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From the Editor
Georgia on my mind
By Judi McLeodMonday, November 7, 2005
It was a gilt-edged mirror I went looking for and found long lost friend Georgia instead.
It was while out "saleing" among the antique and curiosity shops on Queen Street East, that I rediscovered a friend from more than 20 years ago.
In and out of shops whose items I could never afford, I was making my way to the last one when I passed by the window of Georgia's Beauty Salon at 1360 Queen Street East. There was a lady within view of the front window talking on the telephone. "That looks like my long-ago friend, Georgia," I said to my shopping companion, I had walked a few steps beyond the shop before turning and going back.
I walked into the shop and looked at the lady on the telephone. She dropped the phone and shouted "Judi!"
"Did you come back to the city?" she asked.
At first I was confused, then realized that I had had to say goodbye to Georgia and other friends when I was off to work at the Kingston Whig Standard more than 20 years ago.
Georgia was pleased that I remembered a cute little guy named Tommy who used to come in after school to give her a hand at the shop. That Tommy, her son, is now a married man with children of his own.
I remember the Georgia of decades ago cleaning and cooking at home, but never missing a day's work at her beauty salon.
"I'm still the same," she chuckled.
There have been many times over the years when I have found myself peering from the car driving past that section of Queen Street. Georgia, with no pun intended, was always on my mind.
But for reasons unknown, I never spotted the shop, and never could have rekindled our friendship without walking physically by it.
It was a rainy Saturday when I found Georgia, and a likely environment for ruminating about the past.
It was in my days as a Toronto Sun columnist when I frequented her neat little shop with the slogan "Modern Up-to-Date Styling" emblazoned on the window.
When I left Toronto for Kingston, Georgia was one of my saddest farewells.
I hated going to Kingston and drove my new editors crazy, writing my columns from the train on frequent visits back to my home city.
Everyone–including the colorful ViaRail conductors–knew I did not want to be in Kingston. Once soon after my return when someone asked how long I had been there, Peter Worthington answered: "two years, two months, two weeks, two days and two minutes."
Soon after my return, I found myself staring teary-eyed at the lineup waiting for the Kingston train, saying to myself, "I'm in Toronto and never have to go back there if I don't want to." I tarried so long in my emotional wool gathering that a sidewalk artist sketched a drawing in chalk, which having heard my story, he presented to me as a keepsake.
Since moving to the Toronto beach in late August, I've had what I call "Georgia luck". Two days after my move, I was walking along Queen Street East enroute to price a lamp I'd seen in a shop window, when my attention was drawn to a man loading dry-cleaning into a station wagon.
"That looks like my old friend Tony Michalidis," I declared to myself.
But because I'd only invoked his name that very week, in a kind of "where are they now" reverie and hadn't laid eyes on him for 10 years, I kept walking toward the lamp shop. Besides, I thought, if he didn't recognize me, it's probably not him. With one foot inside the shop, I decided, "That had to be him", turned around and walked back to the parked station wagon.
"Judi!" he shouted when I approached him. Wife, Ari, inside the drycleaners, came running out and this little trio had the most joyful street reunion.
Tony and Ari, who later took me to the Danforth for dinner, remain in touch.
And now Georgia.
I'm thinking that my recent move to the Beach is the best thing that's happened to me lately.
Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck and The Rant. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
