Thursday, March 31, 2005
A week ago Tuesday I headed back to Sydney to see the Weakerthans play with Kathy and Lachie. The last time I saw the Weakerthans was in Halifax March of 2001. Lennie, Alice, Ian, and Jen drove up from Fredericton and they and Janice and I went to the shows. Ian brought me 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' trading cards. It was one of the last times we were all together as we all left the Maritimes later that year.
Alice and Lennie recently returned to Canada from Korea as they are expecting their first child.
Sydney can be a pretty depressing place to visit. The downtown is not what I remembered it, it's now made up of a bargain store, a dollar store, a Tim Hortons, and a different kind of dollar store. The Tar Ponds and the Steel Plant (or lack thereof) loom large, they cast an ugly pallour. It seems like I grew up in Sydney just as it was dying. The dying has been dragging on for years because not everyone wants to acknowledge.
The show was at Steelworker's Hall. The roof was leaking. I wondered how was going to fix it, it's not like there's any steelworkers left anymore. Standing a stone's throw away from where I used to play baseball which is a stone's throw away from the field where kids got bit by rats when the Bill Lynch Shows which is a stone's throw away from the Tar Ponds, I felt sad because I came to the realization that the idealization I had of my hometown either never existed or was never coming back.
The first two bands has just finished playing when Lennie and an obviously pregnant Alice walked through the doors. I ran over and hugged them. I couldn't believe it. They reminded me of the last time we had seen the Weakerthans together and talked about names for the baby.
Two days later Alice gave birth to a boy named Nova Grayson Moffat.
Goods thing do happen in Sydney.
Well two good things; their baby and the Baldwin Express.
Alice and Lennie recently returned to Canada from Korea as they are expecting their first child.
Sydney can be a pretty depressing place to visit. The downtown is not what I remembered it, it's now made up of a bargain store, a dollar store, a Tim Hortons, and a different kind of dollar store. The Tar Ponds and the Steel Plant (or lack thereof) loom large, they cast an ugly pallour. It seems like I grew up in Sydney just as it was dying. The dying has been dragging on for years because not everyone wants to acknowledge.
The show was at Steelworker's Hall. The roof was leaking. I wondered how was going to fix it, it's not like there's any steelworkers left anymore. Standing a stone's throw away from where I used to play baseball which is a stone's throw away from the field where kids got bit by rats when the Bill Lynch Shows which is a stone's throw away from the Tar Ponds, I felt sad because I came to the realization that the idealization I had of my hometown either never existed or was never coming back.
The first two bands has just finished playing when Lennie and an obviously pregnant Alice walked through the doors. I ran over and hugged them. I couldn't believe it. They reminded me of the last time we had seen the Weakerthans together and talked about names for the baby.
Two days later Alice gave birth to a boy named Nova Grayson Moffat.
Goods thing do happen in Sydney.
Well two good things; their baby and the Baldwin Express.
# posted by Die Brucke @ 11:12 PM 
