I’m remembering big moments from my Toronto youth.  And I like sharing them.

1.  I stood a few days ago before a stone arch at the University of Toronto.  Here came two young women.  I asked if I could tell them a story about what happened there 55 years ago.  They smiled and said yes.

I was a university student heading from one class to the next.  I looked through the arch and saw a little old man coming towards me from the other side.  “Is that who I think it is?”  Yes, it was Lester Pearson, who had recently been succeeded as Canada’s Prime Minister by Pierre Trudeau.  Pearson had not only led Canada.  He was also an international voice in peacekeeping.

“Say something, Bruce!  Thank him.”

Closer we came

Within speaking distance

And I averted my eyes

The sadness of that 1970 moment lingers in 2025.

The two women got it.  And my last words?  “Say hi if you see Lester.”

2.  Here is a marvelous space for people at the U of T:

Volleyball, standin’ around, sittin’ around.  In the background there’s a domed building.  I remember it well.

In the spirit of conversation, I walked up to a group of students – about five men and two women.

“I was a student here 55 years ago.  May I tell you a funny story about Convocation Hall?”  Instant smiles.

“I took first year psychology in that building, along with about 600 classmates.  The prof was boring.  My friends and I didn’t like him.”

“Above us was a domed ceiling.  Unknown to me, there was a  small horizontal door at the very top.  Someone devious and adventurous had found a room, or a crawl space, above the door.  Somehow they had hauled copious amounts of water up there.”

“Suddenly there was a torrent descending!  A direct hit on the poor guy as he stood at the podium.”

“Hopefully he wasn’t scarred for life.”

My companions laughed and laughed.  Contact across the generations.

***

There were other examples of my loose lips over the past few days but two should suffice.