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Every radio tells a story Photo: Ron Hewson Tt didn't look like much when he found it tucked away in the corner of a barn in Seaforth. "It was held together with binder twine," Jim Robson recalls. "And the finish had been damaged by water." But Robson, who has worked full-time as part of the maintenance team at St. Jerome's since 1988, can fix just about anything. Today that Cleartone radio, made between 1929 and 1931 by the H.M. Kipp Company of Toronto, has been completely restored and is the pride of his collection. Robson and his wife Debbie began collecting and repairing antique radios about five years ago. They now have over 200 radios in their shop in Sebringville, just west of Stratford. Robson can clearly remember his first radio, which his grandfather gave him when he was six or seven. "I used to fall asleep with my arms around it, listening to CBC's As It Happens." For the Robsons, these kinds of stories are what collecting radios is all about. Old radios often bring back memories. Recently a visitor to the store recalled getting so excited listening to Hockey Night in Canada on a 1931 Zenith highboy that he knocked the radio over on himself. "The radio didn't kill him, but his dad almost did," Robson chuckles. "The coffee is always on," Robson says. "People are welcome to drop by, have a look, and reminisce." Into the vaults Eric McCormack has donated his personal archive, the record of 25 years of creative output, to the University of Waterloo library. "I feel as though I'm erasing my past," he says. "It's an odd sensation." A professor of English at St. Jerome's since 1970, McCormack is the author of Inspecting the Vaults, The Paradise Motel, First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (short-listed for the Governor General's Award), and other books. The 1.5 linear metres of papers, now housed in the Doris Lewis Rare Book Room, includes reviews, correspondence with publishers and other authors, and the manuscript of The Mysterium, with the author's revisions. A A tale of four cities Cities--what makes them distinct, how that distinctness manifests itself in culture, architecture, and way of life, how they engage with globalizing forces--are the focus of a major new multidisciplinary research collaboration. Kieran Bonner, academic dean and professor of sociology at St. Jerome's, is helping to coordinate The Culture of Cities: Montreal, Toronto, Berlin, Dublin. He's also one of 23 researchers from 16 universities in Canada and Europe involved in the project, which recently received $2.4 million over five years under the Major Collaborative Research Initiatives program of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Jim Robson, who can fix just about anything, collects and repairs antique radios. His shop, Cleartone Antique Radio Repairs at 291 Huron Road in Sebringville, is open most weekends. Call (519) 393-6756 for directions. McLaughlin tells Hespeler's story Hespeler: Portrait of an Ontario Town is Ken McLaughlin's latest book of local history, written with co-author Kristel Fleuren. The 62 pages, lavishly illustrated with archival photographs, offer a historical portrait of life in the town, with the "big mill"--Dominion Woollens and Worsteds--as a focus. McLaughlin, who was raised in Hespeler, has been a professor of history at St. Jerome's since 1975. He's also the director of Waterloo's graduate program in Public History. Fleuren, a student of the program, spent a summer on extra research and layout, and the book became her master's research essay. Three other students from the program helped produce the first draft. The book is available at local bookstores, including the UW Bookstore, for about $10. 3