By Jim Hagarty
When my friend Al Bossence and I were teenagers, we spent a lot of time roaming the exciting streets of the village of Grand Bend on Lake Huron in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Not together. We didn’t know each other back then. But it was the place to be. Hot cars and young women who insisted on wearing very tiny bikinis. There were arcades and burger joints with fantastic fries and soft ice cream places you just could not walk past. The place got its name because of the “grand bend” in the lakeshore where the early inhabitants chose to settle. In the U.S. presidential election of 2012, the village got itself on the map as the place where Republican candidate Mitt Romney brought his family to spend summers at the cottage they owned there. They also brought their dog, famously, on the roof of the car all the way from Boston. “He loved it up there,” candidate Romney declared, convincing no one. The photo here was taken by Al Bossence yesterday and shows a cliff and lakeshore, just a piece away from the village. The beach at “the Bend” is one of the finest around these parts. Al is a great photographer and blogger (thebayfieldbunch.com).
