Moving to the Suburbs

Lovely Lake Ontario

Colours are beautiful in Ontario Fall

Our First Home in the Suburbs

Lake Ontario in the wind

Hockey on the Credit River

Lake Ontario with CN Tower

In the 1970's in Ontario apartment buildings were allowed to discriminate based on age.  This meant people with children had very little choice in apartment renting. There was a law passed in 2002 which stopped this age discrimination.

In 1977 when my daughter was born we were reminded that we had to find alternative accommodation. Luckily we had been looking for a townhouse to purchase while I was pregnant. We found one almost as close to Lake Ontario as our apartment had been. This was an exciting move for our new family. We happened to buy a house in an area where there were lots of young families with kids. My daughter and son still speak fondly about the wonderful years they spent there. Neighbours would sit on their front porches in the evenings when the kids were in their beds. Bedroom windows were left open so we could hear any movement. We would swap stories about kids, work and life in general. Most important of all coffee tea and snacks were plentiful. During the day the children would play outside together after school in large groups. If I went to the local playground I always had 2 or 3 extra kids with me. Trips across the road to the lakeside park were fabulous. We could swim in the unpolluted lake, play ball and have a picnic. Those were halcyon days.

Maybe because most of the people in our neighbourhood were at the same stage in life as ourselves we developed many friendships. These are ongoing to this day more than 40 years later. We used to go to one another's home for card games and the very popular new game Trivial Pursuit. These get togethers produced many lively discussions on politics, daycare, shopping, recipes and family relations. We decided to make use of our community hall. I found an exercise instructor locally to give evening classes to women. Some of the adults got together on Sunday mornings to use the saunas and swimming pool. We set up a moms and tots club donating toys and colouring kits and homemade playdo. Groups of us frequently went to provincial parks. We had fun swimming and barbecuing, playing basketball and of course enjoying the playgrounds. Here is where our kids started high school and took their driving lessons. We enjoyed the comfort of discussing the pros and cons of these life stages with one another.

I neglected to mention that just like any close community, gossip was a large part of our lives. It added some spice to the daily routine. There was the woman who ran away for a day with a member of her bowling team. It only lasted a day as she had two wonderful kids. We sympathized with her as she was treated a little unfairly by her husband. He did admit to this when he came looking for sympathy. Luckily it all turned out well in the end. There was also the woman whose husband brought a lover to their house, while she was on vacation with their child. She discovered this when she picked up some photos that she brought for development. Let's just say they were very compromising. This relationship also healed. There was no animosity over the embarrassing and sometimes unfortunate events that happened to all of us. We needed one another in some ways and people were always kind.

I marvel at how much we long to move through life's stages as quickly as possible. We just do not realize how much we enjoy them at the time. Some variety of knowledge comes with age. I keep reminding myself to enjoy each day as it comes. Oh to have had this wisdom when I was younger. The average life span is longer so I can use this knowledge for a few more years.

We have never since quite captured the joy of those days.