Thinking About Yonge Street - Ian and Sylvia - Four Strong Winds (CBC TV 1986)

If I am feeling nostalgic, homesick, whatever it really is when you think about the past and where you came from, music might be part of the trip back.

[The video above courtesy You Tube includes the song YOU WERE ON MY MIND and the clip is from an Ian & Sylvia reunion concert in the 80s. All you have to do is click on the very left - or replay - and you will be able to hear this melodic duo.]

They began as Ian Tyson and Sylvia Fricker in the coffee houses that dotted Toronto's Yorkville District in the late 50s and early 60s. He was from British Columbia and she was from a small Ontario town. They married and lived in Toronto-Willowdale near Yonge & Sheppard for many years. Eventually, the marriage fell apart and Ian went to Alberta.

Yes, even people with a harmonious sound like this can grow apart and apparently that is exactly what happened.

I think about the coffee houses where we would go around 10 or 11 at night and pay a couple of bucks for a coffee upstairs in an old warehouse and listen to Ian and Sylvia before everybody Canadian and American knew them.

I have said before that one of Canada's greatest exports over the years has been entertainers. These two really stayed in Canada but their songs have been sung by artists all over the world. Ian was a very prolific writer but sometimes it was Sylvia who wrote.

One time at church, our then Pastor asked Hubby and me to sing Four Strong Winds . . . "I know you know it because it is Canadian"! I thought that was funny at the time but I think that Canadians do not realize how much of an impact they have had on American culture.

When I first came to Texas I was always delighted to see Canadians on TV but after a while I realized it was pretty common. (The reason Canadian entertainers come to United States is because the market is about ten times.)

I have kidded that Anne Murray is pretty much as Canadian as it gets, but Ian & Sylvia bring back fond memories and their songs have been sung by many other entertainers worldwide.

When we were in Toronto this summer, we came up from the West End where the wedding was, very carefully wending our way left and left and north up to see the house where I grew up. It still looks much the same even though there are a lot of "No Left Turn" Signs as you go.

One thing quite different is that the street is now paved. It used to be made of bricks, presumably so the horse drawing the milk wagon would have a surer grip.

Oh, you are so young that you never had your milk delivered? And there is no milkbox in your house now, is there? There was a little wooden box in the outside wall by the back door. It had two doors - one outside and one inside. You left your milk tickets and the milkman left your glass bottles of milk and perhaps some cream.

Hmm . . . the milkman is out of a job, and the horse not only is out of a job, he left the city . . .

Memories . . .