Happy holidays to Chicora Crescent, from North Bay

Received today by SooToday News:

********************************** Thank you SooToday.com, for giving us out-of-towners a chance to say 'Hello, Sault Ste. Marie' from Don and Sue Muir in North Bay.

Sue and I moved to Sault Ste. Marie in 1981 and had to leave ten years later in 1991.

It has definitely the most memorable years of our lives so far because our sons, Trevor and Jeffery, grew up in the Sault.

Trevor was 15 months old when we moved to Sault Ste. Marie and Jeffery is true Sault thru and thru.

We moved back to Sue's hometown in 1991 when work at Algoma Steel Tube Division became very unpredictable.

I was fortunate to find a position at the North Bay General Hospital in my trade as an Electrician.

Sue, who had recently started working at (then) Boots Drugstore was able to relocate to the Boots in North Bay. And that is where we still are today. Sue continues to work part time at Pharma-Plus and I am eagerly awaiting the construction of North Bay's new Hospital.

Trevor, 24 this January, graduated from High School, 1997, and is working at our independent grocery store 'Dollars'.

He spent the summer of '96 as a Junior Forest Ranger. He went away a boy and came back a young man. The next summer he was hired on to an MNR forest firefighting crew. This was his passion but unfortunately he was not selected over the next two summers for that job.

Not married yet but has a wonderful girlfriend, Holly. They have been together for five years and recently rented an apartment not far from us.

One down, one to go.

Jeffery, 21 this February, is finishing up a two-year business course at Canadore College here in North Bay.

To fill in his time he also works at a local grocery store.

Not sure of exactly what he wants to do when he graduates, I'm confident he will make the right decisions.

Sue doesn't like to think ahead to the day when the youngest is ready to leave the nest.

For all who know us you will remember our greatest pleasure in the Sault was summer camping at Pancake Bay Provincial Park.

We continued to camp at our favourite parks in the North Bay area. By the time the boys were graduating from high school they really didn't have as much fun as they used to camping with the old folks.

Sue and I still get out camping, just not as much as we used to. We sold our big family hard-top trailer and have reverted back to a tent.

I have taken up canoeing as my choice of summer activities. Sue doesn't share my enthusiasm for the canoe but has gone on a couple of short one-day outings. She just doesn't seem to accept camping on a remote lake with no comfort station within walking distance!

To all our neighbours on Chicora Cr., friends and family in the east end, friends and co-workers from all over the Sault and Algoma Steel, we wish you a Merry Christmas and the very best in the New Year.

I hope this message has rekindled pleasant memories of when we shared our lives together. It has for us.

The photograph is of our 25th wedding anniversary, May 25 1999.

Don and Sue Muir, North Bay, Ont. [email protected]

******************************************************************** Are you an out-of-towner?

Here at SooToday.com, we recognize that our web site is as close as many former Saultites will get to home this holiday season. In keeping with Sault Ste. Marie's grand tradition of holiday hospitality, we'd like to make the following proposal to our many hundreds of out-of-town readers, scattered everywhere from Hamilton to Hong Kong:

Any former resident now living 200 or more kilometres away is invited to E-mail us a good-quality digital image of you and yours, together with a 600-word-or-less update on where you are and how you're doing.

We'll publish these on SooToday.com as part of our regular holiday news coverage.

The photo is an essential part of the package. E-mail it to us, together with your text message, as a .jpeg (preferred), .gif or non-Macintosh .tif attachment.

Our E-mail address is [email protected]

If you don't have a photo, you're welcome to instead leave a 250-word-or-less, text-only message in the News Response feature on our editorial page.

One cautionary note:

Although our intention is to publish all photos and greetings received by January 5, 2003, this free offer is subject to availability of time and staff.

We mention that only because we've never extended such an offer before and aren't sure whether to expect responses by the handful or the hundreds.