Rosemary Duignan

Blair Morris had some really innovative teaching methods. He had arranged over-flights of Oshawa to observe urban sprawl. He had us go counting cars for a day to determine traffic patterns entering the downtown. It was he that was responsible for my appreciation of what statistics can tell us.

In this photo, Rosemary Duignan is sitting in a car, warming up after counting cars on a cold winter day in downtown Oshawa.

Getting into the aircraft

Blair Morris was an innovative teacher who taught Geography and Urban Studies at OCHS. He arranged for over-flights for our class over the city of Oshawa in light aircraft to observe such things as urban sprawl, movement of the commercial centers outside the downtown core and the suburbanization of the fields and green spaces around the city. It was a fascinating course. In the photo above, Doug Zochodne and Colleen Bulger prepare to board the aircraft.

Girls in Cars and Counting Cars

Linda Byrne sits in car, counting cars. This was the Urban Studies field trip where we had to count traffic and deduce traffic patterns in Oshawa. The course was an incredible eye-opener for me, because it created a lifelong fascination with the power of applied statistics.


And I throw this pic in for old times sake. It is blurry because it was taken in a bouncy, jarring bus on a trip to Stratford. Pictured is a wide-eyed Sue Vitali.

Christmas Dance and Sunday Morning Oshawa Memories

I received an email about the Downchild Blues Band blog entry from a couple of days ago. In part it read:

"The pictures of Downchild Blues Band are cool. You know what, that was the year that Leo Barrett and I were social conveners on the student council.. I think it may have cost us $500 or $600 to book them for the night. What would it cost today?

All right, keep on posting !!"

Thanks John for that note.

I have a pic of the Christmas Dance and party of 1973.
Left to right are Karen Smegal, Kathleen O'Halloran, Gloria Murrant, Cindy Germanis, Bob Hickey surrounded by all of the girls, Judy McLinton and Helen Rosicki.

And some Sundays, I try to bring memories of Oshawa of the 1970's. I popped this frame of the Oshawa Flying Club just as the aircraft was getting airborne on our Urban Studies Fly Day arranged by teacher Blair Morris.


And I wanted some pics of urban decay in Oshawa. I snapped the pic below on Mary Street of the GM plant there. It really wasn't urban decay, but believe it or not, it was the worst I could find of decay in Oshawa. Sadly, the situation is a lot different now.

And the email brought some other pleasant happenstance. The blog entry profiling Paul Grady brought an interesting present, in the form of a song written by Paul. The subject is Oshawa:

The Streets of the Town

Paul Grady

The streets of this town

Don't boast a Carnaby

No waterways or sidewalk cafes will you see

Just smoke from the factory, blowin' by a lonesome tree

But as I walk down

The streets of this town

Something calls to me

The streets of this town

Do not host royalty

or cause a man to write a symphony

Just honky tonk songs

After one more working day

But as I walk down

The streets of this town

I can see them sway

Cause each house has a light that shines, faithfully

Lights the true way home

For each one of the family

The streets tonight are quiet and serene

And dream a dream of things that night have been

Sitting so humble broken for no happy cause

But as I walk down

The streets of this town

I can see what was

Thank you all for your correspondence and have a happy Sunday.

Urban Studies and Other Locale Photos

Below is a series of photos that appear on my negative collection interspersed with student pictures of OCHS. They are images that I snapped of the locale -- Oshawa and environs during the 1970's. Some were done for my Urban Studies assignment on the coming of regional government (yes when I started high school, there was no region of Durham). Others are random shots that just grabbed my eye.

Stevenson Road and Eastdale (Doh !!!) R.S. McLaughlin Collegiate:

The above image came from Urban Studies Fly Day, where geography and Urban Studies teacher Blair Morris arranged for us to fly over Oshawa to look at city patterns. This shot is of Stevenson Road near the high school. You can see RS. McLaughlin Collegiate (thanks for the correction), and the Durham School Board building. The high school is just out of the picture in the upper left. Notice all of the empty fields around the school.

On the 401, going towards Toronto:

Strangely enough, I remember quite vividly taking this picture. We were on a school trip to Stratford, and I was sitting at the back of the bus with Mike Bukoski, and snapped this from the back window of the bus with my Yashica twin lens reflex camera.

The air traffic control tower at the Oshawa Airport:

Aerial shot of the 401 near Ajax:

Something that no longer exists:

With the coming of regional government, we would lose our counties. Oshawa was partly in Ontario County. For my Urban Studies assignments, I decided to snap pictures of the signs that would disappear. This one was taken on Bloor Street on a snowy winter day. Note the "Chargex" sign in the background. Chargex was the name of the Visa card before it was Visa.

Cherney's Furniture World:

While I was on Bloor Street on that winter day, I idly snapped this picture. The building was quite new, and now I believe that it is quite run down. In a lot of ways, I believe that Oshawa was more vibrant during the 1970's than it is now.

Colleen Bulger & Doug Zochodne

Colleen Bulger (right) and Doug Zochodne (left) leave the aircraft after an overflight of the Oshawa/Toronto corridor. Teacher Blair Morris organized a Fly Day for his Grade 13 Urban Studies class at the Oshawa Airport.

Blair Morris Outside

Left to right: Dan Dalby, Paul Power and Blair Morris. This photo was taken at the Oshawa Airport on Urban Studies Fly Day.

Dan Dalby and Yours Truly

Blair Morris taught Urban Studies. One chapter was on dying downtown areas. Another was on traffic patterns. One day, it was a cold winter day, the entire class had to go downtown and count traffic. We had various positions around the city. Dan Dalby and yours truly got the location of the old Canadian Tire, near the automotive museum on Simcoe Street South, opposite the McLaughlin Bandshell and Memorial Park.

It was boring. It was cold. The only thing that I remember was that what we did with the traffic figures was mildly interesting. Collecting the data wasn't.

Dan was cool. I was a total nerd, dressed in a suit, a trench coat and a tie. I make up for it these days though in the tropics. I go to Board of Directors meetings in sandals, shorts and a cotton yoga shirt.

(If one word characterises the 1970's -- it is HAIR !!)

Female Contingent, Fly Day

Left to Right: Colleen Bulger, Pat Kilistoff, Linda Byrne (? -- guess), Yvonne Jensen

Once again, at the Oshawa Flying Club for Urban Studies Fly Day.

Mike Bukoski, Rosemary Duignan, Henry Kowalewski

This snapshot came from the Urban Studies Fly Day. Left is Mike Bukoski. Sitting pensively in the background middle is Rosemary Duignan, and standing right is Henry Kowalewski.

Mike Ivanco

Mike Ivanco stands in the foreground and Candy Knox is in the background at the Oshawa Flying Club. This was at the Urban Studies Fly Day.

Mike and I go back a way. I accidentally knocked out his tooth in Grade 6 at St. Joseph's School.

Dan Dalby

This is Dan Dalby on the Urban Studies Fly Day over the Oshawa area. To the right of Dan is Paul Power.

Note the DC3 Dakota in the background.

Update: It is in fact Paul Power. He is in other pics of the same day wearing those togs.

Aerial View of the School

In our final year of high school, Blair Morris was the Geography and Urban Studies teacher. He arranged an over-flight of the Oshawa area for the Urban Studies class. The class started out at the Oshawa Flying Club, and a series of Cessnas and Pipers flew us around the area.

The above picture was how the school looked like from the north west side looking east.

I haven't been back to look at the school, but the brother tells me that it is greatly expanded, and all of the vacant farmland is now built up.

I will post images regularly as time permits.