The Street - A Composite Sketch (10)

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 tenth part of the anatomy of The Street.

And then there was the young couple who had bought their house while the street was yet raw and unfinished, houses still being completed. They had no children, and would have no children, whether by design or through nature's design no one knew. They were both tall, both singularly attractive people. She of Scandinavian heritage away back in the mists of emigration, and he of eastern Europe pedigree, both third-generation Canadian. She was tall and willowy, with long blond hair and an easy, brilliant smile. His smile was slower to emerge but just as winning.

He was an RCMP officer with a long career with the federal police. He had been assigned to the specialized detachment that was responsible for the safety and security of the prime minister. And he was bored to death of it. Of patrolling 24 Sussex Drive to ensure that all was well, day and night. Of travelling aboard the prime ministerial jet wherever the prime minister was wont to travel on international relations business representing the country. It was a drag, he averred, incredibly dull, no challenges whatever and he chafed at it.

She was a teacher at a high school, teaching mathematics, and good at her job for she had an affinity for it and was, evidently, more than a little popular with her students who regarded her efficacy as a teacher highly. They, like the neighbours on the street, valued her sunny personality. They were so genuinely unaffected and friendly and part of the daily life of the street, that they represented the hands-down most favourite couple on the street. Everyone knew them, everyone stopped to chat with them.

He had dreadful allergies and his wife had taken to keeping their upstairs windows open, even during miserable winter days, in an attempt to alleviate the symptoms he suffered from congenitally. Everyone was surprised and slightly upset when they decided to move, put their house up for sale, because he finally received the assignment transfer he had been hoping for. They were missed. And then another young couple moved into the house, far more private than the original owners had been, but moderately friendly.

They often had people over, friends and family whom they entertained. First year in the house he bought a large motorcycle and he could be seen, fully leathered, driving it on the week-ends. She often accompanied him, wherever it was he went. In the second year of their ownership of the house she became extremely ill. A vehicle was often seen in the driveway, delivering air canisters for her to be hooked up with a breathing apparatus. She was no longer ambulatory, and they had a live-in caregiver to look to her care while he was at work.

Before the third year of their life together as a happy couple in that house was out, she died. Everyone on the street felt the gloom of the occasion, and expressed their sympathy at life's unexpected turns. The live-in caregiver, a dark-haired lovely young woman, no longer came around, as there was no longer any need for her services. And then, after a few months had passed she suddenly appeared again. This time, it would appear, seeking to replenish the zest in life that had disappeared when the man's wife died. It was evident they had fallen in love. He had no wish to remain in the house that had such bitter memories.

The third family moved into the house, another young couple. Another mixed-heritage marriage. The young man Egyptian, the young woman French-Canadian. He was as sweet-tempered as she, each seeming to outdo the other in openly greeting their new neighbours as though they were old friends. He dark complexioned and she fair. Both well spoken and both, on the evidence, with very well-compensated federal jobs as professionals. Soon their family expanded. They acquired a beagle pup, the friendliest, sweetest-tempered dog on the street.

In another few years she excitedly told anyone who would listen, that they were expecting a baby. She hadn't even informed her family yet; the neighbours were the first to know, and they were happy for her. It was a little boy, a little boy who resembled his father, the same facial features, a shy little boy whom both parents simply doted on. The mother stayed home with the child through its first year, then returned to work and her mother looked after the child. And then, when the little boy was almost two, another was on the way.

The beagle, big for its breed, and temperamentally docile, became the little boy's companion. As much attention continued to be lavished on the dog as had been done before the advent of a growing family became a reality. They are now awaiting the fall birth of a little girl, its gender revealed to them through the auspices of modern technology. They have successfully replicated themselves. The street lives on.

The Street - A Composite Sketch (9)

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 ninth part of the anatomy of The Street.

Another family on the opposite side of the street again, who had originally bought the house they still live in. Their children were fairly mature, already attending high school, when they made their move. The father francophone, the mother as anglo as you can get, Canadian-style. The children moving easily between both worlds, but attending a French-language school. Both boys, neither of whom were seen very much out on the street. Nor, for that matter, were their parents the type to be out and about; very interior, cloistered people.

It took quite a few years before the father seemed to be able to become sufficiently relaxed with his neighbours to lend himself to a casual chat. If the wife happened to come face to face with another neighbour, an acknowledgement of the other's presence was clipped and precise, with no opportunity to open up for a casual encounter. When neighbourhood canvassers came along representing one charitable enterprise or another the response was always the same. No interest in responding, no intent to make a contribution. Thank you very much.

He was a long-time employee of the city's public transit system, had worked himself into a supervisory position. The reason he was seen often outside the house was that he immersed himself in the serious business of tending to their lawn. It was of utmost moment that the grass be mowed at the same time, same day of the week. It had to be immaculate to reflect their house values and it was generally agreed that it was the best-looking lawn on the street. The lawn, not any gardening was the primary concern.

And their two vehicles were needful of constant cleaning and washing. An act of love, it appeared, his dedication to maintaining the cosmetic appeal of the cars. A religious act of selfless attention to the well-being of their instruments of passage through life's material demands; to work and then home again, and in the reverse. She worked as an office secretary at a school, but not the school their children attended. She was physically larger than her husband, pleasant in appearance, and their regard for one another obvious.

He was of medium height and spare, with a lean face and a tentative almost-smile. When he spoke it was with an air of seriousness, with a dollop of skepticism. He became animated only when he spoke of grass, cars and his work with the transit commission. When the drivers went on strike and people would grouse about the inconvenience, he became a union spokesman, to those with whom he would converse, explaining the discontent of the drivers and the support staff.

The boys graduated from high school, got jobs of their own and gradually migrated away from their parents and their home, finding their own apartments, sharing them first with friends and then with live-in partners. Eventually, both left the city to find work elsewhere, occasionally returning, singly, for brief visits with their parents. Who were extremely proud of their boys as was evidenced by the way the father would occasionally refer to their new lives to the few neighbours with whom he had become comfortable.

The neighbour who lived directly beside them spoke to his own neighbours about having been informed that the man of the household had been diagnosed with colon cancer. He was being treated, and was rather ill. He would be seen, months later, wan, outside his home, attempting to reintroduce himself to the tasks that had given him so much pleasure, previously. While he was still in treatment mode, he never exited the house but to attend hospital, after surgery.

The little old woman who lived halfway down the street, and who regularly went out each April to canvass for the Cancer Society thought now was her opportunity; they wouldn't refuse a donation this year. But they did. The woman of the house broke down, telling the canvasser that her husband was ill, was recovering from an operation. The older woman comforted her, said she'd lost both her parents to cancer, but they were elderly. She assured the weeping woman that her husband would recover his health.

And he did. But they still refused to contribute to any charitable fund, much less that of the Cancer Society. It was good to see him become himself again. And finally it was as though nothing amiss had ever occurred. He looked like his old self, and comported himself accordingly. Back to tenderly and meticulously tending the lawn. Washing the cars. Speaking with confidence now to the few neighbours with whom he had finally established a speaking relationship.

None of the neighbours has ever been invited to venture into their house. One neighbour was taken on a tour of the backyard, however, having expressed curiosity at the materials used in the construction of the new deck the couple had had built for them at the back of the house. The backyard was as neatly trimmed as the front lawn. Because of his long-term employment and the benefits that had accrued to him, his months of recovery time were covered by his union contract. And then, he retired.

They have taken up bicycling, the husband and wife. Not in the area; they bought a bicycle carrier for the back of one of the cars, and off they go, to return hours later, solemnly removing the bicycles from the racks on the car. Disappearing back into their home, until next time they went off for another recreational ride. Once a week, same day every week.

Precisely where, no one knows.

The Street - A Composite Sketch (8)

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 eighth part of the anatomy of The Street.

Back again to the odd-numbered side of the street, not a very long street, but with a fairly wide road, the lot sizes averaging 50' by 100'. But for those houses on the right curve whose lots are more pie-shaped and who have, as a result, extremely wide and sometimes long backyards. The property of this family was not one of these, but it did back on the ravine. And although they were not first-owners, memory is dim of the first family that purchased that house originally. They obviously did not make much of a social impact on their neighbours.

The subsequent owners have, at the very least, done that. And more. A fairly young couple. Both short of stature, he solidly built, and she with an exquisitely small frame, pretty and red-haired. He had the placid face of a Dutch burgher, and sure enough he was of Dutch extraction; his parents visited often. Oddly enough his parents were tall and angular; no familial resemblance, and no questions asked. Some eight years ago his mother was diagnosed with colon cancer, and unfortunately, she died of the cancer within a year.

The young woman was originally from eastern Canada, and her mother, a tiny, pleasant-faced woman who was unpleasantly aloof and distant in manner, a widow. Notable because she occasionally came over from Prince Edward Island to spend the summer months in their first years in the house.To help the young couple raise their very young family, a small girl and her baby brother. They needed the help, because both parents worked. They were both lawyers, working for the Canadian military. During the rest of the year they employed a live-in nanny for the children.

They were, at first, exceedingly friendly, mostly to those people who lived in the larger houses, dismissive of those whom they appeared to deem below their notice. He was the friendlier of the two, and would talk expansively of inviting certain neighbours over for a 'drink' of an evening, although he never did. He often spoke disparagingly of their succession of nannies; none of them, he told those of his neighbours to whom he spoke, satisfied the rigorous standards of his wife, he would proudly say.

In their professional life they had reason to travel, he more than she. He might be gone for weeks at a time or more, to exotic locales. How exotic those locales might be would be a matter of opinion, but those places might range from Bosnia and Serbia, to Afghanistan to the High Arctic. She managed quite nicely in his absence, often inviting some of her co-workers to evening soirees. When he was at home they would often entertain, through dinner parties, and she felt in her social element.

They acquired a few cats, purebred, not permitted to exit the house. And soon enough, as the children grew older, they also took possession of two purebred dogs, Shelties. The dogs became the bane of their neighbours' existence. They were incredibly neurotic; if in the house they'd leap onto the sofa pushed against the front bow window and bark incessantly whenever cars or people passed on the road.

If outside on the backyard, they'd run insanely from one end of the backyard to the other, at the least bit of sound. They were known to snarl at people and to snap their displeasure. She took grave offence when another neighbour, walking her two quiet dogs, refused to allow those dogs to approach, reminding of their unfriendliness. That was sufficiently-caused umbrage never to speak to the neighbour again.

The children were growing older, but not physically maturing as the other neighbourhood children- with whom they had no social-play-relations whatever - were seen to be doing. The little boy was painfully scrawny, and wire his hair long and stringy. His mother would allow him to colour it odd colours at times as he moved into his teens. She thought that to be an expression of his individuality, his fearless rejection of what is seen to be socially acceptance; oddly at variance with her own values, it seemed, but no mind.

When the children were still both very young, their father would, every spring, haul their expensive-grandparent-given-gifts out to the driveway for an annual 'garage sale'. Which many of those living on the street quite appreciated, enabling them to procure excellent toys and bicycles, even beds and bureaus, for their children at prices they could afford. Often, when the mother returned home from work in her late-model car she would swoop her children up in her arms, calling them her 'darlings' and her 'beauties'.

As the girl grew into teenhood, she began to wear extremely tight jeans and tops to school. And high-heeled shoes, clattering on the street, to and from the bus stop. Her thin and pretty face was heavily made up and she made no stops to speak with any of the neighbours, much less their children also treading home from school. She did confide once to an enquiring neighbour that it was her intention to get a school-board variance to allow her to attend a high school dedicated to the arts. When the neighbour remarked that her own children had attended the same school, the girl seemed deflated and walked on.

The last several years neighbours were puzzled to notice an older man, not recognized as family, appeared to spend an awful lot of time at the house. Particularly in the absence of the husband. The husband would be gone somewhere for a few weeks, and along would come this man and he would obviously be staying for the duration. Moving out again on the husband's return. At first it was speculated that he was a hired handyman, before he took to staying over. Then he was taken to be a relative, helpful to the young woman in her husband's absence.

Their relationship, that of the older man with a fit and easy carriage, was none of those. And it wasn't exactly a menage a trois either, as it transpired. The older man was the young woman's now-retired former commander. On learning of the intricacies of the arrangement, neighbours hazarded the comment that the wife had finally met someone who met her iron personality with one of his own, and she enjoyed the novelty. Her husband, as the quaint saying went, did not wear the family trousers. Her will was imposed upon his.

And it was her will that she would no longer 'submit' to him. Their marriage had failed, though he had done his utmost to respond to her orders, and never, ever impose himself upon her. Her every wish was his command, and she commanded frequently and stringently. Not quite the uxorious husband, but a carefully diplomatic one, anxious to preserve the marriage, yet not, in his subservience, pleasing her one whit. What pleased her was her arrangement with her former superior.

There was, however, a certain awkwardness in the arrangements. Her lover, who had left his own family over their years-long affair, simply detested children and refused to have children live with him. So he hied himself off to his apartment, and would on occasion move in to the family house in the father's absence. The father, accepting of what he could not change, and unwilling to have the entire responsibility of supervising their children on his shoulders, agreed to their living together in this most unusual way.

The children, already sufficiently socially alienated, and demonstrating that in so many ways, from their unorthodox behaviour and dress code, to their shunning of the company of others, are unfortunate pawns in the arrangement. Hard to say when their psyches were so damaged; throughout the early years of witnessing and hearing parental discontent, or afterward in incipient adulthood, viewing the discord, unhappiness and eventual discarding of the marital contract.

But there they are, living in outward harmony for all to witness; those who care to note. An integral part of the street, in all the manifestations of the differences between human beings and the relations they cling to in a semblance of what might be construed as normalcy. Doing injury to themselves and to others, incapable of effecting a reasonable modicum of emotional discipline and harmony on themselves, let alone others.

They are of the street, but not quite participants on the street. The little old lady who normally canvasses for cancer once a year, avoids their house. She has too often been informed that oh dear, can't find the chequebook, and haven't a dime, come back another time, or better yet, I'll drop by your house with a donation. Doesn't happen. He is a severely conflicted human being. Outwardly, wanting to be accepted. Put to the test, he balks.

His behaviour elicits nothing but scorn from the men on the street. As for the women, not much sympathy. No plans afoot to move, just yet. Life is this awkward mechanism that keeps throwing sprockets in the free-wheeling turn of events, hobbling peoples' intentions. And the two children go about their glum and taciturn existence.

The Street - A Composite Sketch (7)

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 seventh part of the anatomy of The Street.

Crossing the street again, another first-ownership family. A quiet, conservative, but extremely personably-friendly family originally from Hong Kong. And like so many Chinese from the island their given names oddly British. They're Canadian to the core, however, an integral part of the country's mixed-heritage pluralism. Two children in the family, both girls. Their parents conscientious, hard-working people, house-proud and content with their lives. Both parents employed by the federal government, he as a scientist, she as a bookkeeper.

Highly intelligent, cosmopolitan, they've raised their girls to reflect their values, work ethic, and consuming interest in bettering themselves. Highly educated, but not the least bit intellectual; a bit of a conundrum there, but perhaps not. They're more motivated by materialism. They like to travel, and occasionally do, as a family. Or did, before the girls became fully mature and independent. Now the parents travel to visit with their girls, one living in Florida as a public affairs type, the other travelling the world on vacation passenger liners, part of the 'entertainment' crew.

When the girls were young and attending area schools, elementary and secondary, they walked to and from school, later taking area buses. Their parents still use the public transit system to arrive at their government offices, leaving their vehicle in the garage. When other neighbourhood children went out for Hallowe'en, the girls never joined them. They did not, in fact, make friends with other girls close to their age in the immediate neighbourhood. The older the girls became, the prettier they were; polite and well spoken. A pleasure to greet them and speak with them.

Both parents are short of stature, attractive people. Careful about their weight, as behooves responsible middle-aged people. They aren't interested in any leisure activities. They're either at work, or at home, quietly doing things in their large and open interior, closed to the outside world. They're not readers, watch a fair amount of television. Don't appear to go out much, either to dine or to attend theatres or cultural events of any kind. Their daughters were more more involved in their quiet way. One imagined them engaged in extracurricular events, but perhaps not.

In public the family is outgoing and eager to express interest on the affairs of their neighbours, and the neighbourhood. They will stand about for lengthy periods of time good-naturedly sharing stories, opinions, generally consolidating their status in the neighbourhood. They do miss the more immediate presence of their daughters. Happy, however, to embark on winter vacations to visit them, one in Florida, the other wherever she happens to settle down temporarily between seasons. They're content because their girls are satisfied with their lives.

Neither girl yet attached, both still single, and comfortable that way. Their mother too has a strong personality, independent, yet half of a domestic duo. Both parents hold strong opinions that they don't at all mind sharing with anyone who asks. And they've taken advantage of the current downturn in the U.S. housing market to avail themselves of a purchase of a condominium unit in Miami, at a really amazing price. It's rented out, but any time they decide they'd like to retain it for their own use, it could be arranged. They're proud to be property owners.

Although they live directly opposite the ravine, just a tad down from the entry point, neither has ever ventured into its cool green interior. It's just not their ambiance. He has, however, taken lately to gardening. He built a low 'stone' retaining wall in an oval pattern on the front lawn, and planted some perennials, put in some spring bulbs; both immensely pleased with the result. They had a mature Sunburst Honeylocust on the front lawn, but hired an arborist two years ago to cut it down. Affording them more sun for the little garden in front.

They're meticulous people, mindful of the state of their home, their property. They're Christian, though not overtly so. It's a private matter. During the Christmas season they're one of a handful of families who don't bother putting up colourful lights or other decorations to mark the season. They're discreet about such things. One doesn't imagine a cross word passing their lips, nor recrimination spoken one against the other. Nothing very exciting about them. But nice people to have as neighbours.

The Street - A Composite Sketch (6)

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 sixth part of the anatomy of The Street.

They were one of the first families to move into their new house on the-then new street. The area wasn't at all new to them, only the new conformation. It had all previously been farmland, and they had grown up in the area. In fact, for him, it was uniquely familiar; as a child he had lived in a farmhouse close enough to the ravine to spend time down there, playing about. He remembered the creek as it once was, not as it now appears. With heavy rains it would become swollen enough to resemble a lake.

The rural residents would even boat in it, and catch fish. The farmers had built crude bridges to reach from one height to the other, crossing the ridges in the ravine, quite unlike the later bridges built by the municipality that merely crossed the creek in its current state, low down in the ravine. Building all those sewers made a huge difference; meant to deal with storm surges to protect the low-lying areas that were recently built into housing tracts. The current residents beneficiaries of the process.

Even so, in some areas, but not on this particular street, there have been storm sewer back-ups, even flooded streets, and residents have not been at all pleased, nor have their insurance companies been particularly impressed. He had his own insurance agency, in fact, on the main street of the now-incorporated town, and his wife worked in the office. They had two children, a young man, and his older sister. She was married, had her own home, visited occasionally with their grandchild.

Only the son lived at home with his parents. Like his father, he was mad for golf. A francophone family, they were friendly with everyone on the street, as befits people in the insurance industry. Many of his neighbours signed on to him for their home and car insurance, and the family was well liked and respected. In fact, one early spring the area had experienced an amazing hailstorm, with huge pieces of frozen ice hitting rooftops, scraping the particulate matter off, damaging roofs.

By then the homes were about ten years old. The hail had damaged trees and shrubs, and lay in huge heaps on the lawns. It took a day or two before it all melted finally. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime weather phenomenons. On the street behind, one person contacted his insurance agency - just happened to be this man, and he pulled strings with the insurer to have that roof replaced. News spread and a feverish activity of insurance-paid roof replacements ensued.

Those residents who had other insurers and other agencies representing them were out of luck. The insurance companies sent along, on request, specialists who climbed up and inspected the roofs, declared them to have been largely unaffected by the hailstorm, and their roofs were not replaced. Our man was more popular than ever; his exploits with serving his clients and the saga of the roof replacements become popular neighbourhood lore.

The family had a specially built car ordered for their son, and he rode a bicycle that had been retrofitted for him. He too was friendly, like his parents, and cheerful, although his eyes longingly followed young female forms and one felt pity for him. He was dwarf-sized, runty-legged, his arms resembling flippers, a Thalidomide child. Despite which, he was eminently successful as an insurance salesman.

His golf game was another story, but people were undemanding of him as a physical presence. It was his personality, his blithe outward cheerfulness that they responded to, and respected him for. And then, after living in their home for well over a decade, they decided to move. The house was a quick sale. They were missed, but people are accustomed to others moving on in the kind of peripetatic society we live in.

The family that moved in represented another mixed marriage, in several ways. A December-April pairing. An obviously older man, anglophone, paired with a young and pretty francophone, and their two young boys. He was a departmental manager with the federal government. She was outgoing, he reserved, and the boys held themselves apart from the other children their age on the street.

They had a constant stream of visitors to their home throughout the years; mostly other family members and their children, giving their boys ample opportunity to feel part of an extended family. They attended French-language school, and although they had friends at school, it was seldom that one saw other boys visiting, from the neighbourhood. They live quite close to the ravine entrance, and the boys, now 10 and 12, sometimes venture there.

They go there, occasionally with a friend, more often by themselves, to play military games, taking their rifle-sized water guns with them. Running excitedly from tree to tree, trying to duck one another's sight. Another few years perhaps, and they will have graduated to paint-ball guns, like some of the other boys in the area, plopping coloured balls of paint onto trees, leaving them on the trails for people to wonder at, and pets to step on.

Last time they were in the ravine, after a series of rainfalls that left everything sodden, and the clay base of the creek roiled and mucky, they decided to ignore the bridge and slop into the creek itself, sliding over to the other side. They had a wonderful time, slipping, slithering in the clay, falling and laughing themselves silly, the area resounding with their joyful shouts. When they finally returned home their mother was not pleased.

As punishment they were not permitted entry to their house. They were actually completely covered in a slick of fast-drying clay. Thick enough so that when it dried they felt their skin tightening up appreciably, and thought even their arms and legs seemed less flexible; wondered if they were about to become clay men. Wondered when their mother would get over being angry and let them into the house, to wash up.

What better place could there possibly be for a young family to live than on that street, offering all manner of lifestyle potentials, the proximity to the ravine reminding people of nature, the green living things cleansing the air they all breathed, the antics young boys resort to, a wonderful learning experience....

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 tched 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.

The Street - A Composite Sketch (4)

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 fourth part of the anatomy of The Street.

House number four, directly across from number three, was originally owned by a French-Canadian family. We rarely saw the man of the house, frequently did the woman. Their two teen-age boys, like their father, were rarely to be seen. Since they lived directly beside the ingress to the ravine trails, we would on occasion see the woman, a tall slender, affable woman who liked to chat. On one occasion we found her frantically beating the bushes on either side of the trail leading into the ravine.

Looking, she said, for her sons' exotic reptile, which had, once again, managed to escape. Why, we asked, was she looking for it, and not her sons. She grinned, said she was fond of it, and since she looked after it more than her boys did, she felt responsible for it. Knew it could never survive on its own, since this was not its native habitat. We never did discover whether she found it; it had, she told us, escaped on a few previous occasions and each time she had rescued it. They lived in the house only a few years before selling it and moving on.

The family that moved in was a very young one. He of German extraction, she of old Canadian Irish stock. She had, in fact, a face like a pudding and a shape that reminded one of a sack of potatoes. But she was energetic, young and enthusiastic. In contrast, her husband was well formed, handsome and extremely fit. She an extrovert, and he an introvert, shy but well-met. They had fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. The girl much larger than her sibling, more outgoing, but aggressive as opposed to his submissiveness.

Once, when another mother waited with her child on the street corner for the arrival of the school bus, she pointed out to this new neighbour that her six-year-old twins were bullying another child, having surrounded him and plucking at him. The while chanting some little teasing refrain. The put-upon child looked miserable, but the mother of the twins simply looked surprised, commented, "are they?" and did nothing to have her two desist. The girl clearly the leader, but her brother willing enough.

Before long the family acquired a family pet. They had wanted to get a Portuguese water dog, but it was too expensive. Instead they chose a mixed-breed small dog half resembling a cocker spaniel, but finer-boned. It was a hyperactive little animal, and the family did nothing to discipline it, so it ran amok in the neighbourhood and people would give it treats, hoping it wouldn't be run over by traffic. Everyone enjoyed the little dog, and was concerned for it, but the owners evinced little concern themselves.

The young mother did train her dog in one way, to unfailingly relieve itself not in their backyard, but to travel the few yards to the precinct of the ravine and do its business there. It was permitted ingress to the laundry room and kitchen, nowhere else in the house, that adorable little bundle of energy. The father worked as an IT specialist in his own contract business with a partner. The mother was a practical nurse, and found employment in a nearby health clinic.

The children quickly accustomed themselves to their new neighbourhood and readily found new friends, adjusted to their new school. There were some neighbours whom the mother took to, others whom she considered unfit for her company. They thought it would be a good idea to do some travelling with the children to impress upon them the vastness of the world about them, so they travelled to Greece one summer, Italy another.

Then there was the high-tech crash, and the father's business went kaput, and he found it difficult to find employment in his field, so looked elsewhere, but with no luck. And the mother was sick of working at the clinic, decided she would attend normal school to become an elementary school teacher. But, on receiving her professional accreditation, the teaching market too became depressed. Family helped them muddle along.

With or without a steady income, living well or frugally, they were not the kind of people to respond to requests for charitable giving. It wasn't a tradition in their family, she explained. They weren't 'giving' people. Charity, she was fond of saying, began and ended at their front door. She had a falling out with some of her neighbourhood friends who resented that she always took and never gave. She was always on the lookout for giveaways, but never offered anything herself.

One of the neighbours, an older woman, had offered to teach the daughter rudimentary piano skills, and the girl willingly attended these spontaneous 'classes', then suddenly dropped off without so much as a thank-you, and the woman felt aggrieved. Her brother spent his leisure time at the area recreation centre with its large pool, where he took swimming lessons and became a proficient swimmer.

The children were friendly enough, quite unlike their shy and retiring father, but they too came to an unfortunate parting of the ways with their closest neighbourhood friends. They made do with the friends they made at school. Their father eventually found good employment again, and their mother won a permanent position with the federal government.

Both children are now semi-adult, both still attending school; she a Catholic (although they were not Catholic; the mother felt her daughter would receive a finer education there) French-immersion high school, and he an ordinary English-language high school, although their mother had wanted an enriched learning environment for both, knowing how essential it would be for future employment to have bilingual credentials. The girl still towers over her brother in stature. As she does in academic achievement.

The mother has discovered the pleasures of gardening. The father has become an ardent bicyclist. The little dog's antics have mellowed with age, although he still presents as anxious to please, and rushes about hither and yon.