The multitalented arts producer Bill Kimball arrived in Peterborough from Vermont to attend Trent University in 1975. I arrived from Montreal in 1969. Yet, although I have attended and been enriched by many of his productions over the years, we had never had a chat until recently.

We sat down at Dreams of Beans, that friendly downtown community hub, the one with the piano to play, and talked for an hour. He remembers the day at his New England prep school in the ‘70s, seeing a poster “Why Not a Canadian University?” and being familiar with Canada from vacation time in Gananoque during childhood, he decided to apply.

When I see the talent pouring into Canada over our borders in these times, to escape Trumpism, I think “Well, it didn’t start this year.”

Bill graduated from Trent in Cultural Studies in 1980 and has called Peterborough home since then. Lucky Peterborough. Peter Robinson College near the corner of George Steet and Parkhill Road was the centre of........

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