By Seth DuChene
with photography by Ian MacAlpine
On the road of life, a little guidance can go a long way toward helping you avoid pitfalls, overcome roadblocks and reach your goals. Michael Hamilton, a retired guidance counsellor and community volunteer, knows and values this fact more than most. Both professionally and as a volunteer, Mike has advised young people as they make their way through school and beyond — something he has found to be more than a little rewarding.
“I’d like to think I had a pretty good relationship with the kids over the years in my role,” Mike says. “I see former students a lot, and they recall advice that I gave them along the way. It’s gratifying when that happens.”
Although Mike has spent most of his life in Kingston, he was born and raised north of the city in Elgin, the fourth child in a family of six brothers and two sisters. “It’s a small farming community, and my roots are there,” he says. “It was a great little town to grow up in, from my perspective. I went to Rideau District High School, and I have some good memories from there. There are no regrets living in a small town with a loving family.”
Mike says his father, Edwin, worked in Kingston and commuted back and forth. “He was a foreman at the locomotive plant, which closed down, and then at the Kingston shipyards. That was his career. . . .
