Random Access

When you turn right onto southbound Mavis Rd. S. from eastbound Dundas St. W., you are descending the old shoreline of Lake Iroquois. That’s where the glaciers screeched to a halt just before Hazel was elected mayor, so you are at the top of a grade that affords a spectacular view of the lakefront to the south.
This morning around 6:45 a.m., on their last day of existence, the stacks of the Lakeview Generating Station dominated your view as you turned to go south.
The nearly 500 feet (146 metres) tall stacks were spectacularly backlit, as if someone had ordered up a perfect canvas on which to record one last memory of the Four Sisters.
At the site, there was a carnival atmosphere as Mississaugans of all descriptions converged to see part of our history blown to (memory) bits.
People streamed into the Roy McMillan headland of Lakefront Promenade Park from all over, a surprising number of them Lakeview and Port Credit residents who hoofed it there.
Among them was John Bye, who was thinking of those high school days too many years ago when he and his buddies Steve and Dean sank knee-deep in the fresh Pennsylvania coal that first time they sneaked onto the property to climb the coal pile.
Bye walked with his best friend Andrew McLellan all the way from Haig Blvd. and the South Service Rd. so they could arrive at 4:15 a.m. and claim a primo photo spot on a bridge in the park to record the last sobs of the Four Sisters. They were so early that they strolled by security which was just getting organized.
McLellan now lives in Texas and hadn’t seen Lakefront Promenade Park before.
The flight attendant took time off and used his airline perks to fly up for the special occasion.
As his plane was coming into Pearson, it circled out over the lake so Andrew could get a last view from the air of the stacks.
Twelve-year-old Patrick Jung was there with his father, Shawn Fitzpatrick who was taking pictures, as he always does. He was also reminding Patrick that his grandfather, Hans Jung, was one of the men who helped line each of the stacks, which were 12.2 metres (40 feet) wide at the base.
Jung, now almost 90, got the job placing the 1,583 cubic yards of brick that went into each silo, because he was one of the slighter bricklayers. He could squeeze into the entrance hole to work.
Sandra and Neil Watkinson and Bev and Gus Peebles are Tedwyn Dr. residents who are now retired and have lived in houses beside each other for 29 years. Instead of sleeping in this morning, they came to watch the media circus unfold. They could watch Breakfast TV without the ads.
Bev wore ear plugs so the rat-a-tat of the explosions wouldn’t bother her.
“We were going to bring our grandchildren but they were in school,” she said.
“It’s like an institution. It’s a landmark,” said Gus. “Whenever you’re flying or sailing you see them. You know where you are just from the stacks. It’s going to be hard without that beacon.”
Indeed, a few hours after the blast took place, John Bye and Andrew McLellan came into The News to drop off the pictures he took of the stacks going down.
The truth of what happened was just dawning on Bye.
“I’ve lived down there forever and it’s just going to be so different,” said Bye. “It’s just so strange. You look at the skyline and ... it’s naked.”