Can I just have one more moondance with you, my love? — Van Morrison

Never has one thrown dart proven to mean so much to so many.

Living in Vancouver when the 1970s dawned, a young Mike Taveroff, his passion for popular music off the charts, made the decision to open a record shop with a friend.

The duo wanted to move east — Taveroff was born in Montreal — but couldn’t decide where to launch their new venture. A map and a random dart throw settled the issue, its tip impaling itself close to Peterborough.

Taveroff’s friend never made it to The Liftlock City but he did, finding work at Stop 222, a downtown record store, before making the jump to Sam The Record Man.

In the meantime, on a whim, he place a bin containing some 250 albums for sale at Moondance, a George Street clothing store owned and operated by his wife Cheryl.

Now, close to five decades after customers lined up to rifle through that bin, Taveroff, 68, is preparing to close Moondance. With its closure, the downtown Peterborough landscape will lose a landmark that’s arguably as beloved as the iconic Market Hall clock tower.

“I never really expected to be around at this point,” says Taveroff. “I was one of those guys, you know, who did the hippie trip. I went to Vancouver and had a good time. When I opened the record store, I figured I would probably do it until I was maybe 60.

“Who wants an old bugger walking around the store who’s almost 70 years old? Well, here I am. So it’s time. That plus Cheryl passed away about a year ago. That kind of slowed me down. You realize that life is short.”

To walk into Moondance — the store took its name from Van Morrison’s 1970 song of the same name — is to take a trip back in time to when independent record stores were king.

Row upon row of vinyl albums, CDs and DVDs greet customers, lined up neatly in hand-made wooden bins. Then there are the numerous posters, band T-shirts and music industry magazines, all serenaded by a non-stop soundtrack of hit music, new and old.

As such, a visit to Moondance was, and still is to some degree, an escape from life’s daily demands as much as it is a music shopping opportunity.

“Right at the start, I made it very clear to people — ‘Come in, hang out. If you don’t buy anything, it doesn’t matter.’ A lot of the fun of this place was a result of the people that came in and the amazing conversations that took place.”

For a self-described music addict, Moondance has been nothing short of Heaven on earth for Taveroff.

“How could you ask for more? Here’s your love and now it’s your job.”

But as anyone who has opened his or her own business will attest too, passion on its own doesn’t pay the bills. Since day one, Taveroff has consistently worked 10 to 14 hour days, including weekends.

“Anybody starting a store should not say ‘OK, I’ll hire a bunch of people and they can do the work.’ It’s only as good as the person who owns the store. You’ve got to be prepared to put the time in. I loved it. It wasn’t like working but it has become like that.

“(Being downtown) was fantastic when I opened back in 1972. Up until 1985, when the malls started to open, walking downtown was like walking in a mall. That many people were out. Now there’s a stigma about downtown; that it’s not safe. I can honestly tell you, having been here since 1972, downtown is as safe as it ever was but the perception is it isn’t.”

While business is slower, and has been for some time, a niche carved out by Taveroff — an uncanny ability to seek and find next-to-impossible-to-get albums and other music-related items for his customers — continues to serve him well.

“I think there could be a little bit of a shock in this town when people realize it’s not going to be so easy to find product. That’s kept a lot of people very happy, including me. But it has been a lot of work. It’s a worldwide search. And of course you’ve got to find the best price or people aren’t going to buy it. I’d say I’ve been 99 per cent successful in finding stuff.

“The chain stores were good stores but they couldn’t come up with some of the stuff I could. I was one of the first people to start importing. That really made a difference. Of course, everyone else jumped on the bandwagon soon after, but imports really helped make my store. When I opened, I only had imports.

“The main thing for me has always been being out on the floor and talking music with people. I will definitely miss that, but I’ve already been missing it for the last 10 years. That has been less and less. There aren’t that many collectors left. The kids, they want one song. If they really get into an artist, they will buy an album but generally it goes on their phone for a couple of weeks and then see ya later.”

Taveroff opened Moondance with a $3,000 loan from his mom. Business was so good “right off the bat” that he paid that back in 60 days.

“If I had opened in Toronto, I’d be a multi-millionaire. No regrets. I’m very happy I opened here. Moondance is known worldwide. I used to go to a lot of the record shows and conventions and, even over in Europe, people knew about Moondance.”

Starting on Thursday (February 1), a sale of all in-store inventory will begin. Vinyl is 30 per cent off and most other regularly priced merchandise is 40 per cent off, with 20 per cent off on all Zippo lighters and Zippo products. Items already on sale will get an additional 20% off the red sale tag price. Moondance will continue to take special order requests until Saturday, March 31st, with the store closing for good on Saturday, April 28th.

“I’m going to sell some of the collectables. See that Led Zeppelin balloon (hanging from the ceiling)? That’s been online for $1,500. That’s from the 1970s. There’s a U2 Joshua Tree thing hanging up there too. Someone offered me a thousand bucks for it and I said no.”

As the clock ticks towards Moondance’s closing, Taveroff admits to having “a rough time” with it.

“It’s like losing a child. It’s pretty heavy. It has been my whole life. I was 22 when I started. It’s emotional. It’ll hit home when this place starts to empty out. Right now it’s sort of like ‘Is this really happening?'”

Still, while he struggles with his emotions, Taveroff is excited for what’s ahead.

“I’m going to relax. Take it easy. Read books. I’m a great relaxer. I have a beautiful property on a river. I’ll be spending a fair amount of time in my backyard. I have a canoe that will take me all over the place. I’m really looking forward to doing nothing. I’ll do some traveling too. The first place I’ll be going is Vancouver to visit my two girls.”

He’s convinced his late wife Cheryl would be “really happy” he’s finally putting his feet up … for now.

“Down the road, I might end up sitting in front of the computer and putting stuff online. I’m thinking of keeping the Moondance website going. I have a lot of collectables. There’s no reason why I have to close that part of my life. But I’m ready to do nothing first.

“I thank anybody that ever walked through the door, whether they purchased something or not. The whole thing was my life and I thorough enjoyed it. I’m a very lucky guy.”

Excuse Tim Farquharson for humming over and over the tune to a familiar Elton John song, but he’s still standing — and now he’s got great company in the form of cash and goods for three Peterborough homeless shelters.

Peterborough’s deputy police chief, joined by members of his Peterborough Cares support team, announced Wednesday (January 31) that his ‘Stand With Tim’ fundraiser brought in $10,392.45 — $3,464.15 each for Brock Mission, YES Shelter for Youth and Families, and The Warming Room.

On Friday, January 26th at 4 p.m., Farquharson began a 12-hour stay on the southwest corner of King and George streets, not only to raise money for the three shelters but also awareness of their services and, more notably, their need of community support.

Stand With Tim, as the fundraiser was billed, accomplished each of those goals.

“We were hoping to have a few thousand dollars … we had $3,000 when we started,” said Farquharson, clearly overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for the initiative — support that included performances by a number of Peterborough musicians and the presence of members of The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment.

“Having young people, people from the bars, was actually good. I thought it might be a little rougher than it was. They were great. Probably seven out of 10 gave money.

“A lot of people said it would have been nicer if it was minus 25”, Farquharson said, referring to the relatively mild temperature overnight last Friday. “We wouldn’t have got a fraction of the money we did nor the awareness because nobody would have been out.”

While thrilled with the total raised, Farquharson later admitted to not being surprised.

“It’s Peterborough, right? People are just incredible.”

Lindsay Mitchell, who did much of the grunt work on the event alongside Peterborough Cares founder Camille Parent, echoed that sentiment.

“This is a special community. It really is. Everything that even starts as a grassroots event somehow snowballs into something big. The outpouring of community was mind-blowing.”

Representatives of each of the shelter beneficiaries were on hand for the announcement. Along with the cash, they divided a number of donated clothing items among them.

“The awareness piece is really huge; it’s as valuable as the actual cash,” said Bill McNabb, executive director of Brock Mission, noting the shelter has to raise $120,000 a year “to keep the doors open.”

“The funding we get from the City pays for the staffing but we have to pay for everything else…rent, hydro, food, all the necessities. This is a good day.”

Christian Harvey, director of The Warming Room, was equally thrilled.

“Homelessness will only end if we, as a community, work together. A donation like this shows how more and more people care about the issue. The more people are aware, the more change is possible. We need, as a community, as a country, to change our perceptions of homelessness.”

“If someone donates to homelessness, they’re going to tell someone. There’s going to be a conversation that starts around that. The more conversations that happen, the more, in upcoming elections, people will be asking candidates ‘What are you going to do around this?’ That matters.”

The largest single contribution to the final tally came from the Peterborough Police Service in the form of $1,500.

“We (City police) have always been champions of issues around poverty, homelessness, mental health .. .that’s what we do and we’re committed to it,” said Peterborough Police Chief Murray Rodd, crediting Peterborough Cares, and Farquharson in particular, with doing “God’s work.”

Joining Parent was the Peterborough Cares team comprised of Tim Burke, Darcy Bonner, Donna Mackay, and Mitchell. He said the roots of this fundraiser were planted years ago when he sat in on a homelessness-related meeting with Farquharson.

“Tim had a strong passion for the homeless, as I did. I said ‘We need to connect and do something.” I never forgot about that. I gave Tim a call and kind of figured he’d pass the buck to someone else. I didn’t know he would do this. I was just so touched.”

Although not set in stone, the plan is do the fundraiser again, possibly as early as this November.

Despite the continued and growing availability and popularity of ebooks and other technology-rooted reading sources, traditional printed books are more than holding their own in Peterborough.

At no time has that been more evident and celebrated than it was Tuesday morning (January 30) as the doors of the extensively renovated Aylmer Street main branch of Peterborough Public Library swung open for the first time.

“We are so very excited to be home again,” said library CEO Jennifer Jones as she welcomed a number of speakers to the podium, among them Mayor Daryl Bennett.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to spend $12 million of public money,” said Mayor Bennett.

“It’s $12 million that some people said we should be using for sports facilities, transportation infrastructure, affordable housing or homeless shelters. We spend money on all those, but we’re investing in this place because it represents good value for everybody in the community.”

“Libraries of the past have been called dinosaurs and, in some cases, that’s a true statement. This is not of that era whatsoever. We have built for the future. This renovation has reinvigorated not only this space but, in many ways, our entire downtown.”

With that, following the presentation of $250,000 towards the overall cost from the Peterborough Public Library Foundation, community members were led into the new space. To a person, the first reviews were over-the-top gushing.

VIDEO: The official opening of the Peterborough Public Library

“I am thrilled,” said former library board member Teresa Kerr.

“Number one is the light that shines and spreads throughout the building. It’s good for the people that work here; it’s good for the people who visit here. It makes you feel you’re not crowding anybody, you can move around.

“When I moved to this community, one of the first things I looked for was the public library. When I found it I thought ‘Well, OK, this is nice’. Over the years, I was convinced that the library wasn’t living up to its potential to serve its community and be a welcoming space for everybody. That has now changed.”

Equally impressed was Trudy Minicola.

“They’re using basically the same footprint but they’ve created all this airiness,” she assessed.

For her part, Tanaya Matchett said the hefty price tag is well worth the result.

“There are a lot of things that you can be critical about and not necessarily agree with, but I don’t think that investing in a free space that anybody can use could ever be a bad thing,” she said, adding, “It’s going to serve a lot of people and do a lot of good.”

With more than 600,000 visitors annually, the library’s main branch is arguably the most heavily used city facility. According to Jones, the printed book circulation stands at about 10,000 items weekly.

“That’s a big deal, but I think this space is more about learning in the community and our commitment to discovery. Everyone throws the word ‘literacy’ around, but it’s more about learning and discovery and being able to invest in that. We’ve gone our feet in both worlds. We still appreciate the print but we’re also embracing technology and this building meets us in the middle.”

Jones also spoke to the arduous process leading up to this day: a mammoth undertaking which saw the library move to a temporary home in Peterborough Square for 18 months while the branch was retrofitted and expanded.

“We’ve had our bumps. I’m not going to say we haven’t. You live in a motel for a year it wears on you, right? We’re so happy to be home.”

Opened in September 1980, the branch building was identified in 2013 by architectural consultant Michael Lundholm as no longer able to meet the community’s library needs, according to the city’s Community Services Director Ken Doherty. In 2015, he and the late Becky Rogers, library CEO at the time, secured City Council approval for the facelift.

“On my first tour (just after the building was gutted), I was struck by one comment made by the contractor site manager,” recalled Doherty. “He marveled at what good shape the building was in after almost 40 years. He said ‘It has great bones.’

“I have no doubt that’s due to the vision of people back in the late 1970s like Bob Porter, the library CEO of the day, and Jean Cole, on behalf of the library board, who hired renowned architect Raymond Moriyama to design and supervise the construction of the original building. Moriyama’s designs still inspire and provide the foundation for this new iteration of the library.

“The next time I toured the building was earlier this month. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked across the main level. Two thoughts hit me almost simultaneously — my first reaction was ‘Wow’ — the view, the brightness, the windows, the openness, they all surpassed my expectations. My second thought was more sombre and literally brought a tear to my eye. It’s unfortunate that Becky could not be here to see her vision become a reality.”

Saying “This is the new library you deserve,” Doherty commended library staff and volunteers for meeting the challenges of the transition, to not only the Peterborough Square location but back to Aylmer Street.

Meanwhile, taking in all the excitement with a glint in his eye was Peter Berton, partner-in-charge with The Ventin Group.

It’s always exhilarating come into a building you’ve been working on for so long and it looks exactly the way you imagined it,” he said. “I’m watching people. It’s really fun to see their reaction. When they opened the gate, that was a bit of a chill.”

He too credited original architect Moriyama with designing “a great building…all the basics were here.”

“The original idea was to add two additions to the building but we told the library board we felt that two additions would be more expensive than one. Why not put more stuff into the lower level where the kids’ area is and use the space they already have? And then build a nice addition on the facade of the building and add windows on Bethune Street, so there’s interaction with that street?”

Fully accessible — a feature praised by Peterborough Accessibility Compliance Co-ordinator Mark Buffone — the centerpiece of the new-look branch is a grand central staircase leading to lower-level children’s department.

That feature, along with the abundance of natural light, drew the most praise. In addition to those features, larger and brighter public meeting rooms are now in place, each set to welcome community groups looking for a new meeting location.

Buttcon Limited of Concord, Ontario was the lead contractor on the project. It was awarded the Peterborough library contract in June 2016 and went to work immediately. Earlier in May, the library opened its temporary branch at Peterborough Square after the City of Peterborough signed a lease with mall management.

Earlier this month, the City Public Art Program announced that Toronto architect Patrick Li create the artwork for the new public square being developed adjacent to main branch at Aylmer and Simcoe streets. Sponsored by LLF Lawyers, the square will create a vibrant place for people to gather in the heart of the downtown core.

Still, as thrilled as Jones is with her new workspace and its ability to better serve library patrons for years to come, there’s still one thing on her wish list.

“I want five more branches but I’m not going to bring that up yet,” she said.

“We still need to learn the space. You don’t throw the house party the first day. We did. Now we actually have to move into the space.”

For more information on Peterborough Public Library services, visit www.ptbolibrary.ca

When Samra Zafar was a young girl, she was an academic achiever who dreamed of studying abroad at Harvard or Stanford to pursue a higher education.

Zafar grew up in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). She was the eldest of four daughters in a Pakistani Muslim working-class family, with her mother a teacher and her father an oil plant worker. At school, she stood out, particularly among the girls in her class, as outspoken and fiercely determined.

Despite her humble roots and coming from a culture where opportunities for young girls are few and far between, her father encouraged her to do well in her studies, often handing out sweets when she scored top marks on tests.

“School was something I was very passionate about,” Zafar says. “Each exam was a milestone for me and I was very ambitious. My father would often say, ‘My daughter is going to graduate from a top university someday.'”

Those aspirations came to a standstill at 16 when Zafar’s mother told her she had received a marriage proposal from a “well-settled” IT worker living in Mississauga, Canada, whose sister was a friend of Zafar’s mother.

Her parents thought this would give her a great opportunity to pursue her secondary education. Her soon-to-be husband and in-laws didn’t object to it either, Zafar notes.

“Even though I was terrified and didn’t want to do it, I was told by everyone around me that it was the right thing to do and that it was amazing that I had this marriage proposal. It was considered such an achievement.”

Traditionally in her culture, Zafar says, women have been taught from the time they are young girls to believe that marriage is their ultimate destiny and to be subservient to their male counterparts.

“Everything else she does before that is just a means to an end,” Zafar explains. “I didn’t have a voice — I felt compelled to go along with it, and I did.”

Zafar met her husband for the first time the day before they wed in July 1999. What carried her through at the time, she says, was the hope that she was going to go to university in Canada. However, once married and in Canada, things changed — for the worse.

She spent the next decade chastened by her husband and in-laws, abused both mentally and physically.

She became a young mother, was not allowed to leave the house, had no friends, and was not allowed to learn how to drive. She was without money and was constantly neglected.

“When the physical abuse happened, I realized this is what my life is going to look like. And I just accepted it, because that’s what I thought I deserved and I didn’t know any better. I became extremely miserable. I had suicidal thoughts all of the time, and even attempted to end my life. I was in a very dark place.”

It was five years later, pregnant with her second daughter, when Zafar went back to the UAE to visit her dying father. It was his last words to her that made Zafar decide she would no longer tolerate the marital abuse she had endured for too long.

“My father said to me, ‘Realize the strength you have inside of you. Go back and find a way to get out of your marriage.'”

When her father passed away, Zafar felt she had hit rock bottom and there was nowhere to go but up.

“I just had to start fighting. I knew the one thing that was going to make a difference for me would be some kind of financial independence.”

To earn her own money, she started a babysitting and tutoring service in her home and stashed away small amounts of cash to pay for university tuition, with the rest going to her husband and mother-in-law to earn their approval.

“That gave me more confidence and leverage to move on to the next step which was learning how to drive, buying a car, and eventually going out. It was those everyday battles I had to tackle.”

All the while, she was planning her escape with her two young daughters.

Zafar left her marriage at the age of 28, sought counselling at the university campus, and schooled herself on the various types of emotional abuse.

“I learned that what was happening to me was not my fault,” she recalls.

As a single mom, she pursued her education and, while working various jobs, managed to graduate as the top student in Economics at the University of Toronto — while winning numerous awards along the way, including the prestigious John Moss Scholarship awarded annually to a single student across all three campuses.

“Education is the pathway out of abuse and knowledge is power,” Zafar says. “The biggest thing that worked in my favour was perseverance and the determination of not giving up. When I graduated and won all of those scholarships, it was a sense of validation.”

For the past few years, Zafar has been working on launching Brave Beginnings, a non-profit organization she founded to support abuse survivors in their journey to build a life of respect and freedom.

Since her story has circulated, she receives hundreds of messages daily from women all over the world — including India, the Philippines, China and Malaysia — who are trapped in forced marriages and looking for help.

Her biggest reward, Zafar boasts, is an email she received last year from a father in Pakistan who, after hearing Zafar’s story, decided to cancel a marriage proposal for his 17-year-old daughter and send her to university instead.

“It was like everything had come full circle. I’ve received so many messages from women who have said, ‘You have given me the inspiration to walk out [of their marriage].’ Some women even send me their university transcripts telling me they just passed a course. It’s those kind of stories that keeps me going.”

Today, Zafar is the youngest alumni serving as a Governor for the University of Toronto, along with pursuing a rewarding career in commercial banking. She’s also a motivational speaker and a mentor empowering women to find their voice and to begin healing and moving from victim to survivor.

“My success would not have been possible if I did not have that connection and support from my peers and friends, who made me feel that I don’t have to do this alone. When others have faith in you, it teaches you to have faith in yourself.”

It’s as a motivational speaker that Zafar will bring her incredible story to Peterborough area women. She is one of three keynote speakers at Peterborough’s second annual International Women’s Day Conference, hosted by Thirteen Moons Wellness, that takes place on Wednesday, March 8th at the Ashburnham Reception Centre.

Propelled by her own experiences, Zafar will speak on the power of authentic leadership. Zafar says showing a vulnerable side of herself to her colleagues that they would unlikely see in the workplace has made her appear very human, trustworthy, and accessible — creating a connection that goes beyond a job title.

“Trust is a fundamental driver for all kinds of success and opportunities,” she says. “When you’re genuine and people see you as a human being, that’s when they connect with you. It makes you relatable. I’m very open, authentic, and treat people the way I want to be treated. Doing that has opened so many doors for me.”

Don’t miss your chance to hear Zafar speak at International Women’s Day Conference Peterborough, as tickets are selling fast! For more information about the conference and to register, visit www.iwdptbo.ca.

VIDEO: Samra Zafar at TEDxMississauga