I just went to Trinity-Bellwoods Park on Queen West, where there was a gathering of redheads. It was an event organised by a couple of filmmakers—Gareth C. Scales and Aaron Champion—for an upcoming documentary about life as a ginger, so I thought I’d go check it out.
Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse this weekend, after weeks of hot and sunny weather; just as I got there on my bike, the skies opened and the rain started to pour down!
My redheaded childhood
There must have been around 50 or so people there at the time, many of whom stood out from the crowd because of their fiery hair. Even though there weren’t as many redheads there as I’d originally expected, still I’d never before seen as large a number of gingers gathered together in one spot, at one time.
I noticed the filmmakers wandering through the different groups of people, microphones in hand and cameramen in tow, interviewing various subjects for the doc, and I would’ve stayed longer myself (I wouldn’t have minded having a cameo role in the film, to quickly talk about my experience growing up as a redhead) if it hadn’t been for the crappy weather. We redheads are, after all, supposedly a dying breed, so it’s only fair to document us for posterity while we’re still around!
Once it started raining, however, I noticed a growing number of people making their way out of the park. So I decided to leave too, and stopped instead at a local coffee shop to seek shelter, write this quick post, and ponder our potential extinction.
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2 comments
Cynthia McDonagh
August 23, 2010 at 9:23 pm (UTC -5)
Gary I heard about this event on CBC Radio on Saturday and immediately thought of all the “real redheads” i know – oh lots and how many were taunted when they were young. Then I thought about when I dyed my hair read because I always wanted to be a redhead. But here’s a better one, while I was pregnant with my daughter Beatrice, I wished that she would be born with redhair (strawberry blonde) and blue eyes. She got the blue eyes but think curly brown hair.
Finally just yesterday I told Beatrice a story about a certain sweatshirt a guy wore in the 60″s. It said “which do you prefer” blonde, brunette, black, or auburn. He had “auburn” checked out.
Love you gary and not just for your “red hair”.
Cynthis
Derek
December 12, 2010 at 12:19 pm (UTC -5)
Redheads unite! I am not a redhead but I empathize with the plight of redheads and the discrimination that they face. Oftentimes, it is from others who have faced prejudice themselves. The South Park assault was the result of a group of non-thinkers coming up with an idea … with no regard to the pain that it would cause. This morning, an ad appeared during SportsCentre on DirecTv for HBO Entourage DVD set. I will paraphrase … a couple were talking about going out and asked if they should bring so and so along .. they decided not to call one person because the ladies don’t dig guys with ginger hair. Did they need to put this discriminatory message in the ad. No! But they did. I wrote HBO and asked them … why redheads? why not put in your ad a statement that says that the ladies don’t dig wiry black hair, or Jewish guys or homosexuals. The reason they won’t do it .. they would be crucified and taken to court if they did not edit the ad. So redheads out there… contact HBO and let them know that what they are doing is discriminatory and wrong. Tell them to edit the ad.