If you drive south on Burton Avenue in Barrie, and wait until it’s really Yonge St., you’ll be driving along what was countryside just a few years ago. The “new” Steckley Gooderham Funeral Home, McDonalds, Tim Horton’s, and the tremendous housing development along Lovers Creek and in Painswick have all changed the landscape of Barrie’s…

It’s an amazing thing how time changes our perspective on things. I was revisiting some of my early days in journalism (the late 60’s, when women were just beginning to make inroads into this field) and the tremendous opportunities I enjoyed as a staff reporter on a small daily newspaper. In those days, the Kingston…

Exactly 10 years after the day she opened her doors, Ingrid Steinbach is turning the key for the last time on Dreamer’s Rock, a charming gift and artisan shop on Dunlop St. West. Dreamer’s Rock has been a great gift anchor for Barrie’s downtown and Ingrid has operated it with personality and pizzazz. Not only…

It’s funny how people deal with “tragedy.” In the south end of Barrie is a little dynamo whose outlook on life bubbles right up to the surface. Vicki Southon is one of those “glass-is-half-full” types. Her longtime job with Toronto Dominion Bank went the way of the do-do bird as automated teller machines took the…

Tuesday night I left my daughter doing homework and slipped down to City Hall, expecting to be one of a handful of people prepared to register as a bone marrow donor. My interest was sparked by the enthusiasm of Vicki Southon, a local fundraising business owner who came in contact with the bone marrow movement…

Janett Sampson kept a promise to her father and in doing it she discovered a talent that may well become her new career. Right now, though, Janett’s working the night shift for ICS Couriers in Barrie. She sorts mail for the morning crew and makes a 3:30 am run to Toronto for deliveries for doctors…

I’ve wondered about this ad for a long time. How could I make $1,500 a week stuffing envelopes? Would I become a pieceworker, paid for the number of envelopes I could stuff? Was there more to it? Is this ad legitimate? After all, it’s in the Opportunities section of the Classifieds in both newspapers in…

It was one of those high points in a teenage life… a high school dance, a DJ from THE radio station of the era, and a dance contest with an hour’s taped interview with The Beatles as its prize. Plus all four autographs on a single sheet. Can you imagine the equivalent thrill of that…

I wonder sometimes how much the human spirit can handle. I’m thinking this week about a couple of situations which seem so overwhelming the first reaction is to set them aside, ignore their reality. The first is a local situation, but a national–even international–story. It’s the Townsend story. One month ago I wrote about the…

While we’re on the topic of new beginnings, yesterday was certainly momentous… the first day of the last year of this century. How many human beings get to witness this time, reflect on past, present and future at the changeover of one century to the next? We’re among the very few. This gets me to…