Where It All Started

I am kicking myself for doing it now but I never graduated the high school I grew up and matured in; Denis O'Connor Catholic High School. I only get the urge to maim myself because I just realized something; high school reunion is going to be awful. Should I go to DOC's? I mean I earned thirty credits there; I should be able to.

I purposely never graduated from high school at DOC because it was going to be easier to get into George Brown for Chef Training if I had some real cooking experience. It was going to be easier to get into a different high school if I had not already graduated. I would be going into the new school, not as an alumni member from another high school, but as a student who needed to graduate. So I pulled out of two courses at DOC and took those two courses,along with weight training and Culinary Arts at Pine Ridge Secondary, just one town over.

If you are wondering where one town over is, I lived in Ajax for fourteen years and Pine Ridge Secondary is located in Pickering, Ontario. Most of my greatest friends live in Ajax and a lot of them went to DOC; hence the sad revelation in this post's introductory sentence.

After George Brown, I worked at AMICA Retirement. I remember this establishment as a "High-End" retirement residence. The average resident forked out $110,000 per annum to live in such a place. This one building housed such residents as the founder and co-founder of Canadian Tire and the co-founder of Cineplex Odeon .

I stayed on the job for six to eight months before it was bought out by another company; a company that had hired it's own team prior to the take-over. Not even the Executive Chef's job was safe; he was replaced as well. To this day I thank AMICA Retirement! If it was not for selling the company I would still be there, working as a Chef Apprentice, working toward my Red Seal, involved in a career that I was not happy nor satisfied in.

Thank you AMICA, Thank you!

PS I am not a "Good Little Catholic Boy"; I was forced into the Catholic school board at a young age