Drainage

Streets are cambered, arched for drainage to concave curbs, all the way to Hudson's Bay. This morning, on a run, I noticed a neighbour draining her swimming pool through a green hose that ran into the back lane. In another yard, a Bobcat tested the space between the back of the house and a wood fence, backed out and shut down.

That's the very house where five years ago my kids and I observed the old guy watering his driveway every day to clear it of leaves, dead bugs or other debris. Every day he watered his driveway. He must be dead now, hence the Bobcat.

Many boughs hang lower, all leafed out, causing me to bend and run at the same time. More than once my cap has been swept off, the top of my scalp gouged. This morning too I ran past the bingo manager's house, a miserable junkyard of a place, no offence to junkyards.

In the neighbourhood I lived in with my parents and sisters when we were in high school, about a half-mile east of right here, the yards and trees have been nudged and coddled until the street looks ancient and overgrown.

It was bright new in '62.