singer-ing almonte’s praises?
Mississippi Mills is a favourite tourist destination and a gateway to the Ontario Highlands’ awesome motorcycling roads. Almonte, which is the part of Mississippi Mills in which I live, has great shops, eateries and cafes on its main street (called Mill Street but that’s another story).
It’s also home to a vibrant arts community as well as loads of talented and interesting people. One of our Almonte residents, for example, is a world-renowned master luthier (guitar maker) who was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada a couple of weeks ago. Her name is Linda Manzer.
Then there’s puppeteer Noreen Young, who was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada in 1995 for having “effectively used puppetry to educate children on such crucial issues as safety, nutrition, environmental awareness and addictions.” Noreen was the driving force behind Almonte’s PuppetsUp! festival, which will be held again this year in August.
While it’s not unusual to meet extraordinary folk in our little town, I was surprised when I recently visited a relatively new and eclectic clothing/curio/café enterprise called Nomad to find that the shop owner, Jay Wisintainer, had lived in Iqaluit for many years and is a restorer of old cars and motorcycles.
Even more interesting is the fact that he sometimes uses vintage Singer sewing machines in his motorcycle restorations as well as other cool stuff he creates and sells at Nomad.
Jay is a fascinating person to converse with and he has innovative plans and prospects for Nomad. I highly recommend stopping by for a chat next time you’re on Mill Street. You might even buy a bonsai tree like I did when I was there the other day.
Here are some of Jay’s motorcycle builds (click on the first pic and then on the right hand arrow to see the gallery):
© 2023 Susan Macaulay. I invite you to share my poetry and posts widely, but please do not reprint, reblog or copy and paste them in their entirety without my permission. Thank you.
