"You Can Always Tell A Torontonian By the Gum Wrappers In His Pocket!"

When I was a kid, Toronto was known as a city of churches. Particularly, Sundays were very quiet and there was no shopping and you could not get a drink. It was a city, where they liked to say, "They roll up the sidewalks at midnight". (The population then was about 500,000 and today is 5.5 million.)

Whenever I would go to Montreal, I would be amazed that you could "carry on" till the wee hours of the morning.

As more and more immigrants came and more and many businesses set up head offices, Toronto grew and became one of the major cities of the world with a little of everything happening there.

One thing that Toronto is still pretty much known for is its cleanliness and for being a great place for people to stroll. Some call it "People City".

We had one Toronto Mayor, David Crombie, who gave an address selling Toronto in New York City one time where he defined this for Americans:

"You can always tell a Torontonian by the gum wrappers in his pocket."

Several years ago when Keith and I were driving near Eglinton and Yonge Streets, we pulled up to a corner to turn left onto Yonge. There was a man walking briskly, about to cross the street and Keith made a full and careful stop so the man would know he could keep on walking across.

"I want to see what he does with the wrapper from that candy bar he just finished."

The man carefully folded the wrapper and placed it in his shirt pocket. Keith still loves to tell that story. Let's hope Toronto keeps its reputation for cleanliness - bet you'd like to see that in every city!