Georgian Bay July 2011/Memorial Bench

My brother Steve and I decided to dedicate a park bench to our parents Ray and Joan Smith, who died in 2007 and 2009 respectively. An old railroad track has been converted into a pleasant trail along the Parry Sound waterfront with great views over what the locals call the North Channel and of Georgian Bay. In the woods just off the path is where we arranged for the bench to go. 

Steve already has a great apartment on the hill behind the Town Beach. The location he chose for the bench is wonderful; about 200 paces from his front door. The bench is secluded and the view is amazing. My parents would have appreciated the serenity and the amazing sunsets. The drawback is that my brother, who is an avid hiker, biker and kayaker, gets sidetracked and spends too many minutes at the bench, delaying his daily physical activities.

We will soon have it painted or stained and a plaque with our parent's dates will be attached to the back. There is a little makeshift fire pit in front and I'm sure a great many beers will be consumed here after dark. Over time it will get marked up, but that's par for the course in my old home town. Here are some photos of the bench and others from my recent trip to the Parry Sound area.

Midnight in Paris

"Talk about a fulfilling movie. That's the kind of movie I could sit through again immediately" That's the sort of remarkable thing my husband sometimes says and what he said to my son and me as we exited our local rep cinema after watching Woody Allen's latest foray, Midnight in Paris. Our west-end Toronto street-scape is more like the Wild West than the cobbled, curvy streets of Paris but we sauntered home, with romance in our eyes, expounding on the virtues of this great film.

We're on a bit of a Woody Allen bender at the moment; seeing Annie Hall on Friday and Manhattan on Saturday. My two men were expecting another witty, urbane rom-com and they got it. What they weren't expecting was a little time travel thrown in.

In Midnight in Paris, Owen Wilson plays a Hollywood screenwriter working on his first novel. He's totally besotted with Paris; its beauty and its foibles. Disenchanted with his life, he longs for the days of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. His fiance, exhibiting the worst xenophobic American traits, and his soon-to-be-in-laws are in tow, soaking up the best Paris has to offer but putting the city and the French down at the drop of a chapeau.

Wilson's character, Gil Pender, distances himself from his betrothed, her family and their new know-it-all friends. At the stroke of midnight he magically finds the portal that takes him to his favourite time period: Paris in the 20s.

He's startled  to be hobnobbing with Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda, and Cole Porter. No explanations are given for the time warp and Gil doesn't seem to want any. He just wants to go back again, and soon.

Actor Corey Stoll plays an excellent Hemingway; "Who wants to fight?". Marion Cotillard is Gil's 1920s lovely love interest. In another hiccup in time, Adriana (Cotillard) and Gil find themselves face to face with Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas and Gauguin.

Rachel McAdams plays Inez, Gil's fiance. Michael Sheen (whom I saw arm-in arm with McAdams on Toronto's Bloor Street, yay!)  plays their pendantic friend. France's First Lady Carla Bruni has a cameo as a guide at the Rodin Museum.

When I saw Kathy Bates' name in the opening credits, I thought who could she be but Gertrude Stein. Check mark! The Surrealists had no problem at all with Gil's time travel. Adrien Brody's turn as Dali (Rhinoceros!) was so perfect I had to see it again. I told my husband I wanted to rent the film as soon as it came out.  "Rent it," he said, "I want to buy it." Could there be a better endorsement?

Faraway, So Close

Just the bang and the clatter
As an angel hits the ground...





photo - Simone Joyner/Getty Images Ltd.
lyrics: U2

Across the Road from Jack the Ripper?

My family of Smiths is pretty messed up. My father was orphaned 2 days before Christmas 1936 and none of the multitude of available aunts and uncles took him in. He and his brother Ivan were sent to live in a "Children's Home", an orphanage, while his sisters were raised by their dead father's boss.

Back a further generation and my grandmother was shuffled off to be raised by her aunts while her birth mother and father went on to have more children. The 1901 English Census indicates that she was "deaf". I can only guess this is the reason they didn't keep her.

Not my Great-Grandfarther, but close - his brother Cecil

So my Dad grew up - and I grew up - knowing very little about his side of the family. Over the years I've dug about in Ancestry.com, following rumours and leads and confirming some of them. Smiths marrying Smiths, for example, a widowed daughter-in-law marrying her new step-father-in-law's unmarried son. The mind boggles. I did find out a couple of indisputable facts. My great-grandfather, Walter Alfred Thomas Penny Smith was a London bobby. In 1901 Constable Walter Smith lived at 55 Broadhurst Gardens in London's district of South Hampstead. I don't know how long he lived there, I just know from the 1901 Census that that's where he and his wife and one of my great-uncles lived.

The infamous artist Walter Sickert, prime suspect for the Jack the Ripper murders, once lived across the road at number 54 Broadhurst Gardens with his wife.  From this article it looks as if he and his wife remained at 54 Broadhurst Gardens until they divorced in 1899 and he moved to Dieppe. My great-grandfather may have moved into Broadhurst Gardens after the Sickerts had moved away from the street, but boy oh boy, what a coup that would have been. I wish I could definitively prove that my ancestor, Walter Smith,  twitched the curtains when Sickert walked by.

55 Broadhurst Gardens, found on Picasa, photographer unknown.

Whether Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper or not, I don't know. I know that he did have a penchant, easily found on Google, for painting of bosomy nudes sprawled uncomfortably on iron-frame beds.You're free to make up you own mind.

Shabby Sheesh!

We are finally getting around to stripping off this grimy wallpaper, much to our neighbour's chagrin. I'm sure the scritch, scritch is quite audible to the people living on the other side of the wall.

This 1970s French Provincial-style wallpaper covers the halls and stairwells on all three floors of our house. This summer removing it is a make-work job for my under-employed son. It's a daunting task.

When we first saw the house almost 14 years ago we noted the dated wallpaper but thought it added a shabby-chic touch. Now after a decade+ more of dirty hand-prints it's just shabby. We're finally getting around to removing it. And...the walls underneath aren't so bad.

Out Came the Sun and Dried Up All the Rain.

The itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain
And washed the spider out
Out came the sun
And dried up all the rain
And the itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the spout again

Photos Copyright Hazel Smith