I had a doctor’s appointment today, way across town in west Scarborough, where I grew up. Taking advantage of my last day off in a while (more on that soon), and some sunny (though cold) weather, I took some time to walk around my old neighbourhood with my digital voice recorder. I recorded almost 45 minutes of stream-of-consciousness stuff about growing up on Cassandra Boulevard there in the 70s and 80s. It may not be of interest to anyone but me, but I’m going to post it along with a few images from Google Maps of the neighbourhood.
Duration: 42:36
Download MP3 (20MB)
You can click on the above image to get an idea of the whole area of my walk.
I started at my doctor’s office on Ellesmere just east of Pharmacy. It’s marked by a red polygon.
After walking through Parkway Mall, I headed for my old building at 270 Cassandra, marked by the red polygon.
I continued walking on Cassandra, past 250 to Cassandra Park.
I turned left onto Avonwick Gate, to visit Annunciation Catholic School, where I attended grades 1-8 from 1971-1978. The school is marked by the red polygon.
Across from Avonwick Gate is the entrance to what we called “the ravine,” which is really Brookbanks Park. I emerged by Crestwood Preparatory Academy and Brookbanks Public Library, which is marked with a red polygon.
If you find this site because of Google, and you knew me, please get in touch! You can add a comment or if the comment form is closed, you can find me on any of the various social networks out there.
Slow day at work today as it is US thanksgiving, so I googled my name and it came up with a link to Consolation Champs that included a number of vaguely familiar names.
Didn’t find the specific post with my name (it is all about me after all), but this looked like quite the walk around the old ‘hood. I’ll check out the podcast later. Hope you’re well.
Best of luck with the new job – My dad used to work at St Mike’s. Who doesn’t like working downtown (if the commute is not too bad)…or the Talking Heads, for that matter.
Yikes! Well first of all it’s fantastic that you found me. I’ve thought about you a lot over the years and wondered what you’d gotten up to. But now I’m feeling incredibly self-conscious about putting up my senile blatherings and hope you won’t bother actually listening! I can’t remember what I said specifically about you, but I’m hoping it won’t come across poorly!
Funny thing about the connection to St. Mike’s too. And doubly strange is that the week after I started working here, I found out I’ll be working on some web pages connected to a research study led by Dr. Michael Cusimano, one of the Cusimano kids I had been reminiscing about in the podcast. I haven’t met him yet, and am not sure he’d even remember me, but it felt a bit serendipitous.
So, where are you and what are you doing these days?
Tim, Listen from 32:00 to about 33:00 if you just want to hear what I said about you. Here’s a precis: you were even shorter than I was, you had a great big head (!!), you were a “sweet guy”, you and your brothers and sisters were all very bright and are probably all doing interesting things now.
D’oh, stream-of-consciousness rambling can be a little embarrassing.