Volunteer Eric Morse continues his look through the 7 News, a community newspaper published in what was then Ward 7 in Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s.

The front page of the September 24, 1977 issue of 7 News was chock full of big news. There was a report on the great success of the second Cabbagetown Festival. It rained, of course: clearly our ancestors had not yet learned of the ritual of the Cutting of the Cabbage, designed to ward off ill-favour from the cabbage patch. But through it all everyone had a great time. George Rust d’Eye gave a historical talk at the library and local artist of note Mary Augustine carried on bravely in spite of a fractured kneecap.

Cabbage rolls were served (we don’t seem to see those any more) and the first Cabbagetown Tees made the scene; the one below gaily festooned with Lucifer the Python from the Menagerie Pet Shop.

The other big front-page news was that the Hon. Donald MacDonald, who had been MP for Rosedale since 1962, had decided to retire from politics. He had been serving as Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s Finance Minister during a very rough patch in the Canadian economy and was best-known, according to the article, as the man who brought in wage and price controls, thereby achieving rare unity among Canadian business and labour. His previous Cabinet posts had included National Defence at the time that the War Measures Act was invoked during the FLQ crisis of 1970, and it’s hard to blame him for deciding that a less-stressful career was in order

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And in sadder community news, an outraged letter from a resident of Grant Street in Riverdale against “mainstream media’’ sensationalization of a tragic shooting of two Grant Street teens.