St. Clair West

We seemed to be hitting it off, so I offered to get her home. All I really wanted was to extend the evening a little, a walk through the snow, and maybe enough time to screw up the courage to kiss her goodnight. 

She lived past that middle-of-nowhere entrance to the St. Clair West station—a long way from Yonge, but then she had said she liked walking. And I don’t know why, at the door, I declined her invitation; nor, given she’d just asked me in, why she turned away as I kissed her.

     I took the streetcar home.

Inspired by La Vache Qui Rit. Photo by Evan Schaaf.

La Vache Qui Rit

Back in my card-carrying PETA undergrad, I played a rainy-day game called “Splash the Bunny”. I’d drive my Dodge Dart dangerously close to someone wearing a fur coat and tsunami the hell out of them.

But why? Was it rebellion against my French-Canadian roots? Or because my dad trapped muskrat and raised greyhounds for the Florida circuit? Residual guilt over that kippered bathmat that was once a Reitman’s fox jacket? I don’t know why I did these things, but I did, and afterwards I’d sink my sophomoric arse into our leather chair and chew a cheese sandwich with quiet complacency.

Inspired by Snow, Slush, and Honour. Photo by Laurie Leclair.

Snow, Slush, and Honour

Sully was running late for an 8 A.M. That was the thing about beer league, you took ice time when you could get it, even 10 P.M. He was still annoyed about the game. A guy had snowed his goalie. Sully’d levelled him for it. You never snow a goalie. It’s against the hockey code of honour. 

      Sully was late. He sped up. The road was messy. Slush had pooled everywhere overnight. He whizzed past something colourful and glanced back in his mirror. It was some doofus with a rainbow umbrella, shaking his fist at him. Sully burst out laughing.

Inspired by Beneath the Snow. Image by Bristolpost.co.uk. “Snowing a goalie” is this.

Beneath the snow

New snow covers all sorts of eyesores—garbage, dog poo, the debris of life littering my yard, general dilapidation. A wonderful façade until the inevitable southern Ontario thaw and freeze, thaw and freeze. By early March, the old snow has solidified into chunks of black guck at every street corner. Then, forced to see this mess and ugliness, I feel the necessity to clean house. I can’t ignore anymore what isn’t working. It has to go. I seldom make resolutions, but when I do, I don’t make them in the New Year. I wait for the clear light of Spring.

Inspired by Fifty Words for Snow. Photo by Cristian Bortes.

Fifty Words for Snow

It had been snowing again when I fell asleep, then some hours before dawn I was awoken by a bright light. Maybe a car had pulled into the driveway and one of its headlights was shining in through a window. I opened my eyes and saw, instead, the swollen moon casting its light over a field of snow-silvered grass.

I got up, slid open the patio door an inch. Cold air. Months later, life would again push out from the earth and unleash its cacophony, but at that moment, I listened to the night’s frigid silence and counted to fifty.

Inspired by If Only. Photograph by Fred Ni.

If Only

If only we paused Netflix and took ten minutes to clear that measly strip of snow, so our elderly could walk.

If only we didn’t treat our streets and parks as giant ashtrays, so our children and pets could scamper and play.

If only we picked up our dogs’ excrement instead of pretending we didn’t see it, so our new neighbour to Canada didn’t ruin a pair of winter boots.

If only we ceased judging each other from our front windows and addressed our own hypocrisies.

If only we could all be nice. That would be different. Let’s be different.

Inspired by Be Nice. Image by Nick Fewings.

Be Nice . . .

With the house came an extra sixteen feet of responsibility I hadn’t anticipated—not after years of soft apartment living, insulated from the rigours of the Toronto by-law that compels landowners to clear snow from the sidewalks in front of their property.

The city plows the streets, sure—often pushing snow back over the curb—still we must guarantee a safe passage for our fellow citizens no later than twelve hours after the stuff stops falling . . . or do as I do and follow the forecasts in the hope, that if no one disturbs it, it will melt on its own.

Inspired by tonight's oncoming storm, Ben Wicks, and this commercial from 1985.

You’re Not Funny . . . You’re just a Nudnik

“Horseshit” was dad’s word. Mom, with her Enfant-chien-de-merde preferred her own strangely compounded French. My Detroit cousins cursed in Yiddish, and although I didn’t understand a word, it was funny and I wanted in. So, I tuned into The Tonight Show and boned up on Shecky Green and Don Rickles. Finally, over a holiday dinner, I tried my routine on the Goldsteins. Raising my milk while hoisting my own polyglottal pétard, I shouted “Uncle Al, you’re the biggest schmuck around!!!” Schtum. So much schtum. And that’s when I learned that Context and Timing were the two pillars of comedic vulgarity.

Inspired by Salty in Certain Circumstances. Image by Chris W. Bissell.

Salty in Certain Circumstances

Dad was not one for salty language. He dropped occasional mild blasphemies and a scatological term of German origin in moments of crisis, like when he did carpentry. Otherwise “Aw, hell,” was as coarse as he got, “hell” being acceptable, him not being a churchgoer. When Platoon premiered, he claimed to be appalled. “Soldiers don’t talk like that,” he assured Mom, which was striking, because I’d served in the reserves and knew how soldiers talked; and he’d been in the army all through the war. He definitely knew the richest, most expressive Anglo-Saxonisms. He just chose not to use them.

Inspired by Get Out of Bed. Image by Chloe Cushman, National Post.

Get Out of Bed

Hearing is muffled after a blast. Saturated by bright flames, your eyes hurt and you shut them tight. You swallow smoke. Taste it on your tongue. Your body is covered with sweat and ash. You lie amongst the debris wondering if you should just give up—knowing there are more conflagrations in the future. We are the ones who stoke this hot bed of hate and indifference, so perhaps we should lie in it. Perhaps we deserve annihilation. You think there is nothing good left. But then someone’s hands help you up and you begin to cough out the poison.

Inspired by Happy MotherF’ng New Year. Image by Roy Schulze, with lots of help from Image Creator.