Some of Billy’s family L to R: Mom, Cathy, Pam, Gloria, Laura, Austin, Peter and Jon (who is furious at what they did to Billy–or maybe it’s the heat)

On Saturday, a number of us braved the extreme heat to watch the unveiling of a plaque dedicated to my Mom’s great-uncle, Billy McKay. Billy owned a farm in the Coxwell and Mortimer area, including the fields for what is now the Civic Centre and the Hospital, which he sold to the city for a dollar. Which is what he got credit for on the plaque.

It doesn’t go into the full story though. The city of East York got greedy and wanted the rest of Billy’s land. Billy was somewhat eccentric–he liked animals more than people; he built a farmhouse to share with his bride, but when she jilted him he didn’t use it and lived in the barn with his animals. Working on his eccentricities, first the city re-zoned his farm, upping the taxes, and when he kicked up a fuss they then trucked him away one night to the Mimico Asylum. The next morning they told all the neighbours that he had died. The city appropriated the land. The records are “missing”. Billy died in the asylum.

Mom and Colleen–feel free to add or correct my recounting of Billy’s history.

On Sunday we headed out London way for the Suzuki family reunion. Since she grew up on the West Coast, Laura never got to know much of the family on her dad’s side, as they were based in Western Ontario.

Until yesterday, when she met about 100 of them.

Wow! What a great party! Held at Diane’s idyllic farmhouse, the weather was perfect and the food was heaping. Four generations laughed and played together. And tried to figure out who was who (Jill’s nametags were great, but there was still a lot of mental math).

We even got to visit with family we actually know, but rarely get to see.

As usual at any large gathering, Jon retreated into his shell a bit, but it was great to see him have some one-on-one time with Severn and Sarika.

So my Dad and Laura and I finally headed off to the new Toronto Apple store! We were all surprised that the joint was jumping at 2:00 on a Thursday afternoon. Perused the many fine products, maybe bought a thing or two…

Austin puts the ball on our makeshift tee for Jon.

Jon didn’t mention it in his post about the cottage a month ago, but at sunset we had an amazing game of T-ball. Austin chose Jon for his team, versus his dad and me. Canny move, of course, since I also was Jon’s walker so while Jon was at bat or on base–which was ALWAYS–I was not fielding. Combine that with Austin’s home run swing, even with a wiffle ball, the two boys racked up serious number of runs.

Safe at first!

Jon would hit first, get to first base, and Austin would hit him home and follow him in. Over and over again. Dave and I just had time to get a few swings in before the mosquitos discovered us and everyone ran in.