The Old Vacant Lot
My dad grew up along the streets of Toronto, in the house I live in now. I grew up in the woods north of Parry Sound, and I had a pretty glossy idea of what my dad's boyhood must have been like. He's not much for telling stories, so I always had to imagine the scenes of his childhood based on a few local clues, and lot of old-timey ideas from comic strips and slapstick movies and battered hardcover books for boys.
The old vacant lot is a perfect example. In my childhood's imagination, a vacant lot was a magical place. You could search for pop bottles to turn in for shiny nickels, build a fort out of worn boards and broken bricks, hang around with a gang of tow-headed young scamps, hide out from a mean, potbellied flatfoot, draw a line in the sand and go toe-to-toe with a freckle-faced bully, distract a growling bulldog with a bit of salami out of your pocket, and so on. And of course, you could play stickball. It seemed to me that kids in vacant lots were practically always playing stickball.
I used to pepper my father with questions about this, fueled by notions born in a bygone era. To my grave disappointment, he denied ever having played stickball in a vacant lot, or been in a dust-up with a bully, or any of those things. He did allow that he once took some pop bottles from behind a store, snuck around the front, and cashed them in with the kindly old man who ran the place. It was true, he once broke his leg tripping into a coal chute and had to miss months of school. But that wasn't mentioned in the books of my boyhood so I never knew what to make of it.
My uncle said my dad didn't even play street hockey with the other guys as a kid; he was too busy studying, trying to make something of himself so he could move out of the neighbourhood. Imagine my disappointment. I myself never played street hockey, but that's because I grew up along a gravel road. Still less did I play stickball. I don't even know what sort of a stick you use to play it.
Just the same, for all these years I've been at least able to count on the vacant lot where my father should have been wasting his boyhood. It's a little ways north of Broadview and Queen, in what used to be the East End of Toronto, and it's a classic.
When I was a boy it was a sandy, gravelly place, a delightfully dangerous place full of broken bricks, and boards with nails through them; gradually it got fenced off, and then weeds grew up. The weeds along the fences eventually became trees, but it always stayed vacant. Except in my mind, of course, where it was always a hotbed of excitement and activity. Not that I ever once even walked across it. But I always imagined what I might have done there, had the times been right.
Well, I took the streetcar past the old vacant lot today. And wouldn't you know it - all of a sudden, there are big yellow machines crawling all over it, and plywood going up around the perimeter. Vacant no more!
They've got some nerve, developing that lot. Don't they know my father and a gang of gap-toothed street urchins used to play stickball there? Why, I swear I remember playing hooky from grammar school myself, and having a peanut scramble with a bunch of ragamuffin pals on the old brick pile instead of studying arithmetic...
Boy, those were the days, eh? All that history. All those memories. The old vacant lot.
What a cryin' shame!
The old vacant lot is a perfect example. In my childhood's imagination, a vacant lot was a magical place. You could search for pop bottles to turn in for shiny nickels, build a fort out of worn boards and broken bricks, hang around with a gang of tow-headed young scamps, hide out from a mean, potbellied flatfoot, draw a line in the sand and go toe-to-toe with a freckle-faced bully, distract a growling bulldog with a bit of salami out of your pocket, and so on. And of course, you could play stickball. It seemed to me that kids in vacant lots were practically always playing stickball.
I used to pepper my father with questions about this, fueled by notions born in a bygone era. To my grave disappointment, he denied ever having played stickball in a vacant lot, or been in a dust-up with a bully, or any of those things. He did allow that he once took some pop bottles from behind a store, snuck around the front, and cashed them in with the kindly old man who ran the place. It was true, he once broke his leg tripping into a coal chute and had to miss months of school. But that wasn't mentioned in the books of my boyhood so I never knew what to make of it.
My uncle said my dad didn't even play street hockey with the other guys as a kid; he was too busy studying, trying to make something of himself so he could move out of the neighbourhood. Imagine my disappointment. I myself never played street hockey, but that's because I grew up along a gravel road. Still less did I play stickball. I don't even know what sort of a stick you use to play it.
Just the same, for all these years I've been at least able to count on the vacant lot where my father should have been wasting his boyhood. It's a little ways north of Broadview and Queen, in what used to be the East End of Toronto, and it's a classic.
When I was a boy it was a sandy, gravelly place, a delightfully dangerous place full of broken bricks, and boards with nails through them; gradually it got fenced off, and then weeds grew up. The weeds along the fences eventually became trees, but it always stayed vacant. Except in my mind, of course, where it was always a hotbed of excitement and activity. Not that I ever once even walked across it. But I always imagined what I might have done there, had the times been right.
Well, I took the streetcar past the old vacant lot today. And wouldn't you know it - all of a sudden, there are big yellow machines crawling all over it, and plywood going up around the perimeter. Vacant no more!
They've got some nerve, developing that lot. Don't they know my father and a gang of gap-toothed street urchins used to play stickball there? Why, I swear I remember playing hooky from grammar school myself, and having a peanut scramble with a bunch of ragamuffin pals on the old brick pile instead of studying arithmetic...
Boy, those were the days, eh? All that history. All those memories. The old vacant lot.
What a cryin' shame!
Labels: neighbourhood
posted by David Newland at 15.10.07
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