Now I’m boiling eggs for the next few days. I’ve had a yoghurt drink but must stock up on that and coffee. I’ve finished the last of my supply
It’s 8 am. Using the map search engine I found a Walmart nearby. It opens at 8 am. I’ll take the Vespa. Coffee, honey, ice cream, tuna, wet ones, dental floss, a couple of new towels.. Because of the 2 hour time delay my work schedule starts at 11 am and finshises at 7 pm. After breakfast will be the best time to go.
I’ve been thinking about Winnipeg. When I drove round my Fort Garry neighborhood the night I arrived I was reminded of the Hobbit shorpshire. It was all so pleasant and safe and middle class with such fond memories of childhood. I lived in this little world of home, school, church, community club, hockey rink and baseball field. It was a huge space as a child but now as an adult I drove around this “world’ in less than an hour. Elementary school and high school were world’s and then the sports fields. This was mom and the children’s world. Dad was away from home working and on weekends we’d venture off to go camping and fishing. Exotic places. Long car rides.
I’ve not spent time in St. Francis Xavier, this suburb by Headley. I remember visiting Headley but not here. The city has grown up since I was here but even though I continued to the University of Manitoba to work and teach the city seemed ‘small’ yet from today’s vantage point I see how much more there was that I never explored. Like the few places near my childhood home later I’d have only a few places in the whole of the city that I frequented. Stores like the Hudson Bay, Eatons or Army Navy. There was the theatres , Manitoba Theatre Centres and the Dance halls, and concerts areas. I liked to walk around the Legislative Buildings and once wrote a paper about the architecture, history and art. There were the coffee houses and the coffee house folk scene, the Wise Eye and winged Ox. Later I’d like to go to the Proto Starbucks on Osborne street. I loved the University of Winnipeg and the library there. A lot of my Winnipeg was tied to love and sex. When my marriage ended and I felt shame and trapped I escaped.
I so enjoyed ‘My Winnipeg” movie made in 2007 by Guy Maddie. He points out the talk of leaving Winnipeg but how few can as if there is some magnetism at the confluence of Red and Assiniboine Rivers. In the end I only knew Fort Garry, Downtown, St. Boniface and St. Vital a bit. Then I was gone. There’s this whole city I’m aware of now.
There’s the people that stayed too. My favourites mostly left as I did. Some died here and away. The new crowds don’t know us ancients or anything about our Winnipeg. I’m a Stranger in a Strange Land Here. There are people I could calls, memories and meaning but I’m just passing through . I’m looking forward to driving above the Great Lakes. Family visit calling and then the long drive back. Maybe I’ll take some time on the way back to the coast once the ‘mission’ to see family and Haybay and pick up my boat are completed. I’m looking forward to seeing Elliott in the flesh. Meeting his older brother a watching him play in the back yard was such a delight. .
The eggs have boiled Time to finish my coffee and make a run to Walmart. Walmart didn’t exist when I was growing up here. So much is new and so much has changed. I’d love more time to explore. I imagine some ‘leisurely’ time in some alternate future. Now I continue to work and pay the mortgage and taxes. I’m blessed and thankful to have this truck and camper to make this trip. It’s great to see Canada again. I’ve traveled across the country both ways several times but it’s been two or three decades since I came this way. The last time I came in my bald tired Chevy Berretta with the Chevy cross on the back. I was doing my due dillegienee being good in face of the negligence of authority. I risked my life for burearocrats who lived to cover their ass and lied. I was all for truth and authenticity then where as now I’m back to the greys I’d known before leaving Winnipeg.
Now I’m blessed to know the bold colors and pastels. The time before that there had been three of us in the Vanagon and we were a force to be reckoned with. I’d left in a beat up Volkswagen Baja Bug and returned in the Vanagon. There were lots of flights and taxies. But these times I was independent , a man with wheels. Like now with the Ford F350, the camper and the Vespa. I have a Harley in Storage but am glad to have the Vespa which is suited to being the dinghy to this land boat. I’ve sailed so much. But now am enjoying the open road though staying a wake is a chore each day. In my sailboat there was no concern with napping on the open sea. I do get to pull over and take naps with this arrangement. Sailing I theoretically could heave too but normally slowed on autopilot and caught a few zees while the journey continued. I really look for wards to the robot drivers already being used on the long stretches road in Australia. I could have used one crossing Saskatchewan.
Thank you God for this day. Thank you Jesus.