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Mike Filey’s column "The Way We Were" first appeared in the Toronto Sunday Sun not long after the first edition of the paper hit the newsstands on September 16, 1973.

Mike Filey brings the stories of Toronto, its people and places, to life.

Mary Jo's caustic comments about love and life can't conceal her confusion about both, but liberated baptist Fayrene and party girl Collie help Mary Jo cope in a white, patriarchal world.

Rae's life falls apart when her father dies of cancer and her mother joins a religious cult. The only person who understands Rae is local bad girl Didi, who is experiencing a similar loss.

Sonja is seen as a curiosity in the minuscule Texas town of Dorfburg. Twenty-nine years old and big-boned, she is purported to be the daughter of a famous Native American trick-roper.

A single mom and her seventeen-year-old daughter learn how to let go in that precarious moment before college empties the nest.