My Playground

City Sunset
Originally uploaded by Unknown species

This used to be my playground or at least that was how I thought of it at the time. There was a time when I knew every road and back alley in Calgary. You see I used to play a little game called Taxi. Oh, I know, I was supposed to be earning a living at it but in truth I was always better at playing Taxi than making any great amount of money at it. I did better than some and not so well as those who took it seriously. On the other hand, few if any drivers had more fun. Taxiland may not have been perfect but it was Paradise to me.

I had occasion to go downtown recently for the first time in several years. Guess what? They went and paved Paradise and put up a parking lot. Calgary has changed so much in the years since I quit driving I hadly recognize it any more. I wisely chose to ride the train and leave my car behind that morning. Not only was it faster and cheaper but it allowed me the luxury of gawking about like a tourist.

Where once the mighty General Hospital stood and fell, there are now some of the ugliest condominiums in existence. Even the old General with its aging brick and crumbling mortar had more style. From the train they look like prison blocks. I honestly cannot imagine living like that but obviously they appeal to some people for they do sell and at an outragious price too.

In the city core the building crane is still very much alive in spite of the depression everyone is calling something else. I suspect some of these projects will die uncompleted just as their counterparts did back in the early eighties when the first oil boom ground to a halt. Booms are always followed by a bust and this latest one is no exception. All any of us can do is wait for the whole thing to swing back the other way. The politicians will offer us a New Deal just as they did in the thirties but in truth they have no idea how to fix the economy. It will fix itself but there may very well be a long tough decade ahead of us before it does. Here's hoping we can manage it without a world war this time!