Good Thing

Hello there and wel­come the Jan­u­ary 25th edi­tion of Hangin’ in the Ham­mer; where we try to make every day, a lit­tle like Canada Day.

You dropped by just in time, as we are all set to go through our daily rou­tine and we have one more seat right over there for you and your coffee.

And now we are proud to present the man with all the daily details and my kid brother, Gordie.

It was on this day in 1815, that George Hamil­ton pur­chased 257 acres at the foot of the escarp­ment near Burling­ton Heights, at the head of Lake Ontario with grand plans to make a town which he will name after him­self. It is not long before the new set­tle­ment of Hamil­ton has dug itself a good foothold between the escarp­ment and the lake and the town soon flour­ishes into the true cen­tre of the universe..

Born on this day in 1822, in York County (Toronto), one William McDougall who founded the Toronto news­pa­per The North Amer­ica, and was also one of the fathers of Con­fed­er­a­tion. He was appointed lieu­tenant gov­er­nor of the North­west Ter­ri­to­ries in 1869, but was pre­vented from tak­ing his post by the Red River Insur­rec­tion.  (McDougall was Lincoln’s guest in 1863 in Get­tys­burg, when he gave his famous address and his pic­ture is at the bottom.)

On this day in 1870, Louis Riel leads a two-week con­ven­tion at Fort Garry to con­sider the Cana­dian pro­pos­als put for­ward by Don­ald Alexan­der Smith.  Smith of course, later became Lord Strath­cona and was a key fig­ure in push­ing through the CPR.

On this day in 1993, Cather­ine Call­beck was sworn in as the Pre­mier of Prince Edward Island, replac­ing Joe Ghiz. She was the first female pre­mier elected to office in Cana­dian his­tory (pic­ture below.)

From the world of sports, the Cana­dian Olympic team attends the open­ing cer­e­monies at the games held in Cha­monix, France on this day in 1924.  Canada sent a total of twelve ath­letes to the games and came home with a sin­gle gold medal won by the Toronto Gran­ites hockey team, that fea­tured HHoF mem­bers Hoo­ley Smith, Harry Cameron and Dunc Munro (top picture).

Some other notable Cana­di­ans born o this day include for­mer CFL star quar­ter­back Con­dredge Hol­loway (mem­ber of the CFHoF since 1990); a mem­ber of the HHoF since 1990, Fer­nie Fla­men; Jeff Thue, who won a sil­ver in wrestling at the 1992, Barcelona Olympics; for­mer CFL great and CFHoF mem­ber since 1964, Paul Rowe and Thomas Vin­cent Claude Saun­ders, known as Mr Row­ing, who was born right here in Hamil­ton in 1912 and is a mem­ber of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Our Juno Moldy Oldy for today comes from 1995 nom­i­nees for best new group, Big Sugar; here’s Dig­gin’ A Hole (and makin’ a Hammer.)

Born on this day in 1953, Mal­colm Green, who played the drums for Split Enz. When was the last time you heard I Got You?

Today’s musi­cal title, Good Thing, was inspired by gui­tarist Andy Cox of The Fine Young Can­ni­bals, who was born on this day in 1956.

And that is where I will leave off today ladies and gents and allow Puck the priv­i­lege of fin­ish­ing up our day.

Jan­u­ary 25th is also known as Rob­bie Burns Day in Scot­land. Burns wrote the poem Auld Lang Syne that Cana­dian band­leader Guy Lom­bardo turned into a New Year’s Eve standard.

In hon­our of the great Rob­bie Burns, here’s a song writ­ten by the Scot­tish band Slade from Great Big Sea, Run, Runaway.

Thanks for com­ing by and shar­ing a cof­fee with us today and we hope we see you again soon.

Have your­self a great day and please be safe.

Good thing, where have you gone…