Now, I am a baseball fan. Craig is more of one than I am. But fan of the game or not, you have to appreciate the import of this particular match. It was, you see, Derek Jeter's last game in Toronto.
Derek Jeter. Lifelong Yankee, with more career hits than any other member of that most illustrious franchise. Fourteen time All-Star. Five time World Series champion (and once the MVP of the Series). One of the best shortstops who ever played...if not the best.
The Rogers Center was a near-sellout for this game. Yankees fans follow their team everywhere. Today, though, we were all Derek Jeter fans. He got a lengthy standing ovation in a touching tribute before the game started (the Jays donated ten thousand dollars to his charity and gifted him with a vacation in the Royal Suite here). Every team is making gestures like this as Jeter makes his rounds for the final time in his career. Does that give you an idea of how iconic he is?
The Yankees were ahead before the butts had settled in the seats. Brett Gardner drilled the second pitch of the game out of the park. Jeter followed with a single before the Jays managed to wiggle out of the first inning and many of us in the audience had the sneaking suspicion this was going to be ugly for the home side.
And it was, somewhat, for six innings. The Jays mustered a measly two hits and the shirts on some of the males in the crowd ("ONE B.J. IS BETTER THAN NINE YANKS") seemed to spout question marks. Then Melky Cabrera and Jose Bautista homered back-to-back to make it a one-run game; shortly after, Edwin Encarnacion homered to tie it; not long after, Munenori Kawasaki put the Jays ahead with a sharp RBI single.
The home team was up 4-3 with two outs in the ninth. The tying run was on second. Who should appear at the dish but Derek Jeter.
Blue Jays closer Casey Janssen, after the game:
I could see the little fairy-tale story being written, but got that out of my head real quick and knew I had to attack him. [Jeter's] an unbelievable competitor. He's as clutch as they come."
The crowd--Blue Jays and Yankees fans alike--was on its feet, chanting Jeter's name. I can't recall ever seeing the like: none of us would have been saddened (or at all surprised) to see Jeter punch a ground-rule go-ahead double.
That's not what happened. Jeter took a called strike and lined out weakly to second base, ending the game and starting the second part of my adventure.
------------------
I only spent ten years in London, Ontario--1980 to 1989--but I still think of it as my hometown.
The place still exerts a pull on me. Part of the pull is simple nostalgia for lost childhood, I think, but only part. Several old friends (and not a few new ones) reside in the Forest City: if I lived there too, I sometimes think to myself, my social calendar could be full to overflowing. And unlike, say, the city I live in now, London is made for cyclists, arguably more so than drivers. As I had suspected, the bike path system there (which put Kitchener-Waterloo's current one to shame thirty years ago) has only evolved and expanded since.
Craig and his family had agreed to put me up for two nights, sparing me the expense of a motel and allowing me the unmitigated pleasure of their company and hospitality. A great time was had by all. A couple of evenings were spent playing board games. Ever played Outburst? It's a game of lists in which each player must name off ten examples of something (e.g. "Famous Ice Skaters"). Two things complicate this endeavour. First, you'll only get points for the ten famous ice skaters they've put on the topic card. Second: this game was copyrighted in 1986. I had only heard of one of the specific famous ice skaters they were looking for.
The publication date isn't an issue when the topic is, say "Famous British Bands of the Early 1960s"...and maybe you can even name ten, with the sand trickling through the timer....but can you name the ten they're looking for?
The following night we played Taboo...which was even more of a mental workout. This is a sort of '$25,000 Pyramid" clone with the added complication that in trying to get your partner to guess a word, you can't say any form of five 'taboo' words commonly associated with the target word. This was, as you might expect, a hell of a lot of fun (even though once again, my team lost...sorry, Nicole!)
The third game, and I'm sure everyone except me has actually played this before, was Scattergories. In case you haven't: it's an every-player-for-herself game where the object is to name things across twelve categories, but each of them have to start with the same letter. As in Boggle, duplicates cancel each other out, so it pays to think creatively..except once again that's hard to do under time pressure. This game I lost abysmally. But I had so much fun playing all three games, and that was the least of the fun I had. I felt welcome. Some friends feel more like family. Craig, Nicole, Angus: I am profoundly grateful--more than I can properly express--for your having me. Thank you. Very much.
---------------------
Part three--Tuesday--was the part of this adventure I was, truth be told, a little scared of. Meeting people face to face for the first time is one of life's little horror-pockets for me, no matter how long I've known someone online first. In this case, I'd only 'friended' Susannah sixteen months ago and while everything I knew of her suggested she was a wonderful person, the traitor in my head whispered persuasively that she was sure not to think anything near the same of me, once she actually saw me.
I shut that traitor up rather forcefully, I'm proud to say. I had already overcome a great deal even planning this trip and I wasn't going to let a mere fear of rejection stand in my way now.
I'm happy to say we hit it off quite well. After about three minutes it felt like I'd known her for years. Odd feeling, not one I often experience. Very pleasant. We walked rather aimlessly around Victoria Park for a while, through intermittent downpours. Time somehow elongated and yet sped by.
This woman has seen and experienced seven or eight lifetimes. The stories of those lifetimes, the heights and depths, I can truthfully say very few people can match. There is a world in her and I was glad to be part of it for a few hours; I was even gladder that she seemed to enjoy herself in my world, which might have felt dull in comparison but she didn't act that way at all. Susannah, to you as well, thank you. Very much.
After we parted, having some time to kill before my bus left, I zigzagged my way across downtown to the public library. London is laid out on a grid pattern and so long as you don't get yourself turned around it's relatively easy to get and keep your bearings: even with a quarter of a century's accumulated change, I remembered where I was and where I was going without issue, and absentmindedly dawdled my way to Queen's Avenue, once ducking under the pillars of a new (to me) skyscraper to dodge the renewed monsoon.
I arrived in front of the building I had once killed entire days in. Without looking closely at it, I mounted the steps, smiling in recognition at the little pillars off to either side.
The smile died on my face.
I peered idiotically at the building in which, by this point, I rather badly needed to seek out a washroom. It did not appear to be a library any more. It did not appear to be anything other than vacant.
Ah, well, I thought. The books had only been in there since 1940, if I remember my London history right. Sooner or later they probably had enough, got up and left. Piss on a bush.
No, that was metaphorical, dear blad...bladder...bladdest! You can't just piss on bushes in this city, there's probably a bylaw.
The rain continued to piddle down. Let's just keep walking, maybe find a restaurant, it's past lunch time anyway. Oh, look, a sign with a great big P on it. And there goes an ice cream truck playing 'Tinkle, Tinkle Little Star'. Here's a little fruit and vegetable stand with a sign inviting me to 'take a leek'.
Every restaurant I'm passing looks like its urinals are full of cockroaches. Keep walking, throb, throb. Damn signs. "WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO BUSINESS?" Yes, yes, very much. "YOU'RE NUMBER ONE!" Gee, thanks.
By this point, soaked to the skin, I wonder if I or any one else would even notice were I to simply--
LONDON PUBLIC LIBRARY 251 DUNDAS STREET
Oh, look. Ken. Urine luck.
After I had divested myself of eleven and a half pounds of water weight, I sat down and finished the book I was carrying with me. Which, by the way, I highly recommend.
I had forgotten how quickly pages melt away when I don't have ready Internet access. (I'd been on Facebook a grand total of less than ten seconds in the past two days, just long enough to ascertain there hadn't been any further changes in plan). And honestly, when the computer is not an option, I don't miss it near as much as you'd think. Another piece of information worth remembering.
In any case, I'd only brought the one book. My next stop was going to be the used bookstore across the street, but I was spared that: the library itself was having a sale and I picked up The House Next Door, a '70s-era horror classic that had escaped my attentions, for the princely sum of two dollars. That was to be my reading material for the ride home.
I still had some time to kill, so I meandered around downtown for a while, seeking again to feel that sense of welcome I'd felt with Craig and his family and again with Susannah. I was wondering if it was a London thing: Eva and I had lightly tossed around the idea of relocating--well, hell, why not? Everything else has changed this year! I had inadvertently discovered something superficially very attractive about the London real estate market. Of the fifteen largest cities in Canada, London, Ontario, had the lowest average home price. We could buy a house fairly similar in size to this one for less than half the price this house would fetch.
My heart pined for this place, truth be told. But my heart has a silly habit of pining for people and things. The people in London are fantastic. The city itself didn't feel all that welcoming any more.
Busses skittered to and fro. I tried not to look at the route numbers: some of them would take me directly to people and places I had had remarkable success not thinking about so far. I had told myself, in making this trip, I was not going to permit myself to drown in my very real past nor any alternate present. So as to forestall any of that, I stayed downtown.
Now, downtown London has always felt seedy. But in the years between, whatever seeded there has grown, and it's not pretty. There were homeless people scattered around like discarded heaps of trash--a rare sight indeed 25 years ago, not so rare now, it seems. The streets were cracked and unkempt and more than a few windows were broken, boarded or barred. There was a real sense of despair hanging over the place like a pall, a kind of sickness that I sensed could infect people susceptible to the emotional vibrations of geography. People, in short, like me.
Of course the whole city isn't like that. But if its core is...
There's a reason the real estate market is not doing well in London: neither is the job market. TANSTAAFL--There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch--had struck again.
I had one last issue as I got on the bus to come home. I'd purchased my ticket online the week before, not realizing that Greyhound requires electronic ticket holders (and only electronic ticket holders) to produce photo identification before boarding.
I wince every time this comes up. I don't drive, and therefore I lack the license that for some reason doubles as a guarantor of identity. (Why society invests so much of its identity in the ability and permission to drive a car is a mystery I've never been able to solve). The only other acceptable form of photo I.D. seems to be a valid passport. Which I do have, but rarely carry with me as I'm not in the habit of crossing international borders in the course of my daily routine. The Ontario health card, which does have my name, address, signature and photo, is for some reason not acceptable.
I had nothing else.
I wanted to yell something like "if I had a driver's license, do you think I'd be taking the goddamned bus?!" Keeping my voice calm--no easy feat--I asked what my options were. I was told I could go buy another ticket; no photo ID was required for that. I kept my cash hidden--I had just enough on me to do as I was being bid--and pulled out a credit card. "Well", I said, "I could do that, using this credit card with my name on it, the same name on my electronic ticket stub here. But it also says the ticket stub is valid for this schedule and I don't understand why my fare, and mine alone, should arbitrarily more than double."
"Let me see your health card again".
He studied it with insulting thoroughness.
"Okay, you can board".
I'm home now. It feels, somehow, as if I have been gone about a month, rather than three days. This was a trip that at one point I wasn't even going to make. I made it, I had a whale of a time, and I reminded myself of something I need reminding of every now and again. There are people who see me as more than words on a screen. Thank you so much, all of you, for that. It's so immensely gratifying.
Love and hugs,
Ken
The crowd--Blue Jays and Yankees fans alike--was on its feet, chanting Jeter's name. I can't recall ever seeing the like: none of us would have been saddened (or at all surprised) to see Jeter punch a ground-rule go-ahead double.
That's not what happened. Jeter took a called strike and lined out weakly to second base, ending the game and starting the second part of my adventure.
------------------
I only spent ten years in London, Ontario--1980 to 1989--but I still think of it as my hometown.
The place still exerts a pull on me. Part of the pull is simple nostalgia for lost childhood, I think, but only part. Several old friends (and not a few new ones) reside in the Forest City: if I lived there too, I sometimes think to myself, my social calendar could be full to overflowing. And unlike, say, the city I live in now, London is made for cyclists, arguably more so than drivers. As I had suspected, the bike path system there (which put Kitchener-Waterloo's current one to shame thirty years ago) has only evolved and expanded since.
Craig and his family had agreed to put me up for two nights, sparing me the expense of a motel and allowing me the unmitigated pleasure of their company and hospitality. A great time was had by all. A couple of evenings were spent playing board games. Ever played Outburst? It's a game of lists in which each player must name off ten examples of something (e.g. "Famous Ice Skaters"). Two things complicate this endeavour. First, you'll only get points for the ten famous ice skaters they've put on the topic card. Second: this game was copyrighted in 1986. I had only heard of one of the specific famous ice skaters they were looking for.
The publication date isn't an issue when the topic is, say "Famous British Bands of the Early 1960s"...and maybe you can even name ten, with the sand trickling through the timer....but can you name the ten they're looking for?
The following night we played Taboo...which was even more of a mental workout. This is a sort of '$25,000 Pyramid" clone with the added complication that in trying to get your partner to guess a word, you can't say any form of five 'taboo' words commonly associated with the target word. This was, as you might expect, a hell of a lot of fun (even though once again, my team lost...sorry, Nicole!)
The third game, and I'm sure everyone except me has actually played this before, was Scattergories. In case you haven't: it's an every-player-for-herself game where the object is to name things across twelve categories, but each of them have to start with the same letter. As in Boggle, duplicates cancel each other out, so it pays to think creatively..except once again that's hard to do under time pressure. This game I lost abysmally. But I had so much fun playing all three games, and that was the least of the fun I had. I felt welcome. Some friends feel more like family. Craig, Nicole, Angus: I am profoundly grateful--more than I can properly express--for your having me. Thank you. Very much.
---------------------
Part three--Tuesday--was the part of this adventure I was, truth be told, a little scared of. Meeting people face to face for the first time is one of life's little horror-pockets for me, no matter how long I've known someone online first. In this case, I'd only 'friended' Susannah sixteen months ago and while everything I knew of her suggested she was a wonderful person, the traitor in my head whispered persuasively that she was sure not to think anything near the same of me, once she actually saw me.
I shut that traitor up rather forcefully, I'm proud to say. I had already overcome a great deal even planning this trip and I wasn't going to let a mere fear of rejection stand in my way now.
I'm happy to say we hit it off quite well. After about three minutes it felt like I'd known her for years. Odd feeling, not one I often experience. Very pleasant. We walked rather aimlessly around Victoria Park for a while, through intermittent downpours. Time somehow elongated and yet sped by.
This woman has seen and experienced seven or eight lifetimes. The stories of those lifetimes, the heights and depths, I can truthfully say very few people can match. There is a world in her and I was glad to be part of it for a few hours; I was even gladder that she seemed to enjoy herself in my world, which might have felt dull in comparison but she didn't act that way at all. Susannah, to you as well, thank you. Very much.
After we parted, having some time to kill before my bus left, I zigzagged my way across downtown to the public library. London is laid out on a grid pattern and so long as you don't get yourself turned around it's relatively easy to get and keep your bearings: even with a quarter of a century's accumulated change, I remembered where I was and where I was going without issue, and absentmindedly dawdled my way to Queen's Avenue, once ducking under the pillars of a new (to me) skyscraper to dodge the renewed monsoon.
I arrived in front of the building I had once killed entire days in. Without looking closely at it, I mounted the steps, smiling in recognition at the little pillars off to either side.
The smile died on my face.
I peered idiotically at the building in which, by this point, I rather badly needed to seek out a washroom. It did not appear to be a library any more. It did not appear to be anything other than vacant.
Ah, well, I thought. The books had only been in there since 1940, if I remember my London history right. Sooner or later they probably had enough, got up and left. Piss on a bush.
No, that was metaphorical, dear blad...bladder...bladdest! You can't just piss on bushes in this city, there's probably a bylaw.
The rain continued to piddle down. Let's just keep walking, maybe find a restaurant, it's past lunch time anyway. Oh, look, a sign with a great big P on it. And there goes an ice cream truck playing 'Tinkle, Tinkle Little Star'. Here's a little fruit and vegetable stand with a sign inviting me to 'take a leek'.
Every restaurant I'm passing looks like its urinals are full of cockroaches. Keep walking, throb, throb. Damn signs. "WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO BUSINESS?" Yes, yes, very much. "YOU'RE NUMBER ONE!" Gee, thanks.
By this point, soaked to the skin, I wonder if I or any one else would even notice were I to simply--
LONDON PUBLIC LIBRARY 251 DUNDAS STREET
Oh, look. Ken. Urine luck.
After I had divested myself of eleven and a half pounds of water weight, I sat down and finished the book I was carrying with me. Which, by the way, I highly recommend.
I had forgotten how quickly pages melt away when I don't have ready Internet access. (I'd been on Facebook a grand total of less than ten seconds in the past two days, just long enough to ascertain there hadn't been any further changes in plan). And honestly, when the computer is not an option, I don't miss it near as much as you'd think. Another piece of information worth remembering.
In any case, I'd only brought the one book. My next stop was going to be the used bookstore across the street, but I was spared that: the library itself was having a sale and I picked up The House Next Door, a '70s-era horror classic that had escaped my attentions, for the princely sum of two dollars. That was to be my reading material for the ride home.
I still had some time to kill, so I meandered around downtown for a while, seeking again to feel that sense of welcome I'd felt with Craig and his family and again with Susannah. I was wondering if it was a London thing: Eva and I had lightly tossed around the idea of relocating--well, hell, why not? Everything else has changed this year! I had inadvertently discovered something superficially very attractive about the London real estate market. Of the fifteen largest cities in Canada, London, Ontario, had the lowest average home price. We could buy a house fairly similar in size to this one for less than half the price this house would fetch.
My heart pined for this place, truth be told. But my heart has a silly habit of pining for people and things. The people in London are fantastic. The city itself didn't feel all that welcoming any more.
Busses skittered to and fro. I tried not to look at the route numbers: some of them would take me directly to people and places I had had remarkable success not thinking about so far. I had told myself, in making this trip, I was not going to permit myself to drown in my very real past nor any alternate present. So as to forestall any of that, I stayed downtown.
Now, downtown London has always felt seedy. But in the years between, whatever seeded there has grown, and it's not pretty. There were homeless people scattered around like discarded heaps of trash--a rare sight indeed 25 years ago, not so rare now, it seems. The streets were cracked and unkempt and more than a few windows were broken, boarded or barred. There was a real sense of despair hanging over the place like a pall, a kind of sickness that I sensed could infect people susceptible to the emotional vibrations of geography. People, in short, like me.
Of course the whole city isn't like that. But if its core is...
There's a reason the real estate market is not doing well in London: neither is the job market. TANSTAAFL--There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch--had struck again.
I had one last issue as I got on the bus to come home. I'd purchased my ticket online the week before, not realizing that Greyhound requires electronic ticket holders (and only electronic ticket holders) to produce photo identification before boarding.
I wince every time this comes up. I don't drive, and therefore I lack the license that for some reason doubles as a guarantor of identity. (Why society invests so much of its identity in the ability and permission to drive a car is a mystery I've never been able to solve). The only other acceptable form of photo I.D. seems to be a valid passport. Which I do have, but rarely carry with me as I'm not in the habit of crossing international borders in the course of my daily routine. The Ontario health card, which does have my name, address, signature and photo, is for some reason not acceptable.
I had nothing else.
I wanted to yell something like "if I had a driver's license, do you think I'd be taking the goddamned bus?!" Keeping my voice calm--no easy feat--I asked what my options were. I was told I could go buy another ticket; no photo ID was required for that. I kept my cash hidden--I had just enough on me to do as I was being bid--and pulled out a credit card. "Well", I said, "I could do that, using this credit card with my name on it, the same name on my electronic ticket stub here. But it also says the ticket stub is valid for this schedule and I don't understand why my fare, and mine alone, should arbitrarily more than double."
"Let me see your health card again".
He studied it with insulting thoroughness.
"Okay, you can board".
I'm home now. It feels, somehow, as if I have been gone about a month, rather than three days. This was a trip that at one point I wasn't even going to make. I made it, I had a whale of a time, and I reminded myself of something I need reminding of every now and again. There are people who see me as more than words on a screen. Thank you so much, all of you, for that. It's so immensely gratifying.
Love and hugs,
Ken
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