The Street - A Composite Sketch (5)

Not a very long street, just off a major arterial, it is shaped like a question mark. At the conclusion of the bulge it meanders into another street. One half of the street backs onto a heavily wooded ravine, a neighbourhood treasure, though few of the street's residents quite recognize its value, nor make use of its propinquity. It cleanses the air everyone breathes, it hosts birds and wildlife and presents a treasury of wildflowers throughout the seasons. At one time the street, part of a larger suburban community, shared a small-town address. It has long since been subsumed into the greater national capital of the country, through a wide-ranging amalgamation of communities and even farms. The street and the houses on it were built two and a half decades ago. The domiciles are comprised mostly of single-family, detached dwellings, with a handful of semis verging on the main thoroughfare. Many of the residents are the original home purchasers. They would comprise roughly 50% of the residents of the street. The semis appear to have changed hands far more often than the detached homes. And those homes that have been re-sold have often enjoyed a succession of owners. The original home owners who moved into their houses when their children were small have mostly bid farewell to now-grown children. The street represents an amalgam of family types, and there is a significant percentage at this time, of retired people, singly and in couples who, though their houses are meant for family occupation, still opt to remain in their too-large, but comfortable and familiar and valued homes. It is a very quiet street, with little traffic other than those who live there. The house fronts are diverse, and attractive. Most residents take care of their homes, seeing them as their primary investments. Furnaces have been replaced, and air conditioners, and also windows. Kitchens and bathrooms have been remodelled, and people have added decks and occasionally airy 'summer houses' to the backs of their homes. One-third of the homes boast swimming pools, in-ground and above-ground. Most people take pride in their properties, and feel they must achieve lawns that are weedless and smoothly green. Some painstakingly remove weeds by hand in the spring, others hire lawn-care companies to spread chemicals on their lawns. Invariably, the people who look after their own gardens and lawns have superior gardens and lawns. Each house has a large tree planted in front; maples, ash,crabapples, spruce or pine, fully mature. This is a community that is truly mixed, representing people from around the world, come to Canada as immigrants, settled and making the most of opportunities open to all its citizens in a free and open society noted for its pluralism and dedication to fair representation. There are the extroverts and the introverts, those who prefer not to mingle, others who do. They are herewith loosely sketched:

This is the fifth part of the anatomy of The Street.

Back across the street opposite (four), the house was bought by a recently-emigrated couple and their teen-age son, from eastern Europe. He, a scientist, had been invited to Canada on a kind of academic exchange, and while here on their temporary visa, they applied for permanent resident status. When it was granted, they bought their house, a very nice one indeed, across from the ravine, second house from the top, on the left-hand side, travelling in a westerly direction.

She was trained as a dietitian back in the Ukraine, but found it next to impossible to find a position that reflected her professional status here in Canada. Their son was enrolled in a local high school and she was not of a mood to be sequestered in a house all day, wanted to be out and about, being useful, earning a salary. And even though the job she took wasn't commensurate with her intelligence, ability and profession, she worked for a while as a health-clinic receptionist.

Her spoken English was as good as her husband's, and both improved greatly in short order. They had decided they would speak only English at home, the three of them, to polish up their proficiency, become more confident with the language and as a result, more fluent. He was offered a position with a federal government Crown corporation, the National Research Council. They owned a vehicle, but used it rarely.

Their son was able to take a school bus to his high school, his mother was able to walk twenty minutes to the neighbourhood health clinic she worked at, and her husband made use of the city's efficient transit system to whisk him with one single-purpose express bus from the corner of the street where they lived, right to the building on Sussex Drive, where he worked.

He was satisfied with their new life, even excited about the new research opportunities available to him, with the better-funded laboratories than what existed in his homeland. His wife, while appreciating the modernity and conveniences available to them, and a seemingly better quality of life, missed her family, her friends, and her 'home'. She yearned to return, and they did, one summer for a prolonged vacation.

Hers was extremely prolonged; she and their son decided to stay in Ukraine, she because that was where her heart was, and their son because he felt drawn to remain where his heritage placed him. It was wrenching for husband and wife, but he decided, in the final analysis, that he would not remain there, preferred to return to Canada, and so he did. And resumed residence in the large house that no longer rang with the voices of wife and son.

And there he lives now, twenty years since his wife and son left. Contact by letter and telephone for years, and occasional visits back home, and more latterly, by Internet and the use of a web cam, although the visits back home are now more sporadic, and the son now has a family of his own, content to remain where he is. The father is not well known on the street; he is a man consumed by his profession.

He has installed a closed-circuit television so he can see what occurs outside his house at any time. He once experienced the trauma of a house break-in, and he has also installed a security system. It irritates him that, living directly across from the ingress point to the ravine his peace is often shattered.

At night the raucous noise made by undisciplined teenagers who live in the neighbourhood and who think nothing of noise-making and drunken carousing gives him cause to curse disinterested parents.

He has attempted, in the past, to approach particularly obnoxious groups. He was rewarded by loud obscenities, even had a beer bottle tossed his way. He called the police, but by the time a squad car arrived, the group had disappeared, and he knew he would simply have to put up with the noise, the commotion, the disruption to an orderly life on an otherwise-orderly street.

He knew the young people used drugs, smoked and drank and even on occasion attempted to make bonfires in the ravine. Once, someone passing through a trail in the early evening discovered a large pine, hollowed on one side, afire, and called the fire department. They came, extinguished the pitch-driven fire, encircled the area with yellow tape and next morning people taking a morning constitutional on the trail matched their annoyance.

He even attempted at one time, fruitlessly, to enlist the support of some of his neighbours, those backing onto the ravine, and others living close by his own home, to 'do something', but no one quite knew what to do. They did nothing, in the end, put it all down to callow youth and restless pranks, gave him their sympathy and were glad they didn't live directly across from the ravine entrance.

He's resigned to the nuisance of it all, even though it continues to grate on his sensibilities. He takes care of his lawn, carefully mowing it to the desired height of precisely 2-1/2 inches. Eschews pesticides, occasionally pulling weeds by hand. He welcomes the occasional door-to-door canvasser from among his neighbours, and enjoys brief chats with them. Is embarrassed to invite people in, his papers and books scattered everywhere.

He is of the street, yet not quite of the street. But it is his home.