These plants are made for the shade

12:00 am

CITY GARDENERS OFTEN lament that with each passing year their gardens are becoming more and more shaded. Others complain that surrounding buildings block the sunlight.

When dealing with shade, lack of light is not the only factor to consider. Often, inadequate moisture is a concern, too. The canopy of a large tree or the overhang of a house can act as an umbrella, deflecting rainfall away from the ground beneath it.

Soil fertility may also be a problem. The roots of trees and shrubs quickly use up available nutrients in the soil. Most shade-tolerant plants prefer a well-drained, fertile soil, so if your soil is sandy or claylike, add lots of organic matter, such as peat moss, compost or well-rotted manure.

The trick to creating a beautiful, made-for-the-shade garden is to choose plants that enjoy that environment. And, there are lots of plants that tolerate low light and some that actually thrive in it. Know which plants are most likely to succeed. Here are some of my favourites:

A plant for all seasons

For colour throughout the season, annuals can’t be beat. Impatiens are a dependable standby. To light up a shady nook, I like the robust New Guinea types that sport brightly variegat- ed foliage and neon colours.

Mini begonia

Another must-try is the begonia “baby dragon wing.” This is a new mini form that is easy to grow, very heat-tolerant and blooms continuously.
For something a little different, try mimulus (monkey flower). The blooms have interesting spots and come in a variety of colours.

Fern favourite

One of my favourite shade perennial standbys is the maiden- hair fern (Adiantum pedatum). Although delicate looking, it is really very tough. It is happiest in moist, rich, well-drained soil.

Tiny thumbelina

And what would a shade garden would be without hostas? Thumbelina is a dainty little plant that has medium green leaves with a creamy-white margin and lavender flowers.

Touch of grass

Ornamental grasses are very popular right now. However, there are few that grow in shaded conditions. Carex, although technically a sedge, is a good substitute. It has grasslike, finely textured foliage that arches into moppish mounds.

Floral fantasy

If you are looking for an attractive ground cover, try bugleweed, especially under trees where grass is difficult to grow. “Chocolate chip” is a newer variety that has narrow foliage and is a dwarf with very tight growth habit. Lady’s mantle (Alchemilla) is a flower arrangers dream with its greenish gray foliage and chartreuse flowers. Faeroensis “pumila” is a dwarf variety with a very tight mounding habit.

With a little bit of forethought, it is possible to create a lovely shade garden by choosing the right plant for the right place. Most garden centres have a section devoted to shade-loving plants. You’ll have no problem finding varieties to suit your taste and garden. The real problem will be trying to limit how many you buy!

Acclaimed local jazz musician scores another Juno

12:00 am

A YOUNG JANE BUNNETT touched down in Cuba in 1982 to the infectious sounds of a Cuban jazz band playing in the terminal. A second band played her onto the bus, and a third, this one an elaborate 18-piece orchestra, performed that night at her hotel. For a budding jazz saxophonist and flautist (not to mention future Juno Award winner), the experience was a formative one.

“It was pretty mind-blowing because there was just music everywhere,” says Bunnett, whose latest album, Embracing Voices, took home the 2009 Juno for the year’s best contemporary jazz album. “For a music lover, when you take a trip to Cuba, you definitely get your money’s worth. The culture of the country is just everywhere.”

The next day, Bunnett took a trip into the city, buying records and meeting musicians. She was hooked, and her musical identity took a new direction.

“[Cuban music] has influences from Africa to Europe and French, Spanish and the indigenous persons, which is a sort of Haitian influence. It’s got its own classical music, popular music, Afro-Cuban music. There’s so much to discover. It’s impossible not to rub shoulderswith music there,” she says.

At that point, Bunnett was only six years removed from Oakwood Collegiate where, surprisingly, she had been a latecomer to the instrument that would make her famous.

“My last year of high school, there, was my first on the flute,” she says. “I had played the clarinet, but I really wanted to play the flute.”

But it wasn’t music that most captivated the young student. History became her favourite subject, due in large part to teacher Larry Podmore.

“I started out as the worst student in the class, but he was such a fascinating teacher that it quickly became one of my best subjects. He really instilled a real love of history in me,” says Bunnett.

It was that same type of passion that was stoked upon touching down in Cuba back in ’82.

Fittingly, when Bunnett received word that she had been nominated for the 2009 Juno, she was in Cuba with husband and fellow musician, Larry Cramer, preparing notes for their spring and summer tour, which takes them across the country and into the U.S.

As far as the Juno win goes, Bunnett is thankful, but realistic about the process: “It could go in your favour; it could not go in your favour. So I was very lucky,” she says.

The Scents of Spring

12:00 am

TAKE A DEEP breath this time of year and your nose will take you on a magical journey back to your childhood.

The air is filled with everything from the fresh perfume of May flowers to the innocent scent of sidewalk chalk. For me, my olfaction takes me back to my own memories of springtime whenever I catch a whiff of… undiluted bleach.

Bleach was my mother’s go-to cleaner when I was a kid. She used it to wipe down every surface, orifice and countertop in our house. Eleven people and a dog brought in a lot of germs, and my mom was determined to kill them all. The germs that is, although, on several occasions her lack of proper ventilation while cleaning caused toxic fumes to almost wipe us all out. She used to always say, “A little bleach never hurt anyone.” I beg to differ.

From time to time a lovely woman named Josephine came in to help my mom clean our home. Josephine’s approach to cleaning was more old school (and greener) than my mother’s. She kept it simple with plain old vinegar and water. Consequently, the annual spring clean in our house came down to a battle of cleansers, and our house ended up smelling like a fish and chips stand inside a YMCA.

Cleaning your house back in the day was more complicated. Vacuums were sold door to door by a men who wore hats and suit jackets. Now we have central vacs and vacuums that bob and weave on a patented pivoting ball technology.

Getting my son to do household chores is, well, a chore in itself. He makes up his own chore list that usually gets partially done by week’s end.

If he only knew how easy he had it. Loading a dishwasher while wearing an iPod , pushing a Swiffer across the floor and tossing a duvet on top of his bed is nothing compared to the spring cleanings of my childhood.

I remember my brother and me spending an entire day weeding the whole backyard stone patio with two dull butter knives. Now with a couple passes of a weed whacker that job can be done in half an hour.

I also recall many hours of polishing silver as a kid. According to my mother, “Chicken à la king tastes much better out of a sterling silver entree dish.” I curse people who give silver trays as wedding gifts. I think that’s just a cruel joke to play on their future kids.

When I was young, I thought every household in the future would have a high-tech “Rosie,” the robot maid from The Jetsons. Things didn’t quite turn out that way, but we aren’t that far off with all the advances in cleaning out there. I’d like to think, with the shift to go green and save our planet, my son’s idea of futuristic cleaning will be more low- than high-tech. I hope his sensory memories will include the simple smells of vinegar and water, lemons and baking soda. He could use a little less technology and a lot more perspective sometimes.

Mother’s Day is just around the corner, and I’m sure my mom will pull out her silver dishes for one of her special brunches. Perhaps I should send my son over ahead of time to do some polishing. Let him gain a little perspective and find out for himself if chicken à la king really tastes better out of a sparkling silver dish or if it’s true that inhaling a little bleach never hurt anyone!

Happy Mother’s Day!

One toy at a time

12:00 am

Sifting through seemingly endless piles of toys, clothes and books, packing them into hundreds of boxes, and then figuring out how they’ll reach remote fly-in communities like Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, a.k.a. Big Trout Lake First Nation, sounds like a daunting task. But for Maxine Roness, executive director of the Kids Come First Child Care Centre that organizes the Between Friends Aboriginal Clothing and Book Drive twice a year, a decade of experience helps the process.

On April 22, the centre packed up the batches of clothes, books, toys, sports equipment and household items to be delivered to 14 aboriginal communities across Northern Ontario, such as Pikangikum, which has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

Due to the size and carrying capacity of the planes that access the fly-in sites, several boxes won’t reach their final destination for a few months.
“We don’t like to use the word ‘help,’” Roness says of their efforts. “We’re not saviours, we’re just lending a hand.”

The drive was inspired by Roness’s daughter, who was working at an Aboriginal centre in Thunder Bay, when she saw a need that could be filled. “We thought it would last a year,” she says. “That was 10 years ago!”

“ We don’t like to use the word ‘help.’ We’re not saviours, we’re just lending a hand."

For Roness, the drive’s success can be measured by the fact that they are now a recognized name in the communities they supply, by the letters of thanks they receive, and by the donations made not only from people, but from larger manufacturers like book suppliers. Although the next drive isn’t scheduled until October, donations are accepted year-round and are kept in storage until they can be used.

Alongside the drive, the daily work of the Kids Come First Child Care Centre is equally important. Established in 1992, the charitable organization now serves 800 kids between pre-school to school-age, at two locations. Roness, and co- executive director Toni Pellicano have implemented an “emergent curriculum” with a hands-on approach to learning that is being revamped on a daily basis. “Every thing is derived from the needs of the children,” she says.

The kids also take part in the clothing drive, and are educated as to why they are taking the initiative and how it helps.

Although the centre has won numerous awards and grants such as the Donner Canadian Foundation Award for Child Care and the Ontario Trillium Foundation Grant, and Roness herself was awarded the Civic Hero Award by the City of Vaughan for her dedication to her work, she says it’s still a struggle to find funding.

“Getting a plane isn’t a problem,” she says, referring to the drive. “Getting boxes isn’t a problem, but money is.”

Post City Magazines salutes Maxine Roness for her dedication to kids in Aboriginal communities.

Queen of complaints – my new BFF

6:58 pm

HOW MAY TIMES a day do you find yourself complaining? This pampered princess can find more than a handful of “issues” before my second cup of coffee. For many, it could be in our DNA. Thankfully, we have girlfriends. But even a good pal has limits. For those occasions there is Jane Steele Moore, professional complainer.

JANE STEELE MOORE has taken complaining to a whole new level. Seven months ago, she started Complaints Are Us, described as a “service we all need: someone who can complain about a faulty product or bad service we’ve received and take action.”

She realized there was a need for a complaints advocate after spending numerous evenings complaining with girlfriends over dinner or cocktails.

“I just thought, we can’t keep complaining! Someone has to do something,” she says. “There are concierges for everything else. Why not a complaints concierge?” I meet Steele Moore at a coffee shop at Avenue and Eglinton.

Immediately she hands me her business card, which features her name, contact information, and title: Chief Complaints Officer.

In person, Steele Moore is not someone you’d be afraid of. She’s in her 50s, petite and pretty. Her voice is calm, collected and soothing — she’d be perfect for reading a bedtime story for your children.

But she possesses certain qualities that should scare any company or store dealing with her: She has patience and she won’t back down. (Once, she waited on the phone on hold with a telecommunication company for 97 minutes to complain about something.) As she says, “I’ll deal with the customer service representative from hell.”

“You know, most companies or stores, if you can get through to anyone on their 1-800 number, will say, ‘This is our policy,’ and that’s such a canned answer. People don’t want to complain for the sake of complaining,” she says.

Unlike most of us, who get aggravated and annoyed, Steele Moore says she likes complaining because of the challenge it presents. She will keep on the phone until she gets an answer and is not embarrassed to send e-mails to CEOs until she gets a response.

“So, when you call people to complain on someone’s behalf, you introduce yourself as calling from Complaints Are Us?” “I sure do,” she says.

I’ve brought a list of complaints for Steele Moore (McDonald’s screwed up my order, the construction at Avenue and St. Clair is mind-blowing, when I order movies from Rogers On Demand, sometimes they stop in the middle), but I’ve brought one major thorn in my side.

The day before I meet Steele Moore, I get a $30 parking ticket — while I was WALKING to the meter to PAY for a ticket to put on my dashboard. The parking ticket person had magically disappeared, like David Copperfield, in the 30 seconds I had turned my back. I complained about it to all my friends that day.

“I’ll get that cancelled for you,” says Steele, taking the ticket and my paid parking meter receipt. I’m doubtful and wonder if I should just pay the $30. Yet, I don’t want to spend my afternoon at City Hall, nor do I have the time.

“ People get very emotional when they complain.… I take all emotion out.”

In recent months, Steele Moore has complained on behalf of clients to phone companies, numerous car dealerships, a washing machine company and banks. (She won’t deal with issues like custody or medical problems.)

Most people, she says, don’t have the time or energy, even if they are wronged, to complain.

“For example, this washing machine that had broken for one of my clients. Well, she called numerous times, had to stay home twice, and they charged her twice for the visits, even though the machine was just purchased and under warranty,” she explains.

“Even then it wasn’t fixed. Imagine having to ruin two days of your life, spending so much time trying to get someone to fix it, and then still have it broken? When I called, I got it fixed in a couple days.”

“People get very emotional when they complain,” says Steele Moore. “They get frustrated easily and then people aren’t receptive. I take all emotion out,” she says. “I’m a third party.”

She knows she has done a good job when her clients receive calls from companies making up for their wrongs.

Complaining, professionally at least, doesn’t necessarily come cheap.

Steele Moore charges a basic $50 fee (the first hour) to fill out your complaint form and then by the hour afterwards, normally $25 each hour, $75 per hour for high-priority cases. For some — such as the client who had purchased a mattress from a leading company for a couple thousand dollars and then, after a couple weeks, found that he was sinking into it and couldn’t get anyone to call him back — it’s beyond worth it.

By the end of our meeting, Steele Moore has had my parking ticket cancelled, which normally would have cost $30 — same as the ticket, with no aggravation. (Yippee!)

What can I say? It’s very relaxing to have someone else to deal with your problems.

I ask her, jokingly, if she can do something about the weather. “Well, my husband is a meteorologist,” she says. Is there nothing my new best friend can’t do?

This Riverdale doesn’t need Archie & Co.

6:58 pm

IT IS OFFICIAL, Archie Andrews has proposed to Veronica over Betty in the eponymous checkout line staple, ending a love triangle 70 years running. Now, the gang from the impossibly wholesome town of Riverdale is back on the map, as readers rush to revisit the characters in their favourite hangouts, like Pop Tate’s Chocklit Shoppe, Pickens’ Park and, of course, The Andrews’ residence. But no such place could actually exist in real life, could it? It could. It does.

As I walk through the leafy green streets of Toronto’s own Riverdale — bounded by Danforth Avenue and Lakeshore Boulevard to the north and south, and the Don River and Leslieville to the west and east — I imagine that it might just rate against the carefree comic universe of John L. Goldwater.

Joining me for an afternoon tour of family-friendly Riverdale are Juno Award–winning songstress Melanie Doane (who, with her blonde locks, bears a striking resemblance to the adorable but unchosen Betty Cooper) and husband, Gemini winning actor-director Ted Dykstra, who, along with son, Theo, 7, have agreed to show me some of their favourite local haunts.

“The number one greatest thing about the neighbourhood is you can walk everywhere,” says Doane.

“We live right in the city, and we can walk and get our groceries on foot, and we can walk to school every day with all our friends. We can ride our bikes with the kids … and it’s safe.”

Doane and Dykstra moved to the area five years ago while pregnant with daughter Rosie. They say Riverdale’s small-town vibe appealed immediately.

The couple is currently focused on work. She’s busy with the rerelease of her album A Thousand Nights and an upcoming East Coast tour while he’s occupied with directing Soulpepper Theatre’s Of the Fields Lately and prepping for the upcoming Billy Bishop Goes to War. They say their century home is a welcome respite from their busy careers.

“We love it,” says Doane. “We have space for the kids, and it’s just a beautiful place.” At the cheerful Mocha Mocha café (489 Danforth Ave.), we stop in for a drink and browse a menu of hearty, homestyle options.

Owner Marijan Tripkovic, along with wife Mercedes, has been running the café for the past 17 years. He says the secret to their continuing success is fresh, quality ingredients and reasonable prices. He recommends that firsttimers try the brown rice salad, turkey club and crepes, all bound to charm, and insists that once you’ve tried the food, you’ll be sure to return.

“I would say 90 per cent of our customers are regulars,” says Tripkovic. This is a nice community, and I’ve had many people coming here since we opened. I’ve seen children come in who are now grownup and getting married.”

The nearby Riverdale Perk (633 Logan Ave.) south on Logan Avenue is another notable café favourite, with customers flocking to the counter for their famous hot chocolate and key lime tarts.

Next we check out one of Theo’s favourite locales, Treasure Island Toys (581 Danforth Ave.), which boasts a dazzling display of classics like Lego and Thomas the Tank Engine, alongside newer favourites like Sophie the Giraffe.

Best of all, a giant pirate ship sits smack in the middle of the store. “Look Mom,” says Theo as his eyes widen at the latest display of Webkinz. “This is so cool!”

For new parents and parentsto- be, minimalist eco-chic With Child (705 Pape Ave.) is another popular spot, offering essentials like enviro-friendly cloth diapers, Canadian-made baby carriers and SunSmart UV swimsuits.

“This is really an area for young families now,” says Doane. We next head to Withrow Park where we see couples reading on blankets in the grass and families enjoying picnics. The park hosts a popular farmers’ market each Saturday and free fitness activities like yoga and dance.

“I also play tennis with Melanie, her music-producing brother Creighton and Jazz FM’s Brad Barker every Sunday, further down at Riverdale Park,” says Dykstra.

“All four of us love, love, love it — We bring our own net, so we can play for hours.”

Theo adds that it’s an excellent place for catching tadpoles. Back on Danforth, we pass the latest branch of Type Books (503 Danforth Ave.), which opened just over a year ago.

“It’s always nice to have something like this come into the neighbourhood,” Doane says. “It has a really good selection of kids’ books.”

In keeping with the kid-friendly theme, this Type also offers an entire “kids’ lounge,” which caters to the younger set with storytelling, art classes and workshops.

For a more formal night out Doane says she and Ted enjoy dining at Globe Bistro (124 Danforth Ave.), which boasts more than 20 wines by the glass, along with their “think global, eat local menu” of offerings such as Norfolk County pork chops and Georgian Bay whitefish.

“I have only had a chance to go there a few times,” she says. “But I love the food, decor and wine.” As we end our tour on the steps of the elegant Holy Name Catholic Church (71 Gough Ave.) Dykstra takes a moment to reflect on what makes Riverdale so unique in the rich tapestry of Toronto’s neighbourhoods. “Riverdale is one of the last Toronto neighbourhoods that isn’t trying to be ‘something,’” he says.

“It is very content to be Riverdale, and the population is very happy to slip under the radar of ‘trendy’ or ‘world class!’ I feel very at home. I hope not too many people catch on!”

Around the world and back again

1:53 pm

At the young age of 18, Ruby Sniderman has already touched the lives of many people — both locally and internationally — earning her a $25,000 award toward her university education.

This past spring, the recently graduated Earl Haig Secondary School student won a Millennium Excellence Entrance Award. One of 121 selected recipients, she was chosen for her strong leadership skills, high academic achievement and community involvement.

Sniderman began volunteering when she was 13, joining her parents as they helped deliver food for the homeless. By the age of 15, she got involved in a camp youth group, Young Canadian Judaea. Over the winter break from 2006 to 2007, she left the city to deliver supplies in Argentina for two weeks.

“It’s not about what motivates me,” she says about why she volunteers. “It’s about what’s right, so I do it.”

Later in 2007, a trip for pleasure in Israel again turned into get another good deed, when Sniderman spent time with children who had taken refuge there from Darfur.

“We spent the day hanging out and playing games,” she says. “They were just like normal kids, but at the back of your head you’re just thinking of what they’ve been through. It was just a day, but it definitely had a long lasting affect.”

“It’s not about what motivates me. It’s about what’s right, so I do it.”

Back in Canada, Sniderman and several classmates started devoting their time to planning a benefit concert to raise money for Invisible Children. The group was founded by three film students who made a documentary after witnessing the realities of child soldiers in northern Uganda.

After seeing the movie, they decided to help and raised more than $10,000 toward a new school in the African country.

The night after the concert, Sniderman headed to New Orleans to volunteer in the wake of hurricane Katrina, painting murals and volunteering with local children.

And this past December, she took part in her school’s annual global affairs conference and made the theme her passion for children’s issues. Ten charities attended and did presentations and workshops with the students, including Free the Children, World Vision and War Child.

Next fall, Sniderman will attend McGill University, to study international development. Her other plans for the future include travelling and going overseas to volunteer, but she really hasn’t thought that far ahead.

“I’m only 18!” she exclaims.

The Post salutes Bayview student Ruby Sniderman for donating her time to important causes locally and internationally.

This ain’t Tex-Mex and no, they don’t have fajitas!

1:53 pm

TODAY’S EXISTENTIAL QUESTION: are Torontonians ready for upscale Mexican cuisine if it comes with high-end prices?

In Toronto, our exposure to Mexican food has been Tex-Mex, though a few restaurateurs have tried to educate us to the joys of mole and ceviche. This second branch of Milagro, from downtown on Mercer Street, may have cracked the code. The place is as casual and noisy as one would expect and, to be sure, they have not ironed out the kinks in their service. But there is no escaping the fact that this is food to be reckoned with.

The appetizer of taquitos adobados ($10.95) sees two tacos filled to bursting with seared beef tenderloin that has been tuned up by “three chile adobo.” Definitely spicy, but the beef and its marinade hold their own.

Since Milagro takes such pride in its ceviche, offering four varieties, this begs to be sampled. Each comes in two sizes ($9.25, $13.95 for large). A classic tulipshaped sundae dish is brimming with large chunks of sea-sweet shrimp, diced cucumber, cilantro and a gentle heat. All, of course, has been “cooked” in fresh lime juice sans heat.

“CHEQUE PLEASE”
MILAGRO
3187 Yonge St.
416-487-2855
Dinner for two excluding tax,
tip and alcohol:
$75

For our entrees, we focus on avoiding the ubiquitous taco and enchilada. Cochinita pibil ($19.95) is described as “pulled slow roasted pork in achiote and orange marinade with pickled onions and habaneros.” The achiote gives it depth, and the habaneros give the dish its heat.

Milagro spends the time to cook it slowly until the muscle breaks down and then simmers it in a memorable marinade.

Pollo con mole poblano ($19.50) is one of the more familiar dishes. Made from a dozen or more spices, the most noteworthy of which is unsweetened chocolate, this sauce is a balancing act. The strong elements could clash, and I have had mole that I could not eat as a result of too heavy a hand with the cinnamon. Tonight, the reddish brown blanket draped over a huge, moist chicken breast is sweet/savoury perfection.

As we order, we notice that beans and rice are listed as side dishes and inquire as to whether or not our dishes come with either. Upon learning that they do not, we are disgruntled but order one side of each. When the platters arrive, one has beans and the other has rice, so we cancel the sides we ordered.

Can a family-style eatery on Yonge north of Lawrence succeed with complex Mexican food and prices that match?

You tell me.

Ratings are on a scale of one to five stars

Bilaal Rajan

7:12 pm

AT A COFFEE SHOP on Elgin Mills Road just west of the 404, I’m meeting fundraiser, author and UN ambassador Bilaal Rajan. His prowess for rallying donors for various charitable causes all over the world, from typhoons in Burma to Aids in Africa, has garnered him much media hype. He’s been called a fundraising phenom.

His mom tells me over the phone that he’ll be there any minute, and like clockwork he appears, riding his mountain bike down the sidewalk. He’s wearing a striped hoodie, skateboard shoes and a knapsack. He is, after all, only 12 years old. His mother asks me not to keep him too long — he needs to be back home in time to study for his math test.

Luckily, this coffee shop is across the street from the Richmond Green Sports Complex, and since Rajan doesn’t like coffee or tea (yet), and happens to have three baseball gloves in his knapsack (“Two rights and one left, just in case,” he says) we head over to the park.

Rajan says that although he finds math easy, he still has some things he needs to learn for his impending test. He’ll need his math, too, if he wants to realize his goal of becoming a neurosurgeon and an astronaut, or, as he wonders aloud, “the first neurosurgeon in space, yeah.”

But if he’s up in space, what about his organization, Hands for Help, the public speaking, and travelling the world with UNICEF?

“I’ll do that too. I don’t want to be tied up in an organization and I don’t want to be doing it for a profit,” he says before excusing himself to race down a hill on his bike, crouched over the handlebars as if in a bobsled race.

Rajan started fundraising when he was just 4, selling tangerines door-to-door to raise money for earthquake victims in India after his father read him a story about it in the paper. Next he was selling cookies for hurricane victims in Haiti. He raised roughly $6,000, after which UNICEF signed him on to make presentations to school kids about how they could make a difference. His turning point, however, came in 2004 when he issued the Canada Kids Earthquake Challenge, asking each Canadian child to raise $105 for tsunami victims. A total of $1.8 million was raised, which the federal government matched dollar for dollar.

By that point, there was no question that this was a kid (8 years old at the time) that the world ought to take seriously.

His most inventive endeavour came when Rajan unveiled the Barefoot Challenge. He went shoeless for an entire week to draw attention to the hardships of children in developing countries.

He has since been to Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malawi and Tanzania to see first-hand the results of his efforts. Last year, at 11, he received Canada’s Top-20 Under-20 award.

Now he is sitting on his bike, watching a baseball game and talking about his book, Making Change: Tips from an Underage Overachiever, released last October.

“I basically just talked into a recorder, it was transcribed and edited,” he says. The book advance went to setting up a leadership award given to a middle school student who accumulates the most community service hours, he says. Just then the sound of a baseball connecting with an aluminum bat echoes across the field. Rajan cocks his head, searching for the ball.

Surely it must be tough for a kid with such weighty responsibilities to be, well, just a kid. But Rajan seems to take it all in stride. He flashes a toothy grin, showing off his braces with green elastics. He mentions that he’s on the ski team and the tennis team.

“Actually, I was on the tennis team for two years, but then I got cut,” he says. It turns out the final cuts this year were during Rajan’s Barefoot Challenge. “They wouldn’t let me on the court without shoes, but it was worth it for the cause, I guess,” he says, before quoting FDR’s famous saying, “There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.”

Just then, following the ring of a bat, a baseball goes soaring over the fence. “Wow, home run!” he yells.

He suggests heading over to the skate park around the corner.

A park staff truck is driving away from the skate park by the time we get there, causing Rajan to stop his bike in its tracks. “That’s the guy who locks the gates to the park,” he says quietly, watching the truck as it drives around the corner. “But technically, it’s not even dusk yet. A lot of kids actually just throw their bikes over the fence. I could probably do it with a BMX bike, but my mountain bike is too heavy.”

After carefully reading the rules and regulations posted on the locked gate, which mention nothing about criminal charges or trespassing, I offer to aid and abet Rajan with the bike situation. Within seconds he’s tearing around the park, up and over the ramps with the excitement of well, a 12-year-old who just snuck into a skate park.

Abandoning the measured cadence and adult-speak of a politician that he has the tendency to conjure up whenever he’s in front of crowds or the media, he hurriedly blurts out story after story involving biking-related accidents at summer camp in the Muskokas.

He then rides up a ramp, dismounts his bike, and demonstrates with his hands how one of the local kids is able to jump his bike. “Some of the guys are really good, but not me. I suck,” he says.

But then again, Rajan doesn’t get as much time to practise because, as he puts it, one needs to prioritize.

“It goes school first, and then work, like if I have to answer an email or something, and when time is left I go out and play or hang out with friends. A lot of the time I don’t get to just go out and play though,” he says, shrugging. Just then a group of older kids in baggy clothes toss their bikes over the fence and start to ride around.

“You know what I like about it here?” he asks. “It’s a good community, so I’m not afraid to go ask those guys how to do those things, even though they’re big and scary. It’s really just the clothes they wear.”

By then it’s already too late though, and very little time is left for Rajan to study. We start to make the walk back.

“Sorry I didn’t bring a bike for you,” he says, sincerely. I tell him that it’s for the best because I would only hurt myself.

“That’s okay if you get hurt; that’s the fun of it,” he says. “If you’re not risking anything, then you’re not learning.”

Spoken like a true 12-year-old.

John Roberts

7:12 pm

IN HIS LAST year of high school, future CNN anchor John Roberts would sneak over to the local pub, the only place he could get a beer at his young age. The pub piped in the University of Toronto student radio station. Roberts would be starting a science degree at U of T in September and thought radio would be a great way to get involved in the school.

“I ended up doing a show there and got involved in the operation of the station. That was a great entry into the world of broadcasting,” he says.

Today Roberts, 52, has moved on to become a major player in the news game as co-anchor of CNN’s flagship morning show American Morning alongside Kiran Chetry.

The show has a hard-news focus, with a team of correspondents who deliver breaking news to early risers around the world each morning. It airs weekdays from 6-9 a.m. EST.

Roberts joined CNN in February 2006, but this past year was the most demanding, with the presidential election and all that comes with it.

“I was on the road for the first two months of last year, crisscrossing the country and going to all of the primary states,” he says. “For a political junkie and a guy who loves to be out on the front lines, it was just about the most fun that I could ever imagine having.”

During President Obama’s inauguration in January, Roberts was on the press riser in front of the Capitol, about 100 feet from where Barack Obama took the oath of office. “It was an extraordinary vantage point to witness history from,” says Roberts.

And what does Roberts think of Obama’s first months as president? “He certainly has a lot of expectations that he has to live up to,” he says. “I think it’s impossible for any president to live up to all the expectations that have been thrust upon them.”

But there is no question that his term will provide amazing journalistic opportunities, which presents a mixed blessing, suggests Roberts.

“If I weren’t doing the morning show, I would love to be back [in the] front row at the White House watching this history unfold,” he says.

The CNN gig is only the latest for Roberts in a long broadcasting career that has ranged from interviewing Canadian musicians for MuchMusic to sitting down with world leaders at CBS and CNN. Now, he is returning to his hometown on March 12 to be inducted into the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame during Canadian Music Week (CMW).

When Roberts returns to Canada for the induction, he will also be visiting his sister and his 95- year-old mother. And, of course, it will be a great opportunity to see the city again and catch up with old friends. One of these old friends, Neill Dixon, president of CMW, was the one who notified Roberts of his impending induction.

“He is probably at the pinnacle of his career,” Dixon says of Roberts. “He has gone from being a guy running around with a hand-held camera backstage with bands to now being an anchor with CNN. He is certainly a news icon and an inspiration to young broadcasters in Canada.”

Roberts’s record speaks for itself. He was embedded with the U.S. Marines during the war in Iraq; he has interviewed former presidents George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, the late Yitzhak Rabin and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. As anchor, Roberts has covered the death of Pope John Paul II and the papal succession; the Atlanta Olympics bombing (“I stood on a roof for 11 hours, broadcasting, a lot of that time by myself…); the Oklahoma City bombing; the kidnap and murder of tourists in Uganda; and the fire at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas (“I just happened to be the standby anchor that day and I was on the air within moments”).

Roberts was also down in New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina alongside colleague Anderson Cooper. In the early going, it looked like nothing much had happened, says Roberts. But as time went on, they began to realize the severity of the disaster. “We went out to the eastern part of the 7th Ward and found that it was under eight feet of water. So we kept out on one of the rescue boats that were going around trying to pull people out and saw just how serious the situation was.”

As a newsman, Roberts has seen the world. But it was here in Toronto that Roberts got his start. In his early days, he hosted a one hour heavy metal video show called The Power Hour on MuchMusic. Roberts remembers his time at the station with fondness, especially during its introduction.

“We sort of launched a cross-country promotion blitz,” he says. “We were trying to turn it into a nation-wide phenomenon, so we went to every little town across the 10 provinces. And that, together with my time at the NewMusic, where we literally travelled the world tracing the socio-economic roots of music, just really gave me a broad experience.”

But Roberts — known then as J.D. Roberts — still dreamed about reading the news. It was during this time that he and his wife settled into a house on the edge of Forest Hill. “It was a lovely place to be as a young couple,” he says. “Her parents were kind of against the idea. They wanted us out in the suburbs, but I was in the city, and I really wanted to have the city experience.”

As Torontonians know, central to that experience is cultural diversity of the city. “To immerse yourself in a society like that, for a young person, was a really great experience,” Roberts says.

The couple used to go to Bloor Street to have Indian food and to Dufferin for Italian. Their neighbours would play bocce at Vermont Square where Roberts would also walk his dog.

Then, in 1989, Roberts ventured down to a CBS radio station in Miami. He returned to Canada in 1990 to co-host CTV’s morning show Canada AM, but his move down to CBS News in New York came soon after.

“I never thought that I would spend 14 years anywhere, but it went by in the blink of an eye,” he remembers. “Really, it was a series of tremendous opportunities to both see the world and cover the news from a position where I really had a first-class seat to history.”

While Roberts is flattered by the induction into the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame, the honour, which is voted on by industry executives, caught him by surprise. “I didn’t even know they were paying attention to me,” he says. “I was surprised and deeply honoured that I would even be considered. I left Canada permanently — or at least what I considered permanently — in 1992, and the fact that they were keeping their eye on me from afar really is pretty incredible.”

Grand designs

7:12 pm

AS ONE OF the 10 finalists chosen from hundreds to be featured on HGTV's Designer Superstar Challenge, Holy Trinity School graduate Mariela Campo says she was thrilled to flex her creative muscles in front of the camera.

“It was an unforgettable experience,” she says. “I was excited to find out what the new challenge was each day and found myself laughing a lot and forming great new friendships with my fellow designers.”

For former high-school classmates who caught the show, it should have come as no surprise that Campo ended up in a field that puts her creativity and energy to use.

REPORT CARD

STUDENT Mariela Campo
GRADUATED Holy Trinity School, 1989
BEST SUBJECT English
WORST SUBJECT Math
CURRENT JOB Interior Designer

She transferred to Holy Trinity in Grade 11 and hit the ground running, using her boundless energy to establish a fundraising club and organize dances and concerts.

She says she has many positive memories of her time at the small private school, which she recalls as a supportive and close-knit community.

“[There were] only 36 students in my graduating class” she says. “This made our teachers a lot more accessible to us, which made for a more interactive teaching environment.”

She recalls English teacher George Rutherford as being an especially entertaining and innovative instructor.

“I’m not surprised to hear that he is currently the headmaster of the school,” she says. “He was a favourite amongst the students and well respected by his peers. Apart from always being supportive, he was cheerful and had a great sense of humour.”

Before getting into the design business, Campo worked for Sony Music as a publicist for artists Ricky Martin and Oasis.

“I had always thought about venturing into something that was hands-on creative, something that would still involve a lot of people interaction and the use of my PR skills,” she says. “Interior design seemed only natural as I had always had a love of art and design.”

It wasn’t until 2004 that it all came together. She applied and was accepted to the prestigious Parsons School of Design in New York City.

It was the best decision I had ever made,” she says. “It just couldn't be better suited for me, and I'm so glad I went back to school for it.”

She has now built a thriving career as an interior and set designer, specializing in green design and eco-friendly products.

The Midway State

6:46 pm

THE MIDWAY STATE is not your typical angsty indie rock outfit. They’ve got a hit record, two Juno nominations, international tours, a slot playing this month’s Edgefest concert at Downsview Park and a singer-songwriter with a medical condition worthy of an episode of House.

Nathan Ferraro, who co-founded the Toronto-based piano-pop foursome back in high school, has synesthesia. To say he “suffers” from it would be overstating the matter as, simply put, Ferraro sees colours in sound. “It’s a sensory overlap,” he says over the phone from his apartment, where he’s in the midst of composing music for the band’s second album. “My understanding of sound is through its colour.” Trippy, to be sure.

From the squeal of car brakes to the ring of a doorbell to the beating of a drum, every sound evokes “a feeling of colour,” he explains. He taps a key on his piano to demonstrate. “G7 is a grey-black on the piano; on an acoustic guitar it’s a lot more green. B is more of a blue-purple,” he says. “Every song has a distinct colour palette.” For example, “Nobody Understands,” off the band’s debut disc, Holes, is a dark rose red, while “Never Again” is a saturated royal blue. Although even Ferraro isn’t quite sure. “I’m also colour blind, so who knows?” he says with a laugh. “But if a song doesn’t have the right colour and the right vibe, then it doesn’t feel finished.”

Exactly how Ferraro’s synesthesia influences the Midway State’s music also isn’t clear. But it’s hard to argue with the results: lush piano-driven melodies draped over Ferraro’s poetic lyrics and buoyed by his soulful vocals, with just enough catchy singalong hooks to balance the tender emotions and keep your feet tapping.

Released last year, Holes spawned the Billboard Top 30 single “Never Again,” and the song “Unaware” was featured on an episode of the teen soap The O.C. Earlier this year, the Midway State picked up Juno noms for Best Pop Album and Songwriter of the Year. “When the nominations came out, Daenen [Bramberger, the band’s drummer] called to tell me, and I was 10 feet off the ground,” says Ferraro.

Listen to any of the Midway State’s music and you can hear the influences of contemporary artists like Coldplay, Sigur Ros and the Killers, but it’s all tinged with the classic pop and rock the band grew up listening to, from Carole King and Cat Stevens to Neil Young and Peter Gabriel.

“Our influences are pretty eclectic,” says guitarist Mike Wise. “Growing up in Thornhill, my dad taught me to appreciate the Beach Boys and Beatles; my sister exposed me to Nirvana, Green Day and Pearl Jam; and then I found Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, jam bands like Phish.”

“It’s strange. I love all that older ’80s music, and I certainly appreciate the new stuff, but I don’t actually listen to a lot of music,” says Ferraro, who doesn’t own an iPod.

Now, you can’t swing a dead cat in this town without hitting an aspiring indie band. Once in a while, though, amid the demo dreck, a little talent comes to the fore.

But for all their success, Wise sheepishly admits that they still rehearse in his mom’s basement in Thornhill. “The guys don’t like to talk about that, but it’s who we are and where we’re at,” he says. Who says Can-rock stardom isn’t glamorous?

“Being in a band can be wild, but probably not the way most people imagine it is,” Wise continues. “One day you’re playing for six people in a bar in Saskatoon, the next it’s a sold-out arena in Paris opening for Evanescence, and then it’s a headlining gig in front of the hometown crowd at the Mod Club that sells out. It’s all pretty surreal.”

Surreal and a long way from where the Midway State started seven years ago when singer-songwriter Ferraro and Bramberger realized that all the cool kids in their hometown of Collingwood were musicians in their own bands. “Since we didn’t know how to play anyone else’s songs, I started writing songs for us,” says the 23-year-old Ferraro, whose mom taught him how to play piano when he was six. “I tried to write a song a day, and I’ve still got boxes of tapes from those days.”

When Ferraro got his driver’s licence, his dad handed him the keys to a beat-up Chevy van, and the guys ditched their little ski town north of Toronto for an impromptu cross-country tour. “We booked all our own gigs and played anywhere that would have us: clubs, bars, coffee shops,” says Ferraro of their summer escapades.

After a couple of years of touring, sleeping in the van and living on ramen noodles, Ferraro and Bramberger moved to Toronto and started hunting around for a couple of new bandmates. Wise, who was studying jazz at the University of Toronto, saw their poster advertising for a guitarist and auditioned. “It really wasn’t until I hooked up with Nathan and Daenen that I was opened to the art side of pop music,” says Wise. “It’s not all fluffy-duffy stuff.” Ferraro called on his buddy bassist Mike Kirsh to complete the quartet.

Pretty soon they were cutting a demo of their own, which caught the attention of Gavin Brown, the Juno Award–winning producer who has worked with Sarah Harmer, Billy Talent and Three Days Grace. Brown produced the Midway State’s first EP, Met a Man on Top of the Hill, which earned them gigs opening for the likes of Avril Lavigne, Theory of a Deadman, 54-40, Shiny Toy Guns, Collective Soul and Lifehouse.

“It’s an amazing way to see the world,” says Ferraro of going on tour. “Every night, the moment before going onstage, the body goes to a different place. There’s an incredible buzz. You don’t have to think about what you’re doing.”

It’s a different story when the band is not on the road. They’ve only been back in Toronto a couple weeks, but they’re already hard at work plotting global domination. “We’ve got Edgefest, which is like summer camp for us, hanging out backstage with all these great bands, and our second album to work on and then a European tour in the fall, and we may even move to the U.K.,” says Ferraro.

In the meantime, the band will continue to hang out in Wise’s mom’s basement and keep downing burgers at the Golden Star (Yonge, north of Steeles). “We went there every day for lunch during high school, and now it’s like our unofficial hangout,” says Wise. “We go there for band powwows.”

All of which puts the band exactly where their name suggests, in a midway state, no longer scraping to get by, not quite filling stadiums on their own mega-tour. “We’re in a really good place right now,” says Wise. “Though it’s not like we’re opening for Radiohead. They’d never have us. They’re too cool for us.”

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“ We don’t like to use the word ‘help.’ We’re not saviours, we’re just lending a hand."

“CHEQUE PLEASE” MILAGRO3187 Yonge St. 416-487-2855Dinner for two excluding tax, tip and alcohol: $75

REPORT CARD

STUDENT Mariela Campo GRADUATED Holy Trinity School, 1989 BEST SUBJECT English WORST SUBJECT Math CURRENT JOB Interior Designer

“CHEQUE PLEASE”
MILAGRO
3187 Yonge St.
416-487-2855
Dinner for two excluding tax,
tip and alcohol:
$75

STUDENT Mariela Campo
GRADUATED Holy Trinity School, 1989
BEST SUBJECT English
WORST SUBJECT Math
CURRENT JOB Interior Designer