Commercial Street

Commercial street is my favourite people watching street.  Great coffee shops.  Joe’s is a favourite.  Today I’m sitting in the heated balcony having delicious breakfast.  I had the chorizo hash.  Madigan loved the burger paddy. Now I’m eating his fries.  

So far I’ve seen two women dressed in skirts over pyjama bottoms.  Not quite up to the Walmart Standards of attire but an uptown version.  It may well become the next fashion. Commercial has that community feel.  I suspect these two just see the Havana balcony as their own veranda.  They’ll live in one of the funky partitioned house apartments loved for the outdoor gardens tenants managed. There are a few apartment buildings but it’s not at all downtown.  People actually live as families in the houses too.  

Commercial is known as the second Davie street.  Davie was the original gay friendly street but in recent years more people have moved to this friendly neighbourhood.  The west end remains the west end but became a bit iffy with Covid and more violence and drugs.  

Commercial has a bit of that problem .  A friend bought a house and moved away a couple of years later not liking needles left in her backyard,  It’s a modern urban problem .  The DTES is the highest density of this but its effects reach out to West Vancouver and Kitzilano.  All one hopes for is that the light is greater than the dark. Like here on Commercial.  Mother’s with children, and even a couple of babies in strollers have passed in the last few minutes.  One doesn’t see yuppies and babies in the DTES but here they do.  

It’s also known for the artists and students it attracts.  Once the Italian sector as evidenced still by the coffee shops and huge tv screens always tuned to Soccer. I used to come here for the Italian foods, pasta sauces, rigaretto , delicious bread and fine sausages.  

We loved a Saturday meeting called ‘alive on the drive’ which attracted a half dozen or more of us as the meeting place before going for breakfast at the then avante garde Vegetarian restaurant before everyone because vegetarian because they could no longer afford meat. 

 I couldn’t help but notice the steak I bought a year or two ago for $5 is now $20.  Obviously global inflation is a problem but Canadian government financial mismanagement and corruption has contributed massively to the simple cost of living. The head of the Bank of Canada actually in an unprecedented response pointed the finger directly at the prime minister who has denied accountability for everything negatively like an underdeveloped teen age tyrant. It’s disheartening at times but thankfully history is replete with rise and falls of tyrants and bad times being followed by good times.  It’s simply best to maintain hope and faith.  Canada is still my home and despite extensive travels I keep returning here if only it’s the devil I know.  Obviously there are better places and better governments elsewhere but they’re simply not ‘home’.  

I heard a Trudeau Liberal Cabinet minister asked what he would do if he was elected in the election and he responded, “I’d probably go home and enter politics there.”  He consider Somalia home, not Canada.  I consider Canada my home and don’t respect uncultured miscreants like Trudeau who claims to be post national.  The Global Communist dictatorship agenda promoted by the rogues gallery of the UN under the new guise promoted by Schwab, today’s Lenin.  All the jet owning jet setting millionaires love to gather and discuss totalitarianism and bug food for the middle and lower classes knowing they’re continue to drink champagne and eat caviar at the next incarnation of Epstein Island.

That said I’m here on Commercial street robust with the college grads who often looking for work or working three jobs. This is where the centre of creativity is, the powerhouse of the middle class crushed between the peasant thugs and elite bullies.  The middle class doesn’t say ‘steal from the rich and give to the poor’ or tax the middle class more. They go to work and create.  Commercial Street is that hot bed of creativity with fashion boutiques,  and little shops and unique people from all walks of life. I liked that Rufus Guitars continued to grow my youth and now has large building here.  The ethnic foods have changed from European to Asian to Africans.  

My favourite second hand books store was here.  I don’t know if it still is.  I used to walk this street with George each week discussing philosophy, medicine and theology before he died too young, an old man who we never thought was old. I’m that age now.  My knee aches and what I thought were sailors sun wrinkles are looking more the influence of gravity.

Havana’s is filling up.  Great restaurant.  Love the waiters and waitresses.  We’ve had a lovely meal and some time to reflect on this incredibly diverse street and exciting street.  

I’m thankful for the times times I’ve had on Commercial.