Welcome to Barrie, Ontario’s most progressive city! That’s the slogan. I look at Dunlop St and feel sick to my stomach. Downtown Barrie is a mass of mud and construction… storm sewers, according to media reports. The problem is the powers that be have planned this to occur in all directions, effectively cutting businesses off…
There are lots of older Barrie residents this week who are experiencing real sadness around the closing of Gryphon Theatre. As Gryphon gives way to other performing arts in our community, it gives us the chance to reflect and celebrate the true achievement that occurred in young Barrie in 1969, population 22,000. They were founding…
He was about 7 years old and he shuffled in to the Christmas Cheer office in his big winter boots, a toque and his winter coat. He was holding a small cardboard box. It held all his birthday money… $82 in coins. That was the first year I met William Parry and our website has…
Just past the museum, on the other side of the road, on Highway 26 is the Barrie Sports Complex. 117 acres of sports mecca, all devoted to people who love ball… baseball, softball, slo-pitch, soccer, football… ball! This complex is the envy of out-of-town teams. This year, the Pavilion that pulls is all together is…
You’re right. Aside from a few exciting sprinkles last week which nudged us to get our snow tires down from the shelf in the garage, this fall has been mild and magnificent. And while many of us are raking leaves and planting perennial bulbs for next spring, Faye Bubel and her team are thinking about…
They say that entrepreneurs don’t do that well in school. Makes sense, I guess. Steven Spielberg (the world reknown movie producer) has his grade 5 report card sitting on his desk. His teacher’s comment is a single line: this young man will amount to nothing. That says it all, really. So often, the entrepreneurial spirit…
You can tell it’s mid-October when the signs get erected in the front lawn. You can tell it’s mid-October when Jennifer starts making body parts, covering bone with paste and colouring, hanging them out to dry on the front porch. And when every day she sports a new pair of very luminous, very scary contact…
When you walk past the fundraising office at Barrie Public Library, you have to stop and look in. How does she do it? How does she find anything? It’s a busy place, piled high with all kinds of papers, books, materials, reports. Helter skelter with dragon boat paddles, fundraising posters, pictures, reports, newspapers. It’s a…
I’ve lived here for 65% of my life. In those four decades, I’ve been a committed downtown shopper out of the belief that doing business in our city core is an important part of the fabric of who we are. When we moved here in 1971, there were no malls in Barrie. Dunlop St was…
It started as a tiny lump on the side of her neck, small, smaller than a marble. Her dentist had been doing some deep cleaning, so she asked him about it. He sent her to her doctor. Doctor to ear nose and throat specialist. ENT to ultra sound. Ultra sound to fine needle biopsies. To…