The Street - A Composite Sketch (22)

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 Twenty-second part of the anatomy of The Street.

They were Franco-Ontarians, both. He much older than she, a first marriage for him, second for her. She brought two young boys to their marriage. Actually, they lived common-law, but theirs was a strong family unit regardless. She was very pretty, slight of frame, and was a dental technician. When they moved into their lovely new home her children were six and eight years of age, both boys. She thought raising them on this quiet street with other young families would be good for all of them.

He was a dapper man, well built, and extremely well aged, given his advance in years over her. They were well matched in temperament, both openly friendly and gregarious in nature. They presented as an elegant pair, always ostentatiously well dressed. And he always presented as a gallant, vividly aware of women, and addressing himself to them as one fascinated by femininity. Women responded to him, and that certainly was not lost on his wife, who well knew his penchant, but trusted to the fact that she was pretty and young.

It didn't take long for neighbours to understand that he had the credentials of a wandering eye inhabiting the mentality of an unquenchable thirst to drink deep of female attributes.
But he was irresistible, no one could deny his neighbourliness, his social tractability, his eagerness to talk companionably. His enthusiasm was boundless, for company, male as well as female, for discussions about matters in the news, and matters that would never find their place in any newspaper.

When he had bought the house originally - for it was he and he alone who had bought the house - he had an in-ground pool installed, and a most substantial pool house. The pool house was like nothing most people in the street had seen before, with separate change rooms, and its own bathroom. He also had a stand-alone utility shed. Their backyard was one of the two largest on the street; another pie-shaped lot, opposite the ravine side.

So large he actually divided it along its length; one-half containing the large kidney-shaped pool, the other, play structures for the children. And in that half-portion also was contained a large, carefully tended and productive vegetable garden, of which he always commented wryly that the local wildlife benefited more from than did their table. He was the only pool-owner on the street, in fact, who invited his neighbours to come around, and use his pool.

He worked for the Department of National Defence as a civil engineer and was well remunerated. He also travelled widely from time to time with the department, as required. Because he had married so late in life he had acquired a healthy nest egg, and invested in properties; one at the ski resort at Mont Ste.Marie, and a few condominiums across the Ottawa River, in Quebec. He was very particular about his property. And in the winter they took possession of their property and skied as often as time permitted.

He had his double driveway installed with fancy brick pavers. He'd had vinyl-covered windows installed in the house so he need never bother about painting wood. He had his basement professionally finished, and ceramic tile and wood flooring installed on the first and second floors of the house. And as the boys grew older they indulged in some travel with them. And as the boys grew a little older, the older one presented as a bit of a problem.

Hanging out with bad influences he once, while his mother and step-father were out for the evening, broke into the house, destroying the side door in the process, and kicking in the parents' bedroom door, to get at a coin collection. In his absence, the bedroom door was always locked, and that infuriated his older step-son. Although they knew, from the evidence and a confession, who was responsible, the boy was forgiven.

Still, for a year afterward, he went to live with his real father, along with his younger brother. That didn't quite work out, and the boys returned to live with their mother and step-father. The boys acquired cars of their own, and the driveway and double garage was always crowded with vehicles. Which increased when girlfriends came on the scene, particularly when, on occasion, they were invited to move in.

All of this activity came to a sudden halt. She had some medical problems; two, not one but two detached retinas. After surgery he was most solicitous of her, and proposed that they marry. And they did just that, finally legalizing their long-term partnership. Things proceeded very well between them. She decided to continue working when he retired. They took up golf together, and line dancing.

And they travelled to exotic locales; Greece and Portugal, Hawaii repeatedly, Mexico, and Peru. He loved to travel, and she enjoyed it as well. And they entertained a lot, at home, inviting friends and former co-workers over in the summer months. It was during one of those pool parties that their neighbour who lived directly across the street spotted, from her second-floor window, his fumbling in the garage with a blond woman definitely not his wife.

Their marriage dissolved. By then the boys had moved on. Her furniture and belongings were moved out of the house, into another one he settled on her in a division of property which necessitated that he sell off two of the condominiums he owned. The blond woman with whom he had been making out moved in, along with her some of her furniture and belongings. That lasted several months, before her furniture and belongings were moved out.

And then he was lonely. He was diagnosed with MS, and it affected his eyes, his eyelids drooping uncontrollably, requiring a series of operations. He was lonely, and confided to one of his neighbours that he couldn't stand the idea of having a woman in his household who was overweight and sloppy, and he just wasn't able to find anyone who matched his needs. His wife, whom he begged to return, adamantly refused.

He continued going on long sight-seeing tours in different places around the world: Egypt, Norway, the Philippines. All fascinating places, that he would describe with enthusiasm to his neighbours. But then, he would come home to an empty house and he felt desolate. Then he adopted a small cat, from the Humane Society and his life turned around. The cat took the place of a companion, for him.

He arranged a towel neatly at the foot of his bed and she slept up there. He permitted her outside only in the backyard where she was fenced in, and he worried lest neighbours' cats enter the backyard and molest her, for she had no claws. He fed her the best cat food, took her to the veterinarian to ensure she was in good health. And began staying home more, unwilling to leave her unattended.

He decided to forego his usual trips because he worried about her welfare in his absence. He no longer went out during the day to swim in the winter months at the local community centre, decided to install a hot tub on his commodious deck. Then he worried the cat might have an accident, and kept it covered. When summer came he neglected his swimming pool, fearful she might fall in. He adored that little cat.

And he felt happy, finally. But his tourism days weren't quite over. He would be taking the little cat to his sister in Montreal, who knew and loved cats, for the few weeks he had planned to travel to Beijing and Hong Kong and Tokyo. Life was once again worth living.

c. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld