Hometown bicentennial
I remember my hometown’s sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) celebrations in 1977. My mother was heavily involved in volunteer activities then. In those days our dining room table was often covered with sesquicentennial stuff. I was proud of myself for knowing what “sesquicentennial” means.
Now it looks like Mom has an excellent chance of seeing the city’s bicentennial. Guelph, Ontario has gone from a spot on a river with ten people huddling next to a felled tree trying to keep warm and dry - and not starve - to 140,000 people with a university and a basilica. Murders; hangings; mafia; strip clubs; war; rock bands; nuns; a nude statue, a prison, a sewage treatment plant, a Nobel laureate, and more than one royal visit. Even an opera house at one time. What? No bank robbers? Fires and floods, building and re-building, expanding, always moving around. We're busy little beavers, aren’t we? I guess bicentennial celebration plans are already well under way.