The Public Speaking Blues: Childhood and Adolescence in a Performance Anxiety Funk When I was attending Chapel Street elementary school in Georgetown, Ontario, back in the 1960s, public speaking was an integral part of the curriculum in the senior grades. And terror was the order of the day. My public speaking anguish typically..
A life of elections starting with Dief & Mike in Georgetown, Ontario, 1958: reflections in the wake of the general election of April 28, 2025 Some of my earliest memories are of a family life infused with periodic political bile. My father loved to agitate the fecal matter and took no end of delight in..
My mom, door-to-door salespeople, and the clarinet: tooting in the 1950s and 1960s My 1950s and 1960s Georgetown childhood was characterized by cacophony, including rumpus and din on our little subdivision street where a knife sharpener man would ring his bell; where the breadman would dart from home to home distributing succulent baked goods with..
Woodland magic in the iconic Des Compagnons Forest of Quebec City, Quebec We raised our two sons in Quebec City, more precisely in a neighbourhood known as La Pointe-de-Sainte-Foy, which was carved out of an old-growth forest, the remnant of which has remained intact behind the local high school, Le Collège des Compagnons. ..
A Georgetown Childhood Easter 1955-1964 My Georgetown Easter memories are succulent and sweet. On Easter morning, sausages and scrambled eggs, which my father called “rambled screggs,” were the order of the day. My sister and I were never hungry for this sort of sustenance, and my father’s scrambled eggs were always runny. We were itching..
The Georgetown International Bantam Hockey Tournament: the Highlight of Easter Season, 1960-1964 For more images, please click here: The Georgetown International Bantam Hockey Tournament: the Highlight of Easter Season, 1960-1964 – Robert McBryde And here: Bantam Tournament – THE GEORGETOWN VAULT In 1960, when I was eight years old, my Easter season was magically transformed,..
The Toronto Maple Leafs and Me: Childhood, Adolescence, and Old Age When my Slovak father-in-law reached his dotage – at about the age I am now – he took to repeating “V krátkom čase budem mŕtvy” (In a short time I be dead) and “Čoskoro ma k sebe zavolá pán Boh” (Soon Mr. God will..
Elegy for a personal paradise lost: music in Georgetown, Ontario, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, with Mr. Ken Harrison “The past is a candle at great distance: too close to let you quit, too far to comfort you. It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we..
A tale of three cafeterias revisited: London, Ontario; Burnaby, British Columbia; Quebec City, 1965-2000 While reading Orwell’s seminal novel 1984 in university, I was struck by the grungy canteen scene, which prompted recollections of the cafeteria of my high school, Oakridge, in 1960s London, Ontario. George Orwell – 1984 – Part 1, Chapter 5 Now..
Spring 1969: Pierre Berton visits London, Ontario, and high school authorities go ballistic For Maria Van der Velden By 1969, even in conservative, homogenous London, Ontario, seismic changes were rumbling through the corridors of power. In those halcyon days, I attended Oakridge High School where the 1960s zeitgeist had begun infiltrating, albeit on little cat..