The Street - A Composite Sketch (25)

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-fifth part of the anatomy of The Street.

They're both unprepossessing in appearance. Short in stature, small-boned people. Their use of the English language is excellent, little betraying their Bangladeshi provenance. Which merely means that have verbal dexterity in a number of languages. (Little surprise, given the country's colonial past of the British Raj, as originally part of India, then Pakistan, and then obtaining nation-status for itself. None of which was accomplished - the Pakistani independence and the resulting Bangladeshi independence - without a great deal of political turmoil and agonizingly bloody violence.

He would obligingly discuss these historical events, explaining that they migrated to Canada in search of greater opportunities for themselves and their children. And they have been able to make a good life for themselves in Canada, raising two children whose physical presence far outstripped that of their parents. Size, but not education. They came to Canada from Bangladesh offering professional qualifications. He as a food scientist and she as an auditor. And both took advantage of the federal government's hiring practises, offering opportunities to qualified visible minorities.

As a matter of fact, she was able to qualify doubly in the affirmative-action programs, as a visible minority-member and as a woman. Their children did well at school, and they were comfortable with Canada. It wasn't long before they became citizens. And not long after that they bought their first house, where they stayed a few years, then moved on to another house, their second, on the street of which we write. A very nice two-story detached home with four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a powder room. A far cry from what they had been accustomed to.

Despite his size, he was an assertive man. He was quick to acknowledge the presence of others, and generously brought people into his confidence. Like the Jewish couple who lived just up the street, with whom he enjoyed bantering. He became more familiar with the woman, coming across her more often than her husband. And he was the kind of person who, if something bothered him would not only say so, but do something about it. If public services were lax in some way he would contact the proper civic authorities and let them know. Going so far as to invite others to join him. Which some did.

And though he often said to the Jewish woman that they should get together and discuss their common religious roots in the "Abrahamic religion", she only smiled. He did not quite understand how someone could be rooted in a specific culture, belong to an ethnic tribe for whom religion was of manifest importance, yet claim to be secular. And despite his very overt friendliness to just about everyone on the street, when he saw a common acquaintance speaking with the Sikh man who lived further up the street, he shrank back. As though, said the Sikh neighbour, who noticed everything, he thought him a threat.

Eventually, as the years progressed, the Bangladeshi Muslim family learned to relax about the near neighbourly proximity of a Sikh family. Sufficiently so that when each of their daughters achieved marriageability and did indeed marry in the traditional way, they formally congratulated one another. Still keeping at a respectable distance, socially, while observing a rudimentary casual relationship. While their daughter married and moved away, her younger brother remained at home, even after graduating eventually from university. He could be seen often quietly walking up to the neighbourhood mailbox to retrieve mail.

He was, unlike his father, shy. Like his mother in that way. She had a shy smile and a quiet manner, and enjoyed speaking with her neighbours. Those who preferred to be neighbourly in any event. She would often meet some of her neighbours returning from work in the late afternoon, on public transit. That, in fact, is where most of her contacts were made, on the express-type buses that ran specific direct routes, and which many of the people in the neighbourhood made use of. She chose to wear modest Western dress in public, and never covered her head.

When he eventually retired, she, a few years younger than her husband, decided to continue working, because she enjoyed her work. He learned to do the unthinkable; house work. From time to time he would send colourful emails to some of his neighbours with whom he had achieved a nice relationship. They are not unaware of the dysfunctional relationships around them, of other families on the street. They credit their religion, informing every facet of their life, with ensuring that their family respected others as well as themselves.

Their son steadfastly refuses the very notion that an arranged marriage could be the solution to his solitary lifestyle, trusting that in good time he may find a suitable partner. His parents worry incessantly about him. And wonder why their married daughter has not yet gifted them with a grandchild. Other than that, and news that comes out of their native country from extended family on occasion, they have few concerns to disrupt the even balance of their lives.

c. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld