An Hour in Paris on Father's Day

As this past Sunday was Father’s Day I grabbed the opportunity to pamper myself and headed down to Paris, Ontario for the annual CVMG vintage motorcycle show and flea market. Before leaving Calgary, I had printed off a copy of the poster advertising the event, and shown to the right, from the CVMG web site and I thought that I had all the information required – Friday through Sunday and day passes cost $5. Sounded easy.

I picked up my older son early Sunday morning and trekked down to Paris which is about 90 minutes from where we were staying in Toronto. It was a pleasant drive as most of the nut cases were not on the road yet, and in addition it was not raining. The sun was out, the grass was green and touring down through Cambridge brought back lots of good memories. Our first house was in Cambridge – Preston actually – back in the early ’70’s and I’ve always liked the area.

I hadn’t been to Paris before – it is much smaller than its namesake !  It is a very nice little town in a small valley through which the Grand River flows and is notable for having been on the receiving end of the first long distance phone call in 1876 by Alexander Bell, the inventor of the telephone.

The CVMG show was in the Paris fairgrounds on the west side of town and there were lots of folks on motorcycles all heading in the same direction so it was easy to find. You can possibly imagine my surprise then when, on arrival, there was almost nothing there to be seen ! Although the poster did say the show ran till Sunday, as it turned out they’d left off the fact that it was only till noon on Sunday ! As a result, most of the sellers had already packed up their sodden tents and booths (as it had rained most of the Friday and Saturday) before we arrived, and had gone home to get dried off !  I have no idea how busy it was over the three days as most folks don’t ride their vintage bikes in poor weather, but at least there was a handful still about, and I did see one Suzuki GT750 which was nice. And as a small bonus, as we had showed up at closing, they waved us in and didn’t charge me admission or parking !!

All in all, while disappointing that there was not much to be seen, it was a pleasant Father’s Day with my son, followed by a very nice dinner with both boys and SWMBO’d in the evening – and if I’m in Ontario next year, I’ll just have to make sure I ignore the $%^#@ poster and get there a day earlier !