Remembering Toronto basketball legend Harry Brown

Harry Baird was at the Ossington subway stop, headed south to Parkdale school, on the west end of downtown Toronto. A lanky teenager with a ball tucked under his arm and a bag packed to get him through the day, his journey is the timeless one that millions of young urban people around the world spend their summers embarking upon.

A fellow traveller spotted him at that stop and approached him.

“This gentleman came up to me and said, ‘Are you going to Parkdale by any chance?’ I said yes and he said, ‘Would you mind if I just tag along with you because I don't know how to get to the school.’”

Baird didn’t know it at the time, but as they rode that bus south and chatted, he’d met someone he’d be…