Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

BROUGHT IT BACK TO WEBISTE FOR MY APPLICATION FOR A THIRD YEAR CREATIVE WRITING COURSE - THEY WANTED PROOF OF LIFE      BRUCE'S SEVEN CRIMES OF THE LAST CENTURY (AND THEN SOME)   photo by Bruce Paton By Stephen Weir The first crime of the day was the sweetest. Black paint spray cans at the ready; Bruce and I had our way with the road sign that had stuck in our craw for years … “Renfrew, a beautiful town to live in, population 9,800.” We weren’t very literate back in the day, so we made it short and to the point. “Renfrew a beautiful town to die in, population 9,798.” Littering was our second misdemeanor that hot dusty August morning. We tossed the evidence – two spent spray cans - into the weed filled ditch just before we threw our knapsacks into the back of the pickup truck that had stopped to give us a ride. Squeezed into the cab, left knee getting pummeled by the vibrating four-on-the-floor gearshift, Bruce and I once again left town forever. We were too young to...

  Remembering Eric Kauffeldt (Stephen Weir Facebook article, 1/03/2022) Back in the day when I lived in Renfrew, the town's first newspaper, the Mercury, was still printing with lead type. It was a weekly labour of love paper, and was read by everyone in town. In 1967 Obituaries couldn't wait a week in the Mercury. Editor Norm Wilson scotch taped, as soon as he wrote them, death notices on the front window of the paper on Raglan Street. The Young Lads (male senior citizens) would hang out in front of the Mercury to check out who had passed. When you asked a "Young Lad" how he was doing, he'd say " not in the Merc's front window, so I must be okay". Now, some 55 years later, the Mercury has been taken over by the Toronto Star, and the obits are posted on the web and not the window. I left town in 1969, but I still remember the people who treated me with friendship and fun. And now, as a senior I have entered that stage in life when your friends ...

  Stephen Weir and Maria Nenadovich in front of Andy Warhol's Mao Title: When Time Stood Still In A Small Town Ontario Author:   Stephen Weir (stephen@stephenweir.com) The Story: A roof. Four teenagers.  A fatal attraction. 45 years ago we were atop of the tallest building in Renfrew.  It was a science experiment with Superball.  Throw Superball and ita bounce towards the stars. How high would it fly when thrown from the roof? Whoosh! Screaming screaming streetward. It hit with a sickening splat. Next? Zooming skyward it arced towards the post-office clocktower. Time stood still. Plop. Tinkles of glass. A round hole at  6. Before the bouncing stopped we scattered in four very different directions. Guy Fox. Karsh. Hemingway. Pope Paul. Death has caught two. We won’t meet again.

YOU CAN TAKE THE BOY OUT OF  RENFREW BUT ...      George Heath, a former Renfrew resident and a keen follower of www.stephenweir.com, sent me a clipping announcing the January closure of the H. Imbleau & Sons Foundry in Renfrew. George's wife Marie is a member of the Imbleau family. The company, founded in 1858, is the town's longest running business. For over 150 years the factory has put the Renfrew name on the map ... literally. One of the company's most successful products is manhole covers. When I received George's note about the closure, I wrote him a quick letter, reprinted below, which tells my story of the impression the foundry had on me in the early 70's while a student at Windsor University.   Back in my days at Windsor University I worked a variety of part-time jobs so that I would not have to move back to Renfrew and work in the mines at Haley's Station in the summer. One of my steady gigs was in the student pub, which was held in the ...

The article printed below is a work of fiction, and it is not new ( I have updated it twice. The latest was submitted to the CBC two years ago - this is that version).   I think I wrote Version One in the Eighties. It was used in a long-gone magazine called Valley . It was published by General Store Publishing House in Burnstown, Ontario.  The faded clipping has been pinned to my corked lined office wall for over 20 years. I wanted to post it on my website before the clipping (my only copy) fell apart and the story returned to being just a fading memory.  I figured out the Optical Character Reader on my printer this weekend and so Presto Chango ... another story in my ongoing mostly fiction series about Renfrew in the Sixties and is now on stephenweir.com. Title : TIME IS A BOUNCING BALL by Stephen Weir  It's too long ago now to remember how we got onto the roof of the Howard Haramis restaurant. I can't imagine climbing up the fire escape, but 50 ...