It has been a long summer here in Ontario, full of mixed emotions and feelings and, while I did not intend to take the summer away from sharing my thoughts and observations about life in the land of moose and maple syrup, events, as they have a way of doing, kinda got the better of me.
Following the June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, I did not feel like writing much of anything, much less light extemporanea about being a semi-retired, post adolescent, Southern Californian experiencing life in Ontario, Canada.
Shaken to the very essence of my being by yet another senseless slaughter of innocents, this time 49 of my LGBTQ brothers and sisters in my native land by a deranged gunman, I couldn’t even bring myself to join any of the various debates taking place on social media.
In the following weeks things only got worse, killings of unarmed black men, ambush and murder of five Dallas policemen, overseas terrorist events, and the nomination by a major political party of the least qualified man in history to be President of the United States.
Toronto Pride 2016 weekend.
One of the few pics I can post on a family friendly site.
My hosts, guides, and very good friends, Canadians Jon Breithaupt and Brodie Chree helped to bring some joy back into my life by making it possible for me to accomplish the three things I wanted to do when I first decided I wanted to spend a summer in Ontario: go to Toronto for Pride Weekend, spend a day with the guys at Canada’s Wonderland theme and water park, and while away a weekend camping at The Point, a gay resort on Ontario’s south coast.
Couple all of that with becoming accustomed to Jon’s unwieldy, rotating day/night, 12 hour shifts at his summer job in Cambridge, Ontario while taking charge of shifting our living quarters back and forth between Cambridge and Hamilton—long story, let’s just say the sale of a house was involved—and three months just seemed to fly by like Chris Christie on his way to an open buffet.
And if all that wasn’t enough to keep me occupied and my hands away from the keyboard, Jon and I found ourselves racing toward a fateful decision.
If you recall I ended my very first blog post by saying,
And I also, somewhere along the way, may have taken a personal interest in a particular Ontarian.
Jon is that Ontarian and, truth be told, I was and still am in love with him. He makes me happier than I’ve been in a very long, long time.
Jon’s summer working as a now certified 4th Class Power Engineer convinced him as nothing else up to that time had that if he was truly to build a career in this field he needed to secure his 3rd class certification, and time and finances permitting 2nd class status as soon as he possibly could. This meant returning to college and transferring from the school he had been attending in Owen Sound to the premier engineering training center in the province, Cambrian College, in Sudbury, Ontario.
He applied to Cambrian and by mid-June was accepted, which he jolly well should be since he left Owen Sound with the total highest marks in the history of the engineering program at that school.
This meant I had to make a decision as well. Make the most out of my summer months in Ontario and just before the start of the academic year bid a fond farewell to the light of my life—oh who am I kidding, I’d be balling like a baby all the way back to Palm Springs—or offer to extend our relationship through the coming fall and winter, which is exactly what I did.
Ever the romantic, Jon said if I was crazy enough to want to spend another winter with him he’d welcome my company during Sudbury’s long winter nights. And, believe me, Sudbury will have many of those.
Sudbury, Ontario, home of the Big Nickel.
While seemingly farther to the north than anyplace I’ve ever been in winter (it’s a six plus hour drive south to Toronto), Sudbury is still well below the 49th parallel, the main dividing line between our two nations. In fact, Sudbury is just a bit north of Minneapolis and south of both Fargo, North Dakota and Seattle, Washington. That said, winter in Sudbury is reputed to make Owen Sound seem like an October visit to the Outer Banks.
Last winter and this past summer have been the warmest on record in Ontario. In fact 2016 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record in Canada. While I am no fan of global warming, I have to admit I won’t mind it one bit if the winter of 2017 at least ties that record.
After all, as our landlady in Sudbury said while showing us around our new apartment, “We have outlets on the rear of the building to plug your engine (block) heaters into when it’s -40° C/F.”
We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming, err, posting.
