The Most Important Place In The World

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Today turned out to be a very eventful day! First thing in the morning we had a knock on Miss Travelaire's door. The girls were on their way to school, and they wanted to say goodbye to Tanner. (They said goodbye to us too, but Tanner was the main attraction!)

 

After we both availed ourselves of Paul and Amanda's shower, we said goodbye, and left. But on our way out, we swung around to the next line (the next road), and drove by my Mom and Dad's old farm house, which is just a mile west of Paul's place. The farm house looks in good shape, but the barn has disappeared. There's a lot fewer of those old barns left in Southern Ontario.

 

We decided to drive in to Orangville, too, because it is only a couple of miles away. The Main Street looks just completely different now! And while we were there, we stopped in front of my niece Janet's (brother Joe's daughter) place, but no one was home (likely at work at this time of day). Then it was off across Highway 9 to Highway 400, and 11 and north towards North Bay. This highway north is amazing; it used to be just a two lane road that took forever to get from Toronto to North Bay. Now it is four lane all the way, with very little traffic, just a joy to drive! About half way there, we passed through Bracebridge where my niece Lee (another of Joe's daughters) lives, and we stopped in there, but again no one was home.

 

So on it was to North Bay, where we stopped at the Walmart to check it out, because we intended to stay there for the night. After that it was on to the most important place in the world, the house where the most important person in the world was born! (that guy in the picture; he thinks so anyway)

 

You see, by the time they had several kids, my Dad didn't believe in having kids born in hospitals. The house is a Chiropractor's office now, but it was closed so I couldn't go in to have a look. That back part on the house was the kitchen on the bottom floor, and the bathroom (a really big one) on the upper floor.

 

I walked around town a bit; this is Main Street, where on the left side, I had my North Bay Daily Nugget paper route as a kid. The two sides of Main Street were my oldest two brother's paper routes, which were handed down to my next two oldest brothers, and finally the route on this side of the street came to me. I rode my bike down this street in amongst all the shoppers, throwing papers in store doorways, and rushing in to stores to deliver papers to worker's. It's odd that there were hardly any people walking down the street; back in my paper route days Main Street would be bustling with activity.

 

This is the Capitol Theatre building, where up above in that central window was Dr. Foster, my dentist as a kid. I spent many an hour having teeth drilled out behind that window, staring at the theatre sign which used to hang just outside.

 

And I came across the old CPR railway station, which is now a museum. I spent many an hour, as a kid, with friends watching the old steam locamotives (and later diesels) of the transcontinental train stop to pick up and discharge passengers just in front of that station, before they chugged out on their way to Vancouver or Montreal. And the same was the case with the transcontinental CNR railway at the CN station just a few blocks away.

 

This big grassy area in front of the station used to be full of railway yards, which have long gone; there's not a railway track anywhere to be seen now.

 

But here is what it used to look like in the old steam engine days, with roundhouse and all.

 

I'll stop there and continue along memory lane in another post!