746 George Street
It could have been 786, don't
quote me on that.
Let's say it was 746 George Street.
I rented a room there when I was 19,
a nice little universe but I
was too young to know how not
to be lonely there and too green not
to appreciate the solitude.
It was a time when I  had no responsibilities
and too many responsibilities all at once,
entering my second year of Higher Learning.

In those days Commodore 64s and payphones
were the height of technology and all any one
seemed to care about were the latest style
of bicycle or canoe or opinion.  Or intrigue.
Back then people who knew how to chlorinate
pools were still gods to me, as were those who
drove Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas.
So were men selling philosophies of time.
And women with gilt shoes and purses.
Mosquitoes were just as hungry as today but
Cats and homosexuality still a mystery to me.

29 year-olds seemed ancient, and surely
guarded all the answers to the mysteries of life!

At 746 George Street lived an 88 year-old woman,
3 guys from China, 2 girls from Africa,
2000 books published between 1920 and 1950,
400 pieces of mint Depression Glass,
3000 rolls of premium toilet paper, and me.
The guys would watch Three's Company
every day at 5:30.  Once I watched it with them and
after I had broken up with Robert, Jerry
asked me to Chinese New Year and I went.
On the walk home he kissed me by surprise and he
smelled like bad wieners and soy sauce.  A week
later two more guys moved in, from Taiwan
and when I displayed their gift-sticker flag
on the outside of my bedroom door
the Mainlanders stopped talking to me.
I didn't realize until a year later that Mainland
China and Taiwan were not one and the same.

(And I'd figured they were mad because they knew
I'd stolen 2 tablespoons of their peanut butter!)

From George Street the public library was 
only a 15-minute walk and stacked with enough
good poems to last a couple of summers.
And a 20-minute walk from George Street in
winter took me to graveyards that were
beautiful but colder than the fried chicken 
most people mistook for love or shelter.
Not far from those mysterious graveyards
were coffeeshops, yes, with
cheesecake but there was not much
spending-money to frequent such places,
not for Jannie anyway. 
Sometimes if I'd had an especially prolific
week attaching i.d. labels to book spines at the
Harriet Irving, I'd have twenty bucks for the
Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings,
which was only 2 blocks from 746 George Street.
"Goofy Roofy", does anybody remember her?
And Dr. Pugh's wife, Mary, who sold jams and jellies?
The Indian tidbits were too spicy for me
but the maple sugar was always perfect.

Though I didn't have much pocket change then,
I had enough for notebooks and not
the best of pens, but I had pens.
And sunrises and sunsets.
And the splendor of autumn leaves.
And hushes of snowfall.
And children I didn't yet know how to notice,
My own child still green within me.

In summer the George Street neighborhood had the
finest old elms and sometimes I could hear
the Anglican church bells ringing louder than
usual when some one was either being buried or
born, or both.  I believe those bells still chime.
Many afternoons I'd just lie on the grass
by the Beaverbrook staring at the cotton candy sky
or watching the joggers on Waterloo Row,
wondering why I was such an outsider.
(I had life-long friends back then but didn't
know it until twenty years later as I
stood in my mother and father's potato
field and breathed in the song of birds
on wires and airplanes bound for Paris.)

At 19 I was too young to appreciate my brand
of weirdness or that weirdness in others.
Now I am old and wise enough but the trees are all
gone or changed into vinyl fenceposts.
The flowers have faded and the grass' green
can only be described in HTML hues.

Still, I'd like to go back on a day when my
hair turns out  right and I've got attractive
hiking shoes on.  I wonder if I would
even recognize the old house.  Or town.
Kelly, my Perpetual Adventurer, would
like it there.  We'd go on all the old walks--
up Church, past the ball fields,
over what used to be the railroad tracks,
up University, through the gates,
past that street whose name eludes me now--
the one with the Bookstore and N.B. Archives,
maybe stop at the Student Union
for lunch.  (I noticed a few years ago in
passing they'd added on a glassed-in piece.)
Take her to the Harriet and D'Avary.
The old registrar building.  Tibbet's Hall.
See if I could still find the secret passageway 
through the Engineering Building.

Mermaidians

Is that so awful?
So I'm running on the trail thinking donut, donut, donut instead of bagel, bagel, bagel.