Happy Thanksgiving weekend to Canadian readers, and happy Columbus Day weekend to those of you Stateside!
Now, I realize that a photo of me taken at my old elementary school (which I attended from 1966 to 1971, while my family lived at the Manse in Queensborough) doesn’t exactly scream a Thanksgiving theme, but let me explain.
Raymond and I spent the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend last year (2011) at a happy event, a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of that very school. It was an unseasonably hot day and we all baked and got sunburned as we sat on the school lawn and listened to speeches and reminiscences and musical numbers. But it was a fun event that brought back lots of good memories, and it was great to see some of my former teachers and schoolmates.
We did something else that Thanksgiving Saturday a year ago, though: we went through the Manse with the realtor who had listed it. It was our second visit (the first had been the previous June) and, since the house was still on the market, we were still thinking about it. My brother John and his two boys and my sister, Melanie, joined us for the visit, and as you can imagine there was a lot of bustle up and down the two sets of stairs as those of us who had once lived there revisited our past.
Later we carried on up to the Sedgwick farm in Haliburton for the annual family Thanksgiving celebration, thinking all the while about the Manse and whether we could or should buy it.
The result of those ruminations and discussions: that we should not. That the house needed too much work, that it was too far away from our home in Montreal, that it just didn’t make sense. Case closed.
Of course, as I write this I am sitting in the Manse’s dining room, one year later. And we are the proud and happy owners.
A lot can happen in a year. And things happen, they say, for a reason.
Meanwhile, at the Manse 
What a wonderful reunion that was on a wonderful fall day! I remember it so well as Gayle had spent six months going to meetings, making lists and fretting while her faithful sidekick spent hours at the computer with his clumsy hunt-and-peck talent, typing the lists. Little did we know that day that we would have new and delightful neighbours in Queensborough a year later. That spot is dear to me as five generations of the Ketcheson family and four of the Keene (my mom’s) family attended the one-room Burris School that sat on that site until 1960. I cherish a great picture of the white frame school where I learned how to learn about how much there was to learn in this world. Happy Thanksgiving…GnG
It really was a wonderful, joyous event, Gayle and Grant, and all credit to you both for the many, many hours of work you put into organizing it.
Grant, I am going to remember that great line of yours about learning about all there is to learn, but I promise I will attribute it to you when I use it!
The 50th anniversary of MTPS was quite an event. I was determined that my father would attend and he did enjoy meeting former colleagues & students. Alas, he was the ONLY former Principal to attend. [Of course, Florence McCoy & Chuck Mowat couldn’t, having departed our mortal realm…]
Indeed, it would have been a little difficult for Chuck and Florence to have attended, but I think it’s a pretty sure bet that Florence, at least, was there with us in spirit. That school was so dear to her heart. There is no question that she and your dad are the two principals who have had the most impact on the school over the years, and it is no surprise that their years are so fondly remembered by so many. It was terrific to see Art there that day!