Part 2 Continued.

When I awake again it's just past five, so the most I could have been sleeping for was an hour.It's not nearly time to get up, and I've read all of my library books.Nothing on the television but some preachers from some mega church.

I've been dreaming again, but I'm not going to write it down this time.It was just a short dream of flying in an airplane, and nothing strange was happening. The preacher is talking about how to get God to bless us in his finances, saying that there is no need for Christian people to be poor.

Down the road there is a Mega Church.It's called the Center Street Church, though the main campus is now a few blocks off of center street.Janet and I went there once too, back before the new campus was built. It's also the place where Angie and I had our first and only date. I've always been partial to church as an ideal place to go on a first date, because if she isn't interested in church, then I guess I'm not interested in her.

I met Angie in August of 2004 at a Bluegrass festival southeast of Calgary.2004 was my fourth year attending the festival,located on an old pig farm,on a remote and bleak, yet beautiful piece of land about ten miles east of the town of Nanton. On the third week of August, I'd pack up my guitar and a tent and take the bus out to Nanton. Usually the ride took about an hour and a half, and I'd arrive shortly after nine in the morning, and start walking towards the farm.Nothing much happened there until just after dinner, so I'd have all day to get there.My feet were still limber back then, though I'd been diagnosed with Plantars Faschitis the year before. I never managed to get very far on foot, because someone would always happen along that was going to the festival, so I'd end up with a ride.On this particular occasion, a semi stopped right in the service station parking lot where the bus stopped, and told me to jump up in the cab.In the trailer were a dozen or more bawling cattle.Inside the cab, the driver sat behind the wheel, and he was accompanied by an Australian Shepherd named Annie, who eagerly came over and laid her head on my leg, barking once or twice in greeting.I scratched her ears and her stomach as we drove along, the driver explaining that he was taking the cattle to a slaughterhouse in Medicine Hat.We talked for a while,about the things you talk to farmers about-weather and crops, which he said were looking good, about a month before harvest.Before I knew it we were at the farm, and the driver was stopped to let me out.As I was getting down from the cab, then pulling down my guitar, Annie decided that she wanted to accompany me.So I said something about it not being a good idea to steal the dog of a man who was kind enough to offer a lift.He laughs, and I lift the tail wagging Annie back up into the truck.

It's only about nine twenty by the time I reach the farm, and there is not a lot to do.So I set up my tent in what I think is the choicest spot, and wander around the grounds as other cars start slowly coming in.There are a few people I know coming in, most of them in large RVs,and I talk with a number of people.The festival is an opportunity to catch up with people I know, but usually only get to see once a year.So I sit around on a picnic table, strumming my guitar and visiting my old friends from Edmonton, and catching up on a years worth of news.

Sometime in the mid afternoon, a blue pickup drives in through the gate and stops by the picnic table where we are sitting.A woman gets out and asks where the best place to set up a tent is.I tell her that small tents are usually set up along a nearby fence, and myself and whoever I was sitting with offer to help her set up camp.It's not long until we have her tent set up, about twenty feet away from my own.

It's still early in the day, a few hours before any of the bands take the stage, so we all sit around and talk, telling stories, and eating some food this woman, and some others who had just arrived brought with them.The woman in the blue truck was maybe five foot four and had a short, stylish haircut and clothes a bit more fancy than what most people would wear to a Bluegrass festival.So, as festival time drew near, she was sitting beside me atop the table, and she looked over at me and said"Hi.My name is Angela."

Angie turned out to be companionable enough, but in truth, she didn't spend much time watching the bands, or jamming later on in the parking lot.She hadn't brought an instrument of any kind, because she didn't play one.It turned out she was a retired ticket agent for a major airline, and she lived in Northwest Calgary.I was surprised that she was retired, because she didn't seem that old to me.She still had a shapely figure, and was by any account good looking if not beautiful.As it turned out, she was thirteen years older that I was.

Once the festival was underway,Angie spent most of her time asleep in her tent, and I thought that rather strange.Whenever she was up and about though,she would always stroll over to the picnic table, and her and I and whoever else was there would talk for a bit.Then she would disappear inside her tent.I never did see much of her in the pavilion where all the bands were playing.

When it came time to leave on Sunday night, Angela, who was now insisting I call her Angie told me she would drive me back to Calgary.I never really made plans for getting back once the festivals were over, because getting back just seemed to happen.I'd start out walking, but I knew almost everyone at the festival, so I always found a ride before I got too far away.

So I accepted Angie's offer.After driving into High River, for some reason I don't remember, she drove me right up to my front door in Mission District.It's there that we decided to keep in touch,to see each other again, maybe even to go on a date.I wasn't really certain that I wanted that, because I'd sworn off dating about three years before.Still Angie hugged warmly, lingering a bit longer than seemed called for, and I promised to call her.It wasn't long until I did, and we planned a whole Sunday together, starting with Church.

I rolled over, trying to get back to sleep, thinking of Angie and how she'd come and gone,thinking that I must call work to try and book a trailer for Monday, thinking I didn't trust preachers from Mega Churches who talked about how Christians were decreed by God to be wealthy, and how if you were not wealthy, then there had to be something wrong with your Christian walk.Thinking of how I would walk by Center Street Church on a Monday morning on my way to or from work, and see an armored truck pull up to the door, and leave a few minutes later, after the guards had collected a number of canvas bags.

Part 2,Continued.

This time I'm dreaming.I guess I must have achieved REM sleep for the first time tonight.When I awake I reach for a thin coil notebook to get it down, before the memory leaves me.It's a strategy often suggested to me by other writers, but one I use infrequently.Too Freudian,perhaps, too littered with sex and death,and I'm not ready to die, and if anything in the world is overrated, that would be sex.In fact,I'm not really sure dreams have much of a meaning at all, except that random neurons are firing rapidly, and thus creating illusions.But that can't be true, because God spoke to his prophets through dreams.

There is an oak tree standing in a garden.A man come into the garden and cuts off a lower limb.Then a young girl on a horse comes by, and cuts off another limb.And a very tall woman with flowing red hair comes and does likewise.The tree would soon be limbless,but for the fact that the limbs grow back very quickly.Then a baby bird falls from the upper branches, onto the ground, and a large grey cat pounces on it and carries it away.And I awaken.

Other dreams are written in the notebook too:

In a garden there is a mountain ash tree.It's late at night but there is a lot of light from the moon.There are tomatoes growing all about, huge and ripe.Under the mountain ash there is an old style claw footed bathtub, and I am in the tub with a woman named Angie.We are not doing anything at all,save for reaching out and picking tomatoes,the eating them whole.The seeds fall into the water, and the red berries from the tree drop into the water as well.They make large splashes.Angie and I are now trying to kiss each other, but we can't reach one another.

                                                                                                              Dated:06/05/05.

I'm standing on a tall ladder overlooking a sort of a square, like the kind you would find in the towns of Old Mexico.By a wall there are two tall sunflowers, and they begin to paint a white wall with spray paint, until a beautiful picture appears.I can't tell what it is, but I can't take my eyes from it;

Then two murderers enter the square, first one, then the other.They are darkly clothed, and it is night time.Far out on the horizon, the sun is just starting to edge up over the horizon, but it appears only slightly, then rises no farther.The murderers might be anyone.I can't see their faces.They might be men, or women.When the second one comes,the two meet face to face in the square,and one raises up a hand,and the other is slain and lies dead.The murderer leaves the square, only to return later, as the slain person is arising from the ground.The murdered person, now living again approaches his slayer, raises a hand, and the slayer is now slain.Then the second murderer leaves the garden.And this goes on two more times.By what means the murder takes place I cannot tell.Then the two leave together,the sunflowers die,the sun fully rises and the square is choked with rhododendron.The ladder I'm standing on is tilted towards a building,but it's top is not touching the building.

                                                                                                                 Dated:19/07/03

I am riding a fine gray horse, and we are going on a foxhunt.There is a profusion of dogs all around us.Dogs of every color and description, and they are baying.Then I become a fox,running through the fields, being chased by the dogs and horses.But they just keep on racing past me, seeming to be unaware of my presence.Then, once again I am myself,standing in a dark rainy place,and shoveling coal into a blast furnace.There are horses inside the furnace.

                                                                                                                  Dated:01/05/96

I grab the notebook and write down tonight's dream.A quick trip to the bathroom.Someone's pissed on the toilet rim again.Then into the refrigerator for a quick swallow of coke.The clock says 3:39.I'm thinking about the dream.And sometime after four Am.I drift off into fitful sleep again.

Part 2, Continued

It's not quite midnight yet,and I'm quite restless.I go to the bathroom and find that one of the other tenants has pissed all over the seat.I should say something to whoever it was,but I likely won't.The peace can sometimes be rather fragile in a living situation like this,so maybe I'll just leave it alone.I grab a [piece of yesterdays leftover pizza and take it outside, where a startle a big jackrabbit.Skunk is in the air too, so it won't be an overly cold night.A police car races past,southbound on Center Street.My legs are a bit stiff,so I take a walk down the street.Just to fortieth avenue and back.I think I'll call the office in the morning to see if they have any trailers to unload on Monday.Two full days off is a bit much for me.

Living up here on the North Hill is kind of isolated.There are parts of town that really have very little in them.going anywhere from here is a long walk, though I do walk downtown reasonably often.That takes about an hour.When I lived in the Mission district, I walked everywhere I went.Calgary is very spread out, but everything was handy.I'd go downtown to the library nearly everyday.The supermarket was only a couple of blocks away, and I was in the habit of buying my food daily, so that it was as fresh as it could be.Most days there was a homeless man waiting outside the supermarket door panhandling.I never gave him any money, but usually I would buy a fresh loaf of French bread and a block of cheese, and hand it to him on the way out.I always made certain that he noticed that I was giving him the same bread and cheese that I was taking home for myself.Usually I'd give him a liter of juice or milk as well, and sometimes some cold cuts.He was an old.frail looking man in a wheelchair,and he always thanked me profusely.I never saw him anywhere drinking, so I didn't mind helping him out.Many years ago,though, I was going into a night class, and a man aggressively approached me asking for money.I brushed past him, in a hurry so that I could pick up a sandwich before class, as I'd been working all day.Inside the deli,I got a nice ham and Swiss sandwich, then ordered a second one.Outside, I took it to the guy who had approached me.He grabbed the sandwich, the threw it at me, calling me a judgmental bastard.But there is no such problem with the guy at the supermarket here in Calgary. So I try to be decent,as I see decency to be, but sometimes it backfires.

I used to walk to work too.I worked at the Iko mill for a while, and it was an hours walk.In the morning it wasn't bad, but sometimes at night I'd be so tired out I'd take a bus.It wasn't as though it was a very scenic walk.It went south of the Stampede Grounds, then through a rundown and mostly industrial part of town.Ogden road meanders all over the place so I would shortcut it along the railway tracks that ran right up to the back of Iko. It cut more than a half mile off the distance.There were very few trains, so it was safe.One morning though, I came around the curve in the tracks just south of Blackfoot Trail, and there on the tracks was a coyote.I didn't really know what to do, so I just kept walking toward it at a slow,steady pace,and with tall,erect posture.When I got within about fifty feet of her, she stepped down into the ditch,and,after allowing me to pass,followed me the rest of the way to work-almost a half mile. As it turned out,she had pups holed up in a little valley on the west side of the tracks.But it seemed that she'd come to know that I was no danger.She'd follow me each morning,then we'd part ways,with me going down one side of the tracks toward the mill,and her going down to her den, which was an old oil drum.When I discovered the pups, I'
d leave early so I could stop and watch them for fifteen minutes or so before work.then one day they were gone. A couple of months later I was gone too, having quit Iko. Too much bullshit, I thought, and I could be working again tomorrow.And I was.

Everywhere else I went I walked to as well.Most everyday I went downtown, for the whole time I lived in Mission.I was still using the library for email, emailing my mother nearly everyday.Sometime I would go out for East Indian food too, right where my street met 4th Street.On Mondays I'd hurry home,jump in the shower and take off for my jam session in the East village, then walk home later at night.It was a rather rough part of town, but nobody bothered me much, at least until I started walking with a cane,a bit later on.Thursdays was a jam night too,and sometimes I'd walk, though it was a long way, out Seventeenth Avenue,into Southeast Calgary.Still,I didn't mind as it was about the only socializing I ever did. Calgary started feeling like home. Sort of at least.It was living right next to the river that made that part of town a great place to live though.But I was stuck in my thoughts that it wasn't really home, but that I really couldn't be bothered moving anywhere else.So I told myself that it fit my style at the time, and mostly that was true.But it never really was a perfect fit.

It's past midnight now,and I lay down to rest again.Saturday Night Live is on,and I drift of to sleep to some skit that I can't remember.

Part 2 continued

I think too much in the nighttime perhaps.But really what else is there to do.This bed is driving me to distraction.I pick up my guitar for a while and quietly strum some chords.There is still some rock music playing from one of the other rooms,and since it's Sunday,nobody is off to work tomorrow, so the guitar will not disturb anyone. They are probably drinking out there too, so I just stay in my own space.I wonder if I'm an introvert, and if it's really so bad if I am'

Really I do like people.Just not a lot of people.I don't socialize with people at work, because it's just not a good idea. There are two ladies there I rather like, who in other circumstances I might ask out, at least for coffee, but I can't convince myself that it's such a great idea. None of the people I live with are the sort that I would choose as friends.But they are all passably decent,so living here is tolerable.

I get up and go out to the fridge for a glass of coke.I need to stop drinking this crap.It's probably helping to keep me up at night. Looking outside,it seems that the wind has come up, and there are little eddies of snow swirling about on the street.But the television said tomorrow is supposed to be a decent day.

It's not like I have no friends at all.I'm into music,specifically Bluegrass music, so I attend jam sessions on Monday and Thursday nights,and a larger jam once a month. The people at the jams are very down to earth, accepting people, and I'm slowly learning guitar.But it's really the only place that I've found that I fit in.

I used to live down in what is called The Mission District, south of downtown,and west of the Stampede Grounds.I was lucky to find any apartment at all, but this one was affordable, and best of all it was right beside the Elbow River.The river passed right by the dead end of the street,about two hundred feet down from my door.I'd always wanted to live right beside the river, and it was great to go on down to the river and sit and play my guitar.But, in truth it happened to be the only apartment I could find at all.Still, it worked out quite well for a time.

Just after I left Janet's condo,maybe a week after I moved in, a strange and disturbing incident took place.At the time of it's happening,I had no idea that it was happening.On the night in question, I'd come home from the mill, dirty and tired out,and soaked for a time in the bathtub, trying to get the knots out of my muscles.Then I lay down on my couch- because I thought buying a bed a waste of money-and went to sleep.Sometime later I awoke.It still wasn't dark, and when I woke up, I thought I heard my apartment door closing. I got up and discovered it closed.I went to the refrigerator for a drink, and found that it was filled up with food that I didn't put there.On the counter was a note from Janet saying she'd stopped by to drop off some groceries.The door closing had been her leaving.The next day I went to the caretaker, who lived just across the hall from me and asked if she had given a key to my apartment to anyone.

"Certainly." She said."I gave one to your girlfriend."

"To Janet?"

"Yeah, that's the one"

"What in hell would possess you to do such a thing?"

"Well, she's your girlfriend.So I thought it should be alright.She said she had groceries for you and needed a key.So I gave her one.Can't see what was wrong with that."

I politely informed her that there was a reason that Janet was not moving in with me, that she was in fact my ex girlfriend, and that she had no business being in my apartment.

"So what would you have me do?"

"Well,the next time you see her, you should ask her for the key back.Failing that You are going to have to change my locks,because her having access is not acceptable.In fact I'm stunned that you would think it would be.And if you see her coming in here again, I would suggest you call the police."

I'd never really had a problem like Janet before. In fact, I had a very hard time getting rid of her.I'd broken up with a few women in the past, and when it was over,it was over.Simple as that for the most part.But Janet just wouldn't go away.I considered her getting a key to be manipulative and controlling, and in fact I started to wonder if there was anything really dangerous about her.Really, I'd have to admit, I was more than a little concerned.I gave some thought to just picking up and moving on to some other town.

About a week later,I'd just got home when someone slid a letter under my door.It was Janet, and the letter was a tirade about our relationship, saying that I was a lunatic who didn't think right, and that she was incredibly insulted that I had identified her as a danger.She indicated that it was the last I would ever hear from her, that she'd given"Her" key back. I wasn't convinced, but I could hope.I didn't know what I was going to do if she kept coming around.

As it turned out,that was the last I ever heard of Janet.Sort of.At least she was true to her word. but another amusing sort of incident took place a month or so later, that still seems to me to be so bizarre that I have trouble believing it.When I first moved to Calgary,I was not at all computer literate.But after I moved into my own place,I started going downtown to the library so I could keep in touch with my mother in Moncton. A lady at the library patiently showed me how to set up an email account,and how to compose and send email.I was quite reluctant at first, but I though if my mother could learn,in her sixties, I should start figuring out how to use a computer.So I did, slowly at first.

Now you might think that having just had a really bad break up I would have sworn off the idea of having another girlfriend, but I'm sometimes not all that fast giving up on really bad ideas.I still had this idea in my head that I needed to be with someone, that my identity required a second half.And really, everybody I knew was telling me that that was true.So I decided to try out internet dating.I'd go to the library, email my mother, or answer any email she'd sent to me, the I'd spend the remainder of my allotted hour visiting dating sites. Some of them were kind of strange,to my mind. One offered contacts for persons who were looking for friends,or marriage, and even a "meat market" So I decided to limit myself to Christian dating sites only.Except that one of them was even offering a site for people who "Just want to play." I wondered what was Christian about that.But after a while I found a site I thought might work, so I answered this huge questionnaire, that they said would help them find an ideal match for me, based on common values. Sounded good to me. So I started scanning the offerings,and found a couple of ladies to start communicating with via email.Three, I told myself.I'm not committing to anything, just some email chat.So I went to select a third person to contact.Up popped a picture of a  slim,rather good looking lady, with longish blond hair.And her name was Janet.I really couldn't believe what I was looking at.My eyeballs nearly dropped out on the floor.After having me answer a rather lengthy set of questions about my values, and what I was looking for, the computer decided that a very good match for me was Janet.My latest ex.One and the same.I'm not kidding.You can't make this stuff up. I was offered the opportunity to reject any of their suggestions, which I promptly did. I didn't give up on the idea of internet dating right there and then, but my foray into that world was short indeed.

So here I am five years later,Family Day week-end 2006, looking out on a Calgary winter street at midnight, trying to avoid my half drunken room mates, and way in the back of my mind wondering if maybe I should, or even could ask out one of the ladies at work.I even thought about going back to the e-dating sites, but that worried me a bit too.The conclusion I'd come to in that regard was that I was probably doing that because what I was really afraid of was true intimacy, and that was the cause of my worry.I thought that if anyone I met online was like minded with me about anything,it was probably that, so I got to thinking that the whole scene was a bad idea.So I stopped cold turkey. Then about a year ago, a friend I knew met a person online, and they ended up happily married. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea, but I've yet to give into it again.Maybe tomorrow.Or maybe never.

Part 2 Continued.

So,I think as I'm trying to find sleep, I guess someday I'll have to move from here. The problem with Calgary is that it's just a place to be.Not really home.There is work aplenty here. I've been busy every day that I've wanted to be since I've come here, and a good many days when I didn't want to be too.I'm making a bit of money, but it's an expensive town to live in too and I don't seem to be getting ahead. And I just seem to be so damn restless all the time, despite the comfortable routine.I guess that will change at some point, because change always seem to come.I wonder what sort of change life will bring,and if I'll be ready for it.

Moving to Calgary never really became anything more for me than what it was in the beginning.I'd followed Janet here, thinking that it would work out.But it didn't, and when that all went bad,I never really made myself a part of the community.I went to work, I came home,I slept and ate, then started it all over again the next day.So, like I said,it was just a place to be.

My real problems with Janet started at her staff Christmas party.I had worked all day tearing down old drywall and I was tired and dirty when I got home, and left to my own devices I really would have preferred to stay home. I've never really liked staff parties to begin with because they nearly always end up being the start of something bad. I've only ever attended two of my own staff parties, and at both,it wasn't long until the liquor loosened up the tongues,some issues between people that had been simmering for months, if not years came up, and before you knew it a bunch of people were at each other's throats.But everyone was at least pretending that all was well by Monday morning.

Once, while I was still married, I went to a party at the company my wife and I both worked at.Before we were there half an hour,our boss, who was legendary for not being able to hold her liquor,was face down in her plate of rubber chicken and had to be carried off to her truck,where she sat passed out for the rest of the party. My problem with all of that is that I'm still being asked to respect my boss at work, when she really is not respectable.So I normally take a pass on Staff parties.

I should have stuck to that rule with Janet, but I was new in town and really did want to meet her friends and co-workers.So off to the party we went, and while we were there everything seemed to be going fine.It's a few days later when I became aware of the fact that some of her co-workers, who had never met me before, had been saying some very uncomplimentary things about me.Like"He looks like a drug dealer and a stoner." Why anyone would have said that about me was beyond me,because I was perfectly sober at that party.In fact, my next drink will be my first.It was something that all of those people had been led to expect of me long before we'd met, so really I don't see what came over them.Then Janet and I got into a huge argument about the whole thing a few days later. I suggested that the persons involved would need to apologize to me,if they ever expected me to interact socially with them again.Janet suggested,taking the side of her friends that I really did look like a dealer because,at that time I had very long hair.I was amazed at that,because Janet had said that one of the things she liked about me was that hair.So I couldn't understand why she was taking the part of her friends, when she really should have known me better than that.She certainly knew me and my value system better that those people could ever hope to.So here I am with a bunch of people I'd only known for a couple of hours passing judgement on me, their real motives hidden, and a girlfriend that seemed to value what people thought more than she valued me.We stayed together a few more months, but in point of fact, it was that one thing more than any other that our relationship was unable to survive. 

Part 2, Continued.

I arrive at the Walmart distributor more than a half early,check through with security, store my backpack in the lockers,and go to wait in the lunchroom.I'm in the habit of being early.I don't like to arrive anyplace and have to hit the ground running.I like to soak in the atmosphere before I actually begin my work.

If everything runs according to schedule,I'll have a decent shot at being out of here before noon, even though I have three trailers to unload.All trailers arriving here must be supplied with someone to unload them.That is either the drivers responsibility, or the responsibility of someone who the trucking company hires. that person unloads all of the truck's contents, where a receiver tags it and sends it to outgoing trucks for each store.All of the shipping doors are located in a far part of the warehouse, which is massive,so all we see is the boxes,bags, or whatever disappearing on a conveyor belt. Walking anywhere in the building is prohibitive in terms of time,as it is several city blocks long and wide.Hence, it's state of the art and fully automated.

Trailer number one arrives a few minutes ahead of schedule,and this is good.It's located at the far east end of the building, and that is a good sign because it means that the contents is most likely to be displays for floor sales.That means that all I'll have to do is be in attendance, unless the receiver happens to not be the most careful driver, and ditches one of the skids. All of these skids are going straight out to stores all over Western Canada, and they go out as a unit the same way they came in.In this case, the trailer is loaded down with toilet paper, coming in from Atlantic Canada. I have absolutely nothing to do but stand around and watch the forklift unload, then proceed to the office and collect half a day's pay.Sometimes it almost seems like stealing, but that is the requirement.A trailer must have a swamper,no matter what. The whole business is done in about twenty minutes, and as I'm walking back to the security area, I'm paged for the second trailer. Since it's from the same trucking company, there's a good chance it will be more of the same. And that turns out to be exactly the case. So it's two of my three trailers completed in just under an hour. Today is going very smoothly,and that is a good thing since Saturday or Sunday are really the only days I have to get other things done.Most of my life these days is spent within the confines of the warehouse,and most days I'm here until business hours are over.

My third trailer is on time to, and there is still a chance of completing it before noon.It's not as simple or straight forward as the first two, but again, I'd predicted that by knowing the name of the carrier. This load happens to be pens,markers and pencils, and other assorted stationary products.There is less that five hundred pieces on the trailer, but over three hundred separate items, so it's a bit of a mess.If I'm working with a good receiver, I'll have a chance of finishing up in a bit more that an hour.If not, it could take up to three hours.The receivers here are not paid the same way we are.They are paid by the hour.They do have an hourly quota,but meeting that is not difficult, so some of them make no effort to hurry.They understand that it's in my best interests to complete a given job as fast as I possibly can,and get as many trailers as possible in the least amount of time.That doesn't sit well with all of the receivers. Some of them resent us for managing to make two or more days pay in a short period of time. Some of the people who come here to unload trailers don't help matters.There are a lot of guys that are just looking for a fast book, who have a bad attitude and addictions to feed, and very little in the way of social graces.A few of them don't shower very often.So the receivers don't like working with them, but have little choice, as there are very few companies that provide services to unload trailers.But some of them will slow down so as to make it difficult for us to make our next appointment on time.Usually I don't experience that problem.I come in ready to work and with a decent attitude, and on days like today it pays off.I get one of the better receivers and we are almost done by lunch break.So I take a sandwich out of the vending machine.That's my usual habit when I work here, but I really should eat better, I think. Shortly after the end of lunch break,my trailer is finished.The whole day has taken just over three hours,including the half hour break, and I'm on my way,with a day and a half's pay in my pocket.That's good because with it being family day weekend, there are no trailers tomorrow or Monday.

I need groceries,so I'll do that before I go home.First,though I need to run downtown with all of my time sheets for my weeks work.That is a big pain in the ass, because it takes a half hour on the C-Train.I should run into the internet cafe and check my email too.Usually I do that everyday,but it's been busy this week, so I haven't been to the cafe for a few days running.That is not good because my mother and I have been communicating via email since I moved here.We call each other on the phone too, but it's been some time since I've spoken to her.I guess with tomorrow being Sunday, she will likely call. Keeping in touch is important,because my father is not well.He never comes on the line to talk anymore, and for the longest time,when he did it was under the effect of medication,or booze or just the injuries caused by all of his strokes.But my mother keeps me updated.

It's mid afternoon on Saturday by the time I've turned in my time sheets and got a northbound number two bus.I don't really like the bus much,especially the number two.It's always busy and there are sometimes fights among passengers, even small race riots at times.There are some fairly rough neighborhoods along Center Street on the north Hill.

At 16th Avenue I get off the bus and head into the Safeway store for food. Saturday afternoon is crowded, and I really don't like crowds.But I don't really look forward to finishing off the cold pizza I had yesterday either.I need just about everything.I'm out of milk and lemonade and bread. I've only got one package of ground pork left.Ground pork has become my staple food, along with onions  and a variety of peppers and potatoes which I've been craving more and more of late.I guess as an Atlantic Canadian, I've just got to have my fried potatoes.

By three o'clock I'm on my way home with over a hundred dollars worth of food in six bags.The laundromat is in the plaza right next to the Safeway, and it reminds me that I still have a ton of dirty clothes to drag down here and wash.It's a long walk home with all these groceries, but I don't feel like getting back on a standing room only bus with this load, so I guess I'll walk.My legs getting a bit stiff,and I seem to be coming down with a cold too.I don't get sick that often,so the cold will likely last about a week, and won't be very severe.I'll bring the laundry back down here tomorrow, I think.I'm kind of beat now,and I don't seem to sleep really well anymore. So I put the groceries away and head out to the corner store.I need a two liter bottle of coke,which is likely among the worst of my bad habits, and I'll buy a lottery ticket for tonight's draw.I don't play often, maybe a few times a year, but you never know,I could get lucky.If I win, I'll head back down east,buy some land and build a house.But I never win.Still,it's nice to dream about what life would be like if I did.Live the life of a semi-hermit, I think. Maybe find a good woman and get married.Women would not be in short supply,I think,rather cynically.Not if I won the lotto.But I'd given up on that idea for about five years now,and it seemed to be working out fairly well.

I return home,make some ground pork for supper, take it into my room and shut the door, wondering what's on the idiot box, and how well I'll sleep tonight.I flip through the channels and find Bugs Bunny.Not a bad way to start the evening.If I'm still up I'll probably watch Saturday Night Live, and drift off for a few hours.   

Part 2 continued.

I walked down a long stretch of McKnight Boulevard from west to east.At fourth avenue north East, there is an A&W,and I thought, why waste time cooking when I could have just stopped for a Sausage and Egger. I'd forgotten all about that,and thought about stopping, but my stomach was full.I don't seem to have the appetite I did when I was younger, even just a few years younger. My memory's getting bad too, I think.

Up the hill towards where McKnight crosses the Deerfoot Trail,the walking is a bit hazardous.The sidewalk is rough, and just before you get to Deefoot, it just ends.There is still one across McKnight, but the one on the south side just peters out.So pedestrians either have to sprint across McKnight to get the benefit of a sidewalk, or run like hell across both an exit for and an entrance for the Deerfoot. Then it's edging along the overpass with just a few feet between traffic and the side of the bridge.It's a bit of Russian Roulette, but I've gotten good at it, and have never come close to being hit.But it makes me think how,as compared to nearly every other place I've lived, Calgary seems to cheap out on a lot of services and conveniences. Snow removal is terrible,though that hasn't been a huge issue this winter.Policing gets short changed too, and I see a lot of police involved in operating radar traps,while it sometimes takes hours to get a response to criminal complaints like theft or vandalism.Some of the roads are in poor repair too.Just one of the aggravating things about living here.

The airport is a bit farther on,between Twelfth Street and nineteenth Street Northeast.It is a massive facility, with the main north south runway running almost all the way to Country Hills,about three miles or so north.And it is surrounded by a massive industrial park.To the south there is a golf course.It's the last thing you pass over when the plane comes in from the south.I look onto the golf course,just to see if I can spot a coyote. They like the golf course because it is a big enough expanse,and unused in the winter.Moreover,it has plentiful supplies of two things coyotes need a lot of.Water and rabbits.But there are no coyotes here today.

Planes are lining up at the south end of the runway this morning.It's getting close to nine O'Clock, a more or less peak hour for Calgary International.so there are several planes waiting to take off.They have to wait for an incoming Jumbo Jet though.I didn't manage to get myself situated directly under it, but I was very close. I've got some time,so I stand and watch planes for a while, vaguely wondering if doing so has drawn the attention of any security sorts. there is an observation area just on the west edge of the runway,but I never use that.I stand right along the fence for the golf course,at the end of the runway.

Watching planes makes me think of all of the other cities in the world where people might be flying too.It makes me think that I really could move somewhere perhaps, if only back to Edmonton.I get an idea of where the various planes are headed just by knowing what airline they are.West Jet and Air Canada serve the Canadian market.Delta flies south,as does American. KLM, Lufthansa, Swiss Air and others fly to Europe,a place I've never been.I wonder what I would do if I were in Ireland or Germany or Spain.Where would I work,what would life be like? It's just wondering, because in truth,Calgary is kind of a comfortable, if not an altogether desirable place to be.At least for right now.I've got no plans to leave,but I've also got the vague thought that it's not a forever home.

Part 2 Continued.

I'm up at six o'clock,with no real need to be gone until eight. I rise,shower, then gather up the remainder of last night's pizza and put it on a plate and into the refrigerator.At least it wont be stolen here.I never drink coffee, so I take a swig from a half empty two liter bottle of coke, and rummage about for something to eat.Aaron is loudly pissing in the bathroom again, door open, and I think,I really need to be living someplace a bit more private.Or civilized.Civilized would work too.Aaron looks more than half asleep when he steps into the kitchen and produces a loud beer infused belch that tells me he has been up most of the night.

Since I have time for an actual breakfast this morning I begin searching through the contents of the fridge, after having rejected the thought of cold pizza.I choose a small steak,and dump it into a pan of very hot oil.Three minutes on either side.The I toss two cold potatoes into the oil and chop them up and let them fry for five minutes.I really should be eating better.But I need to go to the store because I'm nearly out of fruit, and these days whole grain cereal bathers my stomach.So I'm stuck with this breakfast of champions for today at least. That or something from the vending machines at work.Later today I'll get my ass in gear and go buy some decent food.Laundry needs to be done too,and I'll maybe do that at the same time.

The walk to work is time for thinking.I meet the two Mormon missionaries as I'm leaving, so my first thought is that I've left just in time. Abu will be entertaining them for breakfast, and the other tenants will either complain about them being noisy,or making it hard to get around in the kitchen.Either way,there will be a bit of tension until they are gone.

Most days I ask myself why I'm in Calgary.I told myself I'd never live here, after a brief stint here in 1979. But of course, I followed Janet here.That was the whole reason for my being here.Or, at least it was.But now Janet is long gone, but I'm still here.

Janet turned out to be a bad idea.A bad idea for me, and she no doubt thinks the same thing in regards to herself.In point of fact, I really should have given a lot more thought to the idea of leaving Edmonton, but I guess I still wasn't grown up enough to be able to think everything through.I liked the attraction that seemed to be there and I was still buying into this idea that everyone seemed to have that all people needed to be mated. I was starting to grow out of that idea, but it took Janet to give me a final push.

I was determined to try to live a Christian life.I told myself not to get into bed with Janet.But I really should have known that that wasn't going to work.Because I was new in town,and it was difficult to find suitable living arrangements it was agreed that I would move in with Janet. The actual arrangement involved her having the bedroom, and me sleeping on a bed I made on the floor of her living room.Good enough to satisfy the requirements of Christian  morality, I thought.

Life was good at the start.They call it the honeymoon phase of relationships.So we would eat dinner by candlelight every evening, and we went everywhere together.In the early morning hours I got up and went off to the day labor office, and in just a short time I was working full time in a mill, recycling paper.On Sunday's Janet worked until six, and I would pick her up and we would go to church together.It all settled into a routine that was tolerable for a little while.

There was a election in the fall of the year 2000 as well.Janet it turned out was politically active, having gotten a degree in Political Science from The University Of Calgary.So we also attended a couple of political debates.Janet seemed to know a numbers of people there, including one of the candidates.She claimed to be Liberal, but the Conservative candidate was an old classmate of hers, and they greeted each other warmly.We listened to various candidates debating issues and taking questions, and I went home no more informed than when I'd arrived.Janet seemed to enjoy the debate more as a social function than as a debate.

In the months ahead,I began to see Janet in another light.Politics is not just what she did, it's who she was, and reasonably early on in our relationship,it began to take center stage in my life.Janet ,it seemed, had to have an influence in everything I did, way beyond what I considered reasonable.She insisted that it was she wanted to help me-in general ,she said she enjoyed helping people.That's what politics was to her.The ability to influence people for the better.There came a time when I wondered if it wasn't just about influencing people, for some end known only too her.

At some point soon after my arrival, Janet began insisting that whenever I went out of the house, I should only dress in muted tones of grey,black or brown.I didn't look good in bright colors she said.The only thing was, I enjoyed wearing bright clothing.She stubbornly insisted that I should wear only clothing I considered drab.I'd heard of and even known males that did the same with their wives or girlfriends.When they did it, it seemed controlling to me, and inappropriate.One night at church,there was a young woman, maybe not quite twenty playing violin along with the other musicians.She was tall, with long blond hair.Rather striking in appearance.After the service was over, I was talking to this woman for a few minutes.Something I never should have done, because after we got to the car,Janet insisted I'd been flirting with the girl.Actually, we'd been talking about music.But that explanation did not satisfy Janet."You a wearing bright clothes again,and the both of you were touching your hair.That's what people do when they're flirting."

"I'm not interested in some girl that's young enough to be my daughter." I replied.And I wasn't.

We silently entered the apartment, but once we were inside Janet said"I was going to come and join you in bed for a while tonight.But I don't think I'll bother.Sleep by yourself."

In retrospect I should have recognized this right away as controlling, manipulative behavior, and hit the road.But as a man, while I can easily recognize when other men are doing this, it's not something that I tended to think of as female behavior.I guess I thought that as a man, no woman was going to do that to me.But this was hardly a reasonable assumption,given that I was living with a political animal.But I was starting to wake up.

Part 2 continued.

I'm not asleep for long.There is loud rock music coming from  one of the other rooms.It's not quite eleven yet, and I've slept about two hours, if you could call it that.mostly it's just rolling from side to side, trying to find a part of my body that doesn't have a kink in it.I never really worry about sleep.I know my body will sleep well when it needs to.But I do wish the bed was more comfortable.

Outside it's a decent night,from what I can tell.Mid winter, but not overly cold.What I'd call a nice winters day.It's amazing that I've ever come to regard any winter day as nice, because I was raised in a house that valued warm weather.My father never seemed happy unless it was scorching hot outside.but there are a lot of days in winter that I rather enjoy.Cars snake up and down Center Street, and jackrabbits run about in the backyard.I focus on the airport again and try to let it calm me to sleep.

How did I come to be in Calgary? Well that's easy enough.How does a single man end up anywhere? He follows a woman.And that's exactly what I did.I was living well enough in Edmonton.I had enough work, a lot of good friends, and a church that was nothing short of amazing.There never was a time in my life when I was living out the Christian life like I was then, and I had a lot of love and support from my church community.

On the day before Thanks Giving 2000,we had a visitor in our church.The pastor would always ask visitors to stand and be recognized, and on this occasion several people did.One was a woman who indicated that she was visiting from Calgary.Her name was Janet.

After church, I started talking with Janet and we headed out for coffee.As it ended up, we spent the whole afternoon and evening together. In the park,we walked along side the river, and I was amazed to find that Janet could do something I'd never seen anyone else do. She held out her hand and the chickadees would fly right up and land on her outstretched palm. I thought it rather amazing, and decided after an hour or so of walking and talking with Janet, that I was rather taken with her.

We decided that since the weather was so beautiful, we would just go to the supermarket and get the things for a picnic.We didn't really have all the things we needed to fix a meal, so we got some juice, and some french bread and cheese and had a picnic of that.Then we were off to a movie.It had been a while since I'd seen a movie, not to mention being on what was seeming to be more and more like a date.

It wasn't that I was lacking in attention from females.But I didn't really have a steady girlfriend at the time.There was Abigail*,a girl at church, but if you'd asked me to explain that in the Pre- Facebook days, I would have still been forced to admit that"It's complicated." Let me put it this way.When it came to Abigail, I loved everything about her.She was a kind and gentle soul, very caring,the perfect Christian in my eyes. There was just one thing about her that I had difficulty with.I was not attracted to her in a physical sense.It's not that she was not attractive.She was just tiny while I really preferred larger women.The hard time came because I knew I shouldn't care what she looked like.All the beautiful things that came out of her should have been enough.So I felt guilty about not finding her physically attractive, and it was one of the things that got in the way of moving the relationship forward.In the meantime, other people in church remarked to me that her and I "made a fine couple.",not knowing that we were not a couple.Well,a couple of friends, but not in any other sense.Someone asked me one Sunday morning "So when are you going to fall in love with Abigail?" It's hard to know how to answer that.It's very complicated.

None of that  was as big as one other thing though, when it came to getting in the way of relationships.There was something else.Abigail had cancer.Cancer of the brain.In truth,she didn't seem to be doing that well, though I can't say for certain, because it was a burden that she chose to bear alone.So I would see her in church for a couple of Sundays in a row, then she would disappear for a time.By the fall of 2000, those times were becoming more frequent and longer.She just didn't want anyone to see her when she was not well.

So then along came Janet.I guess if I was to be fully honest,I'd have to say I viewed her as a way out.I didn't really want out of Edmonton, but, God help me I was really looking for a way to distance myself from Abigail.What I perceived to be happening there was making me cowardly.It would just be too hard.You see, even though I'd not really fallen in love with her, that's not to say I didn't have very real and deep feelings for her.And I knew that God wanted me to have a Christian mate. So I told myself that Abigail really had enough to worry about without additional complications in her life.And that turned out to be true.If we'd been going together, which we weren't, you could have said I'd broken up with her and not really given her a reason why. But Janet presented herself at the perfect time to help me solve a problem.

After the movie,Janet drove me home, and as it turned out, I was locked out.I had to call my room mate from the car and get him to come and open the door.Janet and I kissed good-night and we agreed that I should come and visit her in Calgary at the beginning of November.Before I could do that I needed to talk with Abigail, and be as honest with her as I could.In truth, I didn't do badly, but I was hardly prepared to be fully honest.

We met at a fast food restaurant not far from where we both lived.She had disappeared for some time and I was afraid I would not get to see her again before I left for Calgary.I didn't really know it at the time, but I think in some part of my mind,I was already resolved to staying in Calgary once I got there.I was also concerned that time and opportunity was running short with Abigail, that If I didn't talk to her soon,that when I came back would be too late.

Abigail didn't know about Janet.So I told her.I also told her that for quite some time I'd been very fond of her as well.That was maybe about half of the truth.Or maybe not quite half.No mention was made of my not finding her attractive, of not being able to imagine waking up beside her each morning.I suggested that the reason I didn't pursue matters with her was that I thought that she had too many other worries to be able to entertain such a relationship.That was the whole truth, but also an abdication of responsibility on my part.I don't know what I would have done if it had turned out that she was interested in a romantic relationship.I hadn't thought it that far through, and I had my escape hatch.In any event,we parted best of friends, and I never heard from her again.That's always bothered me, but it was kind of the way I'd imagined things going with her anyway.That she would just disappear one time and that would be it.Only it was really me who disappeared.

On the fourth day of November I left right after work for the bus station.It was almost three and a half hours to Calgary, so I tried to sleep, knowing I wouldn't. At about ten o'clock I arrived at the Greyhound depot in Calgary, and Janet was waiting.We embraced warmly and drove the ten minutes to her place.It ended up being the visit that never ended.

I'm looking out my bedroom window to the north, thinking that I really should lay down and sleep again.I don't have to be working until later in the morning, but I still need to be up reasonably early.I'll walk to work tomorrow too, maybe spend a bit more time plane watching.


                            * Name has been changed.

Part 2 Continued.

Work has become a quiet,comfortable routine.Not much happens aside from the predictable,and I rather like that. I work for a company that unloads trailers at the Walmart distribution warehouse in Calgary, and I've grown to like it.It took some time though. When I first started coming here people didn't like us much.And, I would say with some reason. The think about unloading trailers is that each one of them is billed a minimum of half a day, while in reality, some of them take very little time to unload.So I've gone into work and unloaded as many as five trailers and still gotten home at a reasonable time. I try to present myself each day with a decent attitude,and do my work conscientiously, so as to give no reason for complaint. Not all of the people that come here to unload trailers do that.A good many are just there to make a quick buck,so they can retire early,preferably before the liquor stores open. There is a good deal of foul mouthed complaining if a trailer takes what they deem to be too long to finish. I try never to do that,and it's paid off. At work I'm treated with respect.It's taken time for the bosses to see that I'm not there to be anyone's problem but they have, and they treat me respectfully.I believe in giving my employers a day's work for a day's pay. And today,I have, and it's time to go home.

Since it's Friday, I'm taking the C-Train downtown, then I'm headed off to the bank. It's only about two O'clock and I've managed to bill twelve hours for the day. I've got two trailers tomorrow too, but they don't start until nine, so I can sleep in a bit. Lately sleeping in has never taken me much past six O'clock.

I went into the office to pick up my pay.It's located in the basement of a large recruitment firm downtown. I want to get finished here and at the bank before rush hour, or I'll never get home until late. The number three bus will be loaded to the rafters, and I really can't abide those kinds of crowds.I'd just as soon walk home, though it's far, it's for the most part uphill and I'm getting tired.The bones in my feet seem to be always tight or sore and sometimes both.I get a lot of muscle cramps in my legs.Guess maybe I'm getting old. I've been saying that a lot to myself of late. I can remember way back when I thought it was odd to hear my father say that.Now I'm saying it myself.

I arrive home just before four and try to decide what to make for dinner.It's a long way to the nearest supermarket, but I really should go buy groceries before too much of my money disappears.Instead I opt for pizza. I've been doing that a lot since I've moved to this house. Pizza is satisfying,and one of the take-out foods that is reasonably inexpensive here in Calgary. I'd really rather prepare my own meals.I'm a decent enough cook,and not really lazy, but it's a shared kitchen and I really don't like a lot of company when I'm preparing food. Here it's a bit of a man cave, and some of the other tenants will sit around the kitchen table drinking beer.Aaron especially likes company, but he's often half lit and sometimes hasn't showered in days, so I tend to keep to myself.When I cook, it's usually just long enough to fry a cheap cut of steak for three minutes on either side, and to steam some mushrooms,onions and whatever other veggies appeal to me on any given day. Then I retire to my room to watch television until I fall asleep.Never been much for television either,but the rent pays for full cable,so I need to get my money's worth.

The pizza place is a ways back down the hill,and it takes me an hour to wander there after I've decided not to cook.Friday is usually my eat out day, sit down in a restaurant and pretend I'm not such an introvert. In truth, I've become a bit of a wall flower since I first moved here. I really do like people.Some of them at least. But I don't really get out much.not nearly as much as I should.There's jam sessions on Monday and Thursday, but it's about the only place I ever go. One of the girls I jam with has just found her mate online, and now she says it's time for me to find one.Actually she says "it's time for us to find someone for you." I'm not inclined to agree, but she is such a sweet woman and one of my very favorite people.I'm happy for her, but I'm certain that I don't want to walk in her footsteps right now.

Back at home I eat a few slices of pizza and wash it down with some lemonade, while I try to relax on my bed,and find something on the tube.I finally decide on professional wrestling, not because I enjoy it, but because I know it will put me off to sleep.And there really is nothing else on that interests me much. Out my window I can see a long way off into a clear night.I can see all the way to the airport, and the planes coming in, one about every three minutes, seen but unheard helps me relax and be reflective on what life's been like since I've moved here. I've a couple of hours between wake and sleep where I just ponder life in general.Why did I come here, and am I going to stay is what it all comes down too.My original reason for coming to town is not the same as my reasons for staying, whatever they might be.Sometime just before sleep finds me I'm thinking that I'm sure fixated on that airport a lot lately.

Part 2.

It's been about six months now since I've moved up here on the North Hill.It's now mid winter, 2006. I live in a rooming house at 43rd Avenue,just west of Center Street. It's a rough and grubby part of Calgary, but then, to my eyes,many parts are. It's brown and yellow in winter,without a lot of snow,so the tall grass sticks up and blows wildly whenever the wind blows.Here at home, we are in the lee of Nose Hill Park,so it's less windy here than in some other places. It's not been a dreadful winter to this point anyway.

I wake early,just past three, as it's my custom to walk to work when I can.It's about three miles,along McKnight Boulevard, a good portion of the distance skirting the southern edge of McCall Field-Calgary International Airport. I've been diagnosed with gout and Plantar's Faschitis,and it's sometimes a chore to walk that far,then put in a full day's work.At times I take the bus.But when I'm able I enjoy the rather long,solitary walk.

Lately my body aches a lot. Not anything that's getting the better of me. I still think I should be able to do what I could when I was twenty.I take pride in being able to work the twenty somethings under the table at work, then get home and realize that I've worked myself under the table too.I guess I'm getting old. So I get home in the evening,cook a steak for three minutes on either side,burn the mushrooms that go with it, then slip off early into an Ikea bed that came with the furnished room.It kills my back.Sleep is rarely ever comfortable anymore.Sometimes I just give up and put out a blanket on the hardwood floor instead.Out my window, to the Northeast I can watch the planes landing and taking off.

The door to my room is always closed,against the slightly too loud hard rock music that one of my room mates likes to play until well after midnight. We come and we go, from the front door to the doors of our rooms.Sometimes we say hi,sometimes we don't. In the early morning,the light comes on in the hall.I can see a crack of it underneath the door,and I know it's time to leave. Aaron is up, in the bathroom,loudly pissing into the toilet bowl.It never occurs to him to close the door.Aaron was intended to be a tall man,but a forklift accident has left him a stooped old man at something slightly less than forty.He looks something like Mick Jagger.When he's finished shaking the water off himself,he grabs a can of Bow Valley beer that he's left sitting on the toilet tank, and takes a long drink. Then he heads out the door to have a smoke.At the curb sits an old GMC truck that is just about as world worn as Aaron is. It's the only real thing he owns, and sometimes he takes long drives at all hours. I've seen his truck circling the stroll,downtown.

Today we've made more noise than I like to make.If I don't get out of the house soon,we'll wake up Ronnie, who works from dawn until whatever time they are through on some construction site, then comes home to sleep a few hours. In the other room,Abu has already started to stir. Abu the Eritrean,Abu the psych nurse. He'll soon be up, because before he is off to work, he sometimes has a couple of overly starched Mormon missionaries over for prayer and "Bible study." Neither Ronnie or I appreciate the proselytizing, but nothing will be said.

I grab a dish that I've put in the refrigerator.Ground pork from the night before.Green Onions and mushrooms.I sprinkle it with some sage and pour out a generous sprinkle of salt and black pepper. I throw a grapefruit into my backpack, then I'm gone out the door.It's cold, but not bitterly so.There is the slight odor of skunk.It was warm enough overnight for them to be out foraging. I start diagonally across the field, over a slightly icy cow path through the tall grass.Have to keep an eye open for the skunk. And, it's a steep decent to where the path meets McKnight, so I'll have to take care to keep my steps short and steady. Haven't fallen this winter yet.

I love the airport.If work was in some other part of town, I'm not sure I'd walk there as often.But the coming and going of planes fascinate me. The biggest thrill is to manage to be right at the end of the runway when a Jumbo Jet passes over,only a hundred or so feet above my head. I've come to notice how unreliable my eye is too.Or maybe it's just that the very idea of flight is peculiar. Trying to inhabit a realm where we were really not intended to be. I can see far off planes as they approach, and I know how it is that people can convince themselves that they see things that they really don't. Sometimes planes seem to just sit there in the sky, appearing to hover.But it's really because on the prairies you can see a plane from a long way off and it seems to take forever to get there.But suddenly it's there, touching down,and the thrust reversers blow up large clouds of snow. At times, I see coyotes near the airport too, and I wonder if I will today.

I cross 19th Street, into an area of mega warehouses, then I cross through the parking lot of a cell phone company,where a sign announces the time as 4:23. It's just another half mile to work now.Across Barlow Trail and down 39th Ave. Lot's of time.I never like to get to work just on time.I need to sit for a while and absorb the place before my day begins. Maybe Kimberly will be around and I can sit with her for a bit over coffee. Maybe I'll get to work with Tracy, my favorite. I don't really see either of them as girlfriend material, but I enjoy the company of both. I've rather sworn off women, but that' s a story I'll get to in due time. I get along passably well with all of the people I could be partnered with today, but I'd really prefer to work with Tracy.

It's payday today.Friday of the Family Day weekend. I'll need to go downtown to the office to get my paycheck, then I think I'll go get something to eat.Maybe some chicken.And maybe a movie alone.i'll see how tired this day leaves me first.Have to work tomorrow too, but it should be a short day.  

Part I continued

We all have days that,as the saying goes,live in infamy. Somewhere in  each of our histories is a day that divides time into the time before and the time after, and that we  can recall just what it was we were doing when the event took place. December 7,1941.November 22,1963. And my own personal day, because of the unique time of my birth.September 11,2001. Thus, its tempting to begin the story there. But that would be the wrong place.

It's hard to know when one should begin writing reflectively about their life.Forty?Fifty?One hundred? Surely by then. But for me it doesn't seem that I'd gained much wisdom by forty.I hadn't really had many of the hard things in life weighing me down,and when I did,I just shook them off and got on with life. So that infamous day is really just a distraction, though indeed every day after has been different from every day before and we live in a different world now. no,for me it took a few more years to reach what I considered middle age, and I wasn't sure I'd gained much wisdom along the way.

Then the world started  changing.Not in a historical sense.History has an inflated sense of self importance,I think.Not only do the winners write it, but by and large it doesn't mean that much to average people.Not until it becomes personal, when you can see that things past may have been different, and you realize how. When all the constant things in life begin to fall by the way. And then you realize that you need to take the lessons of the past with you, to create a future,and that the future has the possibility of overcoming the past, and being better.But it's a struggle and life never seems to turn just the way you imagined that it might, or even should. Then everyday brings new revelations and wisdom.but is wisdom ever really for the one who thinks they've attained it?

Calgary,in the late months of 2005 and the early part of 2006,is the time of my waking up in winter,when the changes came wholesale,and there was yet perhaps another fifty years to live.God only knows,but I'm going to need all I've learned, all those times have shown me. I was nagged in the years just before by a single thought. It spoke in my head saying"Before it's all over,I'd like to do just one good thing." Now I see,that despite loss, it's possible to do many. 

Part I

                   

                                            Summertime and the living is easy
                                           Fish are biting and the cotton is high
                                          Your daddy's rich,and your mamas good looking
                                          So hush little baby,don't you cry
                                                                                                   -Gershwin
                                         

                        

                                   









There is a man and a woman standing on the corner of Crandall Street and Sumner Avenue in a for the most part new residential area in the northwest corner of Moncton,New Brunswick,then a small city.The man is dressed in blue denim pants and a clean,plain white t-shirt as was his custom at the time. The woman is of average height,and would be said to have had an attractive figure.The two are neighbors who have met on the street and stopped to have a cigarette and a short conversation, the way neighbors sometimes do. There are two children there too.They belong to the man. But it's not yet a society that is obsessed with creating a visual record of itself,so there is nobody there to take a picture of the scene. Still the scene has never really left my mind,it's there and in my mind it looks like a photograph of the day, in colors more muted than today's.

Nothing at all about this scene is unusual.The two people know each other well.The woman looks after the two children on the days that both the man and his wife are working. So the children greet the woman eagerly. For some forgotten reason,they were on a walk through the neighborhood.It's just after lunch on a warm going on hot day, cloudless except for a few contrails.

The man could be said to be in his prime.It's 1966. For some reason he's mentioned to the woman that he is thirty two years old. He's not big,though slightly taller than most.Rather thin,though strong and able.He moves with ease and confidence, works hard whenever called upon to do so, and is a good provider, and proud of that fact. He could protect his family too,were it to come to it.But it's a safe town,and he is a gentleman,not a fighter.He does not frequent the taverns. He walks around town with  an understated confidence.At city hall,he is proud to be seen paying his taxes or utilities, or, at the bank,his loans or mortgage. A lot of men were like that then. Though he accepted no nonsense,he was kind to his children,and eagerly showed them off whenever the opportunity arose to do so.Yet he was rather quiet, not at all a braggart.

For some reason,the man said something that day that struck his son as odd."I'm getting old." He told the woman.Perhaps he had discovered a single gray hair, or had an ache in some part of his body that had not been there the day before.Perhaps he was more tired than usual.Or it may have been just a teasing figure of speech.His children thought the remark funny; his acquaintance did not regard it seriously.The children had no real concept of what it meant to get old.

Two years later, the woman was dead.Well before her time. It was only years later that the mans son was able to see,in looking back,that there was never a day in which the man had been more able, competent,sturdy,upright,virile and proud as he was that day in his thirty third year. He began fading some from that day on, though not so quickly, not so that you would notice it from day to day, or even from year to year at that time. It took a good many years, but he diminished some, year after year. He was sick a lot sometimes.He was tired and slept a lot. Then the cigarettes and liquor and all the days commuting eighty miles to work began to chase him like hell hounds,and began to close the gap on him. Strokes became his curse, he aged,then passed, finding,I hope the peace that he never had in this world.

And, I thought,at what point does a man become old?