Toronto - My Home Town!

When I heard there had been an explosion and fire that awakened people at 4:00 a.m. Sunday in Toronto, of course I went to YouTube and news sites on the internet. When I was describing to Hubby where the explosion was, the straight-forward way Toronto is laid out came to mind.

When getting directions where I live in East Texas, it always makes me smile that it is assumed you know where the ABC store is and you should just turn right there! People give directions like that because no one truly knows where North is! (The streets in many cities and towns do in fact follow the original Indian trails of the area.)

Well, Toronto is very much a city where most people know their directions. Toronto is on the North Shore of Lake Ontario, so everything is north from there. That’s a good start!

You now know that Yonge (pronounced “young”) Street is the main north-south street in the middle of Toronto. It is a very long street and if you follow it all the way north, you will be ‘way up in cottage country!

Since I became an American Citizen and live in Texas, “Yonge Street Texan” seemed rather natural for me to call my blog. (I should define for you that I now have dual citizenship: Canadian and American.)

Toronto is a real big city now but when I was a youngster, it was not the biggest or flashiest city in Canada. Toronto had a population of about 600,000 when I was going to school in the 50s and Montreal was the larger and more glamorous place to be.

The GTA (Great Toronto Area) now has over 5.5 million people and is a Mecca for jobs, finances, education, theater and fine dining. Because Toronto is “where the action is”, it is also very expensive!

I think everyone is attached to where they came from and that is the way it should be. Where you came from is a big part of who you are.

Hubby comes from Robinson, Illinois. If you drive there, you can find the house where he was born! Yes – born at home! This is a simple town where people grew up with decent values and everyone knew everyone else. (That is very valuable to parents because they know what a child has done before he reaches home!)

Growing up Canadian means essentially that I am just like my American-born friends, right? Well, almost. Even though I’ve been in Texas for almost twelve years, people still seem to know I came from elsewhere! There are still words I mispronounce, eh?

About the “eh” Canadians tack on the ends of sentences: I have given that a lot of thought. I think it is simply looking for affirmation that the other person is actually listening, or perhaps even agrees with what you said.

Large as it is, Toronto is still a very clean city. We had a mayor (David Crombie) who told a group of New Yorkers how you could identify a Torontonian.

“He’s the one with the gum wrappers in his pocket!”

(This has been verified by Hubby who once stopped to watch a man opening a stick of gum as he was crossing a street at the corner of Yonge. The man, sure enough, folded the wrapper and placed it in his pocket!)

You gotta love a city like that!