I'm getting really tired of reminders of my own mortality and the obituaries of teachers and classmates on My OCHS. However, that ennui was replaced by me finding the Oshawa Times archives. It was a very happy blast from the past for several reasons. First of all, it took me back to those halcyon salad days in a less complicated, more hopeful world. Secondly, I used to deliver the Oshawa Times as a paper boy. My route was Simcoe Street North, pretty much from Sunset Boulevard to Saint Gregory the Great Church at Adelaide Street. I usually read the paper cover-to-cover every day, including the ads.
So I was idly glancing over the issues and came across this piece on the First Holy Communion at Saint George's Ukrainian Catholic Church. What caught my attention was the name Rev. J.C. Pereyma. There is a Catholic High School now in Oshawa called the Monsignor John Pereyma Catholic Secondary School named after him. He was at St. George's since 1936.
And further reading of the list of communicants showed names of people in my class and era at OCHS, long before they were old enough to attend high school. Among those names are Christine Muzyczka, Eva Stanko, Greg Ostafichuk and my neighbour friend from Oshawa, Walter Burnat (who shot out the window of our garage with his BB gun).
More of the archives to come. (I didn't capture the exact data of this photo but it was the early 1960's).
