Lightside

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It is funny how situations, little glitches, tend to paint a person as being a Scrooge or a Fezziwig. Charles Dickens knew this and wrote the tale. Yet nothing has changed. People tend to follow the script.

A good example of this is occurred just yesterday as we were all preparing for the run-up to the festive season. A goodly group of us gathered to wish each other well, mark the event and to note our good deeds of the year.

Of course not one of us expected the jolly elf to deliver our secret wants. Seems we are all a touch too long in the tooth to warrant anything for good behaviour. So it is socks, ties and cold shoulder wrapped in ribbon, shiny paper.

To soften reality we sidle up to one another and tell innocent lies. Only Three Beer, my chum, was down in the mouth. Seems he had taken a ride down memory lane and was less than thrilled. Progress has no place in his scheme of things. Nostalgia had dampened his Christmas spirit, watered his beer.

Some years ago he had courted a girl on the grounds of The Guild Inn and had gone back there yesterday to reminisce. He was greeted by a boarded-up building in a progressed state of decay. No romance remained. Only raccoons and the shadow of things past.

Depressed, he headed up Morningside Avenue with an idea of going to the mall for a coffee, to walk with casual air through the indoor thoroughfare. Forget it.

The mall is gone, torn down. New structures are in an advanced stage of rebuilding the property where new memories will be forged. So he went to Sisters Eatery, had a delightful buffet and savoured thoughts of the long gone West Hill Hotel.

The rest of his day went more or less the same way. Places and things he thought would be there were not. Unfamiliar new buildings occupied the space and a flood of regrets dragged him down. When and how did such change occur without him being aware?

He bored us with his talk of what was and how unhappy he was. The only thing left to me was to announce my departure for a dentist's appointment. He opted to keep me company, as if my hand needed holding.

My dentist is located in the Lawrence and Don Valley Parkway area. We followed Lawrence and turned down Don Mills Road. A mistake, based on Three Beer's state of mind. He was lower than a basement apartment.

No sooner had we turned the corner than he noticed that Don Mills Centre was gone. Obliterated and being replaced by something bigger than what was. His mood knew no bottom. Seems he had another girlfriend who worked at the old place.

Memories and regrets were having a field day with him. As for me, well, the dentist was waiting. I had my own worries.

Just above Eglinton Avenue he gasped, let out an exclamation. Had I run someone over at the crosswalk? No! What had grabbed him, dragged him up from the pit of self-pity was Bannerman Motors.

The place was lit up like an NFL half-time show. Multi-coloured bulbs by the thousands blazed away. Night had turned to day because of it! Now this was serious illumination. It was obvious the people at the car dealership enjoy this season.

Nothing would do for Three Beer but to walk around the car lot and smell the new cars. Seems the scent of new rubber, paint and cars turns his crank. He looked like a hound sniffing wheels.

We gazed into the showroom and his gaze locked on a Jeep, loaded with foodstuffs, donations for the needy. He felt giddy, like Santa on a sugar high.

He did not attempt to enter; only squawked his admiration for Bannerman's.

Seems the season's spirit had finally taken over and he was content.

I only wish he had sat in the dentist chair instead of me.