Places Where I've Lived: Burnaby Street 1

Have you ever noticed how every ten years or so there are new varieties of apples in the markets?  I grew up munching on Macs, Delicious and Golden Delicious.  We had two different types of Transparent apple trees growing on our property when I was a young child growing up in Richmond.  Mom treasured those apples for pies and apple sauce.  Then appeared the Granny Smiths, followed by the Spartans and the Rome Beauties.  These were eclipsed by the Newton apples which is where this post begins, January, 1987.

I found an apartment on Burnaby Street, one block south of Davie, near the water.  It was a spacious bachelor unit in a Post-War era low rise walk up (or, no elevator).  It was on the second floor, facing Davie Street, sandwiched neatly between two units.  With the manager's permission I moved in gradually, between mid December and mid January.  Every day I moved a few things into my new place.  I found spare shopping buggies which I absconded for this work of incremental moving.

In the middle of the apartment I set up a standing tray on which I placed the beautiful handmade pottery fruit bowl that Famous Canadian Artist gave me for Christmas seven years earlier.  There was, and still is, a produce market on Bute and Davie.  There was an abundance of apples, Newtons, Delicious and Golden Delicious.  Each day I stopped to buy three, only three apples, Newton, Delicious and Golden Delicious: red, gold and green, not because of the colours from Karma Chameleon, but in reference to the Holy Trinity.  Six times I did this, red gold and green, red gold and green, red gold and green, and went to the new apartment where I deposited the new apples into the fruit bowl.  This was during the final week before moving in.

Moving day came and I hired a truck to take care of the furniture and big pieces.  I was greeted by that bowl of apples in the middle of the room, red gold and green, eighteen apples, the number of the Trinity and the number of the Angelus because eighteen times the bell tolls every day at St. James proclaiming the Annunciation of the Birth of Our Lord.

I arranged all my furniture, unpacked the boxes and put everything away.  I have seldom been one to procrastinate the necessary and inevitable.  Then I picked up the top apple on the beautiful pyramid and ate it.  It was lovely.  I cannot remember its colour.