A recent news item hit me like a gut punch. As of this December, the 101-year-old grain elevator in Owen Sound will be permanently closed.

Now, I know that this information will have no emotional impact on almost anyone else in Peterborough, whose largest body of water is Little Lake, but it has on me.

For the first 16 winters of my life, I lived on board a lake freighter docked at an elevator somewhere on the Great Lakes into which before the middle of March the boat’s massive cargo of grain would be unloaded.

That included three winters in Owen Sound. It was there that I arrived at Queen Alexandra Public School one February morning in 1952 to learn that King George VI had died. We were sent home, where I found my mother weeping in the galley. It was the only time I ever saw her cry. In the galley........

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