Memories of Coleridge

Here is a photo of my Dad which was taken a few years before he passed away. Thankfully, he mellowed alot before his time on this earth was up because he was a very excitable man, to put it mildly! This photo was taken on St. Patrick's Day, 1984, on the very last outing he ever had. I took him out for lunch to Eglinton Square and then we went to the Legion at Woodbine and Kingston Road which was his old hangout. He had such a fun time that day and it is one of the best memories I have of him.

Coleridge Avenue - the street was the haven for so many of the kids on our street. I remember one night counting all of the kids we had on the street - there were 72! I guess counting kids was better than counting sheep. Our street kids also hung out with many kids from the surrounding areas, such as Jerry Wild, Denise Hill, Tommy and Kenny Beck, Big Angelo from King Edward Ave., and so many more kids who use to come over and play street hockey with us.

Our street hockey team was amazing! We played at every opportunity we had and I'm so glad the boys included me in their teams - mostly because I was good. I was so small compared to the bigger boys and I could deek around most of them so quickly that they rarely saw me. I absolutely loved hockey and the boys were ok too. I wish we had taken more photos of all of us playing hockey on the street because the memories were priceless.

One of the collective memories of so many of us from Coleridge was when we use to play "buzz off" (hide and go seek) absolutely every night. I remember one time I had such a good hiding spot that they never found me all night and I just stayed there and waited! The whole gang of us got together and it was so much fun. I'm sure we must have driven some of the neighbours nuts but we didn't care because we were having so much fun. Of course, as soon as the street lights came on, we gad to go in and spoil all of our fun.

One of the things I remember so vividly was the lack of cars on the street. In those days, there were very few people who had enough money to buy cars, which gave us the luxury of running all over the street without ever being concerned for getting run over. Mind you, when I was a very little girl, just 5 years old, my dear sweet Nana was visiting us from Los Angeles to celebrate the birth of my little brother, Roy. I guess I was feeling a little left out, so I went to sit on the curb of the sidewalk. Along came a St. Clair Ice truck and not only ran over my feet once but the second set of wheels ran over my feet again. I thought my Nana was going to have a heart attack when she witnessed it happen. I was very lucky that I had no damage to my feet.

Another dumb thing that happened to me on Coleridge was when the pony was on the street for families to have their pictures taken with the pony. Well, the pony was much more like a horse and I desperately wanted to have my picture taken with it but wasn't allowed (typical for my mother). I decided to at least hang around with the horse anyways who, to show his gratitude, bit my boob and left the nastiest bruise you have ever seen with the imprint of his teeth and all!

We had a wonderful neighbour - the LaChapelles - and Mr. LaChapelle use to keep a virtual zoo in his place. He raised monkeys, chickens, roosters, ducks, as well as the usual cats and dogs. One dog I just loved was Skippy who just disappeared one day and my heart was broken. I still think of Skippy to this day.

One of the saddest things that happened in my entire life was the totally unexpected death of my best friend, Christine (Chrissy) Archibald on September 30, 1954, just days before Hurricane Hazel. Chrissy and I were inseparable - we even had the same family doctor! Chrissy got a bad cold and her mom, Margo Archibald, took her to see Dr. Henderson who, in turn, gave her an antibiotic. It turns out that the medication was given in an adult dosage and Chrissy died through the night. I can remember everyone crying but nobody told me what had happened. All I knew is that Chrissy had disappeared and was apparently never coming back. A few years later, Chrissy's older sister, Linda, and I went to St. John of Norway Cemetery where we visited the grave but I still didn't comprehend what had happened to my sweet, wonderful friend. The weird thing was that as I grew up, I couldn't seem to shake the feeling that something was wrong about the death of Chrissy. I had finally been told that she died in her sleep of a cold but after some investigation on my part, I found out that she had died of an overdose. Even the truth came out many years after the death of my special friend, Chrissy, I'm glad I finally found out. To this day, I still go and visit her grave. I clean it up all of the time because it seems that nobody else ever visits.

As soon as I get some pics scanned of all of us when we were small, I will get them posted here.