A Glimpse of Violet
And an occasional glimpse of violet
I met Wally Leonard one rainy Saturday while browsing though booksellers' shops on Queen Street. I liked him instantly. He’s the kind of a guy that has this comfortable, old shoe type of feel, if you know what I mean.
We ended up in a deli eating bagels with cream cheese and drinking coffee. “The best damn lunch bargain in the city,” he bragged—and he was right.
We got to talking—actually, more reminiscing about historic Toronto and he told me he was a photographer working for The Toronto Telegram.
I asked him what was his most memorable photo assignment and without hesitating he told me it was an assignment to photograph old residential streets.
He got all starry-eyed about it.
“You know, the wide avenues with a leaf canopy so heavy you don’t need an umbrella when it rains?”
Yeah, I know them well, and when he said it I felt a pang of nostalgia.
I remember childhood summers playing in the rain—safe and dry and sitting on the curb or playing hopscotch with the girls while the air was filled with the bitter scent of dust and rain.
The longing I felt was so intense, I wanted to back and look—to walk those streets that time forgot. I wanted to explore again the charm of finding little things, like sidewalks bearing date stamps from the turn of the century that proudly proclaimed when the concrete was poured.
How those sidewalks lasted so long is a mystery, but when I think about it I realize the concrete sidewalks they poured back then were different from today’s homogenized quick-setting walkways.
Those sidewalks of the past contained a lot of coloured pebbles mixed into the cement. They were meant to last, as were the brick and stone houses they built back then with their tall narrow windows and wide wooden verandahs.
So that’s how our conversation went. We reminisced for a while and shared anecdotes about penny candy and watching baseball games under lights—those long purple summer nights filled with sultry stars and the crack of bats and the smell of popcorn and roasted peanuts.
That’s the funny thing about men—we’re mostly furtive and secretive, but when there’s a glow of camaraderie, the defences come down and confidences are shared—usually in the hushed tones of whispered prayers.
And as we talked, Wally grew pensive and I knew he was pondering whether to entrust me with a secret. Finally, his posture relaxed and he leaned back as if we were sitting out on that ball diamond of our youth staring up at stars, and he began to talk dreamily as he recalled an event that changed his life.
What I didn't know was the secret he was about to share was also going to change mine.
Thanks :)