Pete's Blog and Grille Canada Day 2025 A-to-Z Guide to Visiting Toronto

I love Toronto, and I love the thought of visitors returning to their homes with a better impression of the city than they arrived here with.  

It's Canada Day, 2025. 

I have a friend named Michelle Donovan who is coming to Toronto from Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland, in September, so I thought I'd put together this A-to-Z guide of things she might want to do when she's here.

NEVER HEARD of Bonds of Love? Neither
has anybody else

Grand-Falls Windsor is also the birthplace of one of this country's most famous actors, the late Gordon Pinsent.  

Pinsent starred in countless productions, including the 1993 wholly forgettable TV movie called Bonds of Love, along with Kelly McGillis and Treat Williams. More importantly, Bonds of Love was both the screen debut and final Hollywood appearance of none other than Ewa Frances and Ria Bridget Carter, aged one and a few months.

Our daughters were cast as "Nena," the tiny niece of McGillis's character, who falls in love with Bobby, a mentally challenged dude played by Williams. The movie was filmed in Toronto's Mimico neighbourhood, which actually shows up later in this list of places Toronto visitors should go, and in the story I wrote about the Bonds of Love misadventure for the Toronto Parents of Multiple Births Association newsletter, there's a quote from my brother Ed who helped us onset, saying, "I bet you'll think twice before having twins again." 

Spoiler alert: That's not the last you'll be hearing from Ed in this guide. My Toronto wouldn't have be the same if Ed had not lived here most of his short life. One of Ed's and my favourite Toronto activities was asking each other, "Why would anybody want to live anywhere else?"

And here's 26 reasons why we kept asking that question.

HE'S SO FRIENDLY, his
project almost makes sense!

A is for Albino Carreira. In 1994, Albino, a Portuguese immigrant, got hurt on a construction site in downtown Toronto and to see himself through recovery, devoted his time to what some call his Wood Cake House, in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood. I've driven by the place dozens of times but only recently stopped to get a close look. The house, garage, yard and Albino's still-operational Plymouth minivan are covered with shells, glass marbles, tiny toys, and thousands of little wooden discs that are in fact slices of old pool cues that he gets from a pool cue manufacturer in Northwest Toronto. (Maybe the pool cue factory belongs on this list but I haven't been there so I can't include it.) Albino imports the shells from China. And they're not plastic! They were once live creatures. Albino's property's crawling with them. The best part of the visit, if you're lucky, you'll meet the man himself who talks so proudly about this work in progress that it almost sounds sensible. A lovely fellow. Not sure what the neighbours think.

B? Why Bibliomat of course. The Monkey's Paw bookshop on Bloor Street is within walking distance of Albino's. You give $5 to Stephen the very friendly owner, he gives you a token that you drop into the

BOOK'EM STEPHEN: No book 
under 35.

Bibliomat machine at the back of the store, and out pops a book! Any book. You have no idea what you'll get but Stephen says his store carries nothing published after 1980. I now own a hard-cover Complete Guide to Skin and Scuba Diving, copyrighted 1975. Toronto's home to dozens of quirky new and used bookstores. I'll try to keep them to a minimum on this list but I'm not making any promises. Monkey's Paw might well be the best.

C is for my big sister Charlene. I know she's not a tourist site, but still. Somehow, from her spectacularly scenic home on the north shore of Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, my sister Charlene manages to keep on top of very important social, cultural, political and fun development in Ontario's capital city. To whit: a few summers back,  Toronto Harbour was suddenly home to a giant rubber duck but I hadn't heard.  I got the news from Charlene. So down we went, singing "Rubber Ducky I'm awfully fond of, Rubber Ducky I'd like a whole pond of you" there and back. She'll kill me for this but all visitors should be in touch with Charlene. She can tell you the coolest restaurants. Like Caren's Rosedale. Where they serve--I hope you're sitting down--fondue! I also had the extreme privilege of living with the 18- or 19-year-old version of Charlene when she was a nursing student at Humber College and I was an 11-year-old page boy. Every day for a few months in 1969, I commuted from the apartment she shared with her two beautiful roommates Barb and Cathy in Mimico (very close to where Gordon Pinsent held Ewa and/or Ria all those years later) to Queen's Park. Charlene is absolutely vital to my loving this city, and I know I'll consult Charlene some more before Michelle arrives. 

D: Dave. My neighbour: A few week’s back, my wife Helena and I were walking eastward on our street when we stopped in front of Dave’s place. He was standing on the third or fourth rung of a stepladder, doing something to a tree with odd-looking branches. The following exchange ensued.

I WARNED DAVE I'D DO THIS

“What kind of tree is that?" I asked. 

“This is an Alpine something,” he said though he didn’t say “something” he used another word but I forget what. Doesn’t matter. The way the tree’s shaped is way more interesting than what the tree’s called. Fact is, Dave’s garden is one of the most intriguing little plots of land I’ve ever seen. He’s got tiny flowers and mossy stuff; a few plastic dinosaurs and hiding halfway behind a bush is smiling Buddha. The front of the garden is home to a huge rock that looks like he found it at the bottom of the ocean. 

“Your garden,” I told him, “should be in one of those guides showing all the best places to visit in Toronto!"

Dave agreed.

Tu-Duh!

Everybody should have at least one neighbour named Dave. 

PAUL 

E: Ed's and Paul's memorial benches in High Park. My brother Ed died too young in January, 2022. We're still not sure what of.  In August, 2023, my sister Norma's oldest son Paul passed away of cancer at 46. He was Ed's Godson and both men loved Toronto and both spent a heck of a lot of time around my house. (Okay. This part of my story is sad. But bear with me. It gets less sad.) The City of Toronto has a park bench program through which, for a donation, you can have a plaque affixed to a bench somewhere in the city, commemorating whatever or whoever you like. In separate applications, Norma applied for a bench for Ed, my sister Charlene did the same for Paul. Applicants can request a specific park but there's no guarantees. 

Get this: Toronto has more than 1,500 parks, ranging from small waterparks to big ones like High Park, which is really close to my house. The fact that both Paul's and Ed's benches wound up within hollering

ME, ALEX, ED, when we were younger.
Mitch Hedberg: "Every photo is of you when you 
were younger. I'd like to see the camera that
takes a picture of you when you were older."

distance of one another, right at the north entrance to High Park,  and both within a 30 minute walk of my front door, borders on the unbelievable. The City Parks people had no way of knowing these two men were related. Or that I--who had nothing to do with the applications--loved both men dearly and live so close to High Park. They had different surnames. So do my sisters. I don't know why or how it
happened. Paul could have wound up in Northern Scarborough and Eddie near Jane and Finch. Plus if you visit the benches, you can read about these two extraordinary men and take a shot of the QR code that my other brother, Alex, had installed on Ed's bench. That code will take you to an audio/video Ed history, including a clip of him telling me a joke about a sailor coming across a man stranded on a desert island. He goes to recue the guy and he sees three buildings. He asks what they're for. The guy points to the first and says 'that's my house.' He points to the second and says 'that's my church,' Then he points to the third and says 'that's the church I used to got to.'" 

F is for Fatima. Remember Albino back there with the pool cues and shells? He told me that his father had been a stonemason in a little town in Portugal  that until 1917, hardly anybody knew about. It was called Fatima. Given the marvelous circumstances surrounding the placement of my brother's and nephew's benches, keep eye on the north end of High Park is all I'm saying.

O'TUCKY MACLEAN: I swear!
He looks exactly like my friend
Kevin's brother.

H, as in Hippy. When I was six or seven, I remember my parents in Sudbury talking about some place in Toronto called Yorkville, which is where something called "hippies" hung out. Then one day after we visited some of mom's relatives in Niagara Falls we were returning to Sudbury and my folks decided to take a detour through Yorkville, to get a look at the hippies. I've always loved them for things like that.
That also might have been the first time I slept overnight in this city. My dad rented a hotel room; a suite, actually, in the King Edward Hotel and I went for my very first subway ride. The subway trains roared in and out of the station with such ferocity I found it a bit scary. And they also arrived every few minutes. Back home in Sudbury, the local buses rolled around on the half hour! I should know. Our family owned the bus company. But here in Toronto? The transit system was breathtaking. Believe it or not that first thrilling ride comes back to me almost every single time I walk down the stairs to the subway platform. As for the hippies, about 100 metres east of Paul's bench in High Park, stands a statue of some anonymous dude wearing a sports coat, sunglasses and a badge that says "LOVE." According to every source I checked, the statue's called The Hippy, and if you're visiting the miracle benches you might as well drop over and say peace.

SATURDAYS AT THE STEER: Shelley on left.

I is the Inter Steer: If somebody were to ask me if I had a "a local," I'd have to say it's a joint around the corner from my house weirdly named The Inter Steer. It'd be embarrassing for me to tell you how much money I've spent there over the years, but we did hold Ed's wake at the Steer. It's also the home of what I call Billy's Show every Saturday afternoon: the closest thing to a kitchen ceiledh that you'll find in this city.  I also just realized I've never written the word ceilidh before. If you're lucky, the Saturday you drop by will include the fiddling of my friend Shelley Coopersmith who warrants her own place on this list but "S" and "C" are both already used up. Sing along with Billy the Kidder.   

J is for John O'Callaghan. John and I have been friends since the early '70s. He, too, was a page boy in the Ontario Legislature and he, like Michelle, couldn't tell a boring story if you held a Glock to his head. I hope he and Michelle meet and if I'm there, I'll ask if he recalls the time he, Ed and I were in a pub on Yonge Street and somebody suggested we try something called John Courage Brown Ale. The beer arrived, Ed took a small sip, looked disgusted, held the bottle to his lips, chugged the contents, wiped his mouth with his sleeve and announced, "Waiter! This horse needs his kidneys checked!" 

K.  As in OK. You probably guessed that I didn't just scribble this list down in alphabetical order all in one fell swoop. Some of the locations came more easily than others. And "K" had me snookered. Until. Just now. This Toronto location is what you would get if you took all these other places, stuck them in a blender until they were all mixed up together: Kensington Market. It never disappoints. Unless you don't like bargains, great food, beautiful people, reggae, the smell of pot and spending a restful colourful afternoon in a place that never loses its charm. I can't believe Kensington didn't occur to me first.

Little Canada. I challenge visitors from other parts of Canada--Michelle included-- to find their own homes on this ridiculously interesting miniature 3-d version of our country. 

M is the Mandarin. I'm writing this on Canada Day. And as I write, thousands of people in various parts

MILES OF MEALS AT THE MANDARIN

of Ontario are lining up at their nearest Mandarin Restaurants because on Canada's birthday, every year, the Mandarin lets people eat for free! True fact. But any day of the year, the Mandarin buffet is a tribute to human achievement. You like fresh hot pizza? Oysters? Salads? Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding just the way my mom tried to make it? Good old fashioned North American style Chinese foot? The Mandarin selection takes your breath away and you of course can eat as much as you want and the atmosphere is downright playful. And this part's not as important but for a number of years, my wife Helena and I have been on--get this--the Mandarin Restaurant's Menu testing panel. Every few months, the management invites 60 to 100 people to an evening of food (and drink!) testing where they try out new restaurant items and ask us to rate them. Like last time we went we had to determine whether one sort of shrimp sauce was better than a slightly different sort. Plus we a-b tested Bloody Caesars. But I'm not shilling for the Mandarin because they give me free food. I call BS on anybody who says Disneyland's the happiest place on earth. It's the Mandarin, hands down.  

N brings us back to Nena from Bonds of Love. Toronto has stood in for many many foreign cities over the years but my favourite was when our neighbourhood became Brooklyn for the John Travolta version of Hairspray. In the summer of 2010, I was at Ceasar's Palace in Vegas, shortly after the first Hangover movie came out, and the front desk clerk told me tourists love taking photos of themselves in the lobby. If you're in Toronto and want a photo of something you might have seen in a movie head to The Lakeview Diner on Dundas near Trinity Bellwoods Park. It, too, was in Hairspray and, more familiarly, Cocktail with Tom Cruise. I know. Cheap use of an N but there you go.

O is for O Noir, the downtown restaurant where guests dine in total darkness. Helena took me there on my birthday a number of years ago and I wrote about it for Today's Trucking magazine, which might be one of the reasons I don't work there anymore. Read "Where Beer is the new Black."

MOMMY MEETS THE  TWO-HEADED
CALF

P is for Prehistoria Museum. My daughter Ria's text: "Dad. You have to see this place!" She was right. A pay-what-you-can freakshow museum with the oddest assortment of antiques and memorabilia that you likely won't find anywhere else and as you exit through the gift shop (called the Skull store), you can actually purchase real dinosaur bones and fossils. Acting on Ria's advice, we visited and saw, for the first time in my life,  a real stuffed two-headed calf, a mummy, an honest-to-goodness shrunken head (it's yours for a measly $25k); and a whole bunch of  stone age artifacts that the museum operators somehow got their hands on legally and oddly. 

Q. The Queen Streetcar.  Wanna see Toronto? Take a ride on the what might be the longest most interesting streetcar line on the planet. The 501 Queen car starts at something called Long Branch (which is where I lived as a page with the three older women) and it travels along the Lakeshore (past Bonds of Love territory) then through various neighbourhoods sometimes so slowly it seems like it's going backwards but eventually clear across the city until it winds up at Neville Park. For the $3 and change it cost to ride, the Queen car provides the most comprehensive (and lazy) trip across one of the world's great cities. Plus you can hop on and off for brief breaks without having to pay extra.

R is for the Rebellion of 1837. You're like, whaaaa?? But wait. It started at the Montgomery Tavern which is now, simply a historical plaque near Yonge and Eglinton. But never mind that. Throughout the years, I have been accused by several freelance writers of coming up with utterly absurd story ideas that I made them do all the work on. Among them? Track down the surviving members of something called The Family Compact. Quick history lesson: In the early 1800s, this part of the world was known as Upper Canada and the most influential people around were devoted to the Crown and British traditions and they kept themselves and their friends in charge of the place. Rather haughty bunch, we all thought.  In 1837, a Scottish born journalist named Willian Lyon Mackenzie led a small armed rebellion and some Family Compact types shut him down pretty quick and threw his printing presses into Lake Ontario. If I really wanted to do research I could probably find out where at the bottom of the lake that stuff lays but really, I just wanted to say that when I was a teenager and young journalist, I idolized the rebellious Mackenzie; then years later, when I assigned a freelance writer to track down the surviving members of the Family Compact, I was the editor of a magazine called Metropolitan Toronto Business Journal, which was owned by the Board of Trade of Metro Toronto, which was, in fact, the 1992 version of the Family Compact.

YOUR TOUR GUIDE AT 
Accordions Canada

S is for Squeezeboxes. Michelle's from Newfoundland. If she doesn't visit Accordions Canada on Eglinton Avenue in the heart of Little Jamaica. I'm telling on her.

T is for the Tranzac. More accordions. More cowbell. You name it. The Tranzac's on Brunswick Avenue. Not far from Albino's house, come to think of it. Something musically interesting is going on at the Tranzac, almost every day of the year. Somebody should write a book or make a documentary about the Tranzac. An undersung musical treasure. Musically undersung? See what I did there?

U is for us. Me and Helena. We love visitors. Plus, because we have been to every place on this list, we'll be happy to get you there. Including the entry for "V," because for "V," you will need a car. Oh wait. We haven't been to Fatima. Yet. If Helena's sore muscles don't soon get better I'm going to insist. Meantime, come visit our little library. Sit on the adjacent bench. Read a spell.

V is for the flea market downstairs the Dixie Value Mall, a few clicks west of downtown Toronto. When my sister Mary gave me a ticket to join her at a Shania Twain concert at the Scotia Centre last year, she needed some sparkly jeans, and come concert day we found a pair at the Value Mall. The flea market downstairs is not for the squeamish but for the curious? If Albino Carreira of the Wood Cake House ever went into sales, this is the kind of joint he'd run. 

W is for--and it's about time you asked--"Who is Michelle Donovan. And why are you writing this for her?" When I was the still editor of Today's Trucking magazine (before I wrote about the all-dark restaurant) I penned an editorial about trucking

MICHELLE IN GUIDE TO TORONTO:
Get it?

companies hiring foreign workers. When my dad and uncle Ed ran the bus company in Sudbury they had guys from all sorts of places on staff, but to me, the most foreign was a guy named Mike Donovan, from a place called St. Brendan's Island, Newfoundland. Mike (or Moik as he pronounced it) appeared out of nowhere looking for a job, got hired on and then, for the next few years, hung around and endeared his charming Newfoundland self to our family. When I did the story about 40 years later, I phoned the post office in St. Brendan's Island looking for him. Whoever answered said there were no Mike Donovans but he'd heard of  one in Grand-Falls Windsor. I called and got him. How'd I know I had the right guy? One of the first things he asked was, "Did your sister Norma ever get married?" A few years later, I got an email from somebody named Michelle who had been at her ailing father's bedside in Newfoundland, and in a drawer beside his bed, found my magazine column. Moik'd never told her about the story, but she contacted me to say we Carters might be interested in knowing that her much-loved dad was facing his last days, and that he had lots of fond memories of Sudbury. After exchanging a few emails, I commented that Michelle seemed to have a facility with language. I encouraged her to join a writing group that I participate in and turns out she's just as charming as her dad, she's a former elementary school teacher, and she has taken a real fancy to Toronto and writing but she's been to all the touristy tourist places and should now focus on the good ones. Everybody in the writing group loves when Michelle tells her stories. What is it about Newfoundlanders anyway?

X might as well be for "The Expositor," the beloved weekly newspaper that I still subscribe to and sometimes write for and two summers ago, I covered the opening, downtown Toronto, of the Lillian McGregor park, named for a former resident of the Whitefish River First Nation and if you're going to be downtown Toronto, you really might like to pay attention. Especially to the huge metal sculpted eagle feathers. The older I get, the more I understand that, if you just stop and look around you will never be bored in downtown Toronto. Or anywhere, for that matter.

Y as in YYZ; Toronto's airport code. I highly recommend hopping a ride on the Union Pearson Express (UPS) train that goes from downtown out to the airport and back. It's a quick fun trip that lets you see the backyards and unpublicized sides of the city. When the UPS first opened, Ed and I rode it out to the Airport, had a beer there and then returned downtown, and even though we'd lived here about 20 years already, we saw parts of our beloved city that we would have never otherwise passed through. Not coincidentally, one of the places the train goes alongside of is the Henderson Craft Brewery which brews a very tasty IPA named after the train: Pearson Express. And Henderson's a 15-minute walk from my house, is open every day of the year, including holidays like today. I'm probably headed there after this one last entry.

 Where zines can be seen

Z. The Toronto Zine library (obviously). Upstairs at the Tranzac Club. Did you even know there was such a thing as a zine library? Literary enterprises like the Toronto Zine library, showcasing younger writers' and creators' enthusiasm for the importance of reading and writing, fill me with optimism. Traditional media might be on the way out, but ingenuity and creativity are burning hotter than ever. Exhibit Z: The Toronto Zine library. As far as tourist spots go, it's the last word.

 

 

PC's home phone

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME wouldn't be my cousin.

This morning, I told my cousin Rose about something that happened yesterday, and Rose's response was, "That kind of thing takes a special, smart, calm type of person. Just like you." 

I love Rose. 

She's my age and lives in Halifax. Our moms were sisters, and Rose is also the youngest of a big family though she only has sisters. No brothers.

And what a handle to get you through life, right? Rose is more than a name; Rose is a decoration. Say this out loud: "Have a nice morning, Rose" 

And have you ever heard anybody say, "Oh that Peter he looks at the world through Mary-coloured glasses."? I also know at least two Junes, and they're angelic. How could you not be, sharing a name with everybody's favourite month?  

But back to me, and why Rose said that stuff.

I told her that last Thursday I surprised my wife Helena with a new (reconditioned but still) and bigger iPhone. I was also pleased with myself for successfully transferring all the pictures and apps from her old unit to the new one. Helena was happy.

Until Saturday morning. 

That was when we realized that the part of the phone that made phone calls wasn't working.

"Phone?" I said to the little machine, "you had one job." Ha ha.

The repair job fell to the household IT department. By sheer coincidence his initials are PC.

I started at about 9:30 a.m. 

I poked and prodded and Googled and ChatGPT'd and finally decided to contact our carrier, Bell Mobility. After a surprisingly short wait, I found myself involved in a call with a tech in Manila. 

But just as we were making headway, I realized it was going on 11:00 and I had promised to meet up with my sister Norma who was visiting from out of town. The Bell person understood and gave me a hotline number for direct access for when I had more time.

The visit with Norma was wonderful and deserving of not merely a separate blog but a Netflix screenplay. The hours passed like minutes, and at 7:30, after Norma had left, I called the hotline.  Again, I got through to a Filipino woman named Max ("short for Maxima," she said). Max was professional, calm and so precise in her language it felt like she was standing next to me. ("Peter, is the little notch on the same side of the SIM card as the word Bell?")

After 10 minutes, Max said, "Try calling the phone."

My next words? "Max I love you!"

I don't really. Max and I scarcely know one another. But the phone worked and for a moment I knew that if Max had asked me for an RV I would have been like, "you want gas or diesel?"  

Which brings me to the point of this story: You know how, when people get bad service, they say "lemme talk to your boss?" 

I do that sometimes but I also enjoy telling supervisors when the person on the other end of the helpline does a terrific job. 

I'm not sure explaining to a boss how efficient one of the staff is ever got anybody a raise, but if you need a mood lifter, this is magic. 

A few years back, I asked a particularly helpful 1-800-help guy in India to put his boss on the line. I told the manager, who said thanks for going to the trouble, and then the tech came back on the phone. He told me the manager had shared my comments with the whole room and his colleagues all applauded. Was it the truth? Who cares? Sure made me feel great.

Saturday, Max assured me her manager would find out I was satisfied. She then asked if there was anything else she could help with, I said "nope," and we hung up.

Fifteen minutes later, my phone rang. It was Max's boss, Mimi, reassuring me that she got the memo. Mimi added that Max had started this job only two weeks earlier, so the commendation was even more meaningful.

Mimi's call made my day. 

And that's what Rose was commenting on.

Fact is, I might be complimenting those help-line folks but in those situations, I'm the one who walks away happy. 

If you could bottle and sell a drug that provides the same relief as the feeling you get the moment you realize that:

a: Your call to the help desk isn't a waste of time; 

b: The person on the other hand of the help desk feels good about the exchange and,

 c: You can tell your wife her new phone works okay,  

you'd be a very wealthy... oh wait. 

It's already been invented. 

And now that I'm finished this blog, I'm going to have an ice-cold can of it. And toast Rose.

Daughter: One measly consonant away from laughter

BLONDIE'S PIZZA: That's the background for this pic. The 
Dundas Street eatery also makes great pizza. 

I just wrote a book. Sorta. By accident.

A year and a month ago, my daughter Ewa, who lives in Vancouver, surprised me with a subscription to an online service called Storyworth. 

Over the next 12 months, Storyworth emailed me a story prompt every week. I  wrote something in response to the prompts and at the end of a year, a hardcover book appeared.

That's it. 

I could have written fiction, (my late brother Ed, who figures very largely in this collection, once said I'm best at "non-friction"), poetry, or recipes. Or photos. Whatever I wanted.  

I opted for straight, true stuff, with no pictures.

Most prompts were questions like, "What was your best vacation and why? and "Describe a favourite pet." Try answering either of those. You'll be surprised at how easily you wind up with a fun story.

Of course I didn't have to follow the Storyworth suggestions, and good thing, too, because 100 per cent of my responses went off the rails early on. Somehow, for instance, the answer to the prompt "In what ways are you like your dad?" got morphed into a story about me accidentally visiting a Moscow brothel.

I'm pretty sure that never happened to my father.

Of course that's why me and Storyworth were friends. There weren't no rules. Zero of my stories ended up having anything do with the original prompts.

So between April 2024 and April 2025, Saturday morning after Saturday morning, you'd find me plunked down at the north end of our red couch,  with Iris Cat skritching her skinny neck along the side of my Dell laptop, as I typed out stories that I'd never before published, blogged about or shared on Facebook.

April 26th, 2025, I  hit "PUBLISH." 

Three days later, the elegantly bound hard cover Storyworth: Why Writing is ... Righting appeared on my porch. As you can see, Iris approves.

It was almost as simple as that and I recommend you give it a try.

IRIS BOOK OF TELLS: She puts
the cat into catalyst.

But the story doesn't end there. 

After the original Storyworth book was printed, it became clear that some others in my family wanted to find out what I wrote. I learned that any subsequent pressings of the original single book would cost upwards of $50 a pop. I wasn't going to ask anybody to pay that much for stories I could just tell them if they, you know, phoned me. 

So that's when Storyworthy: Why Writing is ... Righting got turned into a self published paperback, priced as low as Amazon allows. 

But I'm not here to sell my book. As I said, I advise everybody to try Storyworth.

And if you can somehow finagle it, have one of your kids pony up the $150 or so it costs to register.

When Ewa did so, she knew I'd be way more likely to complete the project because she paid for it. 

At work last week, I was talking to colleagues about this project, and mentioned more than once that as fun as it was, having the book done was a huge relief.

SOFT-HITTING HARD COVER:
The original Storyworth product

 That, I said, was that.

Except then I mentioned the thing to one of my co-worker pals, a Manhattan-based journalist euphoniously named Nataleeya Boss.

Me: "My daughter Ewa was the catalyst behind the book. Have I ever mentioned that my kids have spurred me on to new heights? It's the story of being a dad."

Nataleeya: "That should be your next book!" 

So much for doneness.

Friends to the Max

ART IMITATES MAX: This is ChatGPT's response to my request for a rendition of Max and
his new pal on the roadside near Burwash. 

In 1986, thrilled by the idea of working in the big city at a fancy magazine, I packed up my silver grey '78 Dodge Aspen and headed south to Toronto from my hometown of Sudbury.

As I was leaving, I stopped to tell one of my hippie pals what I was up to and I asked if he wanted to come along for the ride to Toronto.  

He--let's call him Max--said "sure" and hopped in. 

We were about 50 minutes south of Sudbury when Max and I got passed by a huge old sedan; the kind everybody believes dads drove in the '60s. We were right near a place called Burwash, which, at the time, was home to a recently shuttered provincial prison farm

Along the side of the highway were signs reading a version of: "Do not pick up hitchhikers." 

Once in front of us, the driver slowed down a lot. So I passed him. He sped up, passed me, slowed, and I decided enough was enough. 

I braked, steered to the shoulder and stopped. So did he. 

A slender guy with long dark hair and moustache emerged from the driver's side; Max all but leapt out of our passenger door and went to greet the stranger.  

After a few seconds, Max did a 180, and grinning, walks back to tell me: "He's got coke and wants to trade it for some weed. Open the trunk."

I had no idea. 

My pal was carrying a whack of grass. It was not something I was happy about, especially on this trip; with me heading to my new magazine job.  

Trafficking weed was serious. Instead of just stopping near Burwash, we could have wound up doing time there.

Here's what happened next. 

I said, "Max, if you're doing a drug deal, I'm outta here." 

He said, "Really?"

I said, "Really."

He said, "Open the trunk." 

I did. He fetched whatever stuff he had, shut the trunk and I watched Max and his new business associate get smaller in my rear-view mirror. 

That was the last I heard from him. For months.

One afternoon, I was in a place called Rower's Pub on Harbord Street with my new boss (and by then, friend) Jim Cormier and in walks tall skinny Max! The last place I'd seen him was Burwash. By the time we were in Rower's, I'd actually gotten to know Jim well enough that I'd told him a few Max stories. So Jim was sorta happy about his in-person appearance.

Max stood in the Rower's doorway holding a rifle. Max and guns were certainly not a thing. He was and I'm sure still is the world's most passive pacifist. 

Turns out he was carrying the hunting gun because it belonged to one of his pals and he was just delivering it. As friends do. 

Again. Good thing there were no cops around. But all that came of the Rowers encounter  was Jim and Max getting to know and like one another. They were both at our wedding a few months hence. Jim was with his girlfriend Cindy and I forget Max's date's name. I met her for the first and only time at the wedding.

I asked Max how he and she met. 

Max said, "I was walking westward on the north side of Front Street in front of the Royal York; she was walking east on the south side, you know,  in front of Union Station.. And our eyes met." 

Me: "Your eyes met? Front Street's very wide Max. It's huge!"

Max--with that same grin I recognized from the side of highway 69 all those months ago: "Right?"

I could write Max stories all day.   

After I described the old movie The Mission to him, Max observed "my favourite movies are the kind you would enjoy even if you are blind or deaf."  

One time, back in Sudbury, when I was a reporter at a newspaper called Northern Life, I was invited to a press conference to hear the recently returned-to-earth Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau. I invited Max. During the question period, Max raised his hand and asked "has anybody researched what astronauts dream about when they're up in space?"

I cringed. Oh Max. 

Garneau politely laughed and said, "No I don't think so."

That was 40 years ago. Last week, I Googled "what do astronauts dream about?" There's tons of material on the topic.

Max was ahead of  his time.

Why am I telling you about Max and the astronaut now? 

Because I think (hope) Max might see this blog and get in touch. And he'll give me something to write about. 

  

John School

"I think I may need some executive coaching. Is that one of the suite of services offered by Pete's Blog & Grille?"

PUTTING THE BILL INTO PLAYBILL: I swiped my cousin-in-law's
photo off the Facebook account of the little person on the left. Pretty sure.

That came from my colleague and friend John Schofield, about 70 minutes ago. He texted me the message just as he was stepping out for a lunchtime walk. 

I told him that we here at Pete's B&G hadn't yet fully developed our full "suite" of executive coaching services but I'd have something ready when he got back from his stroll. (That's where Johns go, right? Haha)

So here it is: 

10 tips guaranteed to catapult you to the very top of the corporation. In no discernible order, and with no proven results.  

10) Start close to the top. It's way easier to be appointed president if you start as vice president. 

9) Sucking up is under-rated. Do what you're told. That might be the single most important rule you'll ever learn in school. Nobody I've ever met in any context enjoys being told they're wrong, about anything. The only thing worse than being informed you're mistaken is having it proved to you, especially when others are watching. Just yesterday, I watched the excellent Netflix movie Whiplash about a (supposedly) 19-year-old drummer who defies his bully conductor only to prove to the world that he's as good a drummer as Buddy Rich. Elaine Benes would put it this way:  "Fake! Fake! Fake!" I suck at doing what I'm told.

8) Speaking of sucking up, my wife many jobs ago told me I spent a lot of time"sucking down." Time I could have put to good use polishing the brass's brass I used talking to the building-maintenance guy about Dustbane, that stuff Mr. Dorigo the St. Albert's school custodian cleaned up kids' barf with. It's a smell you don't forget. The Dustbane. Barf too.

JIM'S DANDY: Cormier would have seen through this cheap
excuse to run his photo just to attract readers. And
he'd have approved. (I think it was the baby's FB
account I stole this great pic from.)

7) Speaking of Dustbane, one of my personal executive role models is a late cousin-in-law named Bill McIntosh. Bill and his wife, my cousin Leona, had six kids, Canise, Keith, Helen Leona, Mary Frances, Norah and Laurie. I was lucky enough to spend a considerable amount of time at their cottage near Calabogie Lake in Ontario, and just down the road from their place was a Clampett-esque mansion that, legend had it, belonged to, you guessed right, the guy who invented Dustbane. But that's not why I look up to Bill. I loved hanging with him and his family because as a dad, he put his energy into relaxing with Leona and the six little McIntoshes. I don't even know what Bill did for a living. It wasn't a thing. But when he cottaged, he wasn't like, "okay kids line up it's time for our annual archery competition!" or anything like that. There were no mahogany-boat maintenace chores neither.  Time off from work was for relaxing with the missus and kids. Not sure why I mentioned that here.

6) Stay on topic. 

5) Wanna hear something funny? I was already on journalism job number four--at Chimo Media in Toronto--the very first time that any journalist I knew refer to what he was doing as a "career." It was another role model of mine, the late Jim Cormier. Jim was considering a move to another magazine and said "I have to think about how this would affect my career." I asked him to repeat it. Nobody in my "wingin'-it" universe had ever used that word before. 

4) If Jim were alive I know he would actually be at the top of his profession, because that's the way he rolled. Very smart, ambitious but kind, way too good looking, funny and likeable besides. So this tip should actually read, "be more like Jim Cormier".

3) And forget about the sticking to plans. 

2) And next to finally, if you're reading Pete's Blog&Grille for executive coaching advice, you might as well isskay ouryay areercay olongsay.  

1) Sorry. Thought I had 10. I was wrong. Godspeed (whatever that means) your career dreams John.

Stompin' 2.0

SUSSING THEM OUT?  Go to
Kurt Suss Music on Facebook

"Pips was a partially blind English bulldog with a protruding jaw that made him look like Mom when she was mad." (Dogman. by Kurt F. Suss.)

"...a protruding jaw that made him look like Mom when she was mad!"  I sure wish I had written that. 

Dogman's full of colourful story telling. And it brims over with love of dogs and love of family in equal measures.

I happened to meet the writer, Suss, a professional dog guy a few months ago. And every once in a while I get to know somebody I want to yell to the world about.

Okay okay. I've ever met anybody boring. True fact. Scratch any person's surface--never mind scratching, just ask--you'll get drama.

That said.

If Pete's Blog&Grille was a podcast, Suss would be a regular guest for as many weeks as it takes him to share the stories behind each of the songs on his two CDs.

(I'd have told you about these recordings sooner but  I don't have a CD player in the house any more. Just the car. I had to wait til I took a reasonably long drive, which was last week.)

Every song is about a Canadian legend. Or ghost story. Or obscure piece of history that you probably don't know.

Case in point, first time I heard Mad Trapper, I was northbound on Sorauren Avenue, which is adjacent to the street we live on. About 30 seconds into Dark Day in Saint Thomas, his lyrics actually made me, say, out loud, "Really?" 

And then, a second later, his lyric was "Yeah," as if he could have heard me. And then I got a bit blue. The song's about Jumbo the elephant getting killed in St. Thomas, Ont. I had no idea.

Another? Cloud 11. Hands up anybody who remembers the escaped inmate Donald Kelly who was making headlines around Ontario back in the '70s, as he outran the law. Cloud II was a tracking dog that got killed in the process.

WANT TO CONTACT KURT: Try 'Hey Siri! Who's the world's
worst self promoter? Or try isiscanine@hotmail.com.

Not all the songs are dark.

On the same album as the Jumbo song are not one but TWO bus songs! 

Two bus ballads!

My mom and dad have a bus carved on to their gravestone. 

Last century, a few weeks before I met Helena, my dad gave me my very own 44-passenger school bus because he had no use for it anymore. Who else do you know had one of those?  

But I digress. 

A Bus Just Like Neil's is a tribute to Neil Young's touring vehicle, and The Little Blue Bus is a Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, French fry place that, according to Suss's lyrics, even Stompin' Tom Connors approved of. 

Did I say Stompin' Tom? Are you, like me, thinking Stompin Tom 2.0?

Kurt would be chuffed. (Good name for a song: Suss got chuffed!)

He's a huge Connors fan and believes he  ran into the late singer long ago, before Connors was a household name. (Which he is, in Canada, in case anybody Stateside's reading this.) 

Recalls Suss: "I actually met him [Connors] once but didn't know who he was. I was 16 and dating a girl whose sister worked for a sound studio in Toronto. I occasionally helped out a bit with making sounds for TV productions.. Tom was there previewing one I think I may have even got him a pop." 

Suss can tell a story.  

Here's the thing. 

Suss told me he's on the lookout for more Canadian stories and legends to sing about.  

Which brings me back to that beautiful old bus I owned when I met Helena. 

Pop star Don McLean was a lonely teenage broncin' buck with a pink carnation and a pickup truck. 

I'll start by telling Kurt F. Suss,  I was all alone but I owned a bus.

I am on to something here.. 

Fearless (ish) Fred

THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS: God knows who most of these kids are. I can name about half.

I love when stuff like this happens. 

See that arrow? It's pointing at Fred Bortolussi. 

A few hours ago, Fred emailed me this picture of his and my St. Albert's School grade one class on the steps of St. Clement's church after we made our First Communion. (I stuck the arrow in. Fred didn't.)

.

The pic came as a wonderful surprise. It's not like Fred and I stayed in touch all these years. We hadn't spoken since before the turn of the century. 

But Fred came across a recent Pete's Blog&Grille, responded very kindly and mentioned that he had a photo he wouldn't mind sharing. 

PS: Fred looks the same now as
he did in grade one.

The emails flew back and forth. I decided to share the communion pic and write this blog.

Except I early on realized I wasn't sure I could spell Fred's last name right. 

I did a search. And found a story and picture in the Oct.27, 2022 issue of the Kemptville Advance. 

The kid that the arrow's pointing at was recognized a few years ago as one of this country's best high school teachers. Fred won the  prestigious Baillie Award for excellence in Secondary School Teaching. From Queen's University in Kingston, no less. (Motto: We're Queen's and you're not. Haha.)

I'm proud to know him! 

It gets better: Fred taught at least one individual who shares my DNA. This should come as no surprise. The Ottawa Valley, where Fred lived all these years, is my paternal ancestral homeland and the Irish Catholic Carters bred like Irish Catholic Carters. 

My second cousin Sheila's daughter Jessica Kehoe was in one of Fred's high-school law classes.

Reports mom: "She  [Jessica] is now working as a Director of Human Resources for a research pharmaceutical company. I would say that career path is the direct result of the formative high school experience." Ladies and gentlemen? My cousin's kid. 

Back to Fred. 

We're talking about a guy who helped finance his education by fighting forest fires. 

And then when he was at Carleton University, on his first skydiving adventure, Fred's chute didn't open and he wound up getting caught in a tree. True story. They had to cut him down! (I was in Carleton's journalism program at the time and produced a short radio news item about the adventure. Journalism 102: Let other people risk their necks. You write about them.)

Fred is so unafraid of stuff that one day, he rode on the back of Ray Cote's motorbike from Sudbury to Ottawa and somewhere along the line, fell dead asleep, at highway speed. 

And then...if  that wasn't foolhardy enough, Fred Bortolussi spent the rest his career standing in front of groups of teeangers trying to tell them stuff  he thinks they should know.

The guy's fearless.

To a point.

Neither of us is dumb enough to try putting names to all those kids in the First Communion pic. You get one wrong you'll hear about it forever. So help me God. 

If anybody out there wants to weigh in, Fred and I would love to hear.