Random Access

Sue McFadden is running in ward 10. Ted Blackmore is running in ward 6.

And lots and lots of other people, from ex-councillor Ron Starr to political gadfly Brad Butt are thinking about the rare opportunity to win an open seat on Mississauga City council.

For McFadden, the two-term trustee from Ward 9 on the Peel District School Board, stepping up to council is a natural move. The 48-year-old lives in the ward and isn't shy about saying she'll provide the kind of representation residents are used to from Pat Saito, whose name she drops freely.

"I put a lot of faith in the community" to pick one of their own, says McFadden, who has put health problems behind her.

"Whoever runs better be able to prove they're there for the right reasons, not as a stepping stone to mayor," said the trustee.

Now that he's recovered from -yes, his back problems - chiropractor Ted Blackmore is planning to run in ward 6, where he lost to George Carlson in 2000. Blackmore was appointed councillor after Dave Culham moved on that year. He said he wouldn't run in the election, but changed his mind at the last moment.

The ward 10 resident wants to represent the same ward he served on council. "It's an older, established area I feel more comfortable with. There's something about getting my old job back that sounds good to me."

Butt, whose community credentials are impeccable and whose timing always seems to be horrid, says there's an outside chance he'd run. "We need two councillors elected who understand the big picture issues," said the host of the political show "Conflicting Interests" on Rogers Community Television.

Having already lost twice (to Nando Iannicca and Carmen Corbasson) in municipal election contests where he was a ward resident and the winner wasn't, Butt downplays the importance of residency, especially in open wards.

Former Ward 7 Councillor Ron Starr's name is everywhere these days as a potential candidate. Given his extensive business and development, charity and political tentacles, he's the guy who should have the TV show called Conflicting Interests.

Starr says several people have suggested he run. He'll be making a decision by the end of the year on whether to run and where to run.

Craig Lawrence, the 41-year-old owner of a jewelry store in Streetsville is seriously considering a run in ward 6, where he used to live. The vice-president of the Streetsville BIA ran against Nina Tangri for the provincial Tory nomination in 2003 and serves on Committee of Adjustment.

Former City Hall graphic artist and Ward 2 Peel Board Trustee Don Stephens is not running for council but may run in ward 6 where he lives, if Warren Kennedy doesn't seek re-election.

Others names floating around in cocktail conversation include former Mississauga Board of Trade President Russ McCall, many-time candidate, real estate man and film producer and actor Masood Khan, and planning consultant David Brown who used to work at 300 City Centre Dr.

And, oh yes, Mississauga News' Publisher Ron Lenyk's name has popped up on more than a few occasions as a potential candidate in ward 6 where he lives.

That's what happens when your picture gets in your paper more than the mayor's.

Asked if there's any truth to the rumours, Lenyk said "not even a little bit." He professed no interest in politics. "I plan to die in office," he said referring to the one in which he was sitting at the time, not one over at City Hall.

The mayoralty will once again be a foregone conclusion but that won't keep 70-year-old Roy Willis, who's lost almost as many elections as Hazel has won, from running.

Willis is telling everyone around town that he's going to put his name forward as an insurance policy, just in case McCallion's health should suddenly give out after nomination day and before the election.

Question of the day: What's more odious? An acclamation for the City's highest office or a political contest that isn't really a contest at all?

How do you wrap a seat belt around a pinball?
With a great deal of difficulty, as you might expect.
By now everyone’s heard the story of how Mike ‘Pinball’ Clemons left an Argo practice at UTM a week ago when he was stopped on Mississauga Rd. by a police officer for not wearing his seat belt.
The whole thing would have been a private incident, and soon forgotten, if Pinball didn’t happen to be in the middle of a live interview with Team 1200, an Ottawa all-sports radio station.
Of course, some of the interchange between Clemons and the OPP officer, Dennis Mahoney-Bruer, made it on air.
Clemons introduced himself to the officer and explained that he was being interviewed live.
“Well, I’ll tell you what Pinball, I need your licence. And, you need to say you’ll drive with your seat belt on,” the officer said.
The resulting spate of publicity did more for promoting seat belt safety than the hundreds of press releases that have been issued on the subject over numerous years.
I even heard the subject raised on an ESPN sports radio talk show in the United States, where two announcers mused about whether Pinball would have been distracted by the bright red coat of the RCMP officer (they called him Dudley Do-Right, of course) who stopped him.
Pinball wouldn’t say afterwards whether he got a ticket but I think it’s safe to assume he escaped with a warning.
Clemons just exudes niceness in a way that is rare for any person in public life. If we could convert the energy from that smile into electricity, our power crisis would be over.
Giving a ticket to the warm and cuddly coach would be tantamount to charging Bambi with speeding.
In a letter to the editor of The Globe and Mail yesterday, the OPP officer said, “I must say, in a side note, Mr. Clemons was a total gentleman and very apologetic for having this momentary lapse and reassured me he will wear it (his seat belt) in future, and to this, I have no doubt.”
Doesn’t exactly have the ring of, “See you in court, Mr. Clemons,” does it?

Imagine believing in an idea so much that you not only invest your whole life savings in it, but when you run out of money, you start paying your monthly mortgage on your credit card.
When you land $80,000 in debt and your cookbook idea has been shafted by every publisher in New York and far beyond, you keep moving ahead.
That’s what Janet Podleski and her sister Greta did a decade ago when they were putting together a cookbook featuring low-fat recipes. It was called Looneyspoons, probably because that’s the way the Podleski sisters, two Polish girls from a big family in St. Thomas, Ont., ended up after the experience: a little bit daft.
As they chatted with admirers yesterday afternoon at the Oasis Convention Centre in Lakeview, the Podleskis could laugh about the genesis of the little food empire they have now established.
They were signing copies of their third cookbook, Eat, Shrink And Be Merry for those attending Trillium Health Centre’s incredibly popular annual diabetes information forum.
I was pretending to be there as a reporter but I was really there to get autographs on all three of our books. They have been staples of our household’s meal-planning since we discovered Looneyspoons in an attempt to improve our diets after the cholesterol alarm in my doctor’s office began to wail when I walked through the door several years ago.
Yeah, the recipe names are funny (Thai It You’ll Like It) but all that really counts is that they are scrumptious. You would never know they are low-fat or that they are carefully constructed to maximize the good stuff and minimize the bad.
The overwhelming response from readers of the self-published books (with the assistance of Wealthy Barber David Chilton) told the Podleskis they were on the right track. Comments like “I got healthy by accident” make them smile even more than they already do, which is a lot.
There’s lots of bacon and cream cheese in their recipes and other things the food police would never allow.
“It’s okay to eat 80 per cent healthy and then 20 per cent of the time have what you crave,” said Greta who included a sinful chocolate layer cake recipe in the new book under the proviso: You’re Going to Die Anyway.
“The problem is that most of us have the 80 per cent and the 20 per cent reversed,” laughed Janet, who can’t cook worth a lick. (She once phoned Greta to ask how to make a tuna fish sandwich.)
The sisters’ new line of thin-crust whole-wheat frozen pizzas, by the way, is made by Mississauga’s own Molinaro’s Fine Italian Foods.
Eat Shrink And Be Merry was inspired when a friend of Greta’s told her he’d taken apples out of his kids’ lunches because they contained bad carbs.
“There’s so much confusion out there,” said Greta.
While the Podleskis dispel lots of myths in the detailed information they provide as sidebars to their recipes, the good news is that you only need to read those if you want.
All you really need to do is make the recipes. You’ll be hooked, I promise.
Greta said yesterday that the new book is better than the other two put together. This I do not need believe is possible.
However, in the interests of scientific, culinary research, I am willing to sacrifice my supper hour for the next several months to prove Greta wrong. The good news is that I don’t have to sacrifice my waist line in the process.
Here’s Greta’s favourite recipe from Eat, Shrink And Be Merry, which they’re already getting raves about from readers. It’s called Dilly Beloved.

Marinade:
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
3 tbsp. grainy Dijon mustard
2 tbsp. fresh dill
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/4 tsp. salt and fresh pepper

4 large skinless boneless chicken breasts (about 680 grams).

Whisk together marinade ingredients. Arrange chicken in glass or ceramic bowl in a tight, single layer. Pour on marinade, turn and coat chicken. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour and up to one day.
Preheat oven to 350 F. Place chicken on middle oven rack. Bake uncovered for 35 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink in the middle.
Spoon sauce from bottom of pan over chicken and serve immediately.

How can the Dufferin-Peel District Catholic School Board have been in existence since 1969 and never have elected a female chair?
For an organization that prides itself on its openness and on the growing diversity of its student, teaching and administrative populations, that’s a problematic and somewhat embarrassing question to answer.
Of course, there have been many more male trustees than female on the Catholic board over the years, which accounts for part of the reason no woman has broken through.
There certainly have been worthy candidates for the post, however.
I think of long-time Ward 6 and Ward 2 Mississauga Trustee Saundra Glynn, whose formidable intellect was obvious to all. It was probably too obvious to some of her intimidated male colleagues.
Glynn was clearly a competent leader and should have been chair.
More recently, it seemed that long-time Ward 8 Trustee Sally Fallon would inevitably become the first female chair. She was eminently qualified. It never happened and Fallon is now a Justice of the Peace.
Now another long-time female trustee is poised to try to break the male domination at the top of the board.
Esther O’Toole isn’t interested in running for the new Ward 10 seat on city council but she is interested in becoming Dufferin-Peel’s chair. She’s been on the board since 1991, has served on virtually every committee and is now vice-chair.
“If I’m re-elected, I’m going to stand for chair,” O’Toole told me recently. “It’s up to my peers but I really believe I’ve paid my dues.”
Unfortunately for O’Toole, experience shows that, in the patriarchal world of Catholic politics, that might not be enough.

Two stories on opposite pages of today's sports section of The Toronto Star couldn't help but catch your attention.
The first one explained why NHL hockey players aren't going to wear visors anytime soon despite yet another horrible near miss, in this case Leaf involving captain Mats Sundin, who was lucky not to have lost his eye when struck by a puck Wednesday night.
The other outlined how the National Basketball Association is imposing a dress code for players who sit in street clothes on the bench. They will not be allowed to wear 'do-rags, T-shirts or other outfits deemed inappropriate for the impressionable eyes of young fans. The new code will be imposed on players at court side and on the way in and out of arenas and in public appearances.
Soooooooo, let me see if I've got this straight. The NHL can't get a collective agreement with its players that mandates wearing a basic piece of safety equipment that could save a player's eyesight.
The NBA, on the other hand, has a collective agreement where players ceded management the right to impose the wearing of "business casual" attire, as a minimum standard, at all league functions.
What's wrong with this picture, besides everything?
The requirement for mandatory visors for hockey players is so logical that it defies belief that it has not happened yet. It should have happened in 1966 after Detroit Red Wing Doug Barkley lost the sight in one eye in a stick accident and had to retire.
This generation of players may want to foolishly risk their futures, but why don't they at least have the sense to use the grandfather clause so that new players joining the league are protected in future?
As for the NBA, they need a dress code ON the court. Why is Allen Iverson wearing Fat Albert's trunks all the time?
Do the players realize that their attire raises unfortunate images of droopy diapers in every parent watching a game.
Remember when hip hop was a Vince Carter travel to the basket rather than a clothing style that expresses a player's inner soul?

Thanksgiving is both the nicest and the most cruel weekend of the year.
We are lucky enough to have a cottage (in the family for four generations) where we can gather to celebrate together. We take gourds and Indian corn for the table centrepiece and then, on Sunday, in the warming sun of the late afternoon, we take a slow trek around the village, collecting multi-coloured leaves.
If we're lucky, as we were this year, we gather a few bright orange swinging blooms from a Chinese lantern plant as a finishing touch.
It's normally the last weekend for gardening so we cut back perennials, like the peonies, even if they're not really ready for it, and we mulch the beds, put manure around the rhubarb and plant some of the late-season bargains from the garden centre, then water them in like crazy.
Sunday supper is the epitome of what good times are all about, beginning with a dry martini. We broke with tradition this year and had a gin sour. Turkey and the trimmings follow.
Thanksgiving, of course, is for the tried and true in everything including food, drink and friends.
Then we face the mound of dishes and go for a "stumble around" the block in that semi-comatose satiated state brought on by one too many helpings.
The chill of the night air, which you can actually breathe, is invigorating. You can see smog-free stars everywhere.
On our return, we are greeted by the roar of a blaze in a fireplace that was actually built before the cottage was, so the building could be wrapped around it.
The sweetness of the celebration of Sunday is followed, unfortunately, by the official closing ritual of Monday.
The cottage is not winterized. That makes Monday a blur of packing boxes, filling garbage bags, stripping beds and using all of the data carefully gathered from years of study of various versions of CSI to try to identify ice-encrusted packages at the bottom of the freezer.
Then we wait for almost two hours until the last drip of water flows out of the system. A little anti-freeze, the last Herculean effort to squash everything into the trunk and one last glimpse of the lake.
Then we drive away from summer for another year.
The long line of tail lights that face us as we make our way through the nearby town is an all too telling reminder that all the mundane realities of everyday life lie dead ahead.

Mississauga's city centre has never been short of at least two commodities: grand visions and cars.
The grand visions have come from many sources, including homegrown developer Bruce McLaughlin who built Square One out of a cow field, to the cluck of consultants (that's the official term for a group of paid dreamers) who have produced a huge pile of reports on how to transform the corner of Hurontario St. and Burnhamthorpe Rd. W. into a people place.
As the City prepares to host yet another public meeting tonight as part of what has turned into the eternal building of a downtown, listen to the words that were written in The Mississauga News' 1982 community guide.
In that magazine, writers were gazing into their crystal ball, as everyone is wont to do with the city centre, to see how things could turn out.
"Ten years from now this new downtown will begin to change drastically as more high-rise, high-density buildings of startling design emerge on the Mississauga skyline," says the piece.
"By 1992, faddishly garbed teens may roller skate on a rooftop rink atop a 14-storey office complex, a skyward addition to the Square One Shopping Centre which, by then, will have been expanded outwards to include up to six major department stores. A network of walkways will link the civic centre to other innovative buildings in the city centre and an expansion of Square One."
Later on we are told, "here sidewalk cafes, covered walkways and a pedestrian-oriented plaza dotted with greenery and reflecting pools would enhance a new downtown Mississauga planners and politicians strive to make a reality."
Keep on striving guys. We've still got a long way to go, more than three decades after Square One opened.
The city centre has always seemed to be through the roof on rhetoric but way short on real delivery.
Yes, there are legitimate reasons for many of the problems that have plagued the core: McLaughlin's financial woes in the ’80s, the go-slow mentality of conservative British-based Hammerson which became the major player following McLaughlin, badly-timed economic slumps and the high cost of building underground parking in the rock-hard soil.
The Hershey Centre was scheduled to go downtown at one time, but that golden opportunity was missed.
How can a city centre built from scratch to avoid the mistakes of the past have no major park in the downtown core?
Where are the bistros and hole-in-the-wall clubs and niche art stores we were always promised?
As slews of condos finally start to get built along Burnhamthorpe Rd. W., the City is looking for input tonight about what citizens want to see in their downtown.
A company called PPS (does that mean it was hired as a really, really late afterthought?) has been hired from New York to tell us what we already know: that there needs to be more green space, pedestrian opportunities and fewer concessions to the almighty car.
They're floating the idea of closing the short sections of road just north and south of City Hall that link it to the Central Library and Living Arts Centre respectively. Great idea.
Councillors should do that yesterday. It would send a message that the City wants to take back the downtown from the car and give it to the public, to whom it rightfully belongs.
In a book he wrote years ago about his planning philosophy McLaughlin said he was striving to "structure the megalopolis and create a centre with its own heart.
"Mississauga is a bold concept," he added. "It is the first urban experiment in North America coming to grips with the totality of city life."
Shouldn't that totality include a much more human face on our city centre?

I felt better this morning as soon as I turned on my radio.
They were back: Andy Barrie, Kevin Sylvester, Jim Curran and Jill Dempsey.
The CBC lockout is over and Metro Morning is back on the air.
It seems silly to take solace in disembodied voices of people you've never met drifting out of your car radio, but, nevertheless, the feeling is there.
I guess I'm a product of my generation. I listen to other stations, especially for music, but in the end, I always come back to the CBC.
From programs such as Ideas to Definitely Not The Opera, CBC Radio is indispensable, as far as I'm concerned. It has programming that you just can't get anywhere else. For example, who else gives you the flavours of the pockets of regional jazz across this country other than Katie Malloch in the superb weekend show, Jazz Beat, which has been on the air for more than two decades?
Even their lockout programming was better than the inane patter of DJs playing formulaic formats on so many other stations. For one thing, we got to hear replays of the debates about the best songs of every decade of this century, which featured the expert opinions of people like Mississauga singer Alex Pangman and former Mississaugan Jeff Healey.
The CBC has always been about interesting, informed and authoritative voices. Think Max Ferguson, Peter Gzowski, Lister Sinclair (the sound of his resonant tones added two points to the IQ of everyone who listened to Ideas), Arthur Black and on television, Stanley Burke, Earl Cameron, Knowlton Nash, Peter Mansbridge and, of course, the immortal Howard The Turtle.
We are obviously now headed into a period of public flagellation for the CBC, otherwise known as reviewing its mandate for the umpteenth time.
It will try to get younger and hipper to attract a new generation of listeners, but I really don't think it has to. Quality programming will always find an audience.
On the drive to the cottage earlier this year my 19-year-old son Josh and I listened to a Saturday morning show called GO, hosted by Brent Bambury, which chose the top seven guitar solos of all time as nominated by listeners.
It was vintage CBC. Funny and heartfelt stories from listeners about how certain riffs and songs marked milestones in their lives.
I was thrilled that at least one of my vintage of guitar heroes, Amos Garrett, was on the list. Josh was peeved that nothing by the immortal Duane Allman made it. We agreed that Rambling Man or Jessica should have won.
We were bopping along in the car, having a good time, speculating on the next selection and providing running commentary on the readers' remarks. It was engaging and invigorating, which is exactly what the CBC has always been about.
Let's not let the dunderheads who run the Mother Corp. ever change that.

So why did she do it?
That's the question everyone is asking today in the wake of the decision by Carolyn Parrish not to run in the upcoming federal election.
The temptation must have been overwhelming for Parrish, that most egocentric of all of our egocentric politicians, to gauge her personal popularity with the public in a way few provincial or federal politicians ever can.
While that likely would have been a fascinating academic study in name recognition, such a decision is foolhardy and would ultimately have been a waste of time and effort for everyone except Conservative Party candidate Bob Dechert. He surely would have won the seat easily in such a vote-splitting scenario between Parrish and the official Liberal candidate.
Parrish, who may be foolhardy but is no fool, either reached the logical decision that she couldn't win or, more likely, decided that life in the isolation chamber in Ottawa is even less fulfilling than eternal damnation on the Liberal backbenches.
In her resignation letter there was a statement, in bold faced-type, that, "In all careers there comes a logical time to move on, to make room for others who also have a strong desire to serve. For me, that time will coincide with the next federal election in which I will not be running."
Some people at City Hall are taking this as a subtle suggestion to the reigning Queen of the City that the would-be Queen is getting impatient in the green (with envy) room and would like to plan a retirement party really soon.
Some Parrish paranoids are already convinced that she will run for the newly-created open City council seat in Ward 6 a year from now and serve an apprenticeship for mayor.
That does make sense, although the last time I spoke to her, Parrish seemed to suggest that would be seen as a step down.
Would the many forces who despise Parrish put forward their own candidate and try to eliminate her from mayoralty contention by inflicting an embarrassing loss in Ward 6? They might try but she would be difficult to beat in a community she has long served. She would also have the full assistance of her good friend and her riding association president, current Ward 6 Councillor George Carlson.
So where does Parrish's long-time spitting and sparring partner, Steve Mahoney, fit into all this?
Mahoney told me yesterday that, while everyone is assuming he would be the logical candidate for appointment as the Liberal candidate in Mississauga-Erindale (he and Parrish even had a war over the name of the riding) his first priority is...local politics.
He wants to run for mayor or regional chair, if either of the incumbents, who were both on the first Peel council in 1974, ever decide to give up the gavel.
"It would be hard if I was an MP for a few months or a year and I had to resign and come back to run for mayor," should Hazel McCallion change her mind about running for her 10th term as mayor, Mahoney said.
If rumours about Emil Kolb stepping down as Peel Chair materialize, Mahoney would definitely be interested in that job.
Which sets up some interesting scenarios. Under the new voting regime at Peel, Mississauga will have a dozen votes and Brampton and Caledon combined will also have a dozen.
Suppose there's a Mississauga candidate and a northern candidate.
The pressure would be on big time from McCallion to vote for Mahoney if he were Mississauga's nominee.
If Parrish happened to be the newly-minted Ward 6 councillor, what would she do?
Would Mahoney's wife Katie, the current Ward 8 councillor, have to declare a conflict of interest in such a vote?
Food for thought.
One thing about Carolyn Parrish is certain: unless she has serious health issues that would keep her from serving, she will be back, in one race or another. It's hard to imagine anyone who has politics more deeply ingrained in their soul.

Shannon Butcher has been going through all of her old Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong records, listening carefully to the backing by different versions of the Oscar Peterson trio that was the house band for some much of the superb Verve catalogue of the 1950s.
"I'm putting all those CDs on my iPod," she says. "I'm putting together a little Oscar playlist."
The problem is, there isn't a little Oscar playlist, there's only a large one.
"He's recorded everything," Butcher says with an admiring sigh.
The 29-year-old jazz singer, born and raised in Sheridan Homelands and a graduate of the special arts program at Cawthra Park Secondary School is getting a rare opportunity this week: she's on the bill with one of the most beloved artists in her field, or in any other field.
"It's pretty thrilling," says Butcher, who's main gig these days is with SwingRosie, the throwback swing-era vocal trio who are reviving and refreshing the music of the 1930s and ’40s.
"It's unbelievable. It's very flattering to have this opportunity."
Peterson, who still tours the world, has agreed to do a fundraising concert in his own backyard to get the enriched music and arts program at Oscar Peterson Public School off to a good start. The pianist, a 33-year resident of Mississauga, has always been a huge supporter of music education in schools and frequently lends a hand at many different levels.
When the Peel District School Board named a school in his honour this September, he wanted to do more than just provide a photo opportunity.
It's going to be an eclectic line-up starting with two children's choirs from the school, through Butcher's jazz combo to the legend himself.
A friend of Butcher's, Kirsten Fielding, who went to the University of Toronto with her and now teaches at the school thought of including the musician because Thursday's show is also going to be a showcase of the musical prowess of Peel's public schools.
Butcher's band includes Ross MacIntyre on bass and Sly Juhas on drums, both graduates of Cawthra, like Butcher. William Sperandei, who has studied trumpet with Ellis Marsalis, is a product of a Brampton high school. Hamilton pianist Adrian Farrugia rounds out the group.
"It's great to have all these kids introduced to jazz at such a young age," says Butcher about the concert.
"They may not know who Oscar Peterson is but I hope they enjoy it and remember it for a long time. I know I will."

What's the cost of disagreeing with Mississauga City Hall?
Well, if you are interested citizen Stephen Wahl and you take your objections to the City's new ward boundaries to the Ontario Municipal Board, the cost could be $8,795.16.
That's the amount of the invoice that the City has asked Wahl to pay for the costs it incurred at a Sept. 14 OMB hearing.
Talk about your political overkill. Is City Hall going to get into the business of punishing citizens for exercising their rights to express a contrary opinion to the gospel according to She Who Must Be Obeyed Because She Never Will Retire?
Apparently so.
Now, don't get me wrong. Wahl should have known better than to show up before the OMB without a lawyer, with no real witnesses and with accusations of "gerrymandering" that he could back up only with fuzzy recollections of statements at city council meetings.
But, wasn't the embarrassment that Wahl put himself through at the Board, and the slagging of councillors at a subsequent council meeting, enough suffering?
After all, OMB Vice-Chair Susan Campbell dismissed Wahl's case in a heartbeat, without even retiring from the room to consider her rationale. She reprimanded him strongly.
"The allegation of gerrymandering gives the apprehension of this being a frivolous and vexatious appeal," she said.
Council took that statement as a licence to pile on.
Why is council being so hard on an ordinary working Joe to whom $8,700 is a big pile of dough?
"Muzzle," says long-time City Hall watcher Roy Willis, another political gadfly like Wahl who loves to stir the pot. "They want to keep him quiet so they're telling him don't do that anymore."
If Wahl's actions are frivolous and vexatious, what does that make those who would crush a long-time citizen-volunteer for having the temerity to questions the motives of politicians setting political boundaries? How about malicious and mean-spirited?

Even in the short drive from the funeral home to Streetsville United Church, where more than 300 people were waiting on Tuesday to honour his remarkable life, John Emerson's impact on Streetsville was visibly evident.
His body was taken past the gateway to the pioneer cemetery, a gateway that he designed with the intricate attention to detail that was his trademark.
The hearse turned near the brick wall at the Streetsville Memorial Park that celebrates the contributors to the Bread and Honey Festival, another structure that the 74-year-old, who died last Friday, created.
Out on Queen St. S., the procession passed by the heritage house that Emerson and his wife of 41 years, Sandra, had lovingly kept and filled with mementoes of bygone eras and with the art work that infused their lives together.
The new Business Improvement Area banners fluttering in the breeze have an image of the Credit Valley Railroad Station on one side. On the other side is a photograph taken from the front of the Timothy Street house. On the request of the BIA, Emerson had dug up the photo from the enormous archives of historic materials he could seem to put his fingers on at any moment.
In a life where many of us struggle to find one thing to be good at, John Emerson seemed to be good at just about everything to which he turned his gifted hand.
"We always thought of dad as a renaissance man," said eldest son Bruce as he and brothers Brian and Douglas gathered around their mother a few hours after the funeral and marvelled at the impact their father had made on so many lives.
He listed his father's potential job descriptions as teacher, mentor, artist, musician, engineer, architect, landscape designer, gardener, arborist, builder, historian, archaeologist, geographer, photographer and raconteur, to name a few.
"He probably had an influence on any piece of art produced in Canada in the last 30 years," said Bruce, referring to Emerson's 24-year career at the University of Toronto, where he was teacher, friend and mentor to several generations of new teachers. Many of them attended the ceremony, much to the delight of the family.
Sandra Emerson, who along with her husband was the lifeblood of the Streetsville Historical Society, conducted a tour through the heritage house that is filled with Emerson's tool collections, his sketches and the maps he loved, his piano and an eclectic collection of old light bulbs, canning bottles, soup cans etc.
In the backyard is the garage that Emerson designed. The "sketch" of the structure he did initially for the City of Mississauga's building department was so precise that it was accepted as the official architectural rendering required by the municipality.
The backyard also is home to a heritage fruit tree. The beautiful but bitter yellow fruit of the quince glisten in the sun and light up the backyard at this time of year.
A quirky tree whose selection demonstrates a lot of the qualities that defined John Emerson: a raging intellectual curiosity, a deep respect and understanding of the past and a telling eye for the artistic beauty and complexity that abounds in the natural world.

The rumour mill is already hard at work churning out potential appointees for the Mississauga-Erindale seat that MP in waiting-to-leave Carolyn Parrish is keeping warm.
And we don't mean the obvious potential selection of Parrish's arch-enemy, Steve Mahoney.
Believe it or not, high-profile names like former NDP Premier Bob Rae, whose star is rising fast in the party that thinks it will rule forever, and Michael Ignatieff, acclaimed author, academic and broadcaster, are floating around as potential appointees to the seat by Prime Minister Paul Martin.
While those names seem far-fetched, one rumour really is gaining Ben Johnson-sized legs. It says that the Grits will appoint the Prime Minister's frequent golfing buddy, Charles Sousa, a senior manager at the Royal Bank of Canada who tried but failed to wrest the nomination in Mississauga South away from Paul Szabo last time around.
Sousa is bright, connected, and capable and has the potential to step right onto the front benches. The Gordon Graydon graduate was co-chair of John Tory's unsuccessful campaign for Toronto mayor in 2003.
The likelihood of an appointment by the PM has many noses out of joint in Mississauga-Erindale, of course. Parrish announced her intent not to run now mainly because she doesn't want Ottawa to have any excuses for not holding an open nomination for the post.
Many of Parrish's supporters from various local communities have aspirations to succeed her. The screening process has already begun and three have already submitted their applictaions to become candidates, with a half-dozen more waiting to do so. The names don't get officially released until after they've been screened.
Among those not yet applying but definitely interested are Elias Hazineh of the Palestinian community who works in Parrish's constituency office and George Winter, former school board trustee and a teacher with the Toronto District School Board.
However, before anyone commits to selling a lot of memberships in the association, which already has nearly 3,700 members as a result of the Mahoney-Parrish fracas, and putting together a campaign team, they'd like to know if Ottawa will pull the rug out from under them at the last minute and simply appoint a candidate.
The association has already decided to seek a nomination between mid-November and mid-December.
Can't you imagine the Prime Minister opening the envelope, stomping on a Carolyn Parrish doll and whispering just loud enough to be heard by nearby reporters, "Damn Mississaugans. I hate the bastards."

They're back: Wayne Middaugh, Kerry Burtnyk, Jennifer Jones, even gum-smacking, frizzy-haired, Springsteen-loving weather girl Colleen Jones.
Thank goodness sanity has prevailed in the insane world of curling politics - yes there is such a thing - and the best armchair sport in the world, save football, will be back where it belongs on TSN this year.
Even better than having the curlers back is having Vic and Ray and Linda back.
Vic Rauter, Ray Turnbull and Linda Moore are the homey broadcast team who settle into our living rooms ever February and March to bring us the Scott Tournament of Hearts and the Brier.
They were knocked off the air last year when the Canadian Curling Association in a predictably daft move gave the contract totally to CBC, which had nowhere to put it except on a digital channel called Country Canada that was licensed to carry only a minimal amount of live sports. Herding cows is not a sport, by the way.
The semi-finals and finals have always been on CBC but we curling junkies were used to seeing draws in the mornings, afternoons and some evenings during the round-robin on TSN.
There were howls of protest over the change.
After much skirmishing, the parties have agreed that the public actually has a point and they're going to go back to the way things were. Isn't that so damn Canadian of us?
While curling was the ostensible reason for the protests, I think Canadians really just missed curling up on the couch with a hot tea and Vic, Ray and Linda. We missed Ray's telestrater dyslexia, Vic's feigned ignorance of basic strategy intended to generate disagreements from his mates and Linda's incredible capacity to anticipate the game.
Yes, I know. Curling is not a sport. It's so boring. Nothing ever happens. Yada. Yada. Yada.
That's what I always thought, too, until I actually watched some of it. My aunt Mary (she of the Fritterfest and Rainbow Festival volunteer teams) was a curler and insisted on watching it. Lo and behold, I found myself becoming intrigued.
It is the ultimate television sport because of the microphones on the curlers and the delicious opportunities to second-guess strategy. It's as if you are hearing Bobby Fisher talk to himself as he thinks about what move he'll make next against Boris Spassky.
The personalities, or lack of them, of the curlers also emerge in a way they don't in any other sport.
We've watched Kevin Martin grow from a spoiled brat who brought out the corn brooms when he was getting thrashed in a world championship to a man who could lose the Olympic championship by a couple of inches and react with grace and good humour.
Curling is back where it belongs. Hurrah! Let the first Karcher commercial begin.

Do you remember one of the first Mary Tyler Moore shows where perky, perky Mary tries to make a really great first impression by showing the old curmudgeon newsroom boss, Lou Grant, that she's well...really, really perky?
"You've got spunk," Lou says. Pause. "I hate spunk."
Well, Mississauga's own Alex Pangman has spunk, and you've got to love it.
Pangman, who is a real Mississaugan who attended Froebel School in Erindale Village, high school at Erindale Secondary and university at Erindale College. She has just released her third CD of old-time jazz and swing tunes.
It wasn't easy. Despite all kinds of critical praise from across the country, where she's toured and played so many festivals, no major label was interested.
"I'm no business woman, I'm a singer," Alex said recently. Nevertheless, she's managed to set up her own label and got the fabulous music, recorded with her top-flight A-list band of Toronto musicians called The Alleycats, on Real Gone Gal Records.
If you want to succeed in music these days, you often have to become your own corporation: booking agent, travel agent, manager and, if you have time, star.
Pangman clearly is in charge of her own career. She's been thinking for a long time about the next studio album, which was to have been recorded in New Orleans next month. Oops.
She's written some of her own songs and is writing more. She's already recorded a couple of duets with the jazz singer and pianist Denzal Sinclaire, who attended Applewood Heights once upon a time, and is coming to LAC for a Dec. 16 show.
There's also a little bit of country creeping into Pangman's soul, probably as a result of the influence of boyfriend Tom "Colonel" Parker, the leader of The Backstabbers Country Stringband. That roots group which plays mountain music, country, bluegrass and variations in between, has the same eclectic taste in old-timey music as Pangman.
Alex is also learning to pluck the mandolin and she and another talented singer of throwback material, Tara Hazelton, are teaming up with Doug Paisley on double bass at the Col. Tom's Swinging Door sessions, Wednesdays from 7-9 p.m. at the Cameron House downtown. It's just a fun side project for now. They call themselves Three's Country.
Pangman and Parker are also making a ’78 together. That's right, you can still make 78 RPM recordings though, of course, not for commercial distribution.
Pangman fell in love with the music of Connie Boswell, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Velida Snow and others by listening to the old records.
"I'm not trained vocally," she said recently. "I just listened to every piece of vinyl and shellac I could get my hands on."
Now she'll have one more to listen to in a very impressive collection.

Well, guess how Carolyn Parrish is going to fight post-MP depression for the next 12 months while she gets ready to run for Ward 6 councillor?
By writing a book.
Parrish met with some editors and marketing types at McClelland and Stewart earlier this week and they pitched her on the idea.
"I told them I don't want to do a Sheila Copps 'Let's dump on everybody' book,' " said the Mississauga-Erindale MP.
Apparently the publisher has done some polling across Canada and found that Parrish is very big with the younger set.
The book would be a soft cover edition selling in the $20 range to be published in November of 2007.
"They were talking about a maverick hits Ottawa, how I didn't fit in, the faux pas, etc. but I'm a positive person. I don't want to burn a lot of bridges behind me," said the former Peel District School Board Chair and, in her own eyes, the future mayor.
"They said if I'll do all the publicity they want, they'll guarantee me a best-seller," said Parrish, who has always loved to write. The former high school teacher writes a mean letter, as Defence Minister Bill Graham, among others, has learned.
All those letters to the editor in The Toronto Star are really written by her.
"This is going to cause some people to quake in their boots," said the 59-year-old independent MP, who was kicked out of the Liberal caucus for dumping on Paul Martin and figuratively stomping on George Bush.
At least one winner out of this: the psychic who wrote a column in The Mississauga News for New Year's predicting that Parrish would write a book this year.
There will undoubtedly be chapters on the raucous nomination meetings she won at the beginning of her career in 1993 and the infamous battle last year against Steve Mahoney.
Of course, there'll have to be chapters on her prickly relationship within the caucus and the party, and her love-hate relationship with the press.
It will be interesting to see if Parrish comments on her fellow Mississauga Liberals, with whom she generally did not get along (except for Colleen Beaumier).
Outlining the relationship with Hazel in print might be a bit tricky, especially if you are going to be sitting on council with her when it's published.
Note to Steve and Katie: have your lawyers standing by...again.
Now, we need a title. How about Renegade Nowhere Close to Power?
And, of course, the movie rights. Who do you see in the starring role? Maybe Geena Davis in a wig, or how about John Lithgow in drag?

"Television is the single most dangerous thing ever invented in our culture. It gives you the false impression that you are having a relationship with humans, when you are not. In fact, it stands against human relationships. Conversation ends when television begins."
The speaker: Graham Kerr, once known as The Galloping Gourmet and a man whose wild success (and excess) as a television chef made it possible for all of the Emerils and Bonnie Sterns and Martha Stewarts who followed.
The words are barely out of Kerr's mouth when he acknowledges the delicious irony in what he has just said: he has a platform to speak about the numerous subjects that engage his considerable intellect because of his very success on the medium he has just trashed.
"Yes, the irony is overwhelming," he says, flashing the trademark smile and the sparkling personality that lit up hundreds of thousands of living rooms when he was on top of the culinary world.
Kerr now has a new life and a new television series, though chances are you, like me, have never heard of the show. It's called Graham Kerr's Gathering Place.
While it is a cooking show, gathering recipes from various cultures and communities around the world and "slenderizing" and adapting them to North American tastes, it is so much more. It's part travelogue, part health show (there's a science or health authority on each program) and part philosophy.
Kerr's life on top of the TV world was a car wreck waiting to happen. He was an alcoholic and his wife Treena was addicted to valium. They had a huge house and oodles of money but no humanity in their lives.
That's all changed now for the 72-year-old and Treena, who have found God, renounced most of their worldly possessions, travel around in a motor home and have developed their own mantra for personal happiness. You can check it out at www.outdulgence.com.
Their credo is to reconnect with other humans and reduce their impact on the planet before it's too late. Their website lays out a series of relatively small steps you can take to give up a bad habit and take the personal or monetary capital from doing that and reinvest it in someone who really needs help. It means taking personal responsibility for your life and your planet, something Kerr has already done.
Now that he is an advocate for slenderizing our approach to consumption of all things, Kerr finds himself on the other side of the marketing machine that made him famous. Getting his show on the air is a tough sell.
"Everything we're doing is about relinquishment," Kerr told me. "Everything marketing is doing is about acquisition."
Check out Graham Kerr's Gathering Place, if you get the chance, and get an insight into a man who has pulled his own life back from the brink of the precipice and still has hope that mankind can do the same.

When Diana Krall was asked to sing and play for her hero, Oscar Peterson, at his 80th birthday party in August, she was beside herself with giddiness.
Playing piano for a guy who owns the instrument the way Peterson does is obviously one of the hardest things for a musician to do. Krall joked after she started playing at HMV downtown that she'd forgotten how to play altogether. She told reporters later that she was so nervous, she felt like a school girl in the presence of the man whose many albums she had devoured as a critical part of her jazz education.
It turns out that Peterson is a fan of hers, too, and she and husband Elvis Costello and others came back to Peterson's Mississauga home that night and had themselves a good old-fashioned jam. Krall played and sang several tunes. She and Peterson are both great admirers of the great Nat King Cole and both have dedicated tribute albums to him.
Peterson's album, called With Respect To Nat, was recorded shortly after Cole died and features vocals on all but one track. The man can sing, too. He probably stopped doing that, however, because his delivery and voice bear an absolutely uncanny resemblance to Cole's.
For Peterson's own account of the birthday celebration visit
www.oscarpeterson.com and click on the Oct. 15 journal.
A Krall/Peterson duo might have reached a larger, public stage later this month if Mississauga uber-producer Ron Duquette had his way.
He is organizing the upcoming Hazel's Hope fundraiser fighting the spread of HIV/AIDs in Tanzania.
"She (Krall) wanted to be part of it and we tried. We really tried but with their schedules, it was just too hard to do," said Duquette.
The concert was going to be held at LAC but it wasn't available for that night. Peterson and his new quartet will instead take to the stage Nov. 20 in the 2,600-seat Roy Thomson Hall downtown.
In case you're worried about the event turning into a talk-fest instead of a concert, forget it.
Duquette is going to show one of his intriguing little film vignettes from the archival material he has on Peterson, the Mayor will introduce the quartet and then they'll play.
"People are paying good money to see a concert and what we're going to give them is a really good concert," said Duquette. "With Oscar, that won't be any problem."
Tickets cost $15-$135. Call 416-872-4255.
Duquette still hopes someday to get Krall and Peterson on the same stage for a good cause in Mississauga eventually. Here's keeping our fingers crossed.