Random Small Town #2: Ayr

It was a beautiful November day, unseasonably warm, and a great time to escape the Big Smoke. In my eagerness to escape I took the 401 East instead of West, got annoyingly delayed but eventually back on track.

The sun warmed my hair and face all the way there. A rare treat for a Canadian November!

Ayr took 1.5 hours from East Toronto. When I entered the town I saw farms, a field of cattle, seed granaries and silos. The homes were gorgeous -- 50s bungalows and much older, Victorian-ish homes with ornate trim and well-loved trees and gardens.

As soon as I found I spot to park I jotted down the words "love love love it." Ayr is utterly charming! Free parking everywhere, well-kept heritage homes and an old factory (John Watson Manufacturing Factory) that once manufactured pots and stoves, then agricultural equipment, and is now home to several non-manufacturing local businesses. The homes are not all red brick; many are yellow brick, a nice change and not so common in the towns I've seen.

Near where I parked was an ice arena, where kids with hockey gear and their dads were enjoying barbecued hotdogs outside. Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" was playing.

I took a long walk around town.

Sounds: Wind in the trees and ornamental grass; the occasional car; and a train's loud whistle (that really made me smile).

Smells: Some distant manure; burning leaves; and later, something heavenly, kind of like when the Peak Freans factory in my neighbourhood makes strawberry cream cookies, but much better -- I swear someone must have been baking a strawberry pie.

On a whim and hoping to find a bit of local history info, I stopped into the library. Right away I found a local history shelf, and picked up the oldest-looking volume there. It contained the meeting minutes of the Ayr chapter of the Ontario Women's Institute, 1914! Hand-written in fountain pain, the minutes were a highlight for me. I travelled back in time, reading about papers these women read to each other (about the economy, home gardening, how to make a hotbed, hospitals here versus hospitals in England, and "the rural telephone"); how they entertained one another at these meetings ("and then Mrs. Cuthbertson favoured us with a lovely piano solo" or "we heard several selections from the victrola"); helped worthy causes such as "the Belgian Relief Effort" by sending socks, money, dried apples or jam; worked out their own financial issues ("We sold tea and cake for 10 cents, all proceeds going to the piano debt"); and closed each meeting with "God Save Our King." A "Mrs. Watson" figured prominently at these meetings and had a particular interest in a "gymnasium class." She seemed to have a bit of clout and hosted at least one large event at her home. Was she the wife/daughter/niece of the Mr. Watson of factory fame?

My long walk in Ayr, followed by a rest in the library, made me very cold, so I walked back to my car and drove the one-minute trek to New Orleans Pizza. The smell in there was intoxicating, as it should be in a pizza place. I waited for my freshly-baked small pizza while two batches of loud but very sweet kids came in, asking for things for their scavenger hunt -- a receipt, a pizza brochure and more. I scarfed down three of my four slices in the car, saved the last one for a photo (shown above) and drove home.

Ayr, Ontario, rated:
0 (bad) to 5 (great)

Quaintness: 5
Happy factor: 4.5
Creepy/depressing factor: 0
Backward factor: 1 (downtown remains old and charming; happy, normal people; and some sprawl on the outskirts)
Liveability: 2 (5 if I lived there as a freelance writer, but how do other people make a living in Ayr?)