Canterbury Tales

ii

Jake has lived in this building since 1977.  From his seventh floor apartment he rules lonely over his domain.  He will leave the place very hour or so, take the elevator to the ground floor, walk to the window, and if the weather suits him will wander out to Wellington and circle back around to his beloved Roslyn.  Jake moved here after his wife passed.

In 1951 Jake played for the Edmonton Eskimos.  I have never been clear which position he played but he is a small man.  When we encounter each other he always asks the same thing, “did you ever play professional football”, a nod to my size and strength.  He takes a look at my legs and tells me it was such a waste I did not, “with legs like that you would have plowed through any line in the league.”  In his day perhaps, but with the behemoths playing today I wouldn’t be so sure.

From an apartment balcony below someone is playing the sax.  It is very cool outside.  One can feel the autumn creeping into the days and the frost into our nights.  But it is bright and sunny.  Our musician’s rendition of Summertime, sultry slow and bluesy, is apropos.  I sit in my bedroom, the window open, soaking in the sound.  I am a little glad for the music, and a little sad for the passing of a truly wonderful summer.

And mostly I am grateful for my future, my new start, from this place.