I met an otherwise nice doctor at the General who told me how to “fix” Bronson Avenue. [As an aside, it is amazing how many medical conversations turn into planning ones, even at the General]. The houses, she said, are too close to the road. Ya gotta just widen that road, and all will be better.

I did point out that when my grandparents lived at the corner of Bronson and Christie, they used to have a front yard. And a tree. And vegetable garden. All of which was swept away in previous road widenings. When will it all end – there isn’t room to widen that road anymore.

Here’s a fairly recent pic of their former home. At some point, store windows were put in and it was a bakery. And most recently, permanently vacant.

Notice that two doors down the street, towards the left, the front porch has a cruciform shape on the top of the front veranda pillar:

And now notice, c1930, my father in his front yard with the same veranda in the background.

Oh, those blissful days before the impending imprisonment in St Anthony School (then called Dante School). Although one satisfaction for my little tyke dad was that “McGuinty had to sit behind me”. Yeah, that McGuinty.

Do we still say the houses are too close to the road? Or is the road too damn big?