Saturday 19 December 2009

so this is christmas

Don't know whether this was the most hopeful, or the saddest thing I have ever seen. But everyone on the car commented on it. I was driving Thea and Sam and their friend Dean along the Rosedale Valley Road through downtown Toronto. It is a ravine road, wooded hills sloping up on both sides and bridges overhead. The visible inhabitants are squirrels and raccoons, birds and hobos. Today we noticed -- all of us, at once, as we flashed by -- that one of the hobo shelters halfway up the hill was decorated. In front of the plywood and plastic lean-to stood a small lopsided Christmas tree.

That is sooooooooooo sad! said Thea.

Sam, not surprisingly, disagreed with his sister. He thought the decoration showed that the hobo had some positive things going for him, and was therefore not as sad a sight as an undecorated shelter.

Dean wondered if it was sadder to know you had last something, or not to know.

Good question. I tend to think it's better to know things than not to know them, but in this case I wonder.

4 comments:

Marilyn said...

Kind of sad, but hopeful too. How do they even stay warm enough? Maybe he/she set it up so people from
the road could see.

Richard Scrimger said...

No idea. I would hope there is some ability to interact with the world.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing. I have worked with homeless men and women for 20 years and you just made my day.

Sand

Richard Scrimger said...

Thanks. Just tossing that stuff out there.