Boingo without the oingo

I am at the Toronto airport, using the Boingo system to access the internet.

Three days in my old city. I lived here from 1974-1991. Lotsa major life events in those 17 years. Spent most of my time with my two old friends, great guys who are having a rough time...not with each other (35 years together) but with age and life and institutions. Best food in the world. Hospitable plus. Weather was great. We laughed, commiserated and ate and drank, and given our ages now, took naps.

One unnerving thing. The guys related a story from 1988 where I wound up driving them to the hospital in the middle of the night when one of them had acute back problems (that led to surgery). Trip to the emergency room, etc. I have no recollection of this incident at all. Nada. Nothing. Even as they related it in detail. Blank. 

Canadians have never had the independent streak which made Americans Americans. No revolution. In fact, many folks in eastern Canada are descended from American Loyalists who headed north back into the Empire after 1781. They assume government intervention even more than our current USA nannies do. I tried to get a medium rare hamburger at a restaurant in my old Church & Wellesley neighborhood. Sorry sir, we can only serve it well done. Health code. San Francisco may not be far behind. Thank you, Mommy, for protecting my health, even at the expense of my trivial adult autonomy. You know best.

It was interesting to be in another self-destructing bilingual country but where the second language is not Spanish but French, at least officially. Like my experience with New York now, returning to a very familiar place like Toronto, I find myself not feeling at all at home there. These places may be the futures of their respective countries, but for me they are the past.

Well, off to the gate for the next leg.