St. Vital Sixties Reunion

John Flett explains all about trees.

2010-08-10T17:28:00.000-07:00

An explanation or an apology?

2010-08-10T17:23:00.000-07:00

Chat time

2010-08-10T17:19:00.001-07:00

Tony catches up.

Late 60s grads

2010-08-10T17:14:00.000-07:00

These folks left GCI later than most of us. Janice Wasik contacted a lot of her former classmates and they appeared to be catching up on the news.

Help - names please!

2010-08-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

GCI sweater

2010-08-10T14:44:00.003-07:00

Your committee

2010-08-10T14:44:00.001-07:00

Wayne Johnson, Tony Dadson, me, Jackie (Dalton) Schwab. Lots of work in a short time.

The jocks are still having a good time.

2010-08-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

Don McLean and the Cooper brothers

The coach

2010-08-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

Does this guy look familiar? Do you suddenly feel like running laps in the gym? It's Ernie G.

The cake

2010-08-10T14:39:00.001-07:00

Every party needs a cake.

Wayne Johnson and Randy Lindquist

2010-08-10T14:38:00.001-07:00

Wayne put a huge effort into this reunion. Good job, Wayne.

Windsor Friends

2010-08-10T14:37:00.001-07:00

Remember Carl Pfaff and Jim Flowers? Looking good, boys!

The reunion!

2010-08-10T14:36:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it! Lots of people dropped in to say hello, to catch up on the news, and to see old friends.
Here are some of the photos.

The stories are coming in.

2010-07-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

Lots of people are sending their stories - and, wow, have St. Vital grads ever seen the world! It's great to hear how former classmates have enjoyed life since the sixties.

Get your story in soon! The reunion is on August 7th. At the event we will have a booklet you can add your story to, but it's easier if you send it to me now and I can bring it to the event.

After the reunion, we will be putting together a CD containing all the stories, and it will be available to anyone who asks - minimal cost.

See you at Windsor Community Centre.

More pictures

2010-05-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

I think we will have to wear large tags, "Hello, I'm .........." because I don't think many of us still look like this. That's OK, we're still gorgeous grads.

Windsor students on ice

2010-05-13T08:24:00.000-07:00

Bob Sharman sent this photo with the following description of who is in it:
Ian Gillis, ?, Gary Charman, Jackie Davidson, Lawrie Groves, Barb Somers, Geoff Hall, Cheryl Vidruk, ?, Billy Dunstone, Barb Coutts?, Doug Hornsby, Susan Fair.

Anyone out there to confirm or correct the names?

See anyone you recognize?

2010-05-02T09:23:00.000-07:00

Four months until the St. Vital Sixties Reunion

2010-04-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

Lots of people have been emailing from all over the continent - St. Vital people travelled far once they left the old neighbourhood.
I've been asking people to write out brief summaries of their lives once they left St. Vital. The plan is to bring these stories to the reunion so people can get caught up on what happened to our classmates.
If you know anyone who has travelled far away and who can't get to the reunion, please ask them to email me with their story. And have your story ready too. I'm sure other people are just as curious as I am to hear the happy endings.

7 months until the reunion

2010-01-17T07:03:00.000-08:00

In less than 7 months, we'll be sitting at the Windsor Community Centre catching up on each other's stories, swapping photos of grandchildren, laughing at pictures from the "old days", lying to each other about not looking a day older than we did in the 60s.
Seven months? I really have to get serious about a diet!!

St. Vital hotel

2009-11-23T06:53:00.000-08:00

My memories of this place were hanging around outside hoping someone would go in and buy beer for you. They say Burton Cummings used to spend time here.

the Coffee House

2009-11-23T06:50:00.000-08:00

Wayne tells me this was the place to be - north of the Junction, next to the hotel. I guess it's seen better times.

Elm Park bridge

2009-11-23T06:47:00.000-08:00

I love this old bridge. I was only 16 when I left St. Vital and couldn't drive (safely!), so I never met the challenge of driving over the skinny structure when cars were still allowed on it.
I certainly remember the kids who would jump off the bridge into the river. Gutsy! Crazy!

the firehall

2009-11-23T06:39:00.000-08:00

What I remember best about the firehall is having to go there to get your bicycle licence. When did that end? Seems now like a good idea to licence bikes.

The BDI

2009-11-23T06:37:00.000-08:00

How many hours did you spend walking to the BDI or hanging around enjoying the ice cream delights they sold there? Do you remember certain boys dumping their ice cream on boaters going under the bridge? Well, the BDI still exists! Hard to believe in this fickle world that a small, non-franchised business would survive all the Dairy Queen competitors, but there it is.
Photos by Wayne Johnson

Windsor Community Centre

2009-11-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

If you haven't been by the old Community Centre in, say, 35 years, you will be quite surprised to see what it looks like now. It appears to be a completely new building - which isn't terribly surprising. What did surprise me is it's located on a hill, according to the photo at their website: http://www.windsorcc.ca/index.html My recollection of St. Vital does not include any hills. Admittedly, I used to whine about having to ride my bike up Elm Park Rd to St. Mary's because it was uphill - but once I moved to Ontario, I realized I had been delusional as a child. There was no hill on my street. OK, there was a valley of sorts in Killarney Park, but that doesn't mean the sides of it were hills. So is the "hill" in the photo a trick of the camera, or did they truck in fill to build the new building on top of? Another reason to return to Winnipeg for the St. Vital Sixties Reunion - to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Winnipeg murals

2009-11-03T17:19:00.000-08:00

I don't even remember graffiti when I lived in Winnipeg, but check out what's on the walls now:

http://www.themuralsofwinnipeg.com/

Venue settled!

2009-11-03T17:17:00.000-08:00

It's settled - we are booked into the Windsor Community Centre for the event. Thanks Wayne!
How many of you remember slogging into the Community Centre with your skates on, then sitting on the benches and trying to untie your skates with frozen fingers? Do you remember the hockey matches at the outdoor rink? The banks of snow were so high that we were looking down on the ice surface.
I learned to smoke behind the Community Centre. And my brother and I took square dancing lessons there.
Lots of memories!

Glenlawn Collegiate is advertising the St. Vital Sixties Reunion

2009-10-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

Just got a call from Mike Heilmann at Glenlawn Collegiate and he has put a link to the blog on the home page of the school. Check it out at: http://www.lrsd.net/Schools/GCI/
He felt we'd tap into the generational connection that way - it took me a minute to realize he means the grandchildren of the 1960 grads.
He also offered to tour me around the school if I came on a school day. So, if anyone else is coming from out of town, maybe we could set something up for a group of us. As for me, I just don't want to see the principal's office as I spent waaaaay too much time there.

The date of the reunion

2009-10-27T14:03:00.001-07:00

We've picked August 7th, 2010 as the date we're holding the St. Vital Sixties Reunion event. As soon as we know the venue and the exact time, we'll post it.
Keep watching!

We want your photos for the St.Vital Sixties Reunion.

2009-10-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

Do you have any old photos of friends? Did you take photos at a birthday party, a sleep-over, a school trip, a track and field meet? If you could get copies made (try a print shop - about $1 each for an 8 x 10) and send them to us - be sure to include the names of the people in the shots - we would display them at the reunion. My address is:
Linda White
421312 Concession 6 NDR, RR 1,
Elmwood, Ont N0G 1S0