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What I Miss About Toronto In 60's

Now, we celebrate the nonconformist, fat is no longer shameful, but a part of diversity to be embraced. My thoroughly state-indoctrinated school aged children would be aghast if I ever suggested a fat person had a issue, they'd probably report me to their teacher for reeducation, lol.
Indeed...
Torstar News Service Published on Thu Oct 27 2016


If you’ve ever found riding the subway at rush hour to be something less than graceful, you’re not alone.

The TTC’s new promotional partnership with the National Ballet – dubbed We Move You – is drawing criticism from one organization that says it perpetuates “unrealistic and highly regimented bodies as some sort of an ideal of ‘beauty.’”

The campaign, which officially launched Thursday, shows dancers from the National Ballet of Canada in photos and online videos dancing and posing in subway stations, on streetcars and in buses.

But Jill Andrew, co-founder of the Body Confidence Canada Awards, worries the images send the wrong messages about what healthy, confident humans should look like.

“We can’t deny that there is a lot of body-based discrimination that happens … within our moves around the city,” Andrew said.

“My experience as a radicalized woman, as a fat woman, I’ve been called an f-ing fat black b---- on the TTC,” she said. “Is this video really moving me? Is this video at all depicting me on the move?”

Andrew’s organization is campaigning to have discrimination based on size and appearance made illegal in Ontario.

She said she doesn’t disagree with promoting Toronto’s vibrant arts and culture scene; she just wants to see more of a focus on imagery that represents who Torontonians really are.

“The body types of most ballet dancers do not adequately represent those of most Canadians and, I dare say, most TTC users,” she said. [...]
http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/2016/10/27/ttc-ballet-campaign-gets-unflattering-review.html

She's really got a point you know. Like athletes and models. Why can't they just be ugly, slovenly guttersnipes so that there's nothing to aspire to?
Just watched the footage of the Island. I'm almost at a loss for words. Sometimes nostalgia is overwhelming....the music set the stage for the emotional overload:
Erik Satie - Gymnopédie No.1
I've thought about that claim ever since, and took me some time to realize what I'm missing isn't just the time, but also the Summer! Nostalgia can only last so long, and then one's spirit must attempt to capture the factors of what it is being missed, and create new experiences. And for me, that's Summer.

Only fifteen months until Spring now...(in all fairness I was out cycling yesterday, will do more today)
 
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Remember when you didn't need to remember your area code, just your telephone exchange name?

TOROON01 Toronto Adelaide 36–EMpire, 86–UNiversity, 870
TOROON02 Toronto Asquith 92–WAlnut, 96
TOROON03 Toronto (also Don Mills) Donlands 42–GArden
TOROON04 Toronto Main St 69–OXford
TOROON05 Toronto Simpson 46–HOward
TOROON06 Toronto Eglinton 48–HUdson
TOROON07 Toronto Ridelle 78–RUssell/STerling (Willowdale/Weston)
TOROON08 Toronto Runnymede 76–ROger
TOROON09 Toronto Dufferin 53–LEnnox
TOROON10 Toronto Rogers Rd 65
TOROON21 Toronto (Agincourt) Sheppard 29–AXminster/CYpress (zone) 1-2-3-5-7-8-9
TOROON26 Toronto (Islington) Eagle 23–BElmont/CEdar 1-2-3-4-6-7-9
TOROON27 Toronto (New Toronto) 180 Islington 25–CLifford 1-2-3-5-9
TOROON29 Toronto (Islington), Cooksville Old Burnhamthorpe 62
TOROON35 Toronto (Scarborough) St Clair 26–AMherst 1-4-5-6-7-9
TOROON36 Toronto (Scarborough) Victoria Park 75–PLymouth 0-1-2-5-7-9
TOROON42 Toronto (West Hill) Orchard Park 28–ATlantic 0-1-2-3-4-6-7
TOROON43 Toronto (Weston) 2664 Islington 74
TOROON44 Toronto (Weston) Bellevue 24–CHerry
TOROON45 Toronto (Weston) Acton 63–MElrose
TOROON46 Toronto (Don Mills) Don Mills 44–HIckory
TOROON47 Toronto (Willowdale) Finch 22–BAldwin/ACademy (Toronto)
TOROON48 Toronto (Willowdale) Ernest 49
TOROON50 Toronto (Agin./Scar./W. Hill) Lawrence 43
TOROON61 Toronto (Weston), Thornhill Alness 66
TOROON63 Toronto Simcoe 59
TOROON66 Toronto (Agincourt) Borough Dr
See link for Toronto telephone exchange geography
 
TOROON08 Toronto Runnymede 76–ROger
Roger 3 2076

I remember it to this day. The second telephone number my family ever had. First one was a party line just west of Port Hope, where we arrived as immigrants. Still bizarre to think back on how total strangers would be talking intimate details over shared lines.

Oh man...there's that overwhelming nostalgia kicking in again...my father became victim to the North American aspiration to climb the opportunity ladder, and the country nirvana we had as kids, and as a family, poor and simple as it was, was lost. Toronto wasn't kind to my folks, the family returned to Europe after just fourteen years. They were overcome by their own nostalgia....and as the brash North American, I stayed.
 
Roger 3 2076

I remember it to this day. The second telephone number my family ever had. First one was a party line just west of Port Hope, where we arrived as immigrants. Still bizarre to think back on how total strangers would be talking intimate details over shared lines.

Oh man...there's that overwhelming nostalgia kicking in again...my father became victim to the North American aspiration to climb the opportunity ladder, and the country nirvana we had as kids, and as a family, poor and simple as it was, was lost. Toronto wasn't kind to my folks, the family returned to Europe after just fourteen years. They were overcome by their own nostalgia....and as the brash North American, I stayed.

Sometimes, after a long absence, they return to a changed home country. One which was way, way different than what they remember.
 
Sometimes, after a long absence, they return to a changed home country. One which was way, way different than what they remember.
Especially post war Europe, where immense change happened, plus they swore they'd never go back to London, which they didn't, they settled back in the bucolic southwest of the country.
 
No, just a statement in response to the original question/topic.


Ok. Well, your comment caused a flashback to the 1960s...but it was a Federal sex scandal. I remember going to pick my Dad's paper up, sometime around 1966 and remember a HUGE headline in big black letters on the top of the Toronto Star...something about Gerda Munsinger and some kind of an affair with a federal minister that turned into a spy scandal. Gonna have to research it to remember the details (I was 10 or 11). That's what your comment brought to the surface.
 
Ok. Well, your comment caused a flashback to the 1960s...but it was a Federal sex scandal. I remember going to pick my Dad's paper up, sometime around 1966 and remember a HUGE headline in big black letters on the top of the Toronto Star...something about Gerda Munsinger and some kind of an affair with a federal minister that turned into a spy scandal. Gonna have to research it to remember the details (I was 10 or 11). That's what your comment brought to the surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munsinger_Affair

munsinger.jpg.size.custom.crop.1086x771.jpg


https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/08/14/five-political-scandals-that-rocked-ottawa.html

AoD
 
November 27, 1965 was my first live Leaf game...My parents did not have a lot of money. But when one of the Board members of Bloor Street United Church where my Dad worked, found out I was a serious Leaf fan and he gave my Dad two box seat reds to the hockey game that night...Leafs vs Boston (Original 6 hockey!! but I digress). My Dad really did not like hockey that much but he was a great Dad and never would miss an opportunity to do something for his kids (nor would my Mom). So my Dad and I went together for my first NHL game at Maple Leaf Gardens. There was no holding me back that night! Kid in a candy store, I really wanted to buy a Leaf Pennant....but my Dad said he couldn't afford it. During the second intermission the guy that was sitting next to my Dad disappeared. When he came back, he bought me the Leaf Pennant I wanted so badly. It was an awfully nice gesture and beyond thank you, how does a 10 year old let a perfect stranger know that he just gave me the equivalent of a solid gold bar?

The pennant went on my bedroom wall and stayed there. When I moved out in 1975 to get married, I left it behind...it was pretty ratty by then even though it was a prized possession. What do I miss about the 60's in this example? My original Leaf Pennant of course!
 
November 27, 1965 was my first live Leaf game...My parents did not have a lot of money. But when one of the Board members of Bloor Street United Church where my Dad worked, found out I was a serious Leaf fan and he gave my Dad two box seat reds to the hockey game that night...Leafs vs Boston (Original 6 hockey!! but I digress). My Dad really did not like hockey that much but he was a great Dad and never would miss an opportunity to do something for his kids (nor would my Mom). So my Dad and I went together for my first NHL game at Maple Leaf Gardens. There was no holding me back that night! Kid in a candy store, I really wanted to buy a Leaf Pennant....but my Dad said he couldn't afford it. During the second intermission the guy that was sitting next to my Dad disappeared. When he came back, he bought me the Leaf Pennant I wanted so badly. It was an awfully nice gesture and beyond thank you, how does a 10 year old let a perfect stranger know that he just gave me the equivalent of a solid gold bar?

The pennant went on my bedroom wall and stayed there. When I moved out in 1975 to get married, I left it behind...it was pretty ratty by then even though it was a prized possession. What do I miss about the 60's in this example? My original Leaf Pennant of course!

Nice story. I felt like I was taken back there with you even though I grew up in the 80s. Wow, that type of stuff is what you see in a 'corny' but heart-warming old commercial. Nowadays, with all this credit, wealth, etc., you would never see a parent taking their kid but not being able to at least buy a memorabilia. Let alone allowing a 'stranger' to buy a gift for somebody's kid. But in the old days, that what made sports special. It was a special event that brought such memories and when cash was difficult to obtain but was king.
 

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