Part 2, continued

By now it's getting on to about nine o'clock, and I'm still thinking of heading off for church,so I sift through the bag of clean laundry for something presentable to wear. It's a clear enough day, but with a cold biting wind, even though the actual temperature is not that cold. But it's the kind of wind that tends to blow a lot of trash around here in Calgary, so maybe I'll wait and go to church tonight. Center Street Church has two morning services, and I've still got time to make the first one if I hurry. I look out my bedroom window and see the snow swirling around.In the far back part of the yard,a jackrabbit is nibbling at little sprigs of yellow grass, and I think I can see the start of brown fur growing in on his back. Early spring? Spring is never much here on the prairies it seems.It can go from twenty below one day to thirty degrees Celsius the next,and that will be the only transition at all. Sometimes it stays cold well into May. I don't mind the deep winter, but not getting much of a spring before the heat descends has always bothered me.

As I'm watching the rabbit, and a pack of noisy magpies,I decide to lay back down on the bed for a bit, and it's not long before I'm dozing. I don't really sleep much, but by the time my eyes open up again, it's too late for the first service at Center Street Church.So I roll over, and with the TV remote,switch to the channel listings.My TV is normally on whenever I'm home, day or night. After watching all the listings scroll past on the screen, I find that The Daytona 500 is on.I guess that settles the issue of church until tonight. In truth, I've gotten a bit ambivalent about church attendance of late.But, I tell myself it's alright, because I still believe and I don't really need to attend church to live a Christian Life. But in my heart, I know that's not quite true.

Finding a church in Calgary was not really easy. Not like in Edmonton, when I just walked into a church and knew it was going to be home as soon as I did.I started out going to The Full Gospel Church in Mount Royal, more or less as soon as I arrived in town, and it was a very good church.I was also attending a small assembly of Evangelicals that met in a United Church basement just a few blocks from Janet's place. Janet worked until five o'clock on Sundays, so that's usually where we would attend together right after she got home. In truth, I never really felt like I fit in there.I would also go to Bible study with Janet on Wednesday nights, at the house of one of the pastors from that church. Eventually after Janet and I got to the point where we were arguing most of the time,she asked me not to continue going to Bible study. I told her I didn't really want to be somewhere I wasn't welcome...especially if that place was Bible study.I didn't think the whole concept of Bible study lent  itself to proclaiming certain people as being unwelcome, but that's what Janet claimed I was. Later, I was told she had had her eye on one of the other men attending that Bible study. I guess that would have explained things, had I bothered to ask, but by then Janet and I were just about finished for a host of other reasons.

Shortly after I moved into my old apartment,I began attending a Baptist Church in Bridgeland, just across the river from downtown. It was quite a walk, though I could get there on the Ctrain in just a few minutes. Usually,though, I walked. In the beginning, it seemed like a really good church, but I soon found out that there seemed to be some rather unchristian things going on there, and that I was the center of some rather unholy attentions.

There was this woman in that church named Beth, and she was one of the first people to greet me on the first day I came. She welcomed me warmly, but by the time service was over, she was hugging me, and I felt rather uncomfortable with that, as I'd only known her for an hour.I didn't bother to say a thing about it though. I continued attending that church for a few months, and thought it a reasonably decent place to worship.Except for Beth, who was rather a clingy type. I even considered becoming a church member, until I was talking to one of the other people going there one day just before services started. That person told me, straight out that Beth had set her eyes on me, and that moreover, it wasn't the first time she'd done that in the last few years. I became instantly rather queasy,to the point that I really wanted to just leave. First, I had no interest in Beth at all, except as a Christian sister, and, given what I'd just heard, I wasn't really sure she was even that. There was the possibility that the person telling me this was doing so for motives of her own, but that raised even more questions. Still, I'd come to see Beth's behavior for myself, and thought it really inappropriate. But the gossip was a concern too, something else that really shouldn't be happening in church. I didn't want to deal with Beth, having just come out of a bad relationship, and I hardly had any more inclination to put up with other supposed Christians calling her a tart.So I simply stopped attending that church.There were, after all a lot of churches I could attend. Somehow,though, I hadn't really seen that churches are in fact institutions filled with deeply flawed people.I naively expected a higher standard of conduct from church people, than what I encountered the rest of the week.

For awhile, the line between church and work got a bit blurred. That all started on Palm Sunday of 2001, when I attended a church up on The North Hill, not far from where I live now. This was not an ordinary kind of church at all.In fact, it could have been right at home in the backwoods of Kentucky, or West Virginia, or maybe even New Brunswick.About the only thing missing were the snakes, and by the time the service was half over,I began to wonder if they might be appearing at any moment.I was rather comfortable with many Pentecostal churches, though I don't hold with all Pentecostals in terms of doctrine. But this place was way over the top, with half the congregation running about talking in tongues, and even barking like dogs, supposedly possessed by The Holy Spirit.It seemed very disorderly to me, undignified even, more about charisma than about scriptural substance, and by the time I left, I was sure I wouldn't be back.

On Monday morning, I went into the day labor office, and was immediately sent out to a place that processes linens and floor mats.I wasn't really paying close attention to the fact that other people in the office had already refused to be placed there.I thought that they were just lazy, but I wanted to get out to work, So I signed up and went. What it turned out that they wanted to avoid was that there were a number of people working there, and even some of the managers, who were deeply involved in that church I'd just attended the day before. Moreover, they were not the least bit shy about suggesting that I should go visit that church.

I never made any declaration of my religion when I got to that job placement.In fact, I never do.I try to follow a simple rule in the workplace.It's that old adage that anyone who has ever taken a creative writing class would know: "Show me, don't tell me." So I just went about my work and, at the end of the week, the place offered me a full time position, which I eagerly accepted, having just come off of a seven month long temporary job at a grocery warehouse, and being unemployed for all of about two days. In retrospect, it turned out to be the most toxic work environment I'd ever been in.I don't even really want to think about it right now. But being uninclined to attend the same church as management did, I just never seemed to fit in there, and was never convinced that it was not because of that tendency. In fact, I'd likely have fit in better if I'd not been going to any church at all.On top of all that, it was a unionized shop, and I wasn't willing to accept the union as my church either, insisting instead on thinking about workplace matters using my own intellect rather than being led around by the nose by a shop steward. So I really didn't fit into that side of the equation either.In all, it was a rough eighteen month stretch, and I was nothing so much as extremely relieved when it came to an end.

The whole concept of church shopping had never been a part of my experience until I came to Calgary.My mother always attended her own church, one as close as she could find to where we lived.And she almost never attended any other church.I think she thinks that it's up to the people in the church to make things work, and she never gave any thought to not doing so. Then ,in Edmonton, I just happened to walk into a church after I became a Christian, and that church became an almost perfect fit. But by the time I got to Calgary, it was just a real challenge finding a good church.In fact, it never really crossed my mind that this was likely closer to what happens to most people looking for a church, either for the first time, or when coming to a new town. So I just set aside the actual attendance of services for awhile. And as of today,mid February 2006, that's where I find myself.Really, I guess it's just a convenient excuse for not trying  to fit in better.
     

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Part 2 Continued

Aaron is up and using the bathroom again without bothering to close the door.Time to set some boundaries here too. I'm fairly sure he has a significant drug habit, with all the pain he's in. But mostly he keeps it out of the front yard.there are no dealers coming to visit, and that's a good thing. Aaron heads back to his room.He looks like Hell today, so I know he's been out all night.

Long before the flood, in June of 2005, things had been deteriorating around the home place.I thought I could put up with most of it, but it was seeming such a heavy load.Here I was paying good money to rent a place that I loved mostly for the location.I loved walking down to the river with my guitar, or just going for a walk in the park to the north. But the place was physically falling apart, and at some point it started attracting a really bad clientele. I should make plans to move  I thought, around the late summer of 2004.

Calgary, like most other cities has a big problem with illegal drugs.Only here it's fueled somewhat by affluence.A lot of guys go out to the oilfields to work and are only home every few weeks. There are a lot of people working construction in town as well.And both are fairly well known as having a lot of drug use.In he case of the oil rig workers, with them being gone a lot, there really is not much of a   community.They often just land in town for a few days,with a lot of money and a big urge to party. Since the building I lived in was one of the cheaper accommodations available in central Calgary, it attracted a lot of these sorts of people. Not only those sorts, but also the people who service and abuse them. For a while some of the empty suites started to fill up. The one right beside my own brought in a new tenant,and that brought a whole bunch of new problems. From the beginning, the suite had a lot of visitors. By a lot, I mean sometimes thirty to forty a day in just the few hours I was there. And since I was working forty hours a week, I wasn't there, and awake a lot.

With my new neighbor, there came a series of other incidents. I began finding hypodermic needles all over the place.Mostly it was on the front lawn, but I started finding them in the building too. this had never really been a problem before, but by late 2004, it was. I even found one in the washing machine, down in the laundry room. Along with all of this there came to be signs that people had slept in the laundry room as well. And, worst of all, I began getting late night knocking on my door.The few times I answered, it was always someone looking to buy, always in a bad state of affairs, coming down off a high. It got to the point where I would sometimes get more than one visitor nightly.Once there was even a girl there holding a crack pipe and saying"I've got no money, but if you fill up this pipe, I'll do something special for you."

"No Thanks."

"Oh come on...I just need some shit. I'll be good to you."

"Why don't you just be good to me anyway.Just leave me alone and get some sleep...before I call the police."

Calling the police in Calgary is never a really good idea, because I've found them to be pretty much a useless entity, unless you've actually already been murdered, or your biggest pet peeve happens to be speeders which they hound incessantly with photo radar.Mostly, they just seem to be tax collectors.I know that calling them because of all the drug traffic is not even likely to draw a response.So I don't bother."I can put up with this...I can put up with it...I really can...just stay in my own suite and leave everyone else alone- who am I trying to fool."

Eventually I put a sign up on my door that said."This is not a crack house, nor a whorehouse,so please don't bother me. Please find the suite you want.It's not here." It usually took no time at all for someone to yank down the sign and throw it on the floor. One day someone replaced it with one of their own. " Why don't you move out and leave the rest of us here alone...you obviously don't like it here." It was held in place by a hypodermic needle stuck into the wood of the door. Things were, as the saying goes, getting real. They were about to get a whole lot more real.

After Sam left, a couple, maybe even a husband and wife came on as caretakers.They were decent enough folk, quiet and clean cut, with a rather no nonsense approach to running the building.The premises were cleaned daily and one of them was always home. For the most part there was not a lot of dealing going on on the second floor, because they lived right across from the suite that brought in all the traffic. So the traffic moved outside, which was a bit easier to live with. But then, they came to be expecting a child, and ours, despite a great deal of childish behavior happening, was an adult building. So off they went.

It's the replacement that brought most of the more serious problems with him.I knew there were some big problems as soon as the guy got there.I was told that he had just been released from prison, and it was easy to believe because he was a tough looking character.He could well have been sixty, or maybe only forty, but all used up.I'd see needle tracks on his arms all the time.So I resolved to just keep dealing with the building owner at his office.That had seemed to work well up until this point, and it kept me from running across this character very often.

But it was during this guys rather short tenure that some really unsettling things began happening.At first, I couldn't quite discern that anything really was happening, but I would just have a really odd feeling that things were not quite right when I got home. It had never really occurred to me that anyone might actually be entering my suite, but I came to the conclusion that it seemed to be true. I'd come home and there'd be wet footprints on the carpet, even though it hadn't started raining until after I'd been at work three hours. Or there would be some silt in the bathtub, and maybe a shampoo bottle would be sitting in a place where I  thought I hadn't put it.Once, a can of beans seemed to be gone.But it could all be just my memory getting bad.It had never really been great in the first place. I could convince myself that that was true, because I didn't really know what to do with the alternative.Denial seemed as good an option as anything. But the incidents, if that's what they really were, kept right on happening, until I was almost certain I was having unwanted visitors. If I said that to anyone, I'd be called paranoid. Hell, I'd even think myself paranoid.But even paranoid people are not immune to people messing with them. Besides, it was already known that keys could be given out to people who didn't belong there.But that was so long ago...

With all of this going on, I decided to set things up for whoever my unauthorized visitor might be. I determined to find out if I was having visitors. This involved setting up items in such a way as to be able to tell, upon my return if they had been disturbed.So I would take the shower head and point it askew, either toward the ceiling, or toward the edge of the tub so that it would spray all over the toilet and floor. I'd lay out towels on the toilet seat just so, so I knew exactly what position it was in.The same with shampoo bottles, and soap, and books laid out on the couch or coffee table, and cans in the cupboard.And before I left, I would take pictures of everything with my phone.

This was all going down in the winter, and there was a lot of slush and snow. So one day I come home and find the carpet all tracked up again.But I couldn't really say for certain that I hadn't done that myself.I had my set up items laid out, and eventually they gave me an answer.Because of the pictures I'd taken, I was able to locate things to within an inch or so of where I knew I'd put them.And, as it turned out, on at least one occasion, things had been moved. This was more than unsettling, but still offered no real proof.

Then one day I came home, and someone was moving all the things out of the caretakers home.The man in the next apartment over was moving his stuff into the caretakers old suite, while a couple of men were moving things out.The man moving in was the newest caretaker. I stopped to make his acquaintance, and he told me,shall we say, the rest of the story: It seems that people had been getting unwanted visitors.According to the new caretaker, the owner had just fired the old one, the guy from prison.The story was that he had been allowing homeless people access to suites for the purpose of catching a few hours sleep and perhaps using the bath or shower, or even the stove. The extent of this whole thing wasn't really known, but the new caretaker told me about how it came to be discovered.The man who owned the building, also owned a couple of other buildings.It was in one of those buildings that he went one late winter day to show a suite, only to open the door and find it occupied by several homeless people.They quickly explained to him that they had no keys to the place, but had been let in by a man who claimed to own the building.He as charging them a nominal amount to occupy the suites, but there were also a fair number of people using several vacant, and perhaps occupied suites as well. So the end result was what I witnessed when I got home that day.

By now I was convinced I should move.But where to.And I hated moving in winter if it could be avoided.I knew to my satisfaction that there were some really disturbing things going on here, and I began not feeling very safe.I also got very irritable, and rather more reclusive than normal.Still I was convinced I was not being unreasonable about things at all.There were some real problems here, and I thought it unlikely that much would be changing in the very near future. I decided to wait a few more months.

Now I've been living up on The North Hill for about six months and the future here seems unsettled too.The Mormons, the distance from downtown, the drinking , the mess in the bathroom, the lack of privacy, that infernal Ikea bed- all are starting to bother me. Someday it will just all gather into a critical mass and I'll be out of here.But where to?I guess I'm just a generally dissatisfied soul, a malcontent maybe.Maybe I'll just find another town, maybe I'm a bit of a wanderer.Maybe I'll head east someday.

Part 2 Continued.

The Mormons approach me even though I've asked them not to.Why do they not get it?the invitation to be here was not given by every member of the household, nor is the hospitality extended from every member.I make a note to tell the landlord that conducting Bible study, such as it is,in the house's common areas is really inappropriate, and if they cannot observe a few basic boundaries, they need to not be here.It's time get a handle on this situation before it becomes too overbearing.

When I first moved to my little apartment on the banks of the Elbow River, it was my refuge,my hideaway.Nobody ever visited me there, and quite frankly, that's just the way I wanted it. I did socialize occasionally, but always away from home. When I retreated to my apartment it was to gain some solitude, because I was, and am a person who sometimes needs a lot of space. So, for awhile,my apartment was a perfect place. The river just down at the end of the street was glorious no matter what the season, so the location was ideal too.

Nothing ever stays the same for long, or so it seems.I should have cued in the night that Janet showed up with her own key to my apartment that there was something seriously dysfunctional with the way the building was being run.But shortly after that little run in, the building caretaker was relieved of her duties, so that seemed to solve the problem.But only for a short while. Replacing the older woman was a young Arab man from the apartment directly below me.He had the unfortunate name of Osama. Unfortunate for the times that is.While he called himself "Sam", and, I suppose who wouldn't in a similar set of circumstances, I heard others referring to him as Osama a number of times.

The problem with Sam was that he could never be reached for anything when you needed him. Either he wasn't at home, or he was entertaining one of the long line of females who I saw coming and going from his apartment.Literally you could not reach him even on the day rent was to be paid, and the inevitable result was that the landlord, an Egyptian man who maintained an office not terribly far from my apartment would show up a day or two later looking for not just the rent money, but for twenty dollars in late fees for every day the payment was late.The first he showed up on my doorstep,I counted out the cash for him and made sure to let him know that nothing other than the rent would be forthcoming.I pointed out to him that he hired Sam for a reason, and that part of his duties was to collect rent.For that he had to be reasonably available to tenants, and he was not. The following month, I brought the rent to his office, about fifteen blocks away, while there was yet nearly a week left in the month.Then, on rent day, Sam shows up at my door demanding rent, saying that he will no longer accept late payment and promising eviction.I patiently point out to him that he cannot evict me.Only the building owner can do that. Then I show him my rent receipt.He accepts it, as he really has no choice, but says that my bypassing him is unacceptable. I firmly tell him that this is a matter of my discretion and if I'm being required to deal with him, then he needs to be available.

The following month brought more problems with Sam.Clearly the guy was caught up in the idea that being the building's caretaker gave him some degree of power over other people, and that did not really sit well with me.I got along well with the buildings owner, and could think of no reason not to just deal directly with him and shoot Sam the bird as I passed by his door. I chose appeasement as the better option though, because antagonizing Sam could mean that were I to have a leak in the plumbing or some such thing, that the problem might go on at length. But I've never really agreed with appeasement as a policy at any level, so it was so hard to do.Kind of like asking a dog to stay when the room is filled with nice juicy steaks. Instead, I am by personality the sort who likes to set reasonable boundaries and insist on them being observed.Moreover, I see nothing unreasonable about this.Good boundaries are what defines good relationships of any kind, and certainly good business relationships.When I approached Sam with the rent money in hand, two days before months end, he said flat out"I don't have time for you now."

"Well", I replied, "You need to make time.You need to do your job, because in the end of things,you work for your customers.And I happen to be one of those customers."

"Today is not rent day.' he screamed at me."Come back at the appropriate time, or not at all.I'll just write up an eviction notice for you."

"Go ahead Osama...lets see how that works out for you." By this time his latest live in had appeared at the door.She was a short, blonde trashy looking woman with an equally trashy mouth.

"Don't you ever call me Osama again, you fat bastard."

"Why not, it's your name isn't it. I've never been much into diminutive forms of address."

With that he ran at me, throwing a punch that missed by a mile.He was followed by Miss Trashcan, also throwing punches, calling me a racist woman's body part, and telling me that the building owner was an Arab as well, and would toss me straight out the door.

By this time I'd truly had enough of Osama's boorish,disrespectful behavior and decided appeasement be damned I would set the both of them straight without further ado."Listen Lady,your name around here is Bimbo.If you haven't already figured that out you will soon enough.Lets be clear...you have no power in this building.And Osama...the next time you throw a punch at me you'll end up in a jail cell, with a possible stop at the hospital on the way.Now go away and leave me alone.You don't exist.From now on I'll deal only with your boss. Got a problem with that you can go to Hell, but believe me,leaving me alone is your best option.If you do that,I'll guarantee you'll have no problem with me."

So I wondered down the road to Harry's office, cash in hand and paid him. I explained to him what had happened with Sam, and, having cooled off somewhat apologized for having called him Osama, saying that I realized it was likely inappropriate.

"I wouldn't worry about it" said Harry, "It is his name."

Even so, I was upset at myself for having used the term in the manner in which I had.I felt that I needed to keep a cooler head than that.I did insist,though that henceforth, I would be stopping by Harry's business office, or calling him on the phone with rent, or any other matters of concern.He said that was fine, and it became our new arrangement.A month or two later Sam was gone, having antagonized a lot of other people in the building as well.The truth was that our particular building had rents almost one hundred dollars a month less than any of the buildings on our street. Yet nearly a quarter of them were empty in a rental market with less than a 1% vacancy rate. That should have been my second cue as to what was happening.But I missed it too.I thought that with Sam gone, the situation would improve.I was dead wrong.




























   

Part 2 Continued

The Mormons are here for their Bible study with one of my room mates.I wish they would take it somewhere more appropriate, because they tie up the whole kitchen, and they never cease asking me to join them.I don't like being unkind to them, but I see their religion as nothing more than a lot of hocus pocus, and they are so damn aggressive at times. I'm not feeling to irritable this morning though, so I poke around in the refrigerator while I'm waiting for the office to take my call.Eventually they do, and as luck would have it, I score two trailers to unload tomorrow, at time and a half. I go to the front door and look out on a day that's still trying to decide what it wants to be. My throat is feeling scratchy too, and with an achy body, I think I'm starting to get a cold. Calgary weather is not as severe as that in Edmonton just three hours to the north, because warm wind often comes in over the mountains.It certainly breaks up winter, but it can make a cold hang on for a long time, with all the warm,cold cycles. I don't get sick much anymore.Not since 1990 when I got slammed with a bunch of different things all at once, and I thought I was going to die.Whatever it was must have given me one hell of an immunity to just about everything.Cold and flu I only catch in mild form, and far less frequently than in the past.Still, even in mild form, a cold can sometimes be hard to get rid of.

In all,I can't complain of my health.But I seem to have entered a period of being  rather less healthy than I was in Edmonton.As much as I'm not susceptible to contagion, I've developed a couple of other problems, one being gout, the other plantars faschitis. They both nag me these days, sometimes ferociously. I wonder how well I'll be able to walk in ten years time. I've always had legs that tighten up for no discernible reason too, except in mid summer when the reason is heat. In the back of my mind I worry about this some.

It's not so much my health that the weather messes with. Weather is sometimes unstable here in Calgary.For the whole first three years here it was dry both winter and summer.Then we got a wet summer.But the worst was just last year, when the rains came in mid June, and the Elbow River that runs past my house started to flood.We watched it for a couple of days until it rose to where it was almost touching the bridge crossing 25th Avenue. Eventually, on a Saturday night,some policemen came into our building and told us we were being evacuated, that we would have to leave as soon as we could, and if we were still there in four hours time, we could be subject to arrest. The river was up over the end of the street about two hundred feet from my door, so I didn't waste any time at all. The cop told me I should head for the residences at the Southern Alberta Institute Of Technology, as they were taking in flood victims.I got onto a transit bus, which had been provided free of charge, and it took a bunch of us there.I'd never been evacuated from anywhere before, but I immediately found it very stressful.All I'd managed to gather were a couple of changes of clothes. Left behind, among other things was my guitar, which my favorite band had signed for me. I thought and worried a lot about that guitar, but concluded it was most likely alright.Still, it stressed me out.I thought about food in the fridge that was most likely bound to rot, and about sewage backing up into my apartment.But I was blessed with a safe bed that night, and I knew that was the most important thing.

On that Sunday morning I got up to go to work, and that presented a problem.I was in the northwest side of the city and I worked in the northeast.Not normally a problem, except on a Sunday at five AM. Two hours later I could catch a bus to Marlbourough transit station.But as it was I would have to walk all the way downtown to catch a train early enough to get me to work on time- if the flood water hadn't shut the line down. So I started down the steep hill on 10TH Street S.W. into Sunnyside. When I got to Fifth Avenue, at the foot of the hill, I heard a car way down by Memorial Drive rev it's motor, and the long screech of tires.I looked up to see a car coming quickly northbound, but after it had gone about a block, it swerved toward the east side of the street.It was followed by a huge bang when the car hit a building. Right away I knew it was bad, even being a few blocks away.I continued walking toward the scene.There was no way around it. I had a cellphone but I noticed that there were already people on the scene when I got there, and the sirens were already filling up the night with what seemed like a demonic howl. I knew the alarm had already been turned in, so I decided not to get involved.If I did, I'd be delayed for hours, and I needed to get to work.I decided I'd call in later as a witness.I wasn't certain what I could offer to enlighten the cops as to what happened, but I'd call in later.As I passed by the wrecked car and building, the first firetruck was just arriving.There appeared to be about five people in the car.All three in the rear seat seemed slumped over, and the red lights on the firetruck panned over the scene.It was still wet on the road, but not raining much, and other emergency vehicles were arriving as I walked past.

On Monday morning, I was still at the residence, on a tiny, hard little bed that was wrecking my back.But at least I had a place to stay.I went off to work that morning too, and because it was a weekday, getting to work was much easier. By ten O'clock I'd unloaded two trailers and was headed home to see what the situation looked like.My street was still all blocked off, but a cop told me I could go into the building to get anything I might need.I was told I'd have fifteen minutes. Inside I could see that river water had reached and entered our front door and gone down into the basement.My suite on the second floor was still high and dry, so I went in, gathered up my guitar, tossed a roast ham and some ground beef into the dumpster and left. The evacuation lasted three more days, but the weather was improving and I had my guitar.Things could have been much worse.I heard news that three people had died in the accident I'd seen.I went in to the police station and filled out a statement. The cop said he didn't think I'd seen a lot that would be helpful, but thanked me for coming anyway.True to his word, I never heard from them again.  

Part 2 continued.

I'm looking for my red cell phone. really I hardly see why I need one.I make so few calls.I wouldn't object to having a phone,it's just the damn plan that goes with it.I get a reasonable amount of minutes for about thirty five dollars a month, but I'm always left holding onto minutes at the end of the month.If they could be rolled over into the next month,I wouldn't feel like I was wasting my money when what's left of them disappeared at month's end.So my solution was to buy a pay as you go phone for about fifty dollars at Seven Eleven. I still use phone booths to save my minutes sometimes, but there are not so many around anymore.

My phone got kicked under the bed sometime during the night, but I find it and start dialing the office,looking for a trailer to unload tomorrow.It's light now and I look out over the expanse to the east.Maybe I'll try to go for a visit later this year.It's been too damn long. I could afford it maybe, if I'm frugal.Maybe I'll take the train. I reach the office and immediately get put on hold.

It was about two years and a few months ago that my parents decided to visit me here in Calgary.I had my concerns at the time, with my father not being well, but my mother assured me that it would be alright. they would come out on the train.that sounded like a long trip, but she assured me they would book a sleeping berth and my father could spend the time resting.

My mother told me the name of hotel that they had planned to stay in, I didn't want them staying in a hotel, but my suite was not wheelchair accessible. The day of their arrival turned out to be a Monday,and after work I stopped by home,gathered up my guitar and headed on downtown.Along the way I stopped at a phone booth and phoned their hotel, thinking that they would most likely already be there,as the train was scheduled to arrive much earlier. I was informed by the desk clerk that they had not arrived, and that the reservation had been cancelled.

This change in plans seemed a bit disturbing to me as I'd heard nothing about it.I called Moncton, but got no answer.Still,I was certain something was afoot, and that most likely it was not good.My parents had not arrived as expected, and I thought that most likely meant that my father had gotten sick somewhere along the way.Perhaps he'd had another stroke, so at this point I became quite worried.I should be able to reach someone at home anytime of the day if they'd gotten back, so I assumed that they were at a hospital somewhere.But it could be at almost any hospital along the route from Moncton to Calgary.Since there was no answer at home,I ran over to the library to check email.

At the library I discovered that my parents had indeed had to turn back.My father had not had a stroke, as I had feared, but rather had experienced some sort of break with reality, during which he became paranoid and afraid that staff on the train was a danger to him.So when they got to Toronto, my mother took him to a doctor,who finally got him stabilized with medication so that they could return to Moncton on a plane.It must have been very stressful for my mother being on that plane, given what had happened, and the climate involved in plane travel at the time.Still the flight is only about two hours, and they managed to get home safely.

By the next morning I managed to track my mother down.She had been at the hospital when I'd called the night before, but I managed to reach her on my way to work in the morning.She explained that my father was in the hospital, but would most likely be released in a day or two.Still, the doctors couldn't really say for certain what was wrong.It could have been another small stroke, or the break could have been caused by an accumulation of brain damage from all the previous strokes,plus the routine stress of long travel.In any event,they'd managed to get his situation stabilized and were monitoring him.

In any event, that was the end of their planned vacation, and ultimately their last trip out west ended up being the one they made in 1990.Still,my mother made a lot of car trips around home,running after my sisters kids.That would take her as far away as Woodstock, which was really not that bad of a trip anymore,she said.There was a new highway and it took a little less than three hours. So she settled into the life of a grandmother who was very involved in the lives of her grandchildren, and the primary caregiver of her disabled husband.I marveled at her dedication and devotion, but worried that she might be getting tired.

Author's note to readers.

Because of a comment made by one of my regular readers, I feel that I must stop here to explain something that I may not have made as clear as I would have liked.The nature of this particular blog is such that there is a lot of jumping both forward and backward.The time being described is roughly a 72 hour period in February,2006.There are however,a lot of flashbacks that cover a period roughly five years before that, beginning with my moving to Calgary in November of 2000.Hence, the events being described, and attending dialogue is written in the present tense relative to that time frame only, and not to the time of the actual writing. Apologies for any confusion. 

Part 2,Continued.

The shower is hot today,and all the knots in my body are getting worked out fairly well.That's not always the case.Sometimes there is no hot water at all, and sometime knots don't  respond well to it when there is.

I guess I could call Angie. One of the girls that I jam with says I should.She says Angie is just old fashioned and thinks women should not call men.that just sounds silly to me, but it's been said I don't know a lot about that kind of thing.I'm not sure I would disagree.

What has been really hard is trying to figure out how well Angie and I are actually suited for one another. In Christianity, there is the concept of being unequally yolked with a non-believer. That, we are not supposed to do, and the reasons seem rather obvious. Relationships are really hard at the best of times.with a different value system it's nearly impossible. with marriage,and children, even more so.But,of course, there would be no children, and, I know not everyone will agree with this, but as a protestant, I am not unevenly yolked with a Catholic, because the foundations of Christian belief are present within Catholicism. And,so are a bunch of other things.

In thinking about this, and I have thought about it rather hard,I often refer to religion as I knew of it growing up.That is, I consider how Christianity worked in my own family. My mother was a church going woman.My father rarely attended church.For a while,he would come along with us,but I think that was largely a response to my insistence at the time that if church was so necessary,then he should also attend, which he never did.And if he did not, I shouldn't have to either. I was ,by about the age of ten or eleven developing a bit of an attitude toward church.But that's another story.It's got nothing to do with Angie and I,not really.

I'm sure my father has given up on God.He could pass at any time, and if he did, he would be lost.What I don't understand, but am very grateful for is that my mother has never given up on her husband.She's his caregiver, and though I've not been home in a long time to see how this situation is being lived out, I'm imagining a rather difficult man.My mother must be tired, given all she's doing for him, and for as long as she's been doing it. She's always running around, all over New Brunswick looking after my sisters kids too.I wonder how long that can go on?

The other thing that concerns me about my mother is the state of her own faith.Because, you see, it seems that she did marry my father knowing that she ought not to have, given the command to not marry an unbeliever. Still, I think God's grace covers that, and I don't believe that He would have had her give up on my father once the marriage was undertaken.And to her credit, she has been faithful and put her husband and family first since they were married.

Still, there are other things that I wonder about.Like why I never actually heard how you attain salvation from my mother, or ,for that matter, my father.I never heard the part about being born again until I was out in the world for a long while. And that makes me question just what it is my mother believes.Maybe someday I'll get a chance to sit down and talk with her about that.The other things are a little less of a concern to me.Like why there was never a Bible in our house.Or why we never went to church all summer long when we were at the summer cottage.Because it would still seem important.And it should have seemed important to her. In a way though, that makes sense.It's just that my mother never really said anything about that lapse in attendance.It seems a bit like a matter of convenience.Still, I do that too. According to my pastor back in Edmonton,It's more important to get church inside of me than it is to get me inside of the church.That's what he always said when I missed a Sunday, so I wonder if someone might have told my mother the same thing.I guess it's true, but ideally I know I have the need to surround myself with other Christian people.


At times I wonder if my mother really understands Christianity. Could it be that she is really not saved at all? I'll have to talk with her about that someday. For right now, I choose to believe that her Christian witness is seen in the way she treats others.Truly,she never has a bad thing to say about anyone, treats everyone right as far as she is able,I've never heard anyone say a bad thing about her either. But salvation is not about works.That's not what gets you to Heaven. Still, I believe that good works proceed out of a relationship with God, so thus, I choose to believe my mother is saved.Really,though, Salvation is in the hands of God, so nobody knows about the condition of another's soul.

Part 2 continued.

The Sunday for my date with Angie came.We had decided to go to The Center Street Church, just down from where I'm living now. Back then I was still living in Mission,at the dead end of 24th Avenue. The day dawned warm enough, but it didn't warm up much later in the day.What's called a Chinook wind blew in from the west.In winter,those winds, though very powerful usually have a warming effect.But it' was only fall,and relative to the ambient air,there was not much difference in air temperature. If anything the wind was rather cool and blew around a lot of trash.

Angie was a bit late, and I began to wonder if she was still coming, or if maybe she forgot my address.I thought she'd have no problem finding the street, because of it being a dead end.And I knew she had my cell phone number, so I stood out in the street waiting.

By this time, Angie and I had met a time or two for coffee, and talked most nights on the phone.In truth, I was growing rather fond of her, though I still wasn't really sold on the idea of having a steady girlfriend again.I'd been there and done that, and I just didn't think I was all that good at it. I'd been to her house on one occasion too. In all,I was rather beginning to like her,though I still had a bunch of concerns.One was all the sleeping at the festival.That planted the seed in my mind that she might be suffering from depression, and I wasn't certain I wanted to deal with that. Secondly, there was a considerable gap in our ages.I wasn't certain I wanted to date someone who was in her mid fifties, thinking that that would add up to a significant difference in values.That was a road I'd been down before. Or it could be that I was just making excuses.Angie, after all was pretty and well spoken. Most men would have found her desirable, and I guess I really did as well. But the biggest thing was I wasn't certain that she was that interested,though she certainly seemed to be engaged whenever we were together.

Twenty minutes after the planned meeting time she showed up.It meant that we had to rush a bit to get to church, but we managed to get there on time.That was the thing that really impressed me about Angie.She was as enthusiastic about church as a good place for a first date as I was.She was raised Catholic, but now attended an Evangelical church, so I really didn't see any conflict there, as far as dating and relationships were concerned.

The church service lasted about an hour and a half,and on the way out we bumped into some friends of Angie's.They were a husband and wife, and seemed to be rather surprised that Angie was with a man.The Center Street Church has a cafe outside the main sanctuary, so we sat and had coffee before heading out on our way.

After church we had planned a picnic at Prince's Island Park, in the middle of the Bow River.We had brought a bunch of food, so we decided to go, even though the weather had turned rather raw.The wind was blowing steady and it had clouded over and felt more like the first week of December, than late September.So we didn't stay long.Angie had prepared these wonderful and rather fancy chicken breasts that were stuffed with cheese, and we had a bunch of grapes and some salad.It was all a rather sophisticated meal for a picnic, and I took it as a sign that she really did have some affection for me. If the way to my heart was supposed to be through my stomach, she seemed to be trying to find her way there.

Finally we gave up on the idea of a picnic, and decided to go off to Timmy's for coffee.That doesn't seem like much of a place for a date, I know,but Angie was a coffee addict, and liked tea as well.And, it's a very Canadian place to go.I really didn't mind, because I really did enjoy her company.So we sat and nibbled donuts and talked for a long time.

Then it was time to go home.The date, as a date had been more or less successful. We were getting along famously.When we got back to Mission the wind had died down and the sun was back out, though it was still a bit cool.I asked Angie if she'd like to go for a walk along the river, and she eagerly agreed. Then, as we were walking along, we stopped, looked each other in the eye, and before you know it, we were kissing one another, in a rather passionate way.I enjoyed it.When we pulled apart I noticed one of my neighbors walking by and mentioned that I thought we'd been seen.To that Angie replied "Well I sure hop she got an eyeful." I replied that I was certain she did and that I was alright with it.We both agreed that we should see to it that she got another eyeful, and we stood kissing for awhile while the squirrels regarded us curiously.Then we headed back to her truck, which was parked in front of my building.We walked slowly, hand in hand.and sat talking for awhile before I went inside and she drove home. By now I was certain I would call her again.

I wonder if I should call Angie sometime.The problem is, I didn't really treat her all that well.I just stopped calling her cold turkey. The thing was, she never seemed to initiate phone calls.That was all me.So I asked myself if she would ever call me if I stopped calling her. I tried it out and I haven't heard from her since.That was seventeen months ago now. Maybe I'll call her, but most likely not.

If I'm going to church, it's time to get showered.By the time I'm finished the office will be opened, and I can call and see if there is any work tomorrow. The I'll have more than enough time to wander on down to the church. 

Part 2 Continued.

I doze a bit, maybe.I'm not really certain .Church.I'm thinking of going to church.I haven't been attending church much these past couple of years, but I know I should.I still believe the Christian message, I just don't like playing all the church games.You'd think that such things wouldn't happen in church.But that's wrong.

When I first started talking to my mother via email, she hadn't been aware that I was attending church regularly. She asked me what church I went to and I told her a Pentecostal one, and wondered what her reaction would be, her of the United Church Of Canada.She most likely had a picture in her mind of snakes and people babbling unintelligibly.I did'nt bother to tell her that I did not really hold to doctrine with all Pentecostals, and that was why my actual attendance in church had become more sporadic of late. In fact, I also got along tolerably well with a lot of Baptists, except for the reality of the saying that if you had two Baptists in a room together ,you had a disagreement, and if you had three you'd have a schism.Mostly I just wanted to go to a church where the preacher wasn't too interventionist in my life, and didn't mind me double checking him against scripture,which I thought of as the real final word on religion.

So maybe I'll wander on up to Center Street Church a bit later, if I can work these kinks out of my legs.It's three hours later on the east coast, so my mother is likely running around trying to get ready for church.She will be trying to round up some of my sisters kids to go with her, as it's always been her who has taken responsibility for their religious upbringing.My sister doesn't seem to believe in God, but I know she won't tell my mother that.She'll let her kids go along if they want to, and not say much of anything.I don't know what she tells them when they are at home though.Do they really have the freedom to think what they see as being best?

My father won't go to the church with my mother.I wonder what he does when she goes to church.He's sickly now, has been for years.Does someone come to stay with him while she is at church? Or can he survive alone for that hour and a half? I've grown a bit out of touch with things on the home front these past few years.Maybe it's time I did something about that. I've  known what my father thought about religion for a long time now: utter bullshit! But he would never say that to her.Before all the strokes,when his mind was still working right, he would never have considered disrespecting her views.But clearly he didn't believe in them.Still there's hope that in their alone moments she still has some sway with him, she still has a functional Christian ministry with her husband.I know she must be trying, not wanting the separation that comes with death.She worries about his eternal soul at his passing, which might not be far in the distance.

Maybe I'll wander on down to the church a bit later.