Random Access

Some of the most interested observers of the federal election results last week were Liberal MPPs from Mississauga who will go tot he polls Oct. 4, 2007, which really isn't that far off.
They were eager to see a second set of federal results under the new riding boundaries that they will be running on next year, especially when it was obvious that the Conservatives were running a much stronger campaign this time around.
This provincial government was elected on the old set of boundaries, but the federal riding boundaries and names will be identical after the next Ontario vote.
The riding most affected by the change will be Mississauga Centre, which essentially disappears in the new scenario and is divided among Mississauga-Erindale and Mississauga-Streetsville. You'll recall that the change is what, in part, inspired the nomination donnybrook between then-incumbent MPs Carolyn Parrish and Steve Mahoney in 2004. Isn't it interesting that two years later, neither holds public office?
Anyway, Harinder Takhar is the man in motion who will obviously have to make a decision as to where he'll run. As a Cabinet minister and a close confidant of the Premier, he'll undoubtedly get first choice.
Some of the decisions are easy. Tim Peterson in the South, Peter Fonseca in Mississauga East-Cooksville and Dr. Kuldip Kular in Bramalea-Gore-Malton.
After that it gets more interesting. Vic Dhillon, who now represents Brampton-West Mississauga, could run in the new Brampton West or Mississauga-Brampton South.
The latter riding was clearly shown to be the safest Liberal seat of the new entities in the voting Jan. 23.
Bob Delaney, who represents Mississauga West, said he'll be deciding where to run after consultations with the party.
He'd probably like to run in Mississauga-Erindale, where he's just moved into a new house, and which appears to be the next-safest Grit seat. But he'll be more than happy to run in Mississauga-Streetsville.
"I represent the right demographic there," said the 54-year-old self-confessed computer geek. The long-time Meadowvale resident can also trumpet his success, of course, in finally bringing to the riding the long-overdue Lisgar station which opens, just by coincidence, next year.
Truth is, the irrepressible Delaney is having so much fun after finally getting elected ("This is the greatest job I've ever had") that he probably truly doesn't care which of the two west-central ridings he gets.
Most likely scenario: Delaney in Mississauga-Streetsville, Takhar in Mississauga-Erindale and Dhillon in Mississauga-Brampton South.
It's just about time for some Conservative candidates, besides Brad Butt, who's a candidate in Mississauga South, to start emerging, isn't it? Interesting to see who John Tory will be able attract to his team in territory that was all-Tory not so long ago.
Will he want any of the old Common Sense Revolutionaries (Carl DeFaria, Raminder Gill, Rob Sampson) on his team? My guess is, you'll see a whole new generation of younger Tories on the hustings.

There's a glorious old beech tree on the Adamson Estate along the Lake Ontario waterfront that got a little bit of love this week.
The tree, some 10-12 metres (30-35 feet) high, predates the City of Mississauga (1974), the Town of Mississauga (1968) and the Township of Toronto (1805).
In fact, if you look really carefully at the old lady, who's getting a little weak as you might expect of someone her age, you can find the mark of the original surveyor of this whole area west of Toronto. The survey was done sometime around 1800-'01 as far as historians know.
The grand dame got a new skirt beginning Monday, when City forces began erecting a wrought iron fence at her drip line, where the rain falls off her outermost branches.
You can bet that fence is going to be prominent in a lot of future wedding albums. Newly-married couples love to use the Adamson Estate as a leafy background to the photos for their special day and the tree is an especially popular backdrop.
The fence is serving two purposes. It is keeping people away from the base of the tree to reduce the risk of injury should any branches come loose.
Unfortunately, it is also serving another purpose: trying to dissuade people like the lunkheads who tried to burn it down last May 16.
A group of people, presumably teenagers trying to confirm the research that says their brains will not be fully formed for several more years, lit a fire in the middle of the rather cavernous hollow that has developed in the main trunk.
The decayed material inside caught fire, of course. The tree could have been destroyed, as many others have been, because a fire in such a circumstance uses the inside the trunk as a chimney and often weakens it to the point that it must be taken down.
However, quick action by Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services put out the smoldering blaze and saved the tree.
"The tree's structural integrity is declining," says Gavin Longmuir of the City's forestry department, "and we're trying to sustain it as long as we can."
This tree and others such as two magnificent Bur Oak trees that were preserved a few years ago on the Meadowvale GO Station lands because of diligence by City staff and co-operation from the developer would seem to be ideal candidates for a new process that is seeing municipalities pass bylaws to officially designate heritage trees.
Scarborough has designated trees in Highland Creek and Alliston has anointed a 175-year-old Bur Oak on a downtown street.
The Ontario Heritage Tree Alliance has developed a draft "toolkit" to be completed later this year which will allow communities to identify and designate trees. It's working with the Ministry of Culture to try to establish a province-wide registry of such trees.
We are finally starting to realize that heritage consists of whole streetscapes, including trees and not just bricks and mortar.
Isn't this beech appropriate to be the first Mississauga tree to earn such a distinction?
It's an historic tree on public property on our waterfront, bearing the mark of the first vestiges of settlement here and a survivor of teen terrorism.
If that's not a living legacy, what is?

Remember when you used to read about a sports trade and start fantasizing about how the new player just shipped to your town would fit into your team's line-up?
Now, when you hear about a trade, you start speculating about whether the pampered multi-millionaire ego in question will deign to grace the new franchise with his actual presence.
Reading about the trade of Antonio Davis back to the Raptors Saturday morning put my blood on the simmer, if not the full boil.
The stories speculate, not about how the addition of a bona fide front-line big man will make the team better, but about whether Davis will report at all.
You can see why it's such a tough call.
On the down side, if he doesn't report, he'll lose about $7 million in salary for the remainder of the season and some teams might look less favourably on him when he hits the free agent market at the end of the year.
But, if he does report, not only will he be on a bad basketball team but he'll have to spend a lot of time in Canada.
You'll recall that Davis and his charming wife Kendra — recently charged with assault after she allegedly went through a stop sign, then threw a cup of coffee at a woman who complained about it — are not really big fans of our education system.
It seems we had the audacity to teach students about Canadian history rather than American and spoke in tongues about metres and kilometres. Imagine running your own country as if it wasn't the United States of America even though you're on the same continent?
Oh well, if we just give Kendra her own TV show on the Raptors' channel again, maybe everything will be all right.
How about a reality show? I know, every week, Kendra could do something provocative like, say, provoke an opposing fan at an NBA game and then her chivalrous husband could rescue her, maybe by climbing into the stands and threatening to bust a few heads.
Catch phrase for the ads: Kendra teases and Antonio squeezes.
You could call it Trading Head Spaces or maybe The Dismaying Grace.
Remember the good old days when athletes were indentured forever to the franchise they played for? When Gordie Howe had to go cap in hand after another MVP season and ask Jack Adams for a raise?
Or, when all-pro Green Bay Packer centre Jim Ringo was supposedly traded to the Philadelphia Eagles because he had the effrontery to bring an agent with him to ask for a raise from Vince Lombardi? (Although Lombardi never denied the story, Ringo said later it wasn't true.)
No, I don't think anybody wants to go back to those good old days, either.
How about a modicum of common sense, however, so that sulking athletes don't go in the tank for a couple of seasons to force a trade (Vince Carter) or behave so contemptuously towards their team's management and fellow players so they can get their SEVEN-year contract rewritten after the first year (Terrell Owens).
It's enough to turn you off sports... until they blow the opening whistle.

That Tony Clement is a political chameleon, isn't he? He keeps popping up in the darndest places.
You half expected to see him goggle-eyed and chipper, floating around in your breakfast cereal this morning, advising you that you should be eating oat bran with ground flax seed, not Fruit Loops.
Yeah, Tony is a health minister again.
He may not have won any leadership races, against Mike Harris for the Ontario PCs or against Stephen Harper for the federal leadership, but the British-born lawyer obviously managed to impress his party opponents along the way.
After all, both Harris and Harper have now turned to him at various times to handle the minefield of health, always a Cabinet hot spot.
Clement was one of the driving forces behind the formation of the Canadian Alliance Party and then its merger with the Tories, so you could argue that Stephen Harper wouldn't have been PM without him (and loads of other people, of course).
Clement is a pseudo-Mississaugan, having represented Brampton West-Mississauga and held three provincial Cabinet posts, culminating in his time as health minister in the midst of the SARS crisis.
The unflappable Clement, who always seems to be eminently well-prepared for intellectual combat, acquitted himself well throughout that trying time.
In fact, the SARS debacle was one of the factors that motivated the bilingual Clement to try federal politics (not to mention being unceremoniously turfed from office in 2003 by the good voters of the aforementioned riding).
At the time of SARS Clement said, "there was a near-total vacuum of leadership in Ottawa. I can tell you honestly that the challenges we faced in our hospitals were a direct result of the personal decision by Paul Martin to balance the federal budget by massively cutting health care funding instead of waste in the federal government in Ottawa."
The lawyer with the seemingly-charmed political life now represents the riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka after taking the seat on a recount by just 29 votes.
Ironically, he knows the mantra of how Ottawa damaged provincial health care systems with transfer payment cuts better than many of the provincial ministers do.
Now he finds himself on the other side of the divide. Expectations for co-operation by the provinces will be sky high, especially with Ottawa sitting on a huge surplus.
It's going to be an interesting place for a political disciple of cost-cutting, bureaucracy-bashing Margaret Thatcher to be sitting.
With pressure for creeping privatization of the health care system coming from Alberta and beyond, how long will it be until we hear the nickname that used to make Mr. Clement so extremely nervous?
The headline writers at The Toronto Star are probably already fitting Clement out with his own type style for the inevitable day when "Two-Tier Tony" hits the front page again.

You know what the single most dangerous threat to your health is?
Clinical studies.
They make you dizzy. They may cause nausea. They will definitely, definitely give you a headache and upset your stomach, if not worse.
In fact, in a new study of four people in my family carried out over the past 72 hours, (the cat was the control group), researchers found that eating a diet high in take-out Chinese food during the Super Bowl may cause NFL officials to make a series of questionable calls.
Some participants even suffered delusions during half-time. They reported seeing a group of ossified musicians, one of whom appeared to have a neurological disease related to St. Vitus Dance, performing ritualistic songs from the Stones Age.
You guessed it. I've been reading the latest about the blockbuster, landmark eight-year health study of 49,000 women aged 50-79. Depending on the interpretations I've read so far in newspaper accounts, the study either completely blows away the idea of cancer and heart benefits from a low-fat diet, or confirms them, sort of.
"These studies are revolutionary," Dr. Jules Hirsch is quoted as saying. "They should put a stop to this era of thinking that we have all the information we need to change the whole national diet and make everybody healthy."
In this morning's Globe and Mail, Dietician Leslie Beck concludes the study is inconclusive and doesn't represent a dietary flip-flop. In fact, she finds evidence that we're on the right track by trying to control our fat intake, especially of trans and saturated fats.
You see, as with every study, there were some inexplicable anomalies, as we in the pseudo-research community like to call them. You can call them things that don't make sense, although that might make us sound like we're not sure exactly what the results mean.
The study did find that women who ate low-fat diets were actually nine per cent less likely to develop breast cancer than the group who ate regular diets. That is "statistically insignificant." Unless, of course, you're one of the lucky ones on the right side of the nine per cent, I'd venture to say. Then it's statistically critical.
Since human beings have a certain passing interest in the state of their own health, there are a lot of health studies and a lot of newspaper stories about them.
In order to torture myself further, I subscribe to the Nutrition Action Health Newsletter, which is always full of long stories about health studies. Most readers will simply read the "bottom line" summary that gives you a mini-snapshot of the big confusion.
Unless you'd like to support the good works of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which publishes the newsletter, or want some great recipes, let me give you some bottom-line advice that will save you the cost of the subscription:
Eat a balanced diet that includes goodly amounts of fibre, a selection of nuts, fish and five to 10 fruits and vegetables per day. Don't smoke. Try to keep your weight down. Keep moving your body around as much as you can and incorporate regular exercise into your daily life. Sleep regular hours. Let moderation be your watchword.
One last tip: save yourself some anxiety. Just read the headlines on those stories about the newest, shiniest health study.

Want to start a controversy that's good for business? Make a list.
We have an epidemic of list-making in the media lately because everyone knows it's a way to catch people's interest and get people to react.
What started out as an annual best song derby on the oldies stations has become a curse through endless emulation.
Turn on MuchMusic and it's the top 100 Most Shocking Moments in Rock. (How about Keith Richards still alive?).
Turn on the Super Bowl and it's the 10 greatest games of all time.
A series of TV programs by the American Film Institute have chosen the top 100 movies, top 100 male acting performances, top 100 movie songs, etc. etc.
So, it was inevitable that somebody would get around to publishing a book called The Fifty Greatest Jazz Piano Players of All Time (Hal Leonard, 2005).
American pianist, jazz writer and music professor Gene Rizzo put together the list and, as you can imagine, it's causing great ructions.
Of course, Mississaugans only want to know one thing. Where's Oscar?
Well, you can relax, because OP, the man who needs no surname, is number one.
A review in Coda, Canada's jazz magazine bible, raved about the pictures and the production of the sumptuous volume but griped about the "perplexing" rankings of many players.
Here's the top 10 for your information: 1. Oscar, 2. Bill Evans, 3.Bud Powell 4. Art Tatum 5. Monty Alexander, 6. Benny Green, 7. Andre Previn, 8. Tommy Flanagan, 9. George Shearing 10. Red Garland.
I listened on the Internet to Rizzo being interviewed about the list and he was at great pains to explain that it wasn't his list at all, but represented the results of a survey sent to music professors, musicians and journalists which produced hundreds of votes.
He also stressed that the criteria for judging were originality, influence and command of the instrument. Hard to argue with the winner based on those.
Maybe lyricism and swing and interpretation should have been included in the mix, but how do you measure those? In fact, how do you measure any of this stuff between players of such surpassing skill and beauty?
Rizzo himself was surprised that Tatum didn't win. From talking to him and from his autobiography, it's pretty clear that's likely who Oscar himself would have voted for. In fact, when his father brought home a Tatum recording of Tiger Rag, Peterson was convinced there were two people playing. He was in tears at the music, in part from pure admiration at its beauty and, in part, at frustration, because he thought he could never be that good. Turns out he may have been wrong.
Everyone has favourite players and styles and comparing them IS odious. Thelonious Sphere Monk (15), Teddy Wilson (23), Nat King Cole (24) and Keith Jarrett (50) are obviously too low. You see that's the problem. You get drawn into squabbling about the details of the list whose legitimacy you don't accept in the first place.
Whether he's first or 15th, the point is that Mississauga is home to one of the true giants of the only North American-born art form.
Those people who were lucky enough to attend the Peterson tribute concert at the Living Arts Centre here Sept. 10, 2003 can ponder this, along with their fond memories of that magical night: according to Gene Rizzo, that concert featured three of the top six piano players (Peterson, Alexander, Green) who ever lived.

When Phil Edwards worked for the big corporations in the pharmaceutical business for 15 years, he learned that there wasn't any ticky-tacky rule they couldn't dream up, and then enforce.
There would be women in the office whose children were sick at home who were visibly upset, not just that they couldn't be at home, but because they weren't even allowed to use the telephone to make a personal call and find out how they were.
Edwards vowed that if he ever was in charge, he wouldn't be imposing any rules that make life that tough on his staff.
When the big drug companies on pill hill in Meadowvale started moving their manufacturing out and downsizing years ago, Edwards saw an opportunity and started a drug packaging business called Advantage Health Care Packaging that is now thriving. He's carved out a niche in the huge, huge market and specializes in being ready for the virtually instant market launch that companies want when their products finally get the go-ahead from the health authorities.
His Mississauga company is a small and happy place if you can believe the big smiles of the women who work there.
The reason is that management, that's Phil, has a heart and some very enlightened policies.
"We have a Kids Come First policy," Edwards said on a recent tour. "If your kid is sick, don't fret, take the day off."
He employs several permanent part-time employees as well as a dozen women full-time.
Not only are they allowed to chat while they package drugs, which many drug companies don't allow, but they can talk about whatever they want.
There are "summer hours" for six months a year so everyone can get off Friday afternoons when the weather's nice. Several women don't work at all in summer so they can be at home with their children.
Before Christmas the whole place got a half-day off for last-second shopping.
One winter day a couple of years ago when the snow started to get heavy and worried glances started accumulating, the 47-year-old owner hired a small school bus to drive everybody home.
Of course, in return for that flexibility, Edwards expects his staff to work weekends and extra hours when a major product launch requires it. Not surprisingly, his staff doesn't mind the saw-off at all. There's almost no absenteeism and many people have been on board since the company's birth in 1994.
Sharon Krause, who Edwards calls his indispensable quality-control computer wizard (she keeps tracks of reams and reams of paper work), is one of those who has seen life in the corporations and in the small company and recognizes the Advantage she's got now.
"It's doing the same thing from a work perspective, but it's almost like family," said Krause. "When they ask how you're doing, they really want to know how you're doing," laughed Krause. "It's not lip service. It's genuine concern. If you have a family crisis he not only says 'go home' but he asks if he can drive you. The work gets done but we have fun."
When he first started in the business, Edwards remembers an executive at a big Mississauga pharma company telling him that, "it's a gentleman's business."
Looks like somebody took that man at his word.

The meeting held last night at the Delta Meadowvale Resort and Conference Centre was an exercise in the dynamics, or more accurately the domination, of stakeholder politics on the so-called public consultation process.
Ostensibly, about 100 members of the public were gathered at one of a dozen sessions being held by the Ministry of Energy to get feedback on the Ontario Power Authority's proposed energy plan for the future, which calls for up to two-dozen new nuclear stations.
Speakers who were employed by environmental groups or by the nuclear industry made up about 60 per cent of the deputations. A few people (Dave Martin of Greenpeace, Jose Etcheverry of the David Suzuki Foundation and Michael Ivanco, representing unionized employees at Atomic Energy of Canada in the Sheridan Research Centre) spoke several times, usually to do battle with each other.
When a few ordinary citizens waited out the filibusters to get to the microphone, they expressed understandable confusion over the flurry of flying stats. Does Europe have advanced systems of wind energy that make up a significant part of the power grid as Etcheverry said, or is that a luxury afforded by the interconnectedness of the European system which is anchored by the French supply, which is 95 per cent nuclear, as Ivanco countered?
One thing was clear as could be last night. People are developing an appetite for conservation and they're wondering why governments and big business, which are supposed to be leading the charge, instead get in the way so much of the time.
"Take a look at night and you'll see building after building after building with all the lights on and production lines running continuously with no workers," complained Ken Bondy of the Canadian Auto Workers.
Brad Butt, representing the Greater Toronto Apartment Association, wondered why the government has not mandated individual water and hydro metering for apartments and condos, so people will cut their consumption or pay a premium for what they use.
The same governments that preach conservation have bylaws forbidding motion sensors, so lights in apartment stairwells must blaze all night. (How many do you suppose have energy-efficient bulbs?) "The fire and bylaw departments don't allow us to meet the culture of conservation," Butt said.
We have the technology to build more energy-efficient houses and fill them with much more energy-efficient water heaters, washing machines, fridges etc., but governments don't make it mandatory.
Several speakers congratulated Energy Minister Donna Cansfield, who was in the audience, for finally approving a process so that people who build energy efficient homes or businesses can sell power back to the general power grid. Talk about a no-brainer, yet it's hailed as a breakthrough.
It's interesting that the government's new Powerwise ad, which is very good, shows a little girl looking in wonder as the lights are progressively shut off, floor by floor, in a nearby high-rise building.
It's a nice symbol that cuts both ways. Yes, we should all work together, as the old song from Canned Heat which provides the soundtrack to the ad, says.
But maybe government and industry should hold up their side of the bargain by taking a lot of relatively simple steps that don't cost a lot and would show that the "culture of conservation" isn't just the latest marketing phrase.

What do you plan to be doing on your 85th birthday?
I was thinking, maybe, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, etc. etc.
Someone we know, who celebrated her 85th yesterday, flew half-way around the world to India, held a series of meetings with business officials on behalf of the delegation of the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance she is leading, and then "danced and clapped late into the evening," according to a Toronto Star report.
And, I'll bet she ate at least a small piece of the five birthday cakes she was presented with, just to be polite.
When you work at The Mississauga News, you have to account for the Hazel factor at just about every event you attend.
If you arrive to cover a story in which our mayor is involved, people immediately start to gush. The official greeting to the mayor is "Welcome Madame Mayor" but the official greeting to the hangers-on from the fourth estate is: "Isn't she amazing?"
With practice, you can learn not to roll your eyes in these circumstances, although I have personally seen from the shocked look on the faces of event hosts, that I may not have entirely mastered this art.
Reporters like to see themselves as hard-bitten, jaundiced, slightly aloof figures who tread their way through reams of public relations puffery to weed out the truth that will change lives.
In fact, they are usually recording secretaries who regurgitate the press releases they are handed, but that doesn't stop them from trying to pretend to be Cary Grant in The Front Page.
No self-respecting reporter wants to be caught writing anything that could be construed as cheering a little old lady who is two decades past retirement age. Especially when they know some headline writer with limited imagination is going to call her "Mississauga's Valentine."
Nevertheless, a good reporter must eventually face the facts.
And, the fact is, Hazel is amazing.
The very thought of flying half-way around the world stymies me. The idea that I could so something other than snore for the first few hours after I arrived is out of the question.
You can bet that Hazel spent the flight working on a pile of files that her staff prepared for her. Then she got off the plane and went to a series of meetings.
From talking to her staff over the years, I know that Mayor McCallion's energy and her indominable will, which seem to go hand-in-hand, amaze them, too. She wears them out. They can't keep up. She is her own Energizer Bunny.
Just by coincidence, today's thought du jour in The Globe and Mail is a quote from Mark Twain that goes like this: "The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy, without the chance. The last half consists of the chance without the capacity."
And then there's Hazel.

Quick now. How many medals have Mississaugans won at the Olympics? How many at the Commonwealth Games? How many at the Pan-Am Games?
I'm willing to guess that there's only one man in Mississauga who could supply the answer to those questions without spending the next couple of weeks on the Internet and in the library.
That would be Mike Toth, the long-time sports editor of The Mississauga Times and The Mississauga News.
Toth has done every sports fan and history buff in this city a huge favour with the publication of a new book called Birth To Millennium: Mississauga's Sports Heritage.
It's a book that, quite frankly, only Mike could have done justice.
(Here's the point where I declare my bias. Mike was my first boss at The Times some 30...hm...hm..hmm years ago and he's been a friend ever since.)
"Those were the days and that was my time," said the allegedly-retired 67-year-old, referring to the period of 1974-2000 that formed the original frame for the book. "That's when I saw it all happen."
Toth always had the newsman's best habit of being in the right place at the right time. For instance, Mike and the official Olympic photographer were the only two standing at waters' edge at the finish in 1976 in Montreal when John Wood lost a gold medal in Olympic canoeing by 35-hundredths of a second. The picture Mike took forms the background for the striking wrap-around cover of his book, which was designed by Streetsville graphic artist and Ward 2 Peel District School Board Trustee Don Stephens.
Toth also made the rough ride across Lake Ontario when Debbie Roach conquered the Lake. "I'll never forget. She did the butterfly for the past 100 metres."
Roach went to a party to celebrate. Toth was too sick to do anything but moan.
What started out as a chronicle of the years Mike worked at the local papers thankfully turned into a lot more as the project unfolded over a dozen years. A heritage and arts buff (he's president of the Toronto Operetta Society), the Hungarian-born Toth discovered a treasure-trove of deep sporting roots when he started doing some research.
Who knew, for instance, that baseball, imported by a couple of New Yorkers, was thriving in Streetsville just 20 years after Abner Doubleday made up the rules.
"We played it before many of the American states," said Toth.
Baseball had a tough time beating out a sport which was being played in Streetsville as far back as the 1860s. That would, of course, be cricket, by jiminey. Among the enthusiasts were several stalwarts of the town, including postmaster Robert Graydon and Robert Barber, for whom Barbertown was named.
As well as providing a year-by-year chronology from 1974-2000 filled with photos from The News' files, the book reproduces the Mississauga Sports Hall of Fame roster. You can guess who wrote the biographies for all of the members, with the exception of himself.
Toth has also created an "Off The Beaten Track" section that puts the spotlight on those who are the real heartbeat of sports in any community, the men and women who run the clubs, hold the fundraisers, coach, and keep it all together with baling wire and love. People like Alex Bard (gymnastics), Fran Rider (women's hockey) Sam Riddell (soccer), and Art Wood and Charlie Patterson whose work on the mouth guard and face mask literally changed the course of Canada's game.
There's also a section on the remarkable contribution of women to sport in Mississauga (and we don't just mean Silken Laumann.) It turns out the Ladies Bicycle Club in 1898 was the earliest examples of female clubs in the area.
This book is nothing if not comprehensive and it simply wouldn't have gotten done if Toth hadn't been willing to put thousands of hours of personal effort into it.
The author, who knows his family politics pretty well, also wants to make sure that the copy editor gets due credit.
"She cut me down to size quite often," says Mike.
That's what wives are for. Edna Toth, former Mississauga Library communications person and a lifelong learner who's still at UTM raising hell like any university student in her 70s should be, edited the book, apparently without substantial damage to the marriage.
The book sells for $43. The first printing is a fundraiser for The Mississauga News Santa Claus Fund.
You can get an autographed copy next Tuesday at the launch at the Mississauga Sports Week kickoff at the Delta Meadowvale at 7:30 a.m. Toth will also be signing for Heritage Mississauga's offices at The Grange's Olympic exhibit 7-9 p.m. Feb. 23, from 6:30-7:15 p.m. before the IceDogs Mississauga Sports Hall of Fame game Feb. 24, and all day Saturday Feb. 25 in the centre court at Square One, as part of the Sports Camp and Leisure Show.
By the way, there were seven Mississaugans who picked up medals before 1974, going back to the first, Hugh Plaxton, who got gold in hockey in 1928 in St. Moritz. Since 1974, we've won eight gold, nine silver and seven bronze.
Our haul in the Commonwealth Games: 26 gold, 13 silver and nine bronze. In the Pan Ams, it's 35 gold, 18 silver and 12 bronze.

The newspaper accounts of the inquiry into the shooting death of Dudley George in 1995 have made chilling reading over the past months.
Ever since something went horribly wrong with the occupation of a portion of Ipperwash Park, which resulted in the shooting of George by an OPP officer, there have been widespread suspicions that the freshly-minted Tory government of Ontario had used the incident to try to put its mark on the political landscape.
The pivotal point of the drama was a meeting that former Premier Mike Harris attended with his senior staff, some Cabinet ministers and senior OPP officials.
The OPP walked away from the meeting with the distinct impression that the new government didn't believe the aboriginals' claim that the park contained a sacred burial ground (it did); with the distinct impression that the government erroneously believed it could direct police action (it couldn't); and, with the impression, as one officer put it, that Harris was a "redneck."
Harris testified this week that he is mystified about how anyone could have had those impressions.
Somebody at the meeting apparently made the statement: "I want the f***ing Indians out of the park."
One former Cabinet minister said it was Harris. Another staff member said it was former Natural Resources Minister Chris Hodgson. Both have denied it.
In a way, it doesn't really matter who said it because it has come to symbolize what was wrong with Harris and his government: an attitude and an arrogance that said 'We know more about this than you do, we're here to impose our agenda whether or not you like it and we're going to kick ass.'
The former Premier, who refused to call an inquiry while he was in office, didn't help his cause by saying he never anticipated that the park occupation would become a major issue. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have gone out trying to hit the ball as far as Freddie Couples," at the Canadian Open Pro-Am the day before the shooting.
In perhaps the most disturbing note of all, Harris testified that until the occupation was almost over, it was never clear to him what it was actually about.
Does anybody else have the uneasy feeling that maybe the new Premier might have been a lot more interested in trying to match shots with a PGA star than in the details of a park occupation by marginalized citizens he didn't really have the time of day for?
* * *
I'm on vacation next week, enjoying the Olympics.

It's an awful feeling. The Olympics are on the other side of the world, you know that something momentous (as momentous as sport ever gets) is going to happen, and you have to tear yourself away from the action for something as prosaic as work.
But, last week, vacation was in order and the Olympics were on the menu morning, noon and night.
Here are some random observations:
* Hockey on the big ice is much more exciting and puts the emphasis where it belongs, on skill and hard work, rather than bully tactics. The referees may have called penalties that NHL media types found borderline. The result, however, was that players knew they couldn't stray from the rules and the game had a flow that was invigorating. The games were mercifully short compared to many NHL marathons.
* There's more body checking in short track speed skating than in hockey. Short-track is definitely not a sport, except perhaps for the officials who must figure out how to disqualify someone after every race, but it sure is compelling.
* Those Red pigtails on the hats Canadian medal winners were forced to wear don't suit Russ 'Hurry Hard' Howard. Howard was considered as the opening flag bearer and he would have been a great choice. He embodied the real spirit of the games, kibitzing with his opponents and the audience and having the time of his life. When Canada lost to Italy he was all smiles watching all the new-found Italian curling fans enjoy their victory.
* I hope sports writer Randy Starkman is appreciated at The Toronto Star. He covers amateur sport superbly, all the time, and outshone the celebrity drop-in types who are parachuted in for the choice events. His writing on cross-country skiing and rowing is unsurpassed.
* There are a lot of good CBC analysts, but none better than Jack Sasseville, who makes Nordic a must-see. Who knew biathlon could be so compelling?
* Canadians won lots of medals but they were anxious to tell the world that they are the same people who used to finish up the track. Most talked about how they wanted to inspire others to join their sport, as they were once inspired by Olympic performance. Yeah, winning is fantastic but there is nothing wrong with finishing 54th in the 50-kilometre cross-country if you really put forth your best effort. It means more when you say it after you finished first, though.
* What is it with our superb women athletes and big teeth? Clara Hughes, Chandra Crawford, Beckie Scott. Wall to wall incisors. Thank goodness we got to see those shiny smiles so often.
* Other countries seem to have someone come out of nowhere with a superb performance on race day to win, but we haven't done it often, with the possible exception of Kathy Kreiner. Well, Chandra Crawford changed all that. She blew away field after field of more experienced sprint skiers on a magical day and then took the gold medal in spontaneous effervescence. (Hint: air guitar is a universal bond.)
There were two big disappointments.
Despite our marked improvement in alpine skiing, thanks in large part to the attitude imparted by ex-Crazy Canuck Ken Read, we just missed medals all over the place.
The second big blow was seeing Beckie Scott finish fourth in the sprint that Crawford won. A gold would have been the crowning achievement in a fabulous career and Scott would have been able to hear the anthem played, a pleasure she was robbed of when she won gold, retroactively, in Salt Lake City. If I was choosing, Beckie would have been the flag bearer in the closing ceremonies. (No offence intended to the superb Cindy Klassen).
Scott skated poorly in the sprint but made no excuses.
"I just didn't have it today," she said.
Scott is a small girl with a big will and a passion to rid her sport and the Olympics of drug cheaters. She spoke out long and hard about the cheats and the result has been change. Beckie, who was elected an IOC athletic representative during the Games, is one of the main reasons this Olympics weren't plagued with drug disqualifications.
Beckie Scott stands for fierce but fair competition, just like her country. That's a message that will still ring true a long time after we've all forgotten exactly how many medals we won in Torino.

It was a cheery bunch of friends who gathered Monday night at Cagney's Restaurant in the heart of Streetsville, as the snow swirled outside, to break bread and chat.
Not all minds were on the current moment, however.
"Two weeks from now, we'll be in Malawi," said Rebecca Truman, as the others laughed at the reminder of what several years of hard work have accomplished.
Gathered in fellowship were most of the 15 or so members of the Malawi committee at Streetsville's St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church.
Many of them were thinking about how far their little team has come, from the grain of a small idea planted by a speaker at their church a few years ago, to the immediate prospect of having five of their congregation, including Rev. Douglas McQuaid, visit the seven child care sites in the African country that the church has been supporting for several years.
At the centres, some of the 1.3 million orphans in Malawi come during the day to attend school, get a good meal, play with other children and give a respite to their older siblings, so they can go to school or make some money labouring in the fields. Many grandparents, who have seen their own children die of AIDS, drop off the grandchildren they are now raising in their second round of parenthood.
The first year, explained Nancy Simpson, who has spearheaded the effort, the aim was to raise $5,000. The thought of generating that kind of money was plain scary, but they did it, even though the congregation numbers just 150 families. The second year, they again set the bar at $5,000 and raised considerably more. Last year they raised $10,000.
"It has been just inspirational the way people have responded," said Simpson, who has been thinking a lot about the orphans in light of the three grandchildren who have recently entered her life. "This is just such a human tragedy," she said.
The effort by the Malawi stalwarts is proof positive that you don't have to be a big agency, like World Vision or the Canadian Red Cross, to make a difference.
St. Andrew's, which was established in 1821 on land donated by Timothy Street for a Scottish burial ground and church, works through Presbyterian World Service and Development, a special arm of the church set up to do international projects.
"We're not World Vision (which has partnered with Mayor Hazel McCallion to provide assistance to Tanzania) which is talking about raising millions," said Rev. McQuaig, whose about to celebrate his 15th year at St. Andrews. "What we'd like to do is broaden the base by involving more and more churches on a ongoing basis."
Towards that end, Simpson attended the speech last week at Mentor College in Port Credit by Stephen Lewis, whose eloquence is surpassed only by his passion for waking the West up to the African crisis it is trying so hard to sleep through.
Afterwards, the St. Andrew's folks talked to Lewis about the possibility of partnering with the many other Streetsville and Meadowvale churches who have similar African projects. Would he be the guest speaker at a big fundraiser for them so they could expand their support?
The special UN ambassador said if they got it organized, he'd be there.
What a great idea. Unifying the efforts of a lot of dedicated church committees like the one at St. Andrew's under the banner of a man who knows more about the fight against AIDS on the ground in Africa than any living man.
Thank goodness for the handfuls of dedicated people, within churches and without, who remind us that Malawi and Mississauga might be a lot closer together than we think they are.