Back to the Woods

Dear Reader probably wouldn't remember that during the summer we took a walk up to the patch of woods on the north edge of town. It was a hot and buggy walk, so we decided to wait until fall to return. It isn't yet fall, but we've had some cool weather, and once we pass mid-August, the insect plague seems to diminish greatly.

On Tuesday, it was time to try again. Once again, we stuck mostly to the perimeter path.

I had been hoping to spot a lot of chicory, but we only saw the occasional flower.

There was much golden rod, however, and a number of sleeping bees, so they were relatively easy to photograph for once. They were sleeping because it had been a cold night and still a cool morning.

We did duck into the woods briefly. The trail was short, so we soon found ourselves back on the perimeter path. Someday, we shall explore the trails more, but I don't think any will be too long because it is not an very large woodland.

On the way out, we passed a very cool looking old truck that called out to me, so I stopped and took out my phone.

What a beaut! I know from the mat on the cargo bed that it is a 1949 something or other. At the time, I didn't think to check the hood for the make or model.

Finally! Shawarma with the Kids

When they were younger, every now and then we would have shawarmas with the kids at the little park behind town hall. We'd park the car, walk along main street to Lakeside Shawarma, and take our food back to a table by the river.

Look at all of the rock on the far side of the dam. The water is very low.

Somehow, we missed  this ritual last year, but we had this week to get together before school starts up again next week,

The circumstances weren't the best on a cool and windy day with the yellow jackets pestering us. In fact, I got stung really well by one of the blighters. But we made a memory with the kids, and those are getting harder to come by now that we don't see Dani and JJ as much.

We didn’t linger long and left to head to the Blue Spoon for desert, which we consumed while walking. I got the most scrumptious cookie ever! It was a biggish chocolate chip cookie with a bit of sea salt. Baked until perfectly crispy, it was delish. I am not usually a huge cookie guy, but this one was spectacular.

We wandered around main street for a few minutes, but since it was my cane hand that was stung, I put it in the car. I was doing fine without it, but the others still kept the outing short out of consideration. 

We only ventured into one store — Amethyst — where I saw a rather nice amethyst lamp for $229 and a very impressive chunk of amethyst crystal for $600. What a specimen!

It all took place in about and hour and a half or less, but we took one more photo before going our separate ways.

We'll see them again sometime on the weekend for a birthday celebration before school recommences next week. In the meantime, I leave you with one of Sue's collages.

My Deconversion Story

When I posted my recent churchy blogs that I shall link at the end, people seemed very interested in hearing about my faith story or actually loss of faith. 

You know my churchy background by now, but you may not know that I continued to be a very committed Christian until my mid-30s. In point of fact, there was a time when I thought of leaving teaching to retrain as a minister. 

In those years after our marriage in 1969, Sue and I attended various evangelical churches — Pentecostal, Free Methodist, Associated Gospel, and even the occasional Baptist service. This lasted into the 1980s. I loved being an evangelical Christian, and church music is still what plays in my head more than any other. The music still gives me feelings or at least memories of feelings.

Near the end of my faith period, I led a little couples bible study of just 3 couples. It was great. We all enjoyed our times together. When the sessions concluded because one couple was moving away, one of the guys loaned me a set of creationist tapes. At the end of the tapes, the presenter went on about the continents zooming around after the flood, just 4000 years ago.

I knew enough about the study of plate tectonics to realize that was balderdash. However, it shouldn't have affected me because I hadn't been a young earth creationist to begin with. I knew the earth was old, but believed in guided evolution or Intelligent Design as they call it now. I knew that it had been 200 million years since the planets were together in the form of Pangea and that they have been moving to their present position for all of that time and that they are still on the move. While I won't go into it, the science is irrefutable. 

All along, I had known about geologic time yet still also believed the gospel. Science and belief were not incompatible in my mind. However, it was realizing the absurdity of the claim that the continents had shifted dramatically just a few thousand years ago that made me think of time differently. It suddenly hit me that, geologically speaking, the earth hadn't required divine intervention for 200 million years. Geology just grinded on and on. I had never thought of it this way. 

I realized that the planet hadn't needed a guiding god for 200 million years. That's a rather long time.

As people and Christians, we have this notion that we are special and that god created us with a special purpose. If that were the case, he really took his time getting around to creating humans. And it wasn't just 200 million years but actually 4.5 billion years that our planet had existed. And then . . . when you figure that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, the notion of the earth and humans being specially created at the whim of a god suddenly made no sense to me.

That was it. I stopped believing in that instant. It wasn't deliberate; I couldn't help myself. For many EXvangelicals, deconstruction is a long and panful journey. They struggle mightily to find reasons to hang onto their faith, but in the end they cannot. That wasn't my experience. I believed in one moment and not in the next. I had no control over this. You can't force yourself to believe what you don't believe.

Although I had loved being a Christian, I no longer believed after that sudden and unanticipated momentary flash of insight. There was nothing more to my deconversion. Christians tend to assume that ex-believers were unhappy about their, perhaps, restricted lifestyles, but that wasn't true for me or for others whom I have encountered. 

For many, deconstruction is a most painful journey. For me, the shift was instantaneous and natural. I still attended church with the family for some time afterward and not unhappily.

I am not sad about having once believed or having been raised the way that I was. I am not mad at a god whom I don't believe exists. I simply don't believe although, oddly enough, I still love to sing the songs of Zion, as some might call them. Gospel music is the main music in my head, which I know is weird for an atheist.

What I I don't remember from those days is evangelicalism being as mean-spirited or so anti-intellectual. We graduated scholars from my youth group: scientists, doctors, professors and mere teachers like me. My late brother-in-law, for example, was a highly intelligent and educated professor who believed deeply. Non-belief isn't a matter of intelligence, but I suspect it is often a matter of being honest about confronting truth and reality.

I think that we come to the end of this sequence of posts at last. I hope that I have answered your questions.

=================

For the record, these are the posts that led to this one.

Remembering the Foo

Evangel Temple

It Bagan on Drummond Street

Onto the Queensway

Onto the Queensway

Not too long ago, I posted of some of my boyhood memories form Montreal, and they became mostly about church. Afterward, I  thought that perhaps I should post about my very first church in Toronto after we moved there. I then left it in the queue for a while because I had more current things to bother you with, but here it is after some hesitation.

Carrying on with my memories, mainly about my early church history, we moved from Montreal to Toronto in 1962, just a day or three before my 15th birthday. This city boy found himself living in a little cottage on a rural nursery where his father worked the greenhouses. Said boy — said introverted boy — found himself friendless in an almost foreign land, as it were. He even had to board a school bus to get to his new high school. He had scarcely seen a school bus in Montreal and, suddenly, after just one weekend, he was riding in one. And the school . . .  ah never mind . . .  let's get back to the church.

Somehow or other, we found someone to drive us to Queensway Cathedral, a pretty highfalutin name for a Pentecostal church. Hitching a ride was the only way to get there because this wasn't a place with good public transportation, and we didn't yet have a car. The church was really Lakeshore Gospel Temple for the first visits before the new building, Queensway Cathedral, was dedicated.

If I have the time frame correct, this was full 10 years after the inauguration of Evangel Temple. Like Evangel, the opening service with dignitaries and such occurred on a Sunday afternoon. Of course I remember more from being 15 years old in Toronto than I do from having been 5 years old in Montreal, 

Queensway Cathedral was founded as the Lakeshore Gospel Temple on High Street in 1955. In 1962, they moved into a new, larger church shaped like a geodesic dome at 1536 The Queensway.  https://www.etobicokehistorical.com/the-queensway.html

Let me tell you that t was a pretty impressive edifice, but I can't prove it from photos although I will show you a picture from our wedding in a bit. 

While specific photos of Queensway Cathedral in Toronto from the 1960s aren't readily available online, the church, now known as Church on The Queensway, is a prominent landmark on The Queensway in Etobicoke, a former municipality that was amalgamated into Toronto. (Google AI, emphasis mine)

Queensway Cathedral was where Sue and I got married in 1969. After the vows, we left Toronto and this particular church. Our wedding photo may give the reader some idea of the main sanctuary. Beyond the platform, there was a large back section containing a chapel and other good-size room for Sunday School and other events. It was a rather grand church in the 60s.

I sang in that choir loft a few times on Sunday Evenings, trying to sing the bass part in the back row.

Sue and I did get back to the QC every now and then a few times afterward when we visited our folks in Toronto, but my mother soon moved on to another, closer-to-her Church, so we haven't been there for a very long time — more than 50 years, I guess.

After we left Toronto, Queensway Cathedral grew yet again, so a grander, or at least a bigger church, was built on the same property. I have never been to the new building.

By 1984 they had outgrown this church and demolished it to make way for their current building on the same site. When this new church opened in 1985, it was the largest church auditorium in Canada, with seating for 4,000, two acres of carpeting covering the floors, one mile of pews, and television production capability. In 2013, the church was renamed “Church on the Queensway.”  https://www.etobicokehistorical.com/the-queensway.html

It has taken me four posts to get from passing Ruby Foo's in a bus in the 50s to getting married in 1969. While that should be more than enough of my ancient memories, readers have asked some questions about my faith or lack thereof. Perhaps, I will write one more post in answer.

Sundry Walky Pics

We don't know what we'll find on our walks; some days, it is nothing. On other days, we find a number of opportunities.

One day, as we sat on the park bench sipping our coffee, I noticed a bird in the crook of branches. It was shadowy, but it looked like a waxwing to me. I don't see many, so I asked Sue to take a photo with her longer zoom (in fact, my phone has no zoom at all). In post, I darkened the already shadowy bird and lighted the sky a bit to produce a silhouette effect.

Speaking of birds, on the very next day, from a bench along the trail, we spied a green heron out on the water. It was at a distance, but it is an unusual sighting, so we did our best. I believe it is only my second sighting ever.

Also along on the trail, we met a garrulous fellow named Gordie. He was with his wife and grandkids but let them keep on without him in order to have  long chat with us Sue. I thought that he might come home with us. I liked him and his beard best in b&w.

I have various photos of Sue on benches, but I don't think I've taken this photo before. I liked framing her between the trees.

Back at Riverside Park for a coffee and shady walk, we met another fellow. We'd had our coffee on a bench and then strolled up the park and back. On our return we heard bagpipes and eventually got to the piper, Robert. We both took photos.

Once again, mono seemed to be the best way forward after I was not overly pleased with the colour rendition.

After taking the candid shot ↑ we sat on the bench to listen further. After he stopped to rest, we Sue chatted with him. He took up piping in his senior years and classified himself as still a beginner, but we found his playing enjoyable. He posed for this photo ↓ but I prefer the first ↑ softer image

I took a short video of his playing, panning a little to also catch the canoes. Panning tilted the perspective; it is what it is.

He gave us Sue his business card. He wears a kilt for engagements.

That brings us to yesterday, which took us along our main street. I decided to take a photo of the front of townhall with flowers, signs and flags.

It was a very nice morning, not overly hot, so we walked a little farther onto the bridge where I took a photo with the church spire on the left and the trail bridge in the distance. As you can see, it was a lovely blue day.

There was also an unscheduled stop at the Blue Spoon Atelier for sourdough pesto parmesan bread and two sourdough cheese scones.

Latching Onto Memory

This image brings back a memory — of sorts. I am not sure if it a memory of an event or a memory of being told about the event. Perhaps on the telling, I implanted a false memory in my brain.

Once upon a time, my mother related to me that she once took me to her friend's house for her to babysit me for a short time. From Mom's recounting, I understand that the babysitter was a little disappointed in my visit, for all I did for the whole time was play with latch or handle on a door.

It can't really be the case that I remember, but I almost feel like there's a faint niggling in my brain of me standing by a back door and playing with the lock or latch or jiggling a skeleton key in a lock or whatever.

It is almost certain that this is just an impression of sorts. When Mom told me about this, and I think that I was still just a kid when she did, I probably just made a picture in my brain. Now, when I think that maybe I do remember the event, I am most likely just remembering the impression that I made back then. I was probably too young at that time for the incident to remembered anyway.

Most adults have little to no memory of events before the age of 3 or 4. This phenomenon is known as infantile amnesia. While some individuals might recall isolated fragments or emotionally charged events from as early as age 2 or 3, these memories are often vague and may be influenced by stories told by others. (Google AI — emphasis mine)

Still I do sometimes wonder if my brain has retained some sort of impression of the actual episode. Meanwhile, I do remember that my mother telling me of it certainly struck a chord for some reason. Why do I remember so clearly, or at least I think I do, her telling me of something in passing, possibly more than 65 years ago?

Why did an image like the one above evoke so much? Did that long-ago conversation with my mother somehow implant a false memory? But then, why do I remember the offhand conversation so much?

I'll never know for sure, will I?

And where is Mom when I need answers, like how old was I at the time, and what sort of door and latch was it?

Caturday 87: Reflections and the Mosaic Cat

On Thursday morning last week (as in 9 days ago), we resumed our little walks after missing a few days. Although it has been a little cooler lately, we still had to walk early then to beat the heat, and we'd had other things going on for a few mornings. We chose to drive to our main street to visit the pet store. Lacey's spa groomer had suggested that a staggered tooth comb was required for our girl's coat, so off we went. 

We walked the street before the shops opened and even then found ourselves waiting for the pet store to open at 10. While we sat on the bench looking at the store window, Sue remarked on the poster showing a mosaic cat. It was picture-worthy, but there were reflections that would ruin a photo.

Nice as it was, I wasn't so much taken with the poster, but it did occur to me to take a photo regardless, for it would give me a chance to see what Lightroom's new reflection removal tool might do with it. I will let you be the judge.

The photo ↑ is straight our of the camera. No editing has been done apart from cropping because I had shot too wide to focus on the poster. There are a ton of reflections, including right below the cats mouth from the pizzeria across the street. 

After applying the filter, it image looked like this ↓ . Some reflections have, indeed, been reduced, including that of the pizza joint. The reflections are lessened but still somewhat present in the blank space to the sides of the poster, but the poster is looking much better.

I decided to crop the image down to just the poster. I also adjusted both the strength of the algorithm as well as the contrast. I think the result is pretty good considering.

It's not a 100% magical feature, but it is pretty darn good. It's a tool that can help reclaim a photo with problem reflections: probably not perfectly, but usefully.