You meet a lot people along the way when you walk regularly, as I do. People like myself, stretching the legs and trying to keep Grandfather Time at bay, people out for the fresh air, people shuffling off to work or shuffling back from it, people out hoping to clear their heads from the weighty matters of life, and people walking their dogs. The common denominator, of course, is people.
These people come in all shapes and sizes, colours and hues, and are all carrying their individual backgrounds with them as they walk, some in the same direction as yourself, others coming towards you and passing by in the opposite direction. Some even on the other side of the road.
In the vast majority of cases, an interaction, albeit brief, takes place, often in the form of a wave, wishes for a good morning, a simple “hi, how are you,” Nothing too crazy. Nothing too involved. Just the kind of stuff you’d see in an old Norman Rockwell painting of a time seemingly gone by — and I appreciate many of you would have no idea who Norman Rockwell might be — but a time that, in that sense never really left us, that basic interaction with strangers along the way, something small towns are supposed to be noted for.
One such stranger is a man with two dogs, a regular along my route for a few weeks, although I’ve not seen him recently. I first interacted with him when he was walking his dogs on a path perpendicular to mine. Owing to the size differential of the two dogs, and owing to the angle upon which I was viewing them, the two dogs actually appeared to me to be one dog. A dog that seemingly had more legs to it than God might have intended. Legs that moved in a way that defied my ability to make sense of the whole thing. Obviously, as we got closer to one another, it became apparent that I was just viewing the two dogs at an angle that made them appear as one, some hydra-legged beast from an ancient Greek tragedy. But no, two dogs, one owner, and everything was as it should be in the world again.
The owner appeared to be South Asian. Maybe from the Philippines, most likely someone hailing from the region that lay between Australia to the south and Taiwan to the north. My point is that, for all intents and purposes, this fellow with the two dogs was an immigrant.
As time moved forward, this guy became more friendly, returning my waves, exchanging hellos, that sort of thing. Even laughing at some of my reaching attempts at humour, God bless him. It got to the point where he even recognized my car and would wave from across the street as I motored by. I guess I had earned his trust. Everything was good.
One day, as I approached the Renfrew Armouries/Fairgrounds, I saw him standing on the sidewalk after coming out of the grounds with his two dogs. I had previously seen him walking those dogs in there, off the roadway, and really, why not? Lots of folks take advantage of that space for that same reason.
I approached as always, with a wave —the wave is important as a lot of people have earphones plugged in — and a “hello,” my mind already scanning the vast emptiness of my brain searching for something “funny” to say as I walked by.
But he wasn’t his normal self. The dogs seemed content, their owner less so.
“Did you see that guy?” he asked as I drew up. I didn’t know what he was referring to, so I came up with the brilliant response of “What guy?”
“The guy in that car right there,” he said. “He’s yelling out his car window that I should go back to where I came from, that I don’t belong here, that nobody wants me here.”
I’ve been around a long time, proof that God does, in fact, look out for drunks, fools, and children, three boxes already checked on my personal profile. And I guess I should feel proud as a Canadian that this, right here, was the first time I had ever encountered what appeared to classic racist behaviour from one person directed at another, at least in public. I don’t know what kind of bubble I’ve been living in for over sixty years, but it just got unceremoniously popped right there on the sidewalk in front of the Armouries.
I told the guy that I was sorry for what had happened to him, that not all Canadians are like that, and I guess I meant white Canadians. As appreciative as he seemed to be that he had a middle-aged — okay, fine, senior-aged — white male commiserating with him, he still said something that made me want to cry right on the spot.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It happens all the time.”
My response to that statement has personal history attached to it. Because I had witnessed racism before in my life, from my father. Not out in public involving strangers, but rather right in my very own home, with my very own dad, and I remember how ashamed I was, even as a boy growing up, that this was happening right in front of me, in my home. By my dad.
I love my father, long deceased. In many ways I felt he was a product of his time, a World War II veteran, hard-drinking until he gave it up with five years left on the clock, hard-smoking — maybe three packs a day — and hard-swearing if he felt the situation demanded it, which apparently was often. He was, you know, a dad. That’s just the way they all were, I guess.
My dad didn’t like black people. Unless they could hit homers for his favourite ball team — the fledgling Blue Jays — or could rumble through NFL defences as a running back every Sunday afternoon. Those black people were okay, I guess, in a pinch. Sometimes you have to lower your standards, right?
And by the way, the man was no monster. He would give the shirt off his back for anyone in need, would be courageous enough to jump into a situation demanding attention, would volunteer his time often and in different ways. He was the guy who taught me at age ten how to throw different fastballs and curveballs, something that led to me being promoted up the ranks of minor baseball to rep teams, ironically as a catcher.
In other words, he was a guy who caused me embarrassment while also being the guy who made me proud. And yes, he was a racist.
Five years before his death, circumstances had him in the hospital and kept him there for over a month. As some would be able to relate to, he got plastered and fell into the Christmas tree on Christmas Day. Events like Christmas are tough on alcoholics, as I now know, but at the time it was just another example of this man’s negative complexity. No surprise there. One Christmas, one of my sisters bought him a bottle of Crown Royal, a premium rye whiskey. He loved it, so much so that he came up with the idea of going bowling — on Christmas Day no less — and off we went, because that’s just what you did. On Cassells Street in North Bay, the day took a turn when we got pulled over by police. My brother picked us up, and my dad got his name in the paper, for impaired driving, the first of three times that would happen. On certain days it sucked to go to school.
Back to the hospital. He was admitted by ambulance that Christmas morning, and remained there until early February. My sense of it was that the fall wasn’t the reason for the extended stay, it was rather our family doctor taking this an opportunity to detox the guy. And so he did.
I’ve witnesses first-hand what it takes for someone to get off an alcohol habit that has been deeply internalized over many years, but that’s another story. But it was during a visit to him n the hospital where I experienced my actual real, live, up-close look at racism in action.
While visiting, a nurse came into the room to attend her duties. She was black.
She did what she had to do, maintaining a cheery banter while doing so, going about her duties with professionalism tinged with a light human touch and a humour that no doubt softened the edges of the many situations she would encounter during her day.
She approached my sullen father, whose manner had changed upon her arrival, with some task that required her to touch him, maybe his arm.
“Get away from me, you black bastard.”
I was devastated on the spot. Shame, embarrassment, shame again, all roiling through me in that moment. And shock. Shock that I heard that. Shocked that it came out of my dad.
It didn’t seem to bother the nurse, though, God bless her, this person restoring my father to health. She went about her tasks and left with a cheery “Have a good day, Mr. Jones.”
I followed her into the hall and apologized profusely, I couldn’t apologize enough. I offered possible explanations — the detox, the crankiness of a senior locked up in a hospital for a month when not many months remained — all the excuses I could think of. And then she said it. Said those words.
“It’s okay.” She said. “It happens all the time.”
In front of the Armouries, 1990 flashed into 2024, all in a rush. And it broke my heart.
I spoke with the fellow walking his dogs for a few moments more, wished him well notwithstanding, and continued along.
Then, from behind me, “There he is again!”
That’s right. Captain Freakin’ Canada had circled around in his car and was making another pass. By now I was on the median, halfway through crossing the road, so the guy didn’t see me, mostly because he was locked on the guy with the dogs. And while I couldn’t hear what he was saying, he was giving the poor fellow another round of whatever bile had contaminated his own life, only to take it out on, what for him anyways, seemed like an easy target. A target that could do nothing because this guy was using his car as a platform for his drive-by smear-job.
As he drew even with me, he looked in my direction, and I believe he shit his pants, knowing that I had seen the whole thing, and probably assuming I had heard the whole thing too. A white guy, early middle-age, driving a typical white guy, early middle-aged Honda Accord, maybe 10 or so years old. (The Honda, not the guy). You know, the kind of guy you see sitting across from you at the dinner table.
He thrust his arm out the car window in my direction, pointing at me with what I can only guess was a threatening gesture. Because I’m quick of foot and nimble of thought, I pointed right back at him, not sure why, maybe something as simple as simply returning the gesture. Then, after passing us by, he continued along before turning right, back into the Fairgrounds, and I thought, “Shit, it’s on!”
He must have thought so too, because he called the police. On me! By this time I was in the process of calling in myself, and assisted the police in vectoring them to the guy’s location, up there in the fairgrounds, the poor guy, shit-scared of a senior citizen, albeit a 6’4” 210 lb senior citizen that is often mistaken for being something less, age-wise, than a senior.
The police spoke with him, spoke with the guy with the dogs, and spoke with me. They spoke with the guy up where his car was, virtually out of sight. But we, the guy and myself, spoke with them on the sidewalk along Veteran’s Memorial Boulevard. A lot of traffic going by.
Later that day, I encountered a stranger downtown. “Hey, did you get into a fight with that immigrant guy?” Was the question put to me. I explained the situation. You could feel his disappointment. A couple of days later, the same thing. “Did you fight that immigrant?” Same explanation, same disappointment.
I guess they were warming up to the idea of an old guy punching out an immigrant. Not sorry to disappoint.
“It’s okay, it happens all the time” is not good enough for me. I have my failings, sure, everyone does, but that’s not one of them.
But this guy, this guy yelling those things, the guy who had his courage melt into trembling fear when he thought he was going to be made accountable, that guy was just a normal guy. He was just a guy looking to blame somebody for his own shit, whatever that might be. And an immigrant walking his dogs was an easy target for him. Plus, imagine the stories he could tell drinking beer in the garage with his buddies.
I’ll bet that story differed dramatically from what really happened. What troubles me is the fear, almost the dreaded certainty, that the other boys in the garage were all in favour of the “courage’ he displayed that day. Maybe he left me out of the story altogether, maybe he villainized me, who cares.
But I bet in his rendering, he came out as the hero and I came out the traitor.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 