Bruce's Classification
Bruce Thompson was born in Lindsey in 1949 and lived in Omemee for a while but his father worked construction and they travelled across Canada so he learned to enjoy driving. Even now he prefers driving to flying, despite Terri's disapproval. He remembers his first years of schooling in a one room school house, which was fairly casual. In 1959 they moved to Aurora where they stayed through his High School career where he enjoyed all sports, especially pool.
By the time he'd finished High School the possession of a car was more important than that of a degree so he started as a Loblaws trainee. For a while he worked for Bell but he didn't like poles. Then he was a loan collector for Citizen Financial - the whole day on the phone telling people they owed money. The Bank of Nova Scotia gave him a chance to see it from the other side and he started there as a lending officer in Newmarket.
Back then, as he says, things were different. People were required to list their furniture as collateral even though the law said it couldn't all be seized. They could keep their beds but they lost their beer fridges. He had achieved ownership of his prize possession by this point - a Mustang 2 + 2 fastback. One Thursday his manager asked him if he had snow tires for it - on Monday he was to report in Timmins.
Although it was hard to tell, if you read between the lines you detected a certain antipathy to Timmins on Bruce's part. He had a visual aid. He pointed to the screen and said 'there's a picture of Timmins'. White. In the 'summer' it turned muddy. He remembers not being able to find his car in the snow. Parts of that time were good - he and Diane got married in Dec. of 1971, the economy was good, banking was doing well, Visa cards were being introduced but Timmins was a land of snow, black flies and mosquitos. It's based on mining and it's cold and grungy but it had 52 bars. You needed one on every corner to warm up in before you started down the next block.
Then they moved him to Petrolia. He remembers rainbow colours on the houses, oil wells and sulphur smells in the heat but Liane was born there in 1974. Back up to North Bay as Assistant Mgr. of Retail Credit. He increased the mortgage business and they bought their first house. Bradley was born in 1978. Bruce was looking to get into commercial lending, which he preferred, and he was offered a position 'somewhere in Ontario'. He and Diane figured it had to be a bigger place so he said yes and they were off to Sault (Soo? Sioux? Sue?) Ste. Marie for five and a half years. At least it wasn't Thunder Bay. 3 promotions later he was a Branch Manager. The Sault was a wild town and it had everything. It had to because there was no where else to go to get anything. People had to drive to Sudbury if they wanted a different style of furniture. The Sault lived off the steel mill but there was also rail industry, fishing, dealerships and they did loans between $50,000.00 and $25,000,000.00. A learning experience.
Next stop Parry Sound, which he and his family loved. They spent 22 years there. Boating, fishing, healthy place for kids to grow up but after the kids moved out he and Diane decided they had one more move and here they are. Midland has a larger commercial base, friendly people, a vibrant downtown and, thanks to Mike Proulx, he's in Rotary. He's having the time of his life.
Bruce has been married 37 years, in banking for 38, Leanne is in Barrie with her daughter Olivia, Brad's still in Parry Sound with 3 dogs and it sounds like life is good.