First published in 1982, I Remember Sunnyside is a mine of golden memories, bringing back to life an earlier Toronto, only hints of which remain today. Like the city itself, Sunnyside was an everchanging landscape from its heady opening days in the early 1920s to its final sad demolition in the 1950s. The book captures the spirit of the best of times a magical era which can only be recaptured in memory and photographs. It also presents the reality of a newer Toronto where change, although necessary, is sometimes regrettable.

This book captures the spirit of the best of times a magical era that can be captured only in memory and photographs.

When I read stories of women on ranches, I wonder if I should consider myself a ranch woman at all. I lost that life when I was twenty years old. Then I realize in my heart I have never left the ranch. It is where I will always be. If you'd ever lived a cowboy life, it will forever define who you are. Those years defined who I am from my work ethic to my love of being outdoors and alone. The spirit of the west is alive and well in me. I've worked to turn every place I've ever lived into Sunnyside. By reading the stories I've written, I'm hoping my readers will feel some connection to a life I thought was so special.

Wonder meets Three Times Lucky in a story of empowerment as a young woman decides to help solve the mystery of multiple suspicious deaths in her group home. Sally Miyake can't read, but she learns lots of things. Like bricks are made of clay and Vitamin D comes from the sun. Sally is happy working in the kitchen at Sunnyside Plaza, the community center she lives in with other adults with developmental disabilities. For Sally and her friends, Sunnyside is the only home they've ever known. Everything changes the day a resident unexpectedly dies. After a series of tragic events, detectives Esther Rivas and Lon Bridges begin asking questions. Are the incidents accidents? Or is something more disturbing happening? The suspicious deaths spur the residents into taking the investigation into their own hands. But are people willing to listen? Sunnyside Plaza is a human story of empowerment, empathy, hope, and generosity that shines a light on this very special world.

Undressed Toronto looks at the life of the swimming hole and considers how Toronto turned boys skinny dipping into comforting anti-modernist folk figures. By digging into the vibrant social life of these spaces, Barbour challenges narratives that pollution and industrialization in the nineteenth century destroyed the relationship between Torontonians and their rivers and waterfront. Instead, we find that these areas were co-opted and transformed into recreation spaces: often with the acceptance of indulgent city officials. While we take the beach for granted today, it was a novel form of public space in the nineteenth century and Torontonians had to decide how it would work in their city. To create a public beach, bathing needed to be transformed from the predominantly nude male privilege that it had been in the mid-nineteenth century into an activity that women and men could participate in together. That transformation required negotiating and establishing rules for how people would dress and behave when they bathed and setting aside or creating distinct environments for bathing. Undressed Toronto challenges assumptions about class, the urban environment, and the presentation of the naked body. It explores anxieties about modernity and masculinity and the weight of nostalgia in public perceptions and municipal regulation of public bathing in five Toronto environments that showcase distinct moments in the transition from vernacular bathing to the public beach: the city’s central waterfront, Toronto Island, the Don River, the Humber River, and Sunnyside Beach on Toronto’s western shoreline.

These are collections of Mike Fileys best work from his popular and long-running Toronto Sun column, "The Way We Were."