4216: The First Fifty Years

4216, 1971

4216, 1970

4216, 1969

 

4216, 1968

4216, Living Room, 1967

 

1967 Was A Very Good Year

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.