November, December

This story actually begins at the start of October. One Saturday evening I was walking in Wilket Creek Park taking in the fall colours when I get a call. It's my friend "Martin". I knew him from church many moons ago. We actually went to the same high school if I remember correctly. He was a few years ahead.

He's calling to ask if I can help him move. I don't really want to, but I ask, when? He says, right now. I tell him I'm out right now and that I can't help at the moment. He says he can try to get another friend to help. I say if he still needs help I should be available the following week.

The following Saturday I'm taking more fall photos. This time at the Humber Arboretum with my friend, Justin. We're just getting started when I get the call. It's Martin. He still needs help with the move.

The next day I borrow the work truck and we move the belongings from his rented room in Scarborough to his parents' home in North York. He's unable to pay his rent so his landlady has requested he leave. Martin doesn't have a lot of things, so the truck is barely half full. Still it takes nearly 2-1/2 hours because he hasn't gotten anything ready to go by the time I get there. His OCD isn't helping either. It takes him a super long time to pack. Most of the time I'm just standing there waiting. I'm getting really irritated.

At his parents place I unload the truck and move the stuff inside where he arranges it in the basement. It takes only around half an hour. That's how long it should have take to load if he were ready. I even spend a little bit of time chatting with his parents. His mom is somewhat incapacitated with a leg infection. It limits her mobility.

After unloading I say, good-bye. End of story, right? Not quite.

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Monday, November 5th 12:30 a.m. - I get the call. It's Martin. He says he's downstair and needs a place to stay.

Under normal circumstances I would have accommodated him. Especially since it had gotten quite cold outside. But things had changed. My once free second bedroom was now occupied. I had rented it out to a lady from work, Saba. She had moved in days earlier. All the stuff I had stored in her room was now back in mine. Like the time before, he had given me absolutely no warning, no time to prepare. I tell him I can't take him in right now, but if he still needs a place the next day to come back.

When I return from work Monday evening he's there.

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The first thing I noticed about Martin was that he could barely walk. When I get him up to my room and he removes his shoes and socks I see both ankles are grotesquely swollen. Especially the right one. He tells me he injured them. But without a place to stay, he hasn't had a chance to get off his feet. They've just gotten worse and worse. It turns out that his father kicked him out two weeks prior. Right after we dropped off his stuff.

Another thing about Martin, if you don't know him, is that he's super skinny to the point of near-anorexia (I believe) and he has mental health issues. I don't think they're super serious. But that's what I believe has hindered him from gaining steady employment thus contributing to his ongoing problem with housing over the years.

Anyway, the next morning I drop him off at his doctor's before I go to work.

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In the evening he's back in front of my building. I let him up.

His doctor has given him a prescription to help with his infection. Martin had actually gone to Sunnybrook Hospital a few days earlier. All they did were run some blood tests and gave him an X-ray. Then they sent him on his merry way with a couple of Tylenol when he could barely walk. Not very helpful.

In August I had hurt my left ankle and had trouble even standing. So I had an idea of what he was going through. My plan was to let him heal for 2 or 3 weeks while trying to figure things out. Also, I figured I had better tell Saba. I told Martin he would have to stay in my room, so she would have the space in the rest of the condo she paid rent for.

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Now, even though I had done Sandwich Runs, volunteered at the Knox Youth Dinner and visited the Boarding Home on Tyndall, I had no idea of the services available to the homeless. Online I found the City had some shelters and 24-hour respite centres available. I let Martin know.

And, even though he didn't want me to tell anyone about his situation, I still did. I needed help. The best advice I got was from a lady at church, Carolyn. She told me about Ontario Works. It's a service run by the Ontario Government. They can help with the basics like Financial assistance, including: income support to help with the costs of basic needs, like food, clothing and shelter; and Employment assistance to help clients find, prepare for and keep a job. It seemed perfect.

When I told Martin about it he shut down. I don't remember what we were doing, but we were in my room when I mentioned it and he just went mute and showed no emotion, staring into oblivion. This was at least a month into his stay at my place. I was perplexed. It seemed he was having none of it.

Now I have to say, by this point, he was really wearing thin on me. I had no personal space at all. Whenever I was in my room, he was in my room. And just a few feet away. If I watched Netflix on my computer, he would watch over my shoulder. As well, since he couldn't walk, I had to buy groceries for him. He would always offer to pay me back, but I refused. He had no income. He needed it much more than me. And, at night, he would often snore. It wasn't overly loud or even constant. But I was used to silence and it was broken. I wanted him out, but he was still hobbling around. He needed more time.

A week or two later, probably sometime in mid-December I brought up visiting Ontario Works again. The building is actually very close by, just one block east of my place. Again he shut down. I asked him if he had a plan. Because sleeping on the floor at the end of my bed forever isn't a plan. He said nothing. I was angry. So I told him the coming Friday I was going to go to the Ontario Works office with or without him. If he didn't come this week I'd give him one more Friday to join me. If he didn't come then, I would have to ask him to leave. All I wanted him to do was ask for help. Even if they couldn't provide it right away, I told him he could stay until it was arranged.

The first Friday came and went. I ended up going to the office myself. One of the ladies working there gave me a card and said he could call the number to ask for help. I gave it to him.

Today was the second Friday (Friday, December 28th). It's 11:00 a.m.. I ask him to go to the Ontario Works office with me, but he doesn't say anything (which I take as a refusal). So I ask him to leave which he does. As he's leaving he thanks me for letting him stay to heal his ankles. I didn't know what to say, so I just said good-bye. Half an hour later I go into my ensuite. He had left grocery money on the counter.

It's bewildering to me why someone would choose a life on the streets over asking for social assistance (and possibly gaining some semblance of a normal life). I wish I knew what was going on inside that head of his. All I can do is hope that he eventually comes to his senses. But he's been like this for over 50 years. Sadly I think there's little hope things will change.

Flashback to 1989

Look what I found... it's a picture of me and my classmates from my graphic design class at George Brown College back in 1989 (I believe). I took these photos with my father's old, Canon AE-1 SLR using black and white film. It was part of a photography class we had back then. We did everything ourselves. From processing the film to printing the pictures in the darkroom. No instant, click and view on the back of your digital camera back then. You took your shots, waited until you finished the whole roll. Developed them (either yourself or took them somewhere to do it) and got to look at them days or weeks later. Oh, how the anticipation built! When you finally got your pictures back you were either pleasantly surprised with how they turned out or kind of disappointed that they didn't look as nice as you thought they would. The thing is, you never knew until sometime later. There's no suspense any longer. I guess, depending on how you look at it, that could be a good thing or a bad thing.

Anyway, I've sort of drifted from my original intention of talking about my former classmates. I currently have some sort of contact with four of the five in the picture above. I'm in the top row in the middle. Anne-Marie (top-left) actually lives two doors down from me on the same floor in my condo. Isn't that a coincidence? I've been here since the end of 2001. She moved in about three years ago. Before that we hadn't had any contact since we graduated back in 1990. What are the chances of that? Lawrence (top-right) lives in Hong Kong. The last time we e-mailed each other was at least five years ago. I just wrote him a few days ago. No response yet. I don't even know if he still uses the address I have for him. Philip Luisi is on the bottom-left. He was one of funnier guys in class. I always liked him. He's the person I most recently reconnected with. Phil's currently working at an ad agency in Toronto. He's living in Etobicoke and has been married for 10 years and has an eight-year-old daughter. I just found Norbert (bottom-middle) on Facebook few weeks ago. He looks different. I suppose we all do. He's still quite thin like before. But, his golden locks are nowhere to be found. Rob Lee is still in the city. I just talked to him about a week ago. We usually talk about once a year. It's been quite a few years since we've actually seen each other face to face. That's too long as far as I'm concerned. I'm going to have to do something about that. After graduation we traveled Europe together for 2-1/2 months. My biggest and longest adventure to date.

Anyway, it was cool digging up these old shots again. I believe the original prints were buried somewhere in my parents' basement before. I scanned them and stored them on a CD quite a few years ago. That lay hidden amongst all my other junk until just recently when I was going through some of my stuff again. Old treasures, once lost, found again. Makes me happy.

My Friend Roland

This is my friend, Roland. I've known him for at least three of four years I believe. We first met when he was a resident at Carter Manor, a boarding home at King and Dufferin. I'm part of a volunteer group that goes there every other Sunday afternoon to visit.

Roland has been in and out of many places over the years. I visited him, once or twice, when he was at another boarding home in the area (after he left 103 Tyndall). I've seen him various times at Queen Street (CAMH) too. He'd go there for treatment now and then. Sometimes he would call me and I'd go over and we'd chat a bit and he'd ask me for money. I even visited him a few times at Toronto Grace Hospital at the end of 2006. He was there receiving treatment for his injured knee after getting hit by a car. Sometimes we'd go to the common area and I'd buy him a Pepsi and we'd have a little talk. At other times he'd want to go outside. When he was still recovering and couldn't walk I would push him around the neighhourhood in his wheel chair. We'd go down Church Street, cut across Carlton, weave our way through the crowds up Yonge and go across Bloor back to the hospital. One time, after he was able to walk better, he called me to visit him. When I got there he wanted to go to the Bay department store across the street to watch a DVD movie they had playing in the electronics department. I didn't think that was such a good idea, but he insisted. Luckily we didn't stay for the duration of the whole movie. I don't think the staff would have liked it much if we sat on the sofa watching TV for two hours.

After his last move I lost touch with him. By chance I bumped into him last March (2008) walking on Yonge. He told me he was staying nearby at a group home on Sherbourne. We stopped for about half an hour at a local pizza joint to catch up on the latest news then said our good-byes. After that I didn't hear from him again. That was until a couple of weeks ago; just over a year and a half later.

I have to say the circumstances leading up to our most recent meeting were quite interesting. The stars definitely lined up in our favor that day. I had met with my career counsellor in the early afternoon. My plan, after that, was to head over to the Ricoh Coliseum at the C.N.E. that to see the 10th World Wushu Championships (which I previously blogged about). On my way downtown I planned to stop for lunch in Chinatown at my usual haunt, Rol Jui. I go there on a regular basis because I like the food and it's a good deal. Anyway, after I finished eating I was ready to go when the waitress told me to wait because she wanted to give me some red bean soup for dessert on the house. That was very kind of her. So I took a few extra minutes to eat it before heading out. I was going to take the TTC down to the C.N.E. from there, but changed my mind last minute and decided to walk. That's when I bumped into Roland after crossing the street at Dundas and Spadina. You have to admit that a lot of things had to happen to make our meeting possible. Me eating lunch in Chinatown, getting the extra dessert and deciding not to take the TTC. If one of those things didn't happen we would have missed each other by just that much. Makes me wonder if, somehow, a higher power was involved. I dunno. We walked to a nearby restaurant patio and sat down to chat. While we were there a stranger came by and was listening to us (I think he worked at the restaurant). After Roland parted he told me he was a advocate for the mentally ill and had gone through the battles of fighting addiction as well. It was so unusual, I thought, how all these circumstances came together from seemingly random events to form something so cohesive. So, through Roland, I have a new Facebook friend in, Rob, too.

Anyway, Roland, and I traded contact information again. It's definitely hard for me to keep track of him since he's always changing his place of residence. He called me today and we're going to meet tomorrow afternoon. I have to say he's looking good. He lost a lot of weight. I honestly almost didn't recognize him standing there at the street corner. But, I also must say, I'm so glad I did.

Old Friends, New Technology.

Wow... it's been pretty amazing... being able to hook up with old friends again. I owe that joy to the technological giant we now take for granted - the internet.

Donna Roberts, is the third old friend I've managed to reconnect with in recent years due to that technology. I found her, as well as many other former high school classmates, on Facebook. While I'm not an avid fan of the website, it does have its benefits I have to admit.

I first met Donna over 25 years ago. We were probably in grade 8 or 9, I can't quite remember. All I know is that I was pretty young because I used to deliver newspapers to the building she lived at with her parents. We actually never were that close, but to tell you the truth, I sort of had a crush on her. (If you're reading this now, Donna, I'm turning a little red). Anyway, after high school I lost touch with many of my friends. Some went to university here in Toronto. Others went further away, either here in Ontario, or across Canada or in the U.S. After obtaining their degrees some returned, others stayed put. From our home in Toronto we scattered like seeds in the wind.

Donna, was like one of those seeds in the wind. From Toronto she went to B.C. and eventually ended up in Denver, CO. Her life mirrors, in some ways, that of one of my other old friends I found on Facebook, Christine Mulgrew (in the photo on the right). She eventually married, had kids and ended up in the States as well. Christine is currently living in Los Angeles. It was great reconnecting with both of them again. We chatted on Facebook, updating each other on what transpired in our lives over the more than 20 years since we last saw each other. We talked about our relationships, places we've been to/lived in, how we "felt old" being in our early 40's... things like that. There was a lot to catch up on. After all, it was more than a half a lifetime ago since we were last in contact.

I had the wonderful pleasure of meeting Christine again this summer (2009) at our high school reunion. She flew in unannounced from California. After gathering at the school to reminisce, a group of us went to the nearby mall to Jack Astor's to have a beer or two. Even the mall has changed. When I grew up in Don Mills it was an open air mall. Not long after they flattened it to make an indoor mall. That stood for about thirty years before they knocked it down and redeveloped the area and built an upscale, outdoor mall once again. Funny how that happened... old becomes new again.

The other picture I have up there (on the left) is with my dear friend, Ron Grunwald. Of all my friends he's one of the people I've known longest. We grew up four houses away from each other. Just down the street. I believe we went to Cub Scouts together. He was on the same T-ball team as me. He was at my fourth birthday party for goodness sake. We've known each other since we were knee high to a grasshopper. Ron and I saw less of each other after grade 9. After graduating from Don Mills Junior High (now Don Mills Middle School), Ron went to York Mills Collegiate, while I went next door to Don Mills Collegiate Institute along with most of my other friends. Not long after, Ron's parents sold their home and moved north of the city and that was that. I lost contact with him. It was like he disappeared off the face of the earth. That was until one day, possibly back in 2005 or so, my mother told me he dropped by the old neighbourhood. She was working in her garden in the front yard of the same house I grew up in when a strange man pulled up in his car and asked if she knew who he was. My mother didn't recognize him at first. After all it had been nearly 20 years since she last saw Ron. When she found out who he was they had a nice chat and he left. I was quite happy when she told me she met him, but equally disappointed when she said she didn't get any contact information from him. All I knew was that he was down in Atlanta, GA now. That's where my good friend the internet came in. It wasn't too hard to do a search for him. Though I have to say I wasn't quite certain the Ron Grunwald I found was the same one I grew up with. I sent a brief e-mail out and, behold, it was. Marvelous! We met a year later, in 2006, when he came up to Toronto with his wife to meet his family and other friends. How great is that? For all the bad things the internet is known for, it has its good side as well.

In the end... I suppose it's best not to lose touch with those we care about. But, if you do, there's nothing that says you can reconnect and be a part of each others lives once again. Take care, my friends.

To see my 50th Anniversary High School photos click here. View as slideshow looks best.