Places Where I've Lived: Magnolia Court 1

That was the name of the building.  Still is, since it still stands.  It is situated on the corner of E. Pender Ave. and Victoria Drive in East Vancouver, at that time a rough neighbourhood full of drug dealers and sex trade workers (okay, hookers, screw the Politically Correct Thought Police!)  Neither was it without its charms.  On the west side of Victoria, or my side, there are a lot of low rise apartment buildings of the same roughly Sixties' and Seventies' vintage as Magnolia court.  On the east side it is all vintage houses dating back to the 1890's and Edwardian era.  There are no magnolias, at least not around Magnolia Court.

I rented an L-shaped bachelor unit on the ground floor next to the back exit.  Where all the action was.  The managers were a nice couple at or near retirement age.  The owner, their employer, was a frightening harpy in her sixties with a penchant for extreme cosmetic surgery and very young boyfriends.  My neighbour upstairs, or should I say my succession of neighbours upstairs, were uniformly noisy and almost impossible to live underneath.  According to the building manager I had a problem with noise.  According to me this building, being wood frame, was not adequately soundproof.  This is when I really learned to value and treasure earplugs, my orange little friends.

I set up my painting by the one window, a glass sliding door, and watched the comings and goings as brilliantly coloured birds, landscapes and portraits sprang to life from the canvasses and pieces of found wood that I struggled to paint on.  One of my neighbours, a middle aged hooker, was often seen escorting her gentleman callers in through the back door where I could see them all and even think of hatching plans for blackmail.  I never did it of course, though sometimes just five or ten minutes later when I would see one of them exiting alone I couldn't resist calling out, "That was fast!"  One day I made an arrangement with her, since she and her clients could see my art through the window.  If any of her Johns were to buy a painting she would get ten per cent of the sale.  No one bit.  According to her they were really interested only in one thing.  Or maybe I should have raised it to fifty.

Across the street on Victoria Drive was an Italian market, Bosa Foods, that I patronized.  Almost all the staff in those days were old or middle aged Italian ladies, friendly, convivial and sympathetic.  When they discovered that I was "On a budget" they began to craft special deals for my when I bought cheese, or simply would give me a few extra bucks in the change and completely deny their poor math when I brought it to their attention.  I called them, affectionately, the Bosa Ladies.  This became my stop for comfort food: good affordable Italian cheese, be it Asiago or Sardo, and big jars of cheap Nutella.  I was in paradise.