{"id":27318,"date":"2025-10-10T13:34:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T17:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=27318"},"modified":"2026-04-03T01:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:44:17","slug":"the-odyssey-of-mike-ikeda-amazon-a-must-purchase-by-parkdalians-alan-skeoch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=27318","title":{"rendered":"THE ODYSSEY OF MIKE IKEDA, AMAZON — A MUST PURCHASE BY PARKDALIANS, ALAN SKEOCH"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Note Mike \u2014 I would like to send this email to friends if you approve.<\/div>\n
\u2014 alan skeoch<\/div>\n
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THE UNDERSIDE OF TORONTO AS LIVED BY MIKE IKEDA<\/div>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
october 9, 2025<\/div>\n

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“My mother would shred some white bread and put it in a bowl with milk and sugar. That would be dinner some nights. Other nights we got one egg each.\u201d, said Mike<\/font><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ikeda as he reminisced about living Parkdale in the 1960\u2019s.  He has lived his whole life in the shadowy underside of 31 countries but he has not<\/p><\/div>\n

forgotten Parkdale CI and Cebrynsky, the Vice Principal that suspended him…Grade Ten was the end of his life as a scholar in the formal sense.   Too bad really.  Mike could have been another John Steinbeck or Hugh Garner.  
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Yesterday Marjorie and I sat on a park bench with Mike Ikeda at Parkdale Collegiate. (October 8, 2025)<\/div>\n
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“I had a great time meeting you and Marjorie yesterday.\u201d, said Mike as he remembered what happened to him decades ago. He was not bitter<\/font><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

which surprised me.  He was upbeat, full of laughter and wonderfull stories.like the day \u201cDrago scored a bag of marijuana  and dumped the<\/p><\/div>\n

bag on the table for his friends to roll.<\/div>\n

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\u201cTop grade stuff boys\u2026help yourselves.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201clooks like tea leaves crumbled to me,\u201d said Mike Ikeda who had just been suspended from PCI.<\/div>\n
\u201cNot so, this is the best\u2026light up.\u201d  And so they did. Fifteen year old tough Parkdale kids. Poverty home lives.<\/div>\n
\u201cTastes like tea leaves!\u201d  they agreed with Mike.   <\/div>\n
some laughed.  Drago did not laugh.  He planned to get even.<\/div>\n

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WHO IS MIKE IKEDA \u2014 AND WHY SHOULD I CARE ANYWAY<\/div>\n

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Mike Ikeda was not one of my students at Parkdale.  Wish that were not so. I like to think I would have<\/div>\n
rescued him from a lifetime on the run.  Maybe\u2026maybe not.  Mike grew up in poverty.  He had to work<\/div>\n
or starve.  His mother, who he felt sorry for, had fled from North Bay just after her mother died and<\/div>\n
her father suggested  \u201cYou will have to assume wifely duties if you plan to stick around here.\u201d She knew<\/div>\n
what that meant so fled south to the seedy Parkdale part of West Toronto.  No education. No skills.<\/div>\n
No future.  That defined the rest of her life. Mike and his sister came along in due course. His father <\/div>\n
was a Japanese cook and gambler\u2026an itinerant father who spent his time and his money with horses at<\/div>\n
Woodbine and Dufferin racetracks.  So Mike’s mom was on her own with two kids to raise and no<\/div>\n
income.  So she often had to live on strips of bread soaked in milk.<\/div>\n

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My role in Mike’s life is minor.  I did recognize he knew the underside of Toronto<\/div>\n
and said \u2018mike, why don\u2019t you write your life story.  You have seen and done things that most Canadians<\/div>\n
could only imagine.’<\/div>\n

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So Mike did. He cloistered himslef away and wrote this 800 page biography.   HE is now living<\/div>\n
in a toronto homeless shelter.  Everything he owns can be fitted into a\/ locker.   Does Mike feel sorry for himself.  Not in the least but he knows he will have to pack up soon. \u201cToo expensive to live here.”<\/div>\n

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I cannot put the book down \u2014 just read the first 120 pages about Parkdale and the Green Dolphin.   <\/div>\n

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WHERE CAN MIKE\u2019S BOOK BE PURCHASED?<\/div>\n

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AMAZON<\/div>\n
THE ODYSSEY OF MIKE IKEDA<\/div>\n
800 PAGES \u2014 $42.95.<\/div>\n
$42.95<\/div>\n

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Last words:   Mike\u2019s book \u2014 Cover design by a fellow homeless<\/div>\n
shelter resident\u2026a graphic artist whose arthritis has crippled him.<\/div>\n

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Note Mike \u2014 I would like to send this email to friends if you approve. \u2014 alan skeoch THE UNDERSIDE OF TORONTO AS LIVED BY MIKE IKEDA alan skeoch october 9, 2025 “My mother would shred some white bread and put it in a bowl with milk and sugar. That would be dinner some nights. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}