Archives for October 2018

I don’t live far from where I grew up so I often find myself re-visiting streets that were once so familiar to me. Today was one such time.

The street where I live was a patch of forest when I was a kid. Nestled between two old and big cemeteries, about thirty years ago developers built about a hundred and twenty townhouses. It’s a nice neighbourhood but I still remember it as the woods.

When I reached the end of my street and turned left on St. Laurent Boulevard, one the first things I passed was an empty lot. It’s been empty for decades. It used to be the neighbourhood French school named Jean XXIII. Phonetically, we Anglos called it Jean Vin Tois. I had friends that went there. I don’t know where the neighbourhood French kids go anymore.

Across the street, a little down the road, is a Catholic Church. Mount Carmel. It’s where I was baptized and it was probably the last time I was reliably deemed a good Catholic. I’ve probably been in there fewer than a dozen times. Most of the time, I think of its parking lot, where cops regularly convene, either to discuss policing plans or to have a chat over a coffee.

On the right is a strip mall. One that has been a white elephant since the day it was built. The first business is a Circle K, which used to be a Mac’s Milk. It’s the only business I ever stole from. It was a Saturday night after midnight. The clerk was in the back with a girl and the boombox was blasting. I wanted to buy a chocolate bar and I waited a few minutes, dinging the bell, but no one came. So I left with my seventy-five cent Snicker’s Bar. If I didn’t feel guilty about it, I wouldn’t remember it thirty or more years later.

In that mall was the first restaurant I remember in the neighbourhood. It was a French restaurant and was popular for a while. I don’t remember the name but my brother worked there as a dishwasher. I think it was his first job.

Next was a tailor/dry-cleaning business. It used to be the local barbershop. When I was going to university in Toronto, I often got my haircut there in the the summer or at Thanksgiving and the barber would make the typical barber small-talk and from the moment I told him I was a student in Toronto, I was known as Mister Toronto. Every time I returned, I was greeted enthusiastically, “Mister Toronto”. It bugged me at the time but now it seems sweet.

There’s a very popular burger place next door. It used to be a bank. The Imperial Bank of Commerce. It’s where I had my first account to deposit my paper route money. All in the hope of saving enough to buy my first bike on my own. The first new bike I would ever have. It was before ATMs so my mum would have to leave work early on Fridays (they weren’t open on the weekends) to deposit her pay, otherwise we wouldn’t have any money for the weekend. Ironically, a bank cost her money at work so she could deposit money in their safe. The safe is still there in the burger joint.

Next door is a great catering place. It used to be a small, local grocery store. It didn’t last long after we moved to the neighbourhood and so my mum, without a car, had to come pick up her two small children, and take us on the bus to a bigger store a mile or so away when we got groceries. We would go to McDonald’s for dinner. I was a fussy eater and wanted a plain Quarter Pounder so it took even longer to get our order. Then we would get groceries and splurge for a taxi home. That was our Friday night when I was a young boy.

The Dairy Queen was next. God, I loved that place. We went there after softball games, soccer games, any time we had a an extra buck, which was rare. It was the ultimate symbol of summer time in my neighbourhood. It’s still there but the old sign is gone and they sell hotdogs and cakes. It’s not the same. Or I’m not the same.

In December, after the DQ was closed for the season, they sold Christmas trees in the parking lot. For a few years, we got a real tree, usually a pine of some kind. Again, we still didn’t have a car but we brought a toboggan. And we worked together to bring it home. My thirty-something mum, me as a nine year old and my four year-old brother. I still remember the sound of the scrape of the toboggan on the pavement when there wasn’t any snow.

Across the street, there’s a popular fish and chips place that used to be a local dive bar when I was a young adult. It was where I watched Live Aid with my best friend. It was the first time I drank a beer in a bar in my hood. I felt like an adult. And Live Aid felt like an earth-shaking event. Our Woodstock. The technology of big screens, cable, it was all so new and different. The place was called Bristol’s. It’s been gone for twenty years.

The last business I saw was a pizza place. It’s in a building that has probably had fifteen businesses in it in the last thirty-five years. There was a weed dispensary recently. It was always the second best corner store in the area behind Nick’s. When I was a kid, it was called Andre’s. When I was old enough to cross that street, my mum would send me to the store to pick up a few necessities. Usually a pack of smokes and a carton of milk. She would write out a list. Craven A Special Mild, two percent milk. One time, I got a box of tampons and then told Andre I didn’t need a bag. I kicked those tampons down the street like a soccer ball and as I got home, my mum was sitting outside. My god, she was so embarrassed.

The neighbourhood sure has changed. Everything that was, is gone. Or different.

Thirty years from now, someone else is going to feel the same way about growing up here.

The only things that might stay kind of the same are the ponds, the cemeteries and the old trees. And even those change every day.

I had a bit of a perspective day today. I had two primary things to accomplish. One of which was seemingly completing a final chapter and the other pertained to a comparatively new chapter.

My aunt Ange died this week. She lived a long and good life. She was ninety-three. Her husband, my mother’s older brother Herb, had died more than thirty years ago and the truth of the matter is that I didn’t know my aunt very well, if at all. But my mother is gone and there are few of her generation left and I thought it would be important to her that someone from our family represent us at Aunt Ange’s funeral.

There were a lot of people there. But I didn’t know many of them. They were mostly family of hers I’d never met, generations of people I’m related to but will never know. Besides Ange’s children, I saw two cousins of mine. Out of forty-six.

Some of my cousins live far away. We’re all old and everyone is busy. But I was surprised that I was one of three to show up. And yet the church was full. It was an interesting lesson in the law of displacement. Even though my generation wasn’t there, the church was full. Circle of life stuff.

When I was done, I walked to a bus and went to a school. A college in which I’m currently enrolled, in an online course. I had to take care of some finances.

Oh my God did I get lost. Asking kids where I should be, which way to go. I felt like a doddering old grandpa who needed help finding his way home. After twenty minutes or so, I found my spot and took care of the things I had to take care of and all I wanted to do was to be home.

I’d spent an hour and a half in a high Catholic funeral and an hour and a half trying to find my way to a registrar. I was in a world that was my grandparents’ and a world that could have been of my grandchildren.

I don’t think I’ve ever found the in between. At least not today.

I have been skeptical about the myth of America for some time now. I was too young in the seventies to follow Watergate or the Vietnam War. In the eighties, we were still too scared of nuclear annihilation to not cheer for the American president against the Soviets. Most of us knew Reagan was a moron who might have been senile (as we called it in those days) but we didn’t think he was evil. As it turns out, he did an enormous amount of damage to a great number of people but I was a teenager when he was elected and I didn’t know any better.

The first George Bush just seemed like a bureaucrat but he lied his country into the first Iraq war and if you give him any depth of study, he’s one of the most insidious characters in the last half of the twentieth century. That whole family has been a scourge on democracy for nearly a hundred years.

I liked Clinton and I really liked Obama but I’m convinced that even the best presidents are war criminals, by the strict letter of the law. It’s a job requirement. W was, for sure. And now he holds hands and laughs with Michelle Obama at ceremonies. And he’s become almost beloved. One who is responsible for the death of a million innocent Iraqis.

But this latest stuff with the Saudis is different. They aren’t even pretending anymore. A reporter is tortured and dismembered in the consulate of an ally, in the nation of a NATO country, and there’s seemingly audio and video proof, and the story is that it was an interrogation that went wrong. He picked a fight with fifteen guys and then died. And they had a bone saw for the interrogation. That’s the official story.

And the president of the United States says he believes the story.

I don’t think the United States of America has ever had the moral high ground. In its history. From native genocide to slavery. From the overthrow of democratically elected governments to the assassinations of progressive politicians, the USA has always had blood on its hands. Of course, there is no country in the world that doesn’t have blood on its hands. All countries have ugly histories because all of history is ugly. But the States, not unlike Trump, were always the best salesmen. Most of us believed them most of the time.

But it takes a real squint to see the benevolence. And now, with Trump, the sales pitch doesn’t even matter anymore.

Sure they kill reporters. Big deal. What are you going to do about it? Every time a Republican is in front of a camera talking about doing the right thing, remember that they support the dismembering of a reporter. It’s who they are.

 

These last few days have been something a little different than what I would call interesting.

An American judge got a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. There are credible allegations of past sexual assaults. But he was confirmed anyway, without a meaningful investigation.

An apolitical group of climate scientists issued an assessment that the world has about ten years left to get global warming under control before it’s too late. Our toddlers won’t be finished high school by then.

A Washington Post writer was murdered in Turkey by the Saudi Arabian government for being a vocal dissident. The Americans likely knew of the plan ahead of time but billion dollar arms deals, oil deals, and real estate deals will  always negate any significant consequences. What’s the life of one reporter worth? If 9/11 didn’t do it, why would this?

The third largest hurricane in history to hit the American mainland happened and it’s barely a story for more than a few days.

A musician, who is either mentally ill and off his meds, or just an asshole, or perhaps he’s both, carried on with a monologue in the Oval Office. He called himself a motherfu*ker on live TV in the White House while the president listened thoughtfully.

A three year old child, who had been separated from his parent by American authorities, appeared in court at an immigration hearing. The authorities are deporting children they are not keeping in cages and camps, without telling their parents. Because that was never part of the plan. It never was and it’s seemingly not important.

I watched a few baseball games.

I played with a four year old boy, covering him with autumn leaves and pushing him on a swing as high as I could, until his laughter was as loud as my arms were sore.

I made a Shepherd’s Pie and it was good to eat leftovers. I feel like I’ve forgotten that I grew up on leftovers half the time.

I listened to some music, wrote a song, talked to an old friend.

This week, I saw some terrible things that made me angry, made me sad, and frustrated me beyond my comprehension.

But I also woke up seven times, went to bed well-fed and safe, had some laughs, and thought about tomorrow as much as I thought about yesterday and today.

A lot can happen in a week. But maybe it would be better to focus on the autumn leaves while they last. The world isn’t going away anytime soon but the colours of fall will be gone just as soon and as assuredly as the wind blows.

 

We have weekend guests arriving today and my wife and I were doing a thorough cleaning of the house. We’ve had extensive renos done and everything is dusty and dirty no matter where we look. We took it one room at a time over the last week or so and I found myself mainly concentrating on the kitchen today.

As I was cleaning the kitchen table, it evoked some powerful memories of my mother. She used to love our kitchen table. And I think I know why.

She died about four and a half years ago and we bought our house about ten years ago. We weren’t a family that socialized every week or even every month so in the five years she was alive, while we had our house, she probably dined in our home about twenty-five times. We have a pretty fancy dining room and dining room table but I always sensed my mother never felt all that comfortable there. She didn’t grow up fancy and was never self-assured around fancy. So after a few attempts, I realized my mom would always be happier to eat our dinners in the kitchen. At the kitchen table.

It’s a nice table. Nothing that would stop you in your tracks but it’s pretty nice. It seats six, it’s comfortable and it’s conducive to family conversation. My mother always told me it reminded her of a table that one of my uncles built and gave to another one of my uncles as a wedding gift about thirty-five years ago. My mother always thought that a kitchen table, hand-crafted, was a beautiful wedding gift. When my uncle and aunt got divorced, the uncle who was the recipient of the table gave it back to his brother and it’s still in the kitchen of his cottage today.

But I really think my mom loved eating at my kitchen table because when she grew up, where she grew up, there were no dining rooms. You ate at the kitchen table and that’s where you spent the most meaningful time with your family. I think that for my mother, eating at her adult son’s kitchen table, in a comfortable and comforting environment, it was like going home.

It’s funny how these things return to us. Out of the blue. Spraying Windex, rubbing paper towels, and all of a sudden, my mother is in the room with me. I didn’t cry. I was close. But I understand ghosts. They are in our minds. Our memories are ghost hunters. The good ghosts. The ones we want. The ones we sometimes need.