GregMercer.ca

I never planned to have four eyes. I was fine with two, unaided eyeballs, squinting into the distance like an overacting extra in a Clint Eastwood movie. But genetics, as always, had other ideas. By the time I was in junior high, it was absolutely clear my eyesight was perfectly normal. The problem was everyone else seemed to have these super-human eyeballs that could read signs that were 20 feet away or more. Show-offs. Until my parents dragged me to an optometrist, I followed...
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For thousands of years, maybe millions even, men have drilled holes in frozen lakes and reeled in the tasty bounty that lies below. Ice fishing, it’s called. It’s a strange pastime practiced by a strange breed of people, and even I from time to time feel its pull. So it was on a recent Sunday afternoon, when your hero found himself standing on top of Lake Simcoe, staring down into a black hole through the ice. Earlier that day, the four of us had...
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The news stings like a fastball in the palm of your hand. The Guelph Royals may hang up their cleats for the 2011 season? Ontario’s Intercounty Baseball League has long dropped and added teams like some teenagers go through boyfriends. Teams have come and gone in Cambridge, St. Thomas, Niagara Falls, Waterloo, Windsor, Stratford and elsewhere. The league has run seasons with as few as five teams and as many as 11. But Guelph is not some upstart expansion team. The Royals were one...
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Guelph has known growing pains before. But when it comes to our swelling population, it’s remarkable how dense we can still be. Two high-rise projects that will change the character of our neighbourhoods are getting a less than warm welcome from some residents. To some at City Hall, this must be incredibly frustrating. People talk about the need to grow more wisely, to grow up, not out, to intensify development and live within the space we already have, and we all nod our heads....
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When is a dead person not a dead person? Apparently, that can be the case when they’re part of a crime scene investigated by the Guelph Police Service. I’m talking, of course, about this strange story that’s been unfolding in the newspaper over the past few days. Some background. When the police were called to a local Gordon Street hotel last week, they found a woman who appeared to be dead. Hotel staff had stumbled on the guest inside her room. Later, police said...
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