Me in 1991

Visiting my sister Mary's friends in Queens. We went by the house that had a very nice Christmas display (I can't remember which one - Google says there are at least two famous ones in Queens), and John Gotti's house, which just looked like any suburban home.

The house had an creche scene behind glass with lots of small hand carved wooden statues.

Manhattan near my sister's place. Madonna used to live in the same building before she got famous.

Near my sister's in Alphabet City

Queens Christmas house

Visit to home in Queens, sister's boyfriend was only about 19

 

Ducklings, Bluffers Park, Toronto, c. 1991

 

About 15 ducklings, one mallard hen. This was taken at the shoreline of Canada's largest city. Bluffers Park, Scarborough (now part of Toronto), c. 1991, Anas platyrhynchos, Canard malard

Robert Charlebois, another bad concert photo

I don't know where or when I took this photo - maybe 1985 and in either Quebec or Ontario. I know for sure that I saw him in Three Rivers in 1984, but I didn't have a camera with me then. He always put on a good show.

 

Kalamazoo Regional Psychiatric Hospital

 I wondered for years what this was - it's a water tower for the Kalamazoo Regional Psychiatric Hospital, built in 1859, with the tower going up in 1895. Taken from Interstate 94, on my way back to Canada, Fall 1993

 

Coronado Historic Site

Bernalillo, New Mexico, 1993. This is the site of the Tiwa Pueblo of Kuaua, settled about 1325

Craftsmen selling carvings

I remember stopping by the road to talk to a biker named John and a linesperson named Pedro. John was smoking a pipe on his Harley and said sometimes the border brings out the worst in both cultures.

 

Cleo Laine at Elora Quarry, 1997, not a good picture

Great concert - she was on a raft in the middle of the Elora Quarry where the 2017 movie adaption of Stephen King's It filmed the diving scene. Unfortunately darkness was falling and I was using a telephoto without a flash.

 

Giant puffball at Guelph Lake

 

Giant puffball, Guelph Lake Conservation Area. Someone had left this by the dam. 1990s. Calvatia gigantea, Vesse-de-loup géante. These are edible but don't keep for very long so the best way to keep it is to slice it and fry it and freeze it. 

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