Form in a ring of green grass about four feet (1.2 metres) across 

About three days later - more shrooms!

Purdon 2026

Showy Lady's Slipper Orchids are in full bloom at Purdon Conservation Area, near Lanark, Ontario

Et maintenant?

                                                    Jocelyn Forgues, (left) director of  "Et maintenant?", speaks at Aultsville Theatre in Cornwall

 "Et maintenant?" is about a musician dealing with cancer. Shot in eastern Ontario, including a house in Lemieux that must have been abandoned when the town was closed in 1990 before the landslide that destroyed the land where it was. I liked  Debbie Lynch-White, who played the bubbly volunteer driver.

Soccer Field in Fog at dusk, Gray's Creek Conservation Area, South Glengarry, Ontario June 7, 2026

 

Magic Tom's grave

Magic Tom was a Montreal magician who performed on both French and English Television. Magicpedia 

He's in the same cemetery as my parents and sister Mary.

                  Magic Tom's grave, 45.014535,-74.9277831, Plot 4366, St. Lawrence Valley Cemetery, 15570 County Rd 2 R.R. #3, Ingleside, Ontario

He did Bar Mitzvahs

And did French and English TV. I watched him all the time on CFCF-TV and I think I saw him live at Expo '67.