Josh Matlow (Ward 12) will provide a Facebook broadcast of the Family Day storytime from Mabel’s Fables children’s bookstore at Mt. Pleasant Rd and Hillsdale Ave. The event is set for 3 p.m. Monday, February 15 on Mr. Matlow’s page. Several authors will tell stories and the recent mother-and-daughter pairing of Sharon and Randi Hampson will perform the favorite Skinnamarink (Dinky Dink). Should be fun.
Toronto Police have announced Saturday that there is no longer any concern that a young girl was being lured by a person who apparently spoke to her outside her home Wednesday near Neilson Road and Ellesmere Road. They say investigators reviewed video, interviewed witnesses and spoke to the person of interest. The investigation has been closed. Fears were raised Friday on an earlier report.
Faces, faces and we’ve found pictures of some appealing Canadians who are happily unmasked in this time of mandatory cover-ups. At left is the late Madame Bette-Joan Rac. The much-loved Edmonton piano and music teacher has made headlines for the treasures and vintage fashion found in her Edmonton home. Fascinating. At centre, let’s hope happy rollerblade kid Alexei Morita, 21, is careful as he blasts through vacant halls at the Eaton Centre. Finally, the exceptional woman at the right is Alex Bastiany MD. She is the first black woman to graduate in Canada as an interventional cardiologist. Listen to how gracefully she carries this distinction. Well done, doctor.
Christopher Plummer, the Toronto actor who played Captain Von Trapp in the 1965 movie The Sound of Music, has died at the age of 91. Plummer was a veteran of stage and screen, portraying characters like Shakespeare’s King Lear at the Stratford Festival and starring in independent films like 2012’s Beginners, which won him an Academy Award at age 82. Plummer died early Friday at his home in Connecticut with his wife of 53 years, Elaine Taylor, by his side. Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer was born on December 13, 1929, the only child of John Orme Plummer, who sold stocks and securities, and his wife Isabella Mary (née Abbott), who worked as secretary to the Dean of Sciences at McGill University. Plummer’s parents divorced shortly after his birth, and he was brought up mainly by his mother in the Abbott family home in Senneville, Quebec, outside Montreal. He spoke English and French fluently. As a schoolboy, he began studying to be a concert pianist, but developed a love for theatre at an early age, and began acting while he was attending the High School of Montreal.
It’s always good to make the best of a bad situation and if you wouldn’t know the Kansas City Chiefs from Ketchup, try the chocolate cupcakes in the form of a football. It’s $15 at Longo’s. The game begins at 6.30 Eastern on Sunday but you can start eating the football earlier. Down the right side of this local gallery is a cute-beyond-belief puppy snapped by Leslieville’s Colin Mcconnell. Below that is the long-time Starbucks in the historic old Davisville post office building at Yonge St. and Davisville Ave. It’s set to join many other Toronto green mermaids closing up shop soon. Lower left is an innovative invitation to do business by the Rebel House bar and restaurant on Yonge St at Roxborough Ave. Her sign reads “I’m just a girl standing in front of the Rebel House asking you to order takeout.” Lastly, we just love this all-ages salute posted by the Leaside Wildcats hockey club. It was taken by the Provincial Women’s Hockey League Players Association to mark National Girls and Women in Sports Day.
A security camera at a house on Kentroyal Drive captures the moment a garbage truck loses control on a sloped stretch of Dixon Road Friday morning, striking trees, vehicles, and homes. The wreckage gives new meaning to the term Garbage Day.
An informative post to Leaside Comunity Facebook tells of a resident’s quick action in calling 911 when she heard her Nest doorbell cam notification that it had seen something funny outside. It was nearly 4 a.m. Her quick action resulted in the arrest of the person seen in the above picture a few minutes later on Donlea Drive.
Older Canadians will longingly recall Connaught Laboratories in Toronto as they hear the pitiful explanation that Canada could not get manufacturers to make a vaccine here because it doesn’t have a place to do that. Connaught, where they did the odd world-shattering thing like discover insulin, was sold off to the Europeans decades ago. Ugh.
Toronto Police have issued an alert to parents in the east end after an apparent attempted luring of a child Wednesday. It occurred about 5:30 p.m. near Neilson Rd and Ellesmere Rd when a 7-year-old girl reported that a man had approached her in front of her home. He tried to lure her away. She ran inside her home and the man fled. He is described as having a brown complexion, in his 20s, 5’6″-5’7″, with an average build, and was clean shaven. He had short wavy black hair. He was wearing a grey long-sleeve sweater and black pants. He was also carrying a circular black plastic food container and was not wearing a mask.
Temperatures will creep above 0º Celsius Friday but beginning Saturday Toronto will face a week of chilling days. Some will find it good news that the City will largely dodge 50 cm snowfall squalls in some areas. Weather Network
Update: #Hwy401 EB reopening now https://t.co/JQ7weldKEs
— OPP Highway Safety Division (@OPP_HSD) February 5, 2021
Update: #Hwy401 EB at #Hwy6 north will be reopened shortly. plows will clear the snow and roads will be reopened https://t.co/mR4xcoGdBv
— OPP Highway Safety Division (@OPP_HSD) February 5, 2021
Toronto City Council has voted 21 to five in favour of a plan to transform Yonge St from College to Queen Sts. into something quite different. Singe lane traffic, or maybe one-way sections, wider sidewalks, benches, trees and of course lots of bicycles. It’s called the YongeTOmorrow plan. It gained momentum when the City found it needed to dig up most of the street to replace a 19th Century water and drainage system. “Thank you to the residents, (business) owners, thought leaders, cultural mavens who spoke in support of this big urban transformation,” tweeted Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam.
The nature of how men cross social lines in their attraction to women will again be investigated. It appears that former head of the Defense Forces Jonathan Vance was exchanging notes with a woman member of the forces. Then, Canada will donate $100,000 to repair the 19th Century church in St. Catharines that formed a meeting place for black people at the northern end of the Underground Railway. One member at the church was activist Harriet Tubman. Below that, Canada will seek to bolster its vaccine supply from COVAX, an international fund known to some as a medical foodbank. Lastly, there’s a raging trade in fake C-19 vaccine in China. The government is trying to get a handle on it.
