Welcome to Willieville
Mickey Hadick
A gang of recent high school graduates spend the summer in a drug-filled haze until one of their number gets his head bashed in. Why he was down in that drainage ditch is never explained.
This then becomes a whodunit with a rather disinterested detective and confusing answers.
Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
Donald L. Miller (Author), Joe Barrett (Narrator)
At nearly 700 pages, 25 hours in audiobook, an exhaustive read.
And if The Battle of Britain highlights the Canadian flyers who participated and Bomber highlights British efforts this book and the TV Series based upon it is Rah! Rah! American. Having sat on their assets it took the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbour to make them bestir themselves.
After the introductory section the pilot of the Memphis Belle describes their crew's first mission beginning with a tour of each position in the cramped interior of the plane.
There were prices to be paid for bombing at 25,000 ft to avoid flak in unheated and unpressurized planes. Changes in air pressure affected the ears and caused bloating. Intense cold caused frost bite and touching metal with bare skin caused instant freezing. Blockage of oxygen feeds caused unconsciousness in 30 seconds and death in 2 minutes. Medical science was not prepared to deal with these complications.
There's a long list of reporters who were permitted fly-alongs as well as movie stars all of whom received mandatory machine gun training. The director of Memphis Belle flew with the Belle.
As Americans flooded into new bases built to accommodate them little villages were overwhelmed as the local population soared. Airman descended on one village pub and buying rounds for the house drank it dry.
The success of any particular raid was a matter of perspective. One that destroyed the target and resulted in the loss of more enemy planes than their own was a win for Air Command, to the flyer who returned to find his bunk mate's bed stripped and empty not so much.
The treatment of POW's shot down over Germany is a sore topic. Measures taken to bring the war to an end after D-Day make less than glorious history. The British fire-bombing of Dresden a case in point. It is argued that Hitler's decision to bomb civilian rather than military targets was instrumental in his losing the war.
And we are treated to an extensive analysis of the effectiveness with which the campaign was waged. The butcher's bill certainly; the cost of errors in judgment a contributing factor. Politics and diplomacy no small component. Hindsight always being 20:20.
The final hours document the desperate measures taken by their enemies to prevent the encroaching enemy forces liberating American POWs. These were the enemies that had bombed their cities and killed their people. Fear of what would happen to their own POWs on Allied soil the only restraint.
To say that this all makes depressing reading would be an understatement. Finally the liberation of the death camps and the prison camps arrives with some stickiness in the Russian Sector. The final unsatisfying revenge came with the Nuremberg Trials. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre are searching out 90 yr olds to this day.
[Any of this would be spoilers only to those who haven't studied history. Of course there have been US Presidents who attacked countries they couldn't have found on a map.]
Fated Saga #3
Embrace
Rachel Humphrey - D'aigle, Humphrey Quinn
The book half completed and I haven't begun a review. I'm slipping. The twins at the centre of this fantasy are magical creatures who got spirited away to a parallel universe with their friend Jai and come to live with his family. Their adventures continue.
And somehow I finished this book without marking it finished here or completing my review. Embrace here seems to mean death. The twins engage in parallel adventures they manage to survive. The series has 3 more volumes I'll take a break from finishing.
Irish Country #2
An Irish Country Village
Patrick Taylor (Reading), John Keating (Narrator)
The parallels with James Heriot's All Creatures Great and Small are palpable. The fact that the patients here can talk is often misleading and unhelpful. The stories are presented with self-deprecating candour and folksy humour.
A doctor who does house calls.
Although mention is made of Barry's Salary of £35 a week none is made of how Dr. O'Reilly handles billing his patients.
Barry is on tenderhooks the entire novel for the results of a post mortem that would exonerate him in the death of a patient.
And since everyone loves a wedding a pair who have waited 15 years tie the not. The reception takes place outdoors and includes a donkey, 6 dogs, a whole roast pig, an open bar, and an announcement by the local Grinch that the Mucky Duck is saved.
Irish Country #1
An Irish Country Doctor
Patrick Taylor, John Keating (narator)
The village of Ballybucklebo. Dr Barry Laverty joins the practice of Dr Fingal O'Reilly run by Kirkie their houskeeper with Arthur the black lab and Lady MacBeth the white cat. Everyone in this village is an eccentric and Dr. O'Reilly has their case histories filed in his mind. His practise may not be orthodox, but it works. And in good time, time cures all.
Doctors are not infallible and a hypochondriac who cries wolf over and over risked not being taken seriously the one time there actually was something wrong. And who does the patient blame?
Hallowmas
Chad Schimke
A haunted Hallowe'en Horror Short. Kids making a horror movie enter a real horror.
Hallowmas
Chad Schimke
A haunted Hallowe'en Horror Short. Kids making a horror movie enter a real horror.
Cassandra Sato #0.5
Dead End
Kelly Brakenhoff
Upper management err on the side of complacency when a Tsunami warning is issued and students and the general public fail to acknowledge a danger they cannot see. Like the people who remained on the side of Mount St Helens before it blew. Or all those people who denied global warming before the hurricanes and tornadoes arrived.
The Colin Buxton Series #0.5
In The Stillness
C.C. Gilmartin
A series prequel. Two lads are altar boys to an alcoholic priest. Drew earns a living as a rent boy, Colin joins the London Met as a cop and so begins the career to follow.
Battle of Britain: Canadian Airmen in their Finest Hour
Ted Barris
314 pp.
Previously read his account of Canadian Involvement in the Dambusters but this time a hard cover book.
I'd not known before of Polish airmans' participation in Britain. That pilots were trained in Canada and planes built here I did know. The Gimly Glider used one of the old bases and another is in Debert, NS.
The British air force was buried in a preoccupation for bureaucracy and paperwork. A commander arrived at his new base to discover his only flyers were seagulls. Asked if his fleet was air worthy a base commander reported that he had planes and airmen but not a single spanner, spark plug or oil can in sight.
Faced with a rainy day and looming due date I sat down and read the last 100 pages in one setting. In true understated Canadian style Canadian flyers did not blow their own horns, they let their actions speak for themselves. The one sour note is the lack of recognition given the Polish flyers.
Bomber
Len Deighton, Richard Burnip (Narrator), Malcolm Gladwell (Introduction)
This book was among a list of audiobooks recommended me by Hoopla when I cast about for bedtime listening.
The Valour and the Horror was a 1992 mini-series created by the McKenna Brothers, the second 2-hr. episode: Death by Moonlight: Bomber Command featured an account that echoes the sentiments presented here. The Royal Canadian Legion was outraged and vigorously panned the presentation as defaming a Knighted hero proving that one man's villain is another's hero.
First published in 1970 when Gladwell was aged seven.
Atrocities are in the eye of the beholder, or the recorder of history. The enemy commits them, the winners did what was necessary to gain victory.
Like the line that the ground crew own the aircraft, they only loan them to the pilots. [The penalty for non-return is often death or enemy capture.]
The story line switches back and forth between the British flyers and their air bases and the towns and cities they try to defend and the German flyers and their similar bases and towns. The account is rather clinical lacking in emotional response to the devastation being reigned down upon civilians in the streets and shelters.
The author doesn't choose sides in dispassionately describing bombing and the fighter planes that attacked and defended the bombers. And in explaining the destruction, deaths, and injuries that were inflicted on the ground and the infrastructure burned or blown up.
There are no winners in war, only those whose losses are greater.
Note that the recording is 24 hours long.
The Friar's Lantern #1
The Friar's Lantern
Greg Hickey
The book is narrated in the second person by a unnamed character referred to as you. That this is a followup to the prequel novel, The Theory of Anything: A Short Intellectual Crime Novel until the person referred to as you shows up at Dr. David Solon's murder trial. What we learn is the fact not revealed in the previous book that the robber David encounters in the alley was none other than his wife's murderer.
The inference here is that the you here is the reader and throughout the book the reader is given either/or choices with shortcuts that lead to other points in the book.
As with the prequel the pace of the story is retarded by excessive detail that tends to become boring. Rather than create a sense of reality it just makes the reader wish the author would get on with it.
Once more the narrator is lost in probability theory. The subtle difference between chaos theory or randomness is lost on the average reader such as myself.
Even though the reader is given shortcuts depending on their choices I'm tempted to read both. Finally though I reached the end no wiser for my choices.
Talnarin #1
Veiled Threats
D.E. Chapman
First book in a series of five.
Malik and Abel are brothers who in the opening chapter lose their parents in an attack on their home and escape via an underground tunnel to wander through the woods climbing trees to escape ravening beasts. The brothers possess mystic powers. Not sure what to make of it all yet. They make it to their Uncles home where Malik is reminded that with the death of his mother he has become a King. He is introduced to his guard and a seer predicts his Queen. Too much too fast and there it ends.
Superior: Under the Shadow of the Gods
Barbara Chisholm (editor), Andrea Gutsche, Russell Floren
Like Michener the authors begin their discussion of Superior with a creation story involving lava flows and tectonic plates. Some of the jargon used is lost on a lay person.
It goes on to document conflicts with First Nations which continue to this very day.
The boom and bust economy repeats itself here, big shots exploit a resource until it is exhausted then pull out leaving their workers unemployed. The cycle is repeated with fish, forests, ore.
As the survey of the coastline begins in the Sault Jesuit Missionaries lay the groundwork for the European Capitalists that followed them. Those Capitalists may have had little interest in the Pagan's Souls but they recognized the value of the contacts the Jesuits provided them.
Much of the book describes shipwrecks, the Edmund Fitzgerald a prime example. And dramatic rescues and the men who performed them.
The building of Highway 17 is quite another tale. As was Van Horne and the CPR.
Agawa Canyon on the Algoma Central Railway
My trip didn't hit peak foliage. Since the mine closed the track is no longer properly maintained and the train crawled near walking speed. The allowance was not cut back so there was very little to see along the way bit bush.
Canada still retains 51 staffed lighthouses. A thousand including famed Peggys Cove were termed redundant. In flagrant disregard for the welfare of its lighthouse keepers bean counters ceased the practice of providing ships to deliver lighthouse keepers to and from remote islands. With Island lights up to 65 miles from shore this became a death sentence for many.
Not to be forgotten are the characters who inhabited this wild rocky shore. I particularly like the codger who sat his rocking chair reading and finished his chapter before looking up to say "Hello".
In prison solitary confinement is considered a cruel form of punishment but lightkeepers in bad weather were often abandoned for months at a time and fishermen, trappers, and miners often embraced a solitary existence. Making pets of beaver, groundhogs, squirrels, and even snakes provided companionship and rodent control.
The first people who came to Superior's North Shore came for its natural resources: Furs and Fish, Forests and Mines. When the asset was depleted they departed. Others came or were brought to build highways and railbeds. Today those same highways bring tourists intent on admiring the area's natural beauty.
Legend of Tal #0.5
A Fable of Blood
J.D.L. Rosell
A Sword and Sorcery Short given as a freebie to spark interest in the series that follows. Assume Tal is short for Talmage a name I know due to the Bachman family. To say that the story is violent would be an understatement.
A Whisper of Smoke
Pauline Creeden, Melinda R. Cordell
Fantasy set among Vikings in what appears to be England. Love Smoke the owl. Skeggi at 16 is raising his four brothers. He's also a dragon rider in training. His 14-yr-old brother is rebellious and refuses to take any responsibility for his younger brothers adopting a slacker attitude. Skeggi suffers the ignominy of having been defeated by the practice dummy. He survives despite being frequently knocked onto his back or being planted face first in the dirt.
Smoke the owl is his most important asset. This is a prequel for a series to come and it ends with a hint of romance.
Wilderness #46
Untamed Country
David Robbins, David Thompson (Pseudonym)
Read by Rusty Nelson
The audiobook unknown to Goodreads.
This series stretches to 70 volumes a thing unknown to me when I first encountered these audiobooks. TV series employ multiple writers in an attempt to keep their program fresh; a single author is likely to go to the well a few times too often.
The scene here is the American West. Settlers not unlike the Wilders in Little House felt stifled by the laws and constraints of civilization and moved West where they encroached on Indian Territory. The law they sought to avoid was not around to constrain banditry.
Two footed-menaces were not the only perils.
Wilderness #20
WOLF PACK (Unabridged MP3-CD) by David Thompson, (Wilderness Series, Book 20), Read by Rusty Nelson
David Robbins
Or David Thompson his pseudonym.
A frontier family fight off marauding Indians and predatory thieves to depend their valley home. Children have to grow up quickly in this environment if they are to survive.
The City's Heart: Murder Mystery involving the unraveling of Lies, Secrets, and Conspiracies of a Murdered Judge
Maxwell Titchen
Murder Mystery
A Judge and his family are gruesomely murdered and an entire cast of staff heard or saw nothing. Nothing was stolen which makes revenge look like the prime motive, but whose.
And upon closer inspection the secret misdoings of a well-beloved justice are uncovered. Secrets it may be dangerous to expose. The city's heart may be rotten to the core.
Police corruption rears its ugly head and the cavalry arrives in time to save the day.
One is drawn into this story from the start. If authors could bottle and sell this talent they'd be millionaires. The text needs editing.
Dirk Goes To Church
Ron Lahr
In Rome the Cardinals meet in secret conclave and vote until someone gets elected Pope. In Dirk's world a thousand priests rumble in an arena until the last man standing leads. Sounds a lot like a US Presidential election.
David and Goliath
Edie Montreux
Strange cover photo that proves to be the head of a tarantula. The David in question here specializes is freeing magical creatures and freeing a spider the size of Frodo's nemesis from a brothel whose name is Goliath was this David's task, not slaying it. Since this giant has had years of experience watching the action with its eight eyes it gives David a freebie. And since it's a male it didn't eat him.
Wind, Sand and Stars
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Terre Des Hommes en Francais.
As the pilot sets out on his first mail run he hears about a fellow pilot who didn't make it. As we know from history that was his own ultimate end. Betokens a great deal of mail that never made its destination. Sort of like the famous pony express. Of course its the cost in human lives I should be thinking about.
The last episode describes crash landing in the desert and coming within moments of dying of thirst before the pair run into a Bedouin and his camel.
Alden Security #1
Soldier's Savior
Joy Danvers
The military is a bastion of racism, homophobia, and sexual abuse; or as David describes his parents having the trifecta of bigotry, racism, and misogyny. Concealing because it's not safe to be out is one thing, but being closeted in self-hatred is quite another. Will say that I prefer so-called sweet romances that concentrate on relationships and not on phone sex. Having read other books by this author I should have known what to expect. I still can't get used to the idea that female authors and readers are obsessed with gay males getting it on. And this pair engage in teenage-like congress in the back seat of a crew cab. The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation and neither do we though I wish the participants kept it private there. PDAs whatever the sexual orientation stretch the bounds of etiquette. Can't say I was prepared for Provincetown on Dyke Day.
So John has accepting parents and David not so much. Societal change happens slowly and the pair finally get to marry. And a mother walks the bridegroom down the aisle.
American Novels #1
The Boy in His Winter: An American Novel
Norman Lock, Grover Gardner (Reading)
I read Huckleberry Finn in a Hardcover First Edition loaned me by a friend of my Mother's. Imagine what that book is worth today.
This author imagines an aging Huck reminiscing about his days floating down the Mississippi on a Raft with Jim. This is not a book for children.
As narrator Huck switches between reminiscence and his present day adventures set in the 2070ies. Leaves one wandering, have we made all that much progress after all these years.
The author has Huck refer to Mark Twain's book on several time but none so ironic as when Huck is asked if he's read the book.
Blasphemy! #2
Jesus Goes to Hell on Vacation!
T.J. Klune
Well why not. Toadying up to goody two shoes can be exhausting.
Begins with the background to Jimmy Davidson's arrival in Hell. He and Satan are monogamous.
Who'd a thought, Jesus is brown skinned and gay; here attracted to a red demon with knobby horns, a fiery halo and a tail. What's more remarkable God approves.
And the Trumps are in Hell where they belong.
Blasphemy! #1
Blasphemy!
T.J. Klune
Until I buy into the high concept involved here which involves Satan personified I have to ask: the Devil has a house in Hell, sleeps in a bed with blankets and has a telephone and major domo? Theologically I don't believe in Hell as a physical location and question the idea of evil personified just as I seriously doubt heaven as a physical location with pearly gates and streets paved with gold peopled by winged angels playing golden harps.
Satan here is fifteen feet tall and has a huge member, of course. Carl helps him with his wardrobe. In Hell all our usual conceptions are reversed. Bad is good.
Unions are a necessary evil but the idea that Satan has Union Issues is delicious. The difference being that Satan wouldn't just fire them all. And God swears like a trooper.
We've all had our issues with computers and considered them evil but Hell Inc has an office tower full of them.
God talks to his brother Satan every Tuesday at 10 AM on Skype. Do they use Norton Antivirus? God takes a shit each morning 9:15, anal retentive? Not an early riser and this review will never be seen on Amazon. Wonder where it flushes?
Satan meets Jimmy Davidson and the little fucker weirds out even the Devil even to giving him a blow job.
For the record:
Stationary is fixed in place, you write on stationery.
A twink with muscles is a Twunk.
Well this is Blasphemy.
Meditations: On the Monk Who Dwells in Daily Life
Thomas Moore
Audiobook read by the author, obviously not THE Thomas Moore who died in 1852. Got over that one.
A cloistered life of meditation and even a vow of silence is no longer in vogue as evidenced by the mean age of those in Convents that are rapidly closing. Despite Benedict's reactionary attempt to close the doors monks today live out Christ's command to feed my sheep and do it unto the least of my brethren. This monk would seem to have abandoned his cell.
Edge of Extinction - First Contact
Landon J. Riley
Would seem the author's first published work and the start of a series to come. Call it a Sci Fi space opera action adventure. Well written and immediately captivates anyone who enjoys this genre. Jaxon is the ultimate Space Cowboy aided by his AI companion and helper Orla.
EIGHT OUNCES A DAY
Kevin Stevenson
Goodreads lists this as author unknown. Read it's not for sale on Amazon.
When virologists at the centre where Reed is a cleaner release a deadly plague Reed heads for the hills and becomes a survivalist. One of his tasks is fighting off with deadly force interlopers who would steal his food.
Secrets of the Dead
David F. Berens
The joys of modern technology. I do most of my reading on an Android Tablet from Samsung. When I click on this e-Pub file in the folder system it opens in my Nook App. When I try to re-open the book in the Nook App I'm told the file is corrupt and can't be opened. (Read, I didn't buy it from B&N, it was a freebie, thank you David.) And having read the entire novella Nook can no longer make that claim.
This reads like the introduction of a crime series it is. Nick Sullivan makes Cassidy Carmichael an offer she can't refuse and in listing her curriculum vitae he omits mentioning her embarrassing past as a lady of the night--she had to eat.
Submitted this to Amazon. They may not like it.
The Event Horizon Murder
Greg Hickey
For the record the freebie offered was a court scene that featured the cross-examination of an officer's testimony. The interesting aspect of it all is that the pair are on a cordial first-name basis out of court.
The Ancient Minstrel: Novellas
Jim Harrison
An author unknown to me. The photo on Goodreads does the author no favours.
Three utterly different novellas. One biographical, the others dystopian. Were I reading rather than listening I'd probably not have finished.
Fiery Mary & the Dog Days of Summer
Valerie Willis
A vagabond backpacker has to contend with having been robbed and coming adrift amid language challenges and superstition so serious it stops work in the middle of harvest season in Yugoslavia. Religion is a serious business in a country where belonging to the wrong ethnic group can get you killed. And the Devil is very real.
In fact superstition seems very real in this strange tale.
The World Inside my Plastic Mirror
Christopher Francis
My first reaction is that over 300 pages is rather long and intimidating even if Harry Potters ran to 700. No .mobi, or .pdf file behaves properly in Kindle on my Android Tablet. A .pdf reader does work. Nook does read e-Pub format.
Understanding women is an eternal mystery to males and pre-adolescent girls are a particular annoyance. Of course their male counterparts are acne-ridden, smelly, giggly, insecure.
I associate Aubrey with names for boys. Can't believe she was desperate enough to fit in with those girls to climb into the cramped trunk of a car. Car tires have sidewalls, the fenders define the sides of a trunk. Page 32
heard not head pg 62
past not passed pg 96
The author sets his story in Burlington Ontario. Macys is in Burlington Mall. Smartphones are one thing and children have been known to run up massive charges on social media and gaming sites. Thirteen-year-olds with credit cards seems a recipe for disaster. Acquaintances gave their daughter a credit card for emergencies when she went off to university and she put them massively in credit card debt in short order. I didn't buy my own clothes or have money that was mine to spend until I went off to university.
Thirteen-yr-olds using make-up? Bad enough my fellow worker seemed to bathe in a 45 gallon drums of aqua velva. Do schools have scent-free policies?
And worlds collide in Aubrey's locker. Truent is from another planet but he's human and speaks English. Otherwise his thought processes and mental abilities are completely different. He wills doors to unlock. But the bigger issue is what can Aubrey do with a boy or boys. She can't take them home to her parents, and how to explain matters to the wider world or civil authorities.
The story ends abruptly leaving the fate of Truent and his buddies unresolved.
Rise to the Horizon
Hyunah Kim
The story of a damaged thoroughbred and the horse whisperer Axel who tries to save him. The author seems obsessed with the man's beauty.
The author inserts herself into her tale as Axel's girlfriend.
This is the story of a boy and his horse, nothing else matters.
DreadfulWater #8
Black Ice: A DreadfulWater Mystery
Thomas King
And once more we enter the world of Tom King which has a turn of phrase and logic, or lack thereof, of its own. King loves to play on cliches and turn them on their heads. Cops and donuts being a favourite.
In this outing Thumps has assumed sheriff duties while Duke mourns the death of his wife. A large slobbery dog enters the picture. Golf becomes Wuty's latest craze. And Thumps becomes involved in a case that involves money laundering and secret government wrongdoing. Thumps is in over his head. Freeway's kitten has grown into massive male tiger. Somehow he keeps them fed.
Stoneway
Whispers of the Lake
Christopher Francis
Forgive me for thinking there's no acceptable level of bullying. Any bullying has gone too far. Personally I have no tolerance for even the slightest level of gentle ribbing.
On my Android Tablet Kindle refuses to recognize the .mobi file. Nook treats the .e-pub file as if it is a series of images. Only the .pdf file works in Kindle but appears best in a PDF reader. I don't use Adobe.
All files work better in a Windows OS environment. Though hyphenating words such as t-he seems odd.
Bentley, the narrator is a member of the "IN" crowd, but the bully is Brandon. Finally around Chapter 11 we get Bentley's surname, Longhorn. I am reminded that my father's middle name was Benton.
It strikes me that this campground temps fate by going Co-Ed. Most youth camps are either male or female.
One of the questions on a registration form for girls of this age is: has your daughter had her first menses; has she been prepared for it?
You have to believe in ghosts to see one, I don't.
I'm writing this on St. Michael and All Angels Sunday. I don't expect to see angels either. But in the Christian context it's Gods Work, Our Hands. We experience God's love through the caring of those around us. If you have done it unto the least of these my brethren you have done it unto me.
We learn here the importance of truly knowing that others care. The one person left out in the cold here is the Bully Brandon.
To quote Luther:
The Prince of Darkness Grim
We tremble not for him...
One little word shall fell him.
When others try to put you down it's important to trust in your own self-worth.
Cerulean Chronicles #2
Somewhere Beyond the Sea
T.J. Klune, Daniel Henning (Narrator)
I'm so eager I've started a review of a book not yet published though I'll need to wait until my library acquires it.
Arthur and Linus have joined forces and are about to adopt an eleven-year-old YETI. In part this book will be about what his arrival does to the dynamic of this magical home. The basement is about to become a cold room to make the new occupant feel at home. Cleaning it up and making it cold will be the least of their challenges.
The book seems to begin with an account of how Arthur comes back to the island and the house there after a long absence finding it empty and dilapidated. It appears to be an account of how he began his orphanage after his own sojourn growing up there. With chapter one we resume the tale begun in book 1.
On the serious side the book documents Linus and Arthur's struggles with bureaucracy. But the overall theme is love, acceptance and joy and the gang have it in spades. We end with a most unusual marriage presided over by a Yeti minister.
The Waterfront Trail Guidebook: Explore Yesterday & Tomorrow Along the Shores of Lake Ontario
marlaine-cibc-koehler
The book is plagued by a great deal of very fine print. It has an editor and lists CIBC as the publisher, since they put up the money.
And it begins with some high flown words from David Crombie on behalf of his Royal Commission determined it not collect dust like so many others. Given the present-day kerfuffle over Ontario Place the words seem prescient though written almost 30 years ago.
One anachronism is the mention of payphones, good luck finding one in this age of cellphones.
In its attempt to be all things to all people the Trans Canada Trail has introduced incompatible uses to many trail systems that found themselves in the embarrassing position of being forced to compromise their ideals. The Bruce Trail is no longer restricted to hiking only.
The population of Burlington has grown by 60,000 since this book was published. The wildlife cited can be a mixed blessing as when the deer noshed on the Tulips in the RBG Rock Garden. If a coyote is playing with your pet know they are sizing up dinner.
I am struck by how little of the trail is actually on the shore of the lake. Many owners of lakeside property once had riparian rights to prevent anyone hunting off their shores. Most have no desire to endure the loss of privacy and litter that would attend having people traipse along the lakefront.
It's the same sentiment people who live adjacent former railway tracks feel about rails to trails conversions. Trains don't stage late night parties or toss litter.
The book supplies phone numbers for businesses and institutions not the websites which would be available 24/7. It was published after Canada went metric and supplies distances in Km and Miles.
I am a life member of the Royal Botanical Gardens. Another book reviewed here documents Conservative Government's lack of support for cultural programs. Lack of governmental support for the gardens and rising labour costs have forced the RBG to nickel and dime visitors for what was once free to support the garden's ongoing maintenance. As a long-term member I suffer nostalgia for the many sections of the gardens that have disappeared over the years. It's still a great place but it was formerly even greater.
Driving East from the RBG one passes by the graves of soldiers of successive world wars. North Shore Blvd is millionaires row where they've cornered the market on 3-way stop signs in hopes of discouraging through traffic. The one window on the lake has a lovely view of Dafasco and Stelco. In spring one swamp affords a delightful view of Marsh Marigolds. I would not want to be biking where the road meets the QE Niagara Bound. Just in case Josie Brant Hospital is just past if you make it that far.
Since the nearby Centre for Inland Water Studies got their seismograph we now hear about local earthquakes.
About the time I'm writing this in recent years the algal bloom tends to peak and being anywhere near the lake in our area, Burlington/Oakville is an assault on the nose.
Shell Park in Oakville is closed for 4 months while work goes on in an attempt to stop shoreline erosion.
What was Lakeshore Road in the 1800's is a mile out in Lake Ontario Today. During my half century in Oakville the site of the original bandshell in Coronation Park is under water. Shoreline erosion is inevitable and global warming is driving storms that speed it.
The $30 entry fee for Bronte Creek Provincial Park seems exorbitant. That the owners of East Oakville's mansions don't want people traipsing by their front yards is apparent in the fact that the trail follows the highway some distance from the lake front. One former estate took a highschool jock an entire week to mow it on a riding mower. The Estate at Nine Line/Maplegrove has green houses and a polo pitch.
The property just across Winston Churchill was bought to be a nuclear power station and the research facility on the north side makes the entire property out of bounds. The lack of human interference makes it a naturalist's dream, I have toured it.
Bronte Outer Harbour was still a construction project when this book was written. Getting to events and concerts taking place there is plagued by lack of parking and the long bus ride which would be the alternative.
The nouveau-riche young ladies of the present age are entitled and not as civic-minded as their predecessors. The loss of this cadre of volunteers has led to the demise of many organizations run by unpaid workers. The Waterfront Festival in Oakville is one victim of this trend. Service Organizations in general are feeling a drop off in membership.
Recognizing this trend students are now required to perform 40 volunteer hours before they can graduate high school. This is not court imposed servitude.
Coronation Park is being eaten by Lake Ontario. The Arts Society Building is gone. Lack of parking and noise complaints from residents to the North have led to events being moved to Bronte Waterfront.
Most views of the lake in East Oakville are had from small parkettes after you walk past the mansions that line the roadways. Since I've delivered their mail I've seen more than most though I didn't get to sit and watch the lake.
Bel Aire Dr. is relatively recent having been built on the Samuels Estate one of the last great heaps a property so large a high school jock spent an entire week mowing it on a ride-on lawn mower in summer when he wasn't pumping iron. Owner of Samson Farms which occupied over half of the Back Stretch at Woodbine.
Here's the dirt on red bricks. National Sewer Pipe was wholly owned by Kelly New of Oakville. When his employees went on strike he fired the lot, a measure emulated by Reagan, and levelled the plant brick by brick.
People buying homes from developers North of Lakeshore in MIssissauga were assured that refinery is closing. That was 50 years ago. Originally British Patrolium and latterly Gulf, At Gulf we Hurry--HOME.
The plant in West Oakville whose flare lit up the sky and occasioned a semi-permanent pollution sniffing station was acquired by Petro Canada from Shell. Decommissioned in 1983 the place became a shipment and storage centre increasing heavy truck traffic exponentially .
Herridges was a third generation Fruit and Vegetable Stand on Southdown Road that formerly grew their corn on site. It closed permanently December 24, 2022.
The Fruit Market beside Coronation Park at 1510 LSW is also gone. Cudmores West of the Bronte Creek formerly operated a fruit stand and grew much of the produce they sold and maintained cottages for their itinerant workers. They've been reduced to a gardening centre.
Petrocan Refinery
The East End of the property held housing for refinery employees when there wasn't enough in Toronto Township. It is maintained in semi-natural state as a buffer with the elite estates East of the plant. Nothing but concrete doorsteps remain of the former dense community. I requested and got a tour of the property that is planted with species that specialize in absorbing noxious chemicals and odours, alas, most of the wetlands and uplands are planted with non-native species.
Rattray Marsh
The importance of leaving behind an ironclad will comes to the forefront here. The Rattray Estate was seen by developers as prime lakefront property worth millions and they surrounded the remnant Marsh that was preserved with estate housing. Ever the developer's friend Attila the Hen fought naturalists ever step of the way in their attempt to prevent the entire marsh from being drained and built over. She then had the effrontery to brag about preserving the crown jewel in Mississauga's green space. Parks and Wreckcreation have since covered it in boardwalks and bike trails.
Land within cities is too valuable to be wasted on wood ducks, geese and vegetable gardens, just ask Doug Ford.
Jack Darling Park.
Last time I drove down to walk West into Rattray Marsh there was an obstacle course of 5, count 'em, jaw jolting, bone crushing speed bumps to be navigated on the way. The Eastern Towhee I saw along the way was a delight.
Adamson Estate
Much is made of a folly but it is never explained that it is a gatehouse nor is there a photo.
Lakeview Coal Fired Hydro Plant is history, the four sisters were toppled.
In the section on birding calling a Long-Tailed Duck an Old Squaw is now considered politically incorrect.
As a letter carrier one knew areas peopled by people of Jewish and Portuguese origin because of the compelling need they have to define what is theirs by fencing it in meaning the mailman had no choice but to walk in and out every walkway and brave the pets inside those fences.
At the Mimico Creek one enters Toronto, when this book was written amalgamation had yet to occur.
Sir Casimir Gzowski was an ancestor of Peter Gzowski of Toronto Radio Fame.
High Park
Denizens of the park's zoo have been known to go on the lam for extended periods. Most recently hot debate over further bans on traffic in the park and loss of parking.
Ontario Place was Bill Davis' baby and it went down hill after his successors failed to continue his investment.
Of a summer afternoon one caught the GO Train to Exhibition Place and walked down to the Entrance. Climbed to the roof of the "Pods" to admire the view and then joined the line-up for the latest movie showing at the I-Max Cinesphere. A walk on the sunken lake freighter promenade would be followed by a beer and schnitzel at Zum Rhein to ompahpah music or Chinese. A browse of one of the exhibits or Ontario North and then settle in with a good book at the Forum to watch the Toronto Symphony perform on the revolving stage. With the aid of the guns on the Haida or Fort York Sir Andrew Davis shot the Geese out of the park. I was there to see $5 million in fireworks shot off to music though being herded like cattle by the OPP among 10,000 other attendees was less than romantic. I sat in the centre of the Cinesphere one winter to see Top Gun.
When the Forum was replaced by a venue that required a mosh pit I lost interest. What Fat Ford would do to the place is shameful. Some have the Midas touch, Ford the ghetto touch.
The Haida was moved to Hamilton Harbour.
I remember when kids used to do chores and save all summer to blow it at the EX. For those old enough to ride it the ultimate thrill was the Flyer. The Grandstand home of sports and shows closed the year this book was published. Before the Skydome it was THE Place. The Coliseum or horse palace is home to the Royal Winter Fair, the Sportsmans Show and Metro Toronto Police Mounted Unit. The Labour Day Parade used to end at the Grandstand. On the Waterfront is the Boat Show and the Air Show otherwise known as the air traffic controller's headache. It was as this book was being written a British Nimrod took a fatal dive into Lake Ontario.
In describing Toronto's Entertainment District Sky Dome gets mention though the name changes over time. No mention is made of Roy Thomson Hall home of the Toronto Symphony nor of the CBC Broadcasting Centre. The CN Tower's status regarding its height is now under dispute.
Toronto Islands
With all the lakefront Condos and Apartment Building the Island Airport is a point of contention and residents resist the idea of big jets landing there.
Actions have consequences and the building of the Leslie St Spit denied the islands the supply of eroded sand from Scarborough Bluffs that built and sustained them and measures had to be taken to ensure their survival.
The community that exists on public land on the islands is a kettle of fish this guide avoided.
Leslie St Spit is proof that nature will find a way. It is home to rare and endangered species whose seeds bird droppings have spread there. The 150,000 nesting pairs of gulls were quite another matter.
Again, the Beaches is an area unknown to me as is most of Scarberia. Buffers Park is in the news every time someone falls off the cliffs or needs rescuing. There was a kerfuffle over people living in houseboats on the marina. The taxman wants his due.
Metro Zoo is built on Rouge River lands. I led a tour of areas of the park near Two Rivers before the Urban Park was proclaimed. I would fear the place is loved and littered to death. Fat Ford would cover the farmland in the area with housing.
Areas of the trail East of Toronto are best known to me from traffic reports involving the roads that lead from the 401 to the Waterfront. Until I took the virtual tour last night I'd never heard of Pickering Museum Village. I did have the opportunity to take a naturalist led tour of Thickson Woods and supported the fight to save Whitby's Second Marsh unseen.
Alas Cullen Gardens closed ten years after this book was published. Guess I won't get to tour it.
Oshawa is synonymous with General Motors and Ed Broadbent who died just this past January. It doesn't immediately raise thoughts of the natural environment.
At time of writing there was very little access to the Lakefront East of Oshawa/Whitby so other features occupy the pages.
The need for an updated version of this Guide is highlighted. The project seems to have lost way to others and the lack of volunteers and sponsors is evident.
This doggerel is included:
Let the old world, where rank's yet vital,
Part those who have and have not tittle.
Toronto has no social classes --
Only the Masseys and the masses.
Massey Ferguson failed because poor design meant that farmers had to endure significant down time to perform simple maintenance and repairs. Prairie farmers went south of the border to buy their equipment.
I associate Port Hope with
Float your Fanny
Down the Ganny
An event that allows water pistols.
The 401 is as close as I've ever been.
Alas the Trail here as described is a tour of stately homes, not the lakefront. And as the tour goes on it reminds me of Ashenburg's Going to Town.
Good luck finding a Westport Biway anywhere along with Bargoon Harolds for that matter. The current bargain store chain is Dollarama. Or look for Goodwill and Sally Ann Thrift Stores for used goods.
I've driven by the Big Apple on the 401 numerous times without realizing it marks the centre of an apple growing farm area. The MacIntosh Apple has a history not unlike the Gravenstein in my native Nova Scotia.
I've camped at Presqu'ile. The history that marks the sinking of the Speedy saved a park.
I've spent time touring Prince Edward County but otherwise the rest of the trip to Trenton marks exits from the 401.
