Canada became a country on July 1, 1867. My wife Merle and I celebrated Canada’s Centennial Year (1967) by getting married on Saturday, July 1, 1967 and leaving the next day for a cross-country drive to Expo ’67 in Montreal. It was the best of times. We drove Merle’s 1964 Valiant (with a V8 motor and push-button transmission) to and from Montreal with no problems, stopping in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, on the way home for a wedding celebration hosted by my parents. As I recall, we had 10 cents left when we arrived home – to 4216, the house we had bought (but not lived in) before we left.
Fifty years later Canada celebrated its 150th anniversary of confederation – Canada 150 – on (you guessed it) July 1, 2017. We had celebrated our 50th anniversary in May when our family joined us at 4216 for fine food and memories old and new. We celebrated the anniversary and Canada 150 again by having dinner on July 1 with good friends.
We’ve lived at 4216 for the past 50 years and we created this blog so that we could share photographs and memories of the past five decades. It’s been a grand voyage and we expect it to continue for many more years. You’ll see how we and 4216 have adapted to each other. 4216 has become, according to our friends, a house of art. There’s a darkroom downstairs, a grand piano in the front room, visual art and thousands of books (yes, thousands) throughout this modest 1960s house. We also enjoy the large vegetable garden/small farm in our backyard – and the wonderful neighbours who live on our street and in our neighborhood.
We’ll be posting new images – at least one for each of the fifty years we’ve been here – weekly. We may add a few more images for some years (I will be working in the darkroom during this process).
We hope you enjoy this journey with us.
This is the coolest way to celebrate 50 fantastic years. Having only known you both for a few of those years, I can't wait to see the whole story!
If I can be so bold as to table a request...some close-ups of you both from the early days would be lovely. I'm becoming more and more nostalgic as time goes by...love looking back on the past, especially when I've got a hook to hang it on.
Thanks for sharing!
Warm regards,
12203 (Brian)
Posted by: Brian Wallace | 07/21/2017 at 11:32 AM
Thanks, Brian!
This Sunday we'll be posting a 1970 view of our back yard, including Paul and his Uncle Tony.
We'll also be posting some close-ups soon.
All the best,
Jerome and Merle
Posted by: Jerome Martin | 07/21/2017 at 08:32 PM
Hello Jerome and Merle, what a wonderful journey. I cannot imagine how you have whittled down the photos for your blog. I have far too many photos to try to do this.
I look forward to each and every year you display. It's so special!
Posted by: Brenda Tyson | 10/16/2017 at 05:12 PM