Prime Minister Harper took a trip down memory lane this past weekend, visiting the east Toronto neighbourhood where he spent his boyhood.

He attended a gala marking the 100th anniversary of Leaside.

Harper reminisced about what the neighbourhood was like back in the 1960s.

He said girls and boys were still segregated in the school yard, though some of the older boys were starting to grow their hair long and some girls were starting to wear shorter skirts.

The prime minister also had some political memories — notably the passionate national debate that erupted in 1964 over a new Canadian flag.

He said emotions ran so high that some neighbours even stopped speaking to each other.

Harper also mentioned that when he visited Leaside a few years back he found it — in his words — almost hauntingly identical, despite the passage of a few decades.

Harper eventually moved to west-end Toronto where he attended Richview Collegiate in Etobicoke