Lost Conversations #3: Toronto the Good or Toronto the Redoubtable?

Lost Conversations is the title of a series of blog entries that have

been sitting in draft form for too long; it’s my attempt to do some

“spring cleaning”. This is the third in a series — the other two are:

• Lost Conversations #1: Matchmaker
• Lost Conversations #2: Two Fandoms, One Approach

Russ “Burkean Canuck” Kuykendall occupies a interesting position in my worldview. On the plus side, he is a colleague of Gideon Strauss,

a fellow blogger I hold in high esteem. On the minus side, he has

posting privileges on the foaming-at-the-mouth-conservative group blog The Shotgun,

which I treat as a warning sign on the same level as a white baseball

cap worn backwards or a predilection for bow ties — not enough for

dismissal by itself, but it’s a strong positive indicator for

“jackass”, which Kuykendall clearly is not.

In a recent blog entry titled Finding the Old Toronto in the Burned-Over District (which he posted in his own blog and cross-posted to The Shotgun, whose writership tends to the classic Albertan anti-Toronto stance),

Kuykendall talks about his experiences driving through the towns of

upstate New York: “Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany, and in

little burgs in between” and how he “could not help but notice the

general helpfulness, consideration for

others, and common courtesy I encountered, again and again, in service

stations, in down-scale and up-scale stores alike, in rest stops, and

so on”.

He then writes:

It makes me a little sad. Because there was a time when I noted the

contrast going the other way, even when visiting that New York wannabe,

Toronto, where I now live. “Toronto the Good” was also “Toronto the

courteous and considerate.” But no more. And no, I don’t mean that no

one is courteous and considerate. But I can’t tell you how many times

I’ve seen a door opened by one of the last gentlemen in Toronto for a

lady of a certain age only to observe three able-bodied men precede her

through the propped door. Or, how many times I’ve seen young people

walk three or four abreast down a Yonge Street sidewalk expecting

pedestrians to move out of their way.

Now, I know there are

communities across Canada that are more like the burned-over district

in this respect than they are like Toronto the Redoubtable. And I know

that many of the great American cities are more like Toronto as it is

now than like upstate New York. But it troubles me, nonetheless, to

note the change in what is now Canada’s largest metroplex. Can

Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver be far behind?

I

thought that the best response might be to ask my fiancee Wendy, a

dyed-in-the-wool Bostonian moving to Toronto, for her opinion since she

might have more “distance” from the topic than I would. Here’s her

response:

I

think it’s stupid that the Maple Leafs are not called the Maple Leaves.

 I don’t care much about the Bruins but I am a loyal Red Sox fan.

 I am a Bostonian who will soon live in Toronto.

 Considering I’ve spent nearly thirty years here in Taxachusetts

being a Masshole, no one will ever believe I’m actually from Canada.

 Even though I don’t have the huge,

close-your-eyes-and-think-of-Kennedy accent — unless I want to.

That said, I love Toronto.

Tranna. It’s clean, it’s safe, and drivers know how to merge.

 People are nice. I’ve actually been reduced to tears a few times

at the kindnesses of relative strangers who have told me how welcome

I will be in their city when I arrive next month.  Here at home, I

have great affection for the jerks who drive me around in their

cabs, sell me juice, or elbow past me on their way off the bus. But 500

miles west north west, I know I’ll find the opposite, which I also love.

It

was a little bit creepy when the girls working at the natural foods

store near Joey’s and my new apartment told us how gorgeous our

potential kids would be, but they meant it. I get warm hugs and kisses

from almost everyone I meet in “T-dot” – even though that kind of

fights with my New England sensibilities, it’s very reassuring. And

strangers in Toronto will pick you up off the sidewalk, not point and laugh, when you slip on the ice.

I never knew the “old” Toronto. Maybe people used to be nicer. Maybe they baked you fresh bread because they thought you might be hungry, or shoveled

your quarter-mile driveway because they were already out there anyway.

But from where I sit, normal humans couldn’t be nicer than they are

in TO. (Trying to learn the lingo here, please forgive my overuse of

slang.) I love the full-of-beans denizens of the town we don’t particularly

call Beantown, but it’s not because they’re polite. I’m looking forward

to living with the pleasantly less profane. Although it kind of pisses

me off that on top of having to be nice to them, I have to spell the

people next door “neighboUrs.”