I Love Bowness

I grew up in Bowness. It's always a hoot to come back. I really do love Bowness. There are I Love Bowness stickers are on bumpers all over the neighbourhood - the same stickers were in my hospital room in Ottawa. (They come from a classic Bowness anchor, Bow Cycle.

The neighbourhood, which used a small town back in the day - it even had a street car. Then and now Bowness is in a beautiful river valley with lots of trees, a few wild escarpments, a favorite from my childhood, Bowness Park - still popular for skating etc.

Bowness also has an edge. The car in the photo is parked just a few minutes on foot from my folks place. It looks like it's been there since the street car ran. Don't miss the McDonald's cup on the end of the 2X4. It's been there for days - does it live there? Should I sneak over late at night and swap it for, say a ceramic chicken? Or something else that I can drum up in the basement.

The number 1 bus, which runs between Bowness and Forest Lawn way on the other side of town, if known as the dodgiest bus ever by all people who have never been to Scarborough. I took it downtown today and I was not disappointed. In Toronto, there is a handy display on all buses to tell you what stop you are at. You can read it, or they also make a verbal announcement, sometime including a major landmark (for me it's always St. Joe's - the hospital where I see my endo). The Bowness bus doesn't have this. Today, there wasn't even a sign on the bus that said what bus it was. Just a blanked out light display.

Ride highlights:

• a kid who looked no older than 10-years-old bragging to his.....gang (?) about getting high, going to Woods school (the school for juvenile delinquents), trying to get a *unbloggably filthy adjectives in proliferation) girlfriend, but a bigger kid stole her (he's "gonna fuck that kid up"), and how he once got in a high speed chase with the police on his skateboard. His voice reminded me of the little girl in Poltergeist.


• a 20-something man loudly explaining over a cell phone that "she was the reason he was moving back to NS. well, family a little sure. but it's mainly you baby. no no really this time. this time it will be more better".
  


• a man carrying a duffle bag that said "Uranus Travel and Tours".It looked like a legit business. It had some overseas phones numbers in small letters and uranus@emirates.net.ae. He looked like an accountant.