In Peterborough.

Pic 383
Lebreton St.

March 7, 2009

Two years ago:
Pic 72
Parking meters

March 7, 2008

I didn’t take any pictures on the road. Highway 7 is very straight and dull, and one Tim Horton’s is much like the next. Near Madoc I got a speeding ticket from an idiot cop, J.A. Locke by name, who was trying to fill his quota.

It seems I was going 90 in an 80 zone. Oh, the horror! My awful crime will cost me $40.

In 1998 I lived in Peterborough for part of the year, and I liked it there a lot. It seemed to me that there was something very spiritual about the place. My friend Patti sometimes reminds me of a day when we went to Jackson Park together and I saw God there. It’s true that at that time I was always on the lookout for him/her/it, but I don’t know if I actually saw them on that day. (But I might have.)

I was in Peterborough because I didn’t feel like I was finished with my education, although I had recently graduated from Queen’s. I studied computer science at Sir Sanford Fleming College for two semesters, thinking I could combine that with my English degree for a career in technical writing.

When the summer break came I was unable to find a job in Peterborough. Soon I gave up on the idea of finding a “summer job” and became willing to take any job, just to survive; but I couldn’t find anything in Peterborough.

The lowest point came when I answered an ad to paint fire hydrants and didn’t get the job. If you aren’t suited for painting fire hydrants, what on earth are you suited for?

I knew if I could survive until September I’d get some more student loan money and life would go on, but I wasn’t sure if I could survive that long. I thought I might have reached a mysterious life divide – the one that people sometimes unwittingly pass over, and end up living on the street. If that was my destiny I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Anyway, I was miraculously saved. I won a large cash prize in a writing contest. I used it to get out of town, up to my place at Maynooth, and take some time to reconsider my plans. In September I switched to technical writing at Algonquin College in Ottawa, and when I was finished there I was hired for the job that I still have now. So here I am.

We had the birthday lunch at a place called Karma’s Cafe on Hunter St. Here is a picture that shows my old friend Karen, Jake’s mother Joyce, and Jake the birthday boy.

I was very impressed with Hunter St. It has cool restaurants and coffee shops on every block, all concentrated in a few short blocks. Aside from my street, Somerset, I don’t know any place like that in Ottawa except maybe the Market. But Chinatown and the Market don’t have the same kind of youthful energy that I felt in Peterborough.

Here’s Joyce and Jake at Patti’s place.

I went home to Ottawa on Sunday. As usual Highway 7 was very uninteresting. I stopped for a burger at McDonald’s in Perth. What a food factory that place is!

Back on Cambridge St. I picked up the Centretown Buzzes off the ground and put them back in my neighbours’ mailboxes.

I’m glad I went. I needed an adventure and I liked seeing Jake and everyone, and I do think there is something special about Peterborough. Maybe I’ll live there again someday. This time I might be able to land my dream job – painting the fire hydrants.