Lost and Found
2 February, 2002Sunday, Groundhog's Day 2002
Once I found a novelty coin I should have kept as a Sacred Fetish. The obverse showed a merry King, lifting a goblet of wine, smiling under his golden crown. The legend read: Once a King, Always a King. The reverse showed a knight-at-arms, ragged and battle-weary, his lance broken, his plumed helm and armour in disarray. It read: Once a Knight...Is Enough. This is a True Story.
Some mark-downs came in for the Waterford Crystal Millennium Collection. There are toasting flutes, goblets, and double-old-fashioneds. bearing the "Five Universal Toasts:" Happiness, Love, Peace, Prosperity, and Health.
Prosperity and Health are now 30% off.
Love still costs you full price.
I could have told you that.
There was a purple ribbon next to the mail-box this afternoon, right at the top of the drive-way. It probably fell from a little girl's hair who was walking to Mass with her parents today. I wonder if it's still there.
Some people say you should be happy if you find 20 dollars in a coat pocket that you had forgotten about. But this has never happened to me. I did once lose my wallet for an entire year when I was trying on a suit. I put the wallet in the breast pocket. This is why my driver's license number is not the same as my Social Security Number.
But I always say I did it on purpose "so nobody can track me down."
I had to use the spell-checker on "license." James Bond could have typed "licence," and it would have worked just fine.
I hope I get a refund on my taxes this year. If I have to pay, I am moving to Canada. It's nice there in the Summertime.
The streets of Toronto, particularly, are strikingly clean. I remember the whole city as simply gleaming. People always, always waited for the light to change before crossing the street. I was too afraid to go to the top of the CN Tower. Plus, I could not afford the admission price and still afford to buy enough gas to get home.
I really felt like I was truly in Canada the first time I heard someone say "eh?" Will and I had lunch at Subway—a Canadian Subway, mind you—and some guys were there before us, presumably at lunch-break from their jobs. You know, "business casual" and all. When they opened the door, one said "Nice out, eh?" I will never forget that moment, as simple as it was. Sometimes I think how nice it must have been to live in that clean beautiful city with the sunlight on the Lake and people waiting to cross the street and whatever job it must have been he was going to and the punk kids on the street begging for coins although coins are Real Money in Canada that one with the buffalo or bison on it especially and the grass in the park was so green and so soft it was so incredibly nice to sit there in front of the Parliament Building and watch the squirrels play.
One of them was so particularly clever I did in fact toss him one of those two-dollar bison coins which probably had the Queen Mother on the back. He had a big piece of cardboard with a target painted on it, a red bulls-eye. See how easy it is he would say I swear he was a real showman this kid toss a coin and win!
I cannot remember for certain but in my mind it will always be a genuine bulls-eye, right in the centre. There was a momentary look of recognition in his eyes which locked onto mine for a half-second, sizing me up. He smiled. It could have been me there, leather jacket and all, in a different time or Universe. That's how it was in Canada. So nice with the brilliant brilliant brilliant sky and gleaming streets and then there are the flashes off the Lake which laps the shore forever, over and again.