Want To Come In for a Beer?

Canvassed the neighbourhood I grew up in today. Sliverville Centre. Had not been back, on foot, for about 40 years. It is an old neighbourhood by western Canadian standards. 50 years and counting. Every last house had been updated at considerable expense in the last while. Every last one of them worth well north of half a million dollars. Everybody living there a working fuck like me.

Woman who prepared me and my partner before we got kicked out of the campaign office told us, "The neighbourhood has never been great for us so we're glad you two wanted to walk it. Good luck!"

Pretty weird visiting a place where you used to ride your mustang, play road hockey, play three down no pads football, vomit up your first beers and have the fucking cops chase you around like a god damn terrorist.

Once we had knocked on a fair number of doors my partner, a young Viet, remarked, "There's more commie motherfuckers like us in this neighbourhood than there is in mine." We both figured our candidate there has the riding in the fucking bag.

An old neighbour of mine lived in the last house we visited. Retired. 87 years old. Ex-RCMP.  Healthy as a horse. "I always vote for you guys," he told us. "I don't remember why but I'm not stopping now. You guys want to come in for a beer?" We did. Drank his beer and traded stories about my old neighbourhood for three hours.

When it was time to go my old neighbour asked me, "You ok to drive?" He slapped me on the back like I was his kind of man, like I was one of his old RCMP drinking buddies, when I told him, "Fuck yeah," and saw us to the door.

Like I said, we have that one in the bag.