Gravenhurst

On the road again … I feel a song coming and thank goodness you can’t hear me!  I head off to Gravenhurst for the day’s first venue.  As I pull into the parking at Terry’s Independent Grocery, low and behold who do I see but good old Glemena, Martha McClew and Kim Smith from the provincial office. What a nice surprise as I now know that t-shirt sales will skyrocket!  I set up everything as usual and of course Scotia McLeod is with us again - which has become a special added feature as all their volunteers are great!  I would like to mention that we had retired OPP officer John Lennox with us - his pictures and original thoughts of 1980 were very well received.  A very nice lady from Terry’s Independent Grocery, along with the owner’s, presented a cheque to the foundation for approximately $480.00 which they had raised the week before (oops, they had got their dates mixed up!) but still ran their barbecue anyway and raised the money.  Wow.

 

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that as we were finished up the venue, I was greatly surprised when Glemena and as we call him, Superman’s twin, Graydon presented me with two beautiful prints.  One of which included myself, Darrell and Harry with the van and cruiser.  How great was that?!!

 

We are now on our way to Bala where we arrive at the Royal Canadian Legion and have a nice quiet venue with the people there. And yes Darrell I had my first hamburger since New Brunswick and it was the best one yet.  Go figure a burger at the legion but no alcohol!

As we leave Bala for our last stop of the day at Parry Sound we see at lot of people along the highway that we wave and honk at as most knew we were coming through this.  Word travels fast up here!  We enter Parry Sound at a well set up spot and we are glad to see our old friends Laurel and Tom as they have a cottage up here.  We have a great venue - Martha and Kim sell the rest of our t-shirts as I thought they would and it was sad to see them leave but we also enjoyed their company so much! We receive plaques from the mayor of Parry Sound and the reeve of the Township.

 

As we leave the venue for the OPP station, Laurel and Tom invite Glemena and I for dinner.  As I tuck the vehicles in for the night, we proceed to have a great dinner and bid farewell to Laurel and Tom.  It has been another great day!

 

Don Clayton

Tour of Hope Volunteer