Bridging the Social Distance

For this episode my guest chose to stay anonymous, she is a lovely woman living over at The Village of Riverside Glen , who’s lived in Guelph since she was a child. She’s struggling a bit with her transition to living in care, navigating double vision that she developed after a nasty fall, and she’s very honest about how much more challenging it makes things, taking away most of her hobbies and ac...

For this episode I interview Karen Gunn, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen - she talks about life in the Windsor area, multiple generations taking care of each other at different points in her history, her career in nursing, her stretch of time living in California, where she met her husband before they returned to Canada. She also speaks about navigating her changing health - she's brok...

For this episode I interview Norm Shoemaker, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Norm is 96, and was born and raised in Guelph, so it may not come as huge surprise that we bonded over local history! I learned of some places that were new to me (including the Guelph Casket Factory) and got a wonderful glimpse into a Guelph many decades before my time. Norm is appreciative of the experienc...

For this episode my guest is Bob Griffiths, a resident living in Egerton (the assisted living neighbourhood) and The Village of Riverside Glen . Bob is very proud of his family, sharing about many of his children and grandchildren and their accomplishments, he’s a proud retiree from Hydro, and shares an interesting window to this career and his pathway that got him there. He is a passionate world...

This is the 300th episode!!! For this special episode I recruited longtime friend and radio host Scotty Hertz for a co-interview: He interviews me about the history of the show, its specific origins born out of covid, and the mobile community radio philosophies that led to it, and we talk about my ten+year mobile radio history at CFRU and what has been learned and expanded on along the way, in ter...

For this episode my guest is Donald Bridges, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . We talk about his passions through his life (including skiing, sailing, and wood carving) and his fascinating career in corrugated cardboard - largely in the “new products division” which brought him through some very interesting situations! Thanks Don for sharing your story! This interview was originally re...

For this episode I interview Skip Redpath, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Skip moved in fairly recently, but he has settled right in, making close friendships and helping his fellow residents. He shares a window into the interesting way his brain works, counting through decades to place himself in time, a response to changes that he’s been experiencing in his memory, likely connecte...

For this episode I interview Brent Fletcher, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Brent is new to Riverside Glen in terms of living there, but he knew where he wanted to be for this stage of life, having spent five years visiting and supporting his wife as her illness brought her to long term care. Brent has a positive attitude on the other side of the loss - he shares about his many move...

For this episode I veer away from my normal format to interview an old friend, Ida Nilsen, known for her music project Great Aunt Ida , in advance of a few shows she was playing in the area. Great Aunt Ida has been making music under this name for over twenty years, starting in BC, moving to Toronto for a stretch, and then Detroit before returning to Vancouver. We talk a bit about this history, wh...

In this longer-than-normal episode I interview John Conibear, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . John lives in retirement, and his wife lives up in Emma's Neighbourhood, an area of Riverside Glen that focuses on memory-care. John opens up how hard it is to experience this separation, after 64 years of marriage - even if it's the same building, on another floor, being apart, and navigati...

For this episode I join forces with Campus Friends, bringing together Campus friends students Davina and Nicolo with CFRU volunteer and board member Ramya, to discuss their various experiences living with Autism. They discuss their diagnosis’, challenges, special interests and misconceptions. Later in the episode I join Ramya to discuss the ways in which it often goes missed in women, and insights...

For this episode I give a platform to our co-op student Anarva Vipin, and my son and CFRU volunteer Otis Magoffin to talk about the high school student walkout that happened on March 11th 2026, in response to Doug Ford’s cuts to OSAP. Anarva and Otis both attended the event, equipped with handheld recorders, recording speeches, and interviews with students (and MPP Mike Schreiner) who were in atte...

For this episode my guest is Robert Lawson, a resident in Long Term Care at The Village of Riverside Glen. Bob is one of the younger residents in Long Term Care, navigating a variety of health changes - he aspires to heal enough to get out a bit more, he's been at Riverside Glen for two years and is still getting accustomed. He's not used to staying in one place - Bob was a traveling salesman for...

This was a special live episode of Bridging the Social Distance, where I interviewed Mike Barber of “The Hive”, a Guelph’s Arts Collective located on Cork st in Guelph. We talk about the Hive, Guelph past and present, some of our favourite local businesses here in Guelph, our shared love of hand-made items, our shared appreciation for up-cycling, secondhand, and local markets, our appreciation for...

For this episode it's time for Georgina Part 2! We pick up where Georgina left off, upon her arrival to Guelph as a pre-teen, we hear a wild story about chickens, and a glimpse into the life of a teenager attending the Loretto Academy, navigating being a new Canadian, not having a lot of money, attending hockey games and dances. Georgina is a lovely person to spend time with, and I'm glad she was...

February 21st was International Mother Language Day! Hosted (briefly, in English) and collected/edited by Jenny, we filled our airwaves with approximately 50 languages from over 70 participants, in celebration of "International Mother Language Day" which is observed every year to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. Thank you to everyone who participated, with a special t...

For this episode I interview Olu Adedokun, a PSW in Long Term Care at The Village of Riverside Glen . He shares his story of moving here from Nigeria, and the culture shock - of the weather, of course, but other things we may not think of, like the closeness of our houses, not surrounded by walls between the properties. Olu grew up on a university campus in Nigeria, his father a professor of atmos...

For this episode I interview Georgina Bregant, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen. Georgina started by sharing the story behind her emigration to Canada shortly after WWII. Her father was in politics in Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia at that time) and when the government shifted to Communism in 1948, her father and her family were unsafe and had to flee. Her father was immediately arreste...

For this episode I interview Robert Joyce, a fairly new resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Robert is a bit of a private guy, but I did get him to open up a bit, to share about his love for golf and playing cards (specifically Eurchre ) and his career working at the “Guelph Correctional Centre” (earlier known as the Ontario Reformatory). Thanks Robert for being willing to chat today! This...

I just realized I had never added the second part of my interview with Edwin Stelter! So this is the second part of my interview with Edwin Stelter, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Part 1 largely centred around Edwin's memories of being a child during WWII, born in Poland, but of German background, and as such having a complicated and dangerous identity for war times. In part 2 Edwin...

Today I interview Edwin Stelter, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Over the years I’ve learned a lot about WWII from interviewing veterans, and their children and spouses, speaking about their perspectives from different countries, beliefs, and stages of life. Edwin’s story was a new one for me - his family were Germans, born in Poland, and while the technicality of the border of their...

For this episode I interview Maria Dicks, a resident in Emma‘s Neighbourhood at The Village of Riverside Glen . Maria was so lovely - she had such a radiant personality and sense of fashion, and I loved hearing her stories of growing up near Cornerbrook, Newfoundland. Maria had so many memories to sharing - camping as a child for weeks at a time on the tiny remote islands with her abundance of sib...

For this episode I head back to Emma’s Neighbourhood at The Village of Riverside Glen , an area of the building that supports residents with memory care. My guest is Beverley Smith - Beverley has a few specific memories that really stand out for her, and as we sat and looked out her window at the weather changing from sunshine, to a hail storm, and back to sunshine, I got a little glimpse into som...

For this episode my guests are Leona McDermid, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen , and her daughter Lori-Anne. The two tell stories from Leona’s life, how she met her husband, her first date and the origins of her “butterfly kisses”. They share how the two of them have kept a thread of creativity throughout their professional lives, Leona helping run the family business “McDermid Paper”,...

For this episode, I return to “Emma’s Neighbourhood”, a neighbourhood at The Village of Riverside Glen that supports residents with memory care. My guest in Emma’s is Mary Gibbons - Mary’s relationship with memory was unique for me - she knows she experienced hardship and loss early in life, but while we visited it seemed like her memory spared her a lot of details in a way gives her a buffer from...