Glow-in-the-dark golf

Recreation destinations such as the Fleetway activity centre may be open but many are understandably still quite frightened by the continuing threat of COVID-19. Adult vaccination rates in Canada are among the highest in the world but that leaves many concerned for the health of their young children.

The fear of COVID-19 is keeping many away from places like Fleetway. When our small party of seven played indoor glow-in-the-dark golf, we were almost alone in the huge facility. Bowling lanes sat empty, pool tables were unused and the links at the fun, little putting course were strangely free of crowds.

(Three golfers can be spotted in the dark room if one looks carefully at the upper left corner of the photo.)

I am constantly amazed at how much life changes just over the course of one lifetime. As a boy in the 1950s I recall the large vans carrying ponies that visited our neighbourhood. The vans would visit a neighbourhood a number of times each summer. The trucks would stop, a half dozen ponies or more would be dropped off along with a photographer for every pony. 

The photographer/pony teams would fan out across the neighbourhood going door to door to see if anyone wanted a shot of their child posed on a pony. Clearly my mom went for the offer. I once had a number of these photos. One never sees a travelling pony photographer today. Never. (My wife looked at this post and remarked: "Didn't every child once have a photo like that?")

Glow-in-the-dark golf with tigers thrown in

Prior to COVID-19 Fleetway was one of the most popular places in London to take one's family for a fun time. There's both 10 and 5 pin bowling, an arcade games room and a large billiards room. But what brought my three granddaughters to Fleetway Friday was the 18-hole indoor glow-in-the-dark mini golf course. The course, decorated with sculptures and paintings, truly does glow under the illumination of the black lights.

A future heritage home?

It is tough, if not downright impossible, to foretell the future. When the small, simple Ontario cottages were built in the downtown core, no one thought that a century later these homes would be valued as heritage structures worth making sacrifices to keep.

Today there are homes in some of the suburbs that reflect an attitude, an approach, to filling the need for housing that is no longer in vogue. It has only taken three or four decades but the Tudor style houses that dot this southwest London suburb are no longer in style and no longer being built in any number.

Will these examples of life in the 1970s and '80s be desirable in a hundred years? Many today would say no. Many might even argue that Tudor homes are not even all that desirable today and with some of the homes in question they would be right.

But this home has a certain charm, I feel. Will the features that make this home be retained over the passing years? Avoiding being updated will be the first hurdle that must be cleared if this home is to ever gain heritage status.

Heritage home gone

Did a heritage home sit on this property. If so, it was most likely built between 1870 and 1890. It is now gone. Some in London would mourn the loss but other will celebrate the missing home and the lot now available for redevelopment. 

How to redevelop a heritage area while retaining the heritage feeling is tough. Very tough. It demands a lot of imagination and creativity on the part of the developer. From  the look of the few highrises that now dot the area, imagination it seems is in short supply in the Soho neighbourhood. Soho meaning South of Horton with Horton Street being the northern boundary of the heritage neighbourhood.

A young doe among the headstones

This is another shot from the Woodland Cemetery. This photo shows a young doe among the headstones.

Cemetery visitors drawn by the deer

The Woodlawn Cemetery and Crematorium on Springbank Drive east of Wonderland Rd. attracts a lot of visitors with no interest in the graves. What attracts these folk to a cemetery? Deer. Lots and lots of deer. One never fails to see one or more deer during a visit to the cemetery.