In the Park

  It’s always nice to be out for a walk in the park. It is a lovely park and it has great meaning to me. I walk around with my black scarf wrapped around me and my brown jacket that I retrieved from the summer clothes’ closet.

  The trees seem a little more perky today now that spring has arrived.  It was raining a little earlier on.  The shrubs and hedges look ready to start their annual budding, the grass is still brown and damp. The park is full of areas in which to walk and play, or simply to sit down on a bench and ponder. Children have a new set of swings and slides that were installed last year. They have weathered the winter well.  Still colorful and sturdy.  The mulch underneath has not kicked away like I thought it would. You have to wonder though why all the fuss about the safety of the play structures that were there before. Solid wood, faded but still safe. The city decided otherwise, and one weekend bulldozed the whole thing and installed fancy metal contraptions. Colourful though.  Attractive even.  The children use them. Swing, hang, slide.

There is an open area in the middle of the park. Young people play soccer there or throw around a ball or a frisbee. The city installed soccer goals a few years ago. The area in front of the goals is quite muddy right now. Most evenings there is a game going on.   Not tonight. Too wet. The park is off-leash, dogs can run around. I laugh when they chase the ball and annoy the players. 

The benches are looking alright. They were spruced up last fall. A coat of fresh black paint. The city held a sponsorship drive to raise money for park upkeep. Whose idea was it to allow people to have benches named after them? My favorite bench has a name on it now.  I am now sitting on the 'Mrs. Helen Agnes' bench.  Well, good for her.  I hope she uses it. I come to the park most every day, in the early evening. I wonder if there will be an evening when I show up and she will be sitting on the bench reading a book, a dog by her side.

 Cyclists speed along through the park on the footpaths. Those of us sitting on the benches need to watch out for them. They zoom by as if it’s the Tour de France. Who do they think they are – Lance Armstrong.  No, that’s a wrong example, isn’t it. The seven time Tour de France champion who overcame cancer to perform like a super-human.  He did finish ahead of everybody, but he was doping.   

There’s the joggers too. I can take the joggers. I make plenty of room for them, especially the women.  

I have been walking and talking to myself for awhile now.  I need to give my legs a rest, get back to the Mrs. Agnes bench. Let my mind wander.

  When I was little, my mother would take my two brothers and I to a park close to home. There were benches along the footpaths and grassy areas, and like most towns a monument in the middle of the park. I have seen many statues over the years to honour a founding father or some other important citizen.  Most parks also have a memorial to the brave and valiant soldiers.  We had one in that park.  Mom would bring us to the memorial service every year to ‘remember the fallen’. While everyone was standing with their heads bowed, my brothers and I would quietly step away and go sit on a bench.  Waited for it to be over, so we could play.

When we were older, our parents split up and we moved to another town. We ended up close to a park.  That park was bigger. There were fewer benches, more open areas. We would kick the ball around, throw touchdown passes to each other and celebrate like the pros did.  Slam the ball on the ground and parade around with our arms in the air. Then we would tackle each other, until someone got a bloody nose,  likely me. I was the youngest and smallest of the three of us.

Later, when our mother remarried we picked up again.  My stepfather was transferred to another town.  We were teenagers by then. We soon found a new use for the local park.  Meet girls there. I had my first kiss on one of the park benches. I was growing up.  Then it all changed. One at a time my brothers and I left home for university, and my adventures began.  

 Studying, partying, hitchhiking, back-backing.  It was a time when everyone, it seemed, wanted to go places. One night the summer before I started university I was at a party with friends.  A buddy came up with the idea to hitchhike across the country. We decided to ‘see the land’. Those were in the days when someone would actually stop to pick you up.  We would get to the highway on the outskirts of town, stick out our thumb and wait. We never hitched in the rain. No one would stop their car to pick up someone  who was dripping wet. We made it the coast eventually. There were a few nights along the way spent under a highway overpass. We took the train back.

Europe was soon calling. When I completed my undergraduate studies I took off for Europe.  As did many others.   We were like a herd of cattle queuing up at the airport departure gate in our jeans, with our backpack, passport, student ID card and whatever amount of money we had in our bank accounts.  All in travellers’ cheques.   

I had never been on a plane before. I had money saved from my part-time job that past year. I did not know what I wanted to do after I graduated. My goal had always been to finish university. I did, so what now? Why not travel while I was ‘figuring out my life’. Off I went. Return ticket to Paris, good for a year. Bye mom, bye bros.  My backpack and I.

Paris, the City of Lights, was a total eye-opener. In fact the whole trip was. When I landed, I stayed at a cheap hotel in the centre of the city. I shared it with two other guys who were in line with me at the airport information desk. It worked out okay. Paris was another world altogether. The three days I was there was total enthrallment.  Walking around, the sites  – Pigalle, Moulin Rouge, Folies Bergeres, Montmarte, Left Bank cafes.  Pretty women like I had never seen before. I found myself up until all hours of the night.  I managed to see the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, even Versailles. 

  It was south to Bordeaux next. Before leaving home I had been accepted in a summer student work exchange program in France. Months before, I had ventured into the local employment centre, which if one could believe it, in those days was called the Manpower Office. Times have certainly changed, for the better.  I applied to participate, and later learned that I was set up at a chemical fertilizer plant in Bordeaux.

  I left Paris, took a train to Chartres, visited the magnificent cathedral and then hit the road to get to my job in Bordeaux.  An American couple, young college professors, picked me up, and as it happens, they were headed to Bordeaux and on to Spain.  I couldn’t have been luckier.

Bordeaux was fascinating. It became my pied a terre for the summer. When I arrived, I was introduced to French rudeness.  A young woman, beautiful, who was on her mobylette,  in a hurry, nearly knocked me down at an intersection. I was lost and trying to find my way to the youth hostel.  After she was through yelling at me, she got on her bike, before I had a chance to say anything.  French girls and I have never got along.

The hostel was close to the train station. That is how I found it.  I phoned the company and in typical French fashion they told me to be there in the morning.  How to get there, I did not dare ask.  I did find the plant the next day.  I really do not remember how. A fellow worker helped me find a room in the village. It was shift work, assembly line, packing bags.   Money that allowed me to stay longer in Europe.

What I remember the most are the young people I met at the hostel in Bordeaux. On days off I would go into the city, hang around outside the hostel.  I would take people to a restaurant populaire .  We would walk in, take seats at one of the long tables that were set up.  We ate what was being served that day, with a half bottle of red wine each and bread on the table.

There was a park across from the hostel. The hostel closed every the day. Everyone had to get out. The park was a meeting place.  Someone always had a bottle of wine or two to pass around. I knew exactly where to get good inexpensive wine.  Some one would have a baguette and some cheese to share. It was easy to make friends. I remember the Swedish girls I took to the beach at the Atlantic coast, and the American girl I met on a wine tasting tour of the region. I later visited the girls in Sweden.

  The Eurailpass allowed me to travel to a whole bunch of countries. I still think of my three days in Amsterdam. I wish I could have stayed longer. The guy I  had lived with in my final year at university told me about Amsterdam.  He had gone to Europe for three weeks the summer before.  He had flown into Amsterdam and never left until he had to board his plane for home. I tried to make the best of my time there.  RijksMuseum, concerts by Procol Harum and the king of the blues himself, B.B King and his band.

One night I ended up at a club, near the ‘red light’ district. I had never experienced something like that before and I have never since.  It was in a three storey house, black lights throughout, different music on all the floors, and plenty of drink and more.  A hall on the main floor as you walk in, a stage in the back. Band playing.  What I recall as being ‘themed’ rooms on all floors. Sit on the floor in candle-lit darkness, meditate, make-out, relax. The next morning I found myself waking up on a park bench next to a canal in front of a sex shop.  

The rail pass was good for two months. It was 2^nd class, valid throughout most of Western Europe. It was not accepted in Greece.  I kept Greece for last, when the pass was expiring. I took a ferry over from Italy and arrived in Athens two days late

The Acropolis was special.  There was so much going on but it was the Acropolis that stood out.  It could be seen from anywhere in Athens. It was spectacular especially at night, when it was lit up.  I spent over a month there and on some of the islands.  I recall when I decided to come home. I was sitting on a bench in Syntagma Square one evening with Gary, a guy from Toronto.   We had travelled to the islands together. We started talking about going home for Christmas to surprise our family.  Money was running out.

The next day we decided to do it. I had changed my ticket to fly back from London. We found out about a bus company that offered a sixty hour bus ride to London. I had never been to the bus station. We had arrived in Athens from Italy by boat and train. We had no clue where the bus station was exactly. We had checked the city map in the hostel that day.  We had been drinking ouzo with a few American girls in their VW van parked outside the hostel. I remember we looked at each other as if it was now or never. We strapped on our backpacks and made our way to the bus station. We were headed in the direction of the city centre, guided by the lights of the Acropolis. Hours later, on a side street, in the still darkness of the predawn, we spotted people standing around in front of a building.   We boarded, took seats at the back of the bus, fell asleep and woke up in Yugoslavia.   

  After spending a few days in a refugee hostel in London, we boarded our flights for home. His flight was to Toronto, mine to Montreal. When I landed in Montreal it was cold and snowing.  I hailed a cab, handed him the few dollars I had left.  He dropped me off in front of our house.  He turned and smiled. “Joyeux Noël” he said, and drove off.  

A year later, after a few temporary jobs, I went back to university for graduate studies. It was to a different university, where I took my studies more seriously.  I eventually found a good career position with the government, and settled down.  I fell in love and married.  Mary and I bought a house around the corner from here.

This has been our park ever since.  Jessie and Jacob, our two sons, played here, on those swings, that slide. They hung on to the bars. I was there to catch them. They ran around everywhere. They grew up spending time in this park.  I coached them in soccer and hockey. I am sure they brought girls here as teenagers.  The boys have grown up now. They have both moved away. Experiencing.  Jessie is in graduate school. Jacob is in Europe travelling around.  He‘s been gone for close to a year now.  He is teaching English in Madrid and enjoying it. He gives us few details, Sykpes every now and then .

Jacob is in the other end of the country studying astronomy, hiking and camping in the Rockies when he has time. I asked him once why of all subjects is he studying astronomy. He jokingly told me it was my fault.  All the times I took him to the park in the evening when he was a child.  

The boys have not decided on anything yet.  Mary and I look forward to hearing from them.  We would like to have them near us, but we know that they need to figure out their lives.  We hope they make it home  for Christmas.

It is starting to rain.  Time to leave the park and head home. Next time I will remember to bring my umbrella.

John Creary

April 3, 2020