Heritage Week was a smash in Mississauga, and for once we’re not talking about the wrecker’s ball.
It began with Mississauga Heritage Foundation Awards Monday, which honoured everyone from Museums of Mississauga raconteur and Mississauga Booster columnist supreme Richard Collins to the collaborative efforts of all those who got the Port Credit Log Cabin moved to the Bradley House site.
It was an especially good week if you were a nonagenarian heritage buff. Ben Madill, 92, who still works and lives on his farm at Highway 401 and Hurontario St. was a “Members’ Choice” award winner, along with 90-year-old Pauline Duinker of the Mississauga South Historical Society.
Ben and his wife Marjorie celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary in April.
Then Grant Clarkson, 91, topped it off yesterday when he accepted one of the very first Ontario Heritage Trust Lifetime Heritage Achievement Awards from Lieutenant-Governor James Bartleman.
Apparent moral of the story: take an interest in history and your own might be longer than expected.
While Clarkson was recognized for his long-time contribution in the new special category, three other awards were handed out by The Heritage Trust under its regular community award scheme.
Those went to Mississauga’s Old Man of the Lake, Lorne Joyce, who knows everything about anything that happened in the fishing trade in Port Credit; Rob Robson who restored the former Commercial Hotel in the Village of Meadowvale to its original glory and the Mississauga Garden Council, for promoting and preserving the natural heritage of the Riverwood. They will all be recognized later at a City council meeting.
By the way, don’t expect to see the names of the winners on the Ontario Heritage Trust web site, www.heritagefdn.on.ca. In one of those amazing Catch 22s that governments love to wrap themselves up in, publicizing the names of the winners on the web site would be a violation of Ontario’s privacy laws. So the government is saying, ‘Fantastic job protecting our heritage, folks. Too bad we can’t tell anyone who you are.’ In future, winners are going to be asked to sign Freedom of Information waivers so that their names can be put in press releases and on the web site.
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Former Ward 7 City Councillor Dave Cook is doing well after heart bypass surgery Monday at Trillium Health Centre. “The medical staff was superb,” says Cook. He plans to write a future guest column for The Mississauga News about his fears going into the operation and his reaction afterward.
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Real reason Britney (Oops I Did It Again) Spears shaved off her hair? So her voice would sound more like that of Sinead O’Connor. Result? Nothing Compares 2 U, Sinead.
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Seen in the venerable Globe and Mail’s Last Words column last week: Wilfrid Laurier, 1841-1919, “Say fini.”
Now that is what I call a man committed to bilingualism. Unless, of course, his real last words were, as I strongly suspect, “C’est fini.”
Say fini, Wilfrid.
Fini Wilfrid.