Tent city

It was cold. And loud. And uncomfortable. And did I mention cold? In fact it was the first morning in several weeks that folks here woke up to their vehicles being covered in frost. I climbed into our tent around 11:15 P.M. next to my son, tucked him in a little tighter and tried to get warm and fall asleep. Who would have thought night life in little 'ol Cranny could be so full of ruckus.

All this was to raise awareness that Cranbrook has an actual, for real, honest to goodness, homeless problem. Especially now, as housing costs rise and minimum wage doesn't, people are finding themselves on friends couches. Those that are lucky enough to have friends with that kind of generosity anyway. So, a tent city in the central park was proposed. I didn't count the tents, but I was impressed with the turnout. I was also impressed with the variety of people from all social classes. Even a few of the homeless themselves joined us. In fact, one particularly friendly gentlemen woke us at a rather ungodly hour to remind us that by now we would have had to take down and hide our tents, were this really our lot in life. In fact we slept in a good half hour more than the men who stay at The Refuge get to.

As a humorous aside, my Mother seems to have a strange reaction to the combination of cold and lack of sleep. At some point during the night, I am not sure when, since I was at least partly asleep, she leans over to me giggling. Between quiet bouts of laughter she says, "so we were playing Taboo..." and then breaks out into what can now be described as uncontrollable laughter. At this point, I am thinking, "well that was a weird thing to suddenly blurt out." A few seconds later she manages to say, "Ferdy points at me and says, "what you are (more hysterical laughter here) except wrapped in cotton."" At this point I am now unable to quell my own laughter, because Mom can't even speak. Not only that, but I am picturing my Mother wrapped in cotton batting doing this weird trying-to-escape wiggle that she was doing in her jacket earlier in the evening. Well the word turned out to be mummy, which I would have gotten if it weren't for the late hour and my Mother's odd behaviour distracting me. It occurs to me now that this may not be quite as funny to someone reading my blog as it was to us but it still makes me giggle.

Anyway, pictures to come soon.....