Hay Avenue - Etobicoke, Ontario

A lot of my time growing up was spent with my grandfather. Those were some really good times. The summers were spent in a pool 80% of the day while the rest was spent eating, sleeping and goofing around.

My morning would start really early with a swim in the back yard. Hay Avenue was filled with all my friends and as the day would start we would leave our houses and start walking up to Ourland Park. By the end of the street there was about 30 of us.


We would start off with drills, laps and diving. We would have training to be lifeguards and train for completions. These days were long but it was great. Once all the training was done we would all go back to my house and have lunch and of swim some more. 

If we were not swimming we would play soccer, volleyball, basketball and ball hockey. A few friends played baseball and tennis. The whole tennis thing bored most of us but we still played to support those who liked it. But baseball was a NO NO, and 90% of us hated it!

At night after dinner I would call "our telephone booth" and get everyone to meet. We would all hang out at the park, some night we would climb the fence at the pool and go swimming. The police station was just next store and we would be making so much noise that the regular cops would call out our names and tell us we had 15 minutes to get out or he would arrest us for real. BIG TALKER, NO FOLLOW THROUGH.

After a day and night of being water logged I would come home exhausted, fall on my bed and pass out in minutes. Back then my skin was not fair and milky. It was golden and dark. (I will look for a photograph and add later) We were always outside from the time the sun came out.

Milky