My employment was a bit inconsistent while I lived in the housekeeping room on West Fifteenth Ave. I have already mentioned that I spent my first five or six months delivering flyers all over the Lower Mainland. I did not love this job but it was quick money, and the fresh air and exercise were a bonus. I met a lot of interesting people, and some for the short term became friends.
There was one fellow about my age: we visited each other and had meals together. A profoundly sensitive young man who seemed to have no direction in life. We didn't stay in contact for long. I didn't realize, though suspected, that he might have a mental illness. We lost contact with each other and within a few years I began to see him on the street, anonymous, faded, mumbling to himself while concealed behind dark sunglasses. Only once in more than twenty years did he acknowledge me.
Following a magical High Spring I began to work in an elegant restaurant. I was a dishwasher and lasted perhaps a few weeks. Horrible work and the owners were nasty rich people who treated their staff like crap. One day she, a blond German woman who looked like a Valkyrie having a very bad day, started screaming at me for not washing the windows correctly. She had a reputation for being frightening. In front of bemused customers I yelled back at her, something unprintable, threw my apron in her face and stormed out.
Through the Green House, the Mennonite house church where I worshiped, I became connected with a matron in West Vancouver, where twice a week I did the gardening. I was connected by one of the residents of the Green House, a talented harpist who was in love with me. The West Van Matron I would charitably describe as a small hippopotamus. she was a poet but I had no idea how she paid the mortgage of her not very cheap bungalow. It was a nice gig and we seemed to enjoy chatting but I always had towards her a certain instinctive reserve. When she asked me to take my shirt off while working on a hot summer day, I studiously left it on and continued to do so till she grew weary of my services and laid me off. I think she was also a bit disenchanted when I called her on her racism, for example when she uttered disparaging remarks about Vietnamese Boat People. She herself immigrated here from Eastern Europe many years ago and I did press this point home to her. I did not regret leaving.
I found other work. I spent the rest of the summer going door to door for subscriptions to the city directory and when that job ran out I applied as a parking lot attendant/cashier. This job had me working graveyard shifts at the Hotel Vancouver site on weekends. My life changed during this time. During my time off I| was often up late at night and taking long walks in Queen Elizabeth Park and other places. There was a certain contemplative beauty about these long solitary hikes in the small hours of the morning.
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