Park People

With the introduction of Whiskey into our household, we've taken to going to the park in the evenings, mostly in the summer, but really any time the weather is nice. The park is about a 15 minute walk each way; we'll pull up a bleacher to have a couple drinks in the sun, watching folks play sports.

We go nearly every day, at roughly the same time, to the same park. As a result, we've become and have become to know, The Park People. Some of them we know by name, most we've come up with nicknames and, more than anything, we know the name of the dog.

It started with The Dog Walker. A lovely French lady that walks many a neighbourhood dog. She LOVES Whiskey. And Whiskey LOVES her. I love her because she always tells me how great I am with Whiskey and how far she has come BECAUSE I'm so great.

There's The Coffee Crew – The Dog Walker is part of this crew, thus, we have come to know these folks rather well. We have been known spend upwards of an hour talking to them. So, yeah... We know their names!!

There's the older Indian couple that go for their nightly walks. They live very close to us and I will often see one or both of them when I'm walking Whiskey in the morning.

More often than not, The Boyfriend and I will often remark about The Park People...

Even though we've spoken at most a dozen words at any given time.

It's a crazy thing – where you feel like you know someone because you see them all the time, but have never actually talked. How can you possibly know if they're inherently good people just from how you both recognize and acknowledge each other in a park??

There are The Bocce Boys (they play Bocce... sometimes... they mostly just smoke weed and drink). Before the team came out, there was Cast Man. He wore a cast.

I would see him multiple times a day, presumably because he was off work. But then again, it's probably because I was walking Whiskey to the park in the morning and the evening and he lives across the street from the park. Then, his friends showed up and they started playing bocce. You know, after the cast came off.

Side story – we know one of our neighbours quite well (same building, different floor). We call him The Door Man because he opens the parkade door for us when we come home. He plays golf at the pitch and putt at the park. He has taken up to talking to The Bocce Boys. We saw him hanging out with them one day and I exclaimed “Door Man – what are YOU doing here”. The Bocce Boys were blown away that we knew him.

We saw The Door Man on the way back from the park the other day and he had been hanging with The Bocce Boys. He recounted a conversation he just had with The Boys... “I've only known you guys for a little while, but my neighbours come here all the time”. Cast Man says “I've known them for YEARS!!”.

Truth be told, when we saw Door Man with The Bocce Boys, I brought Whiskey over to see Door Man and I said to Cast Man “I think this is the closest we've ever stood”. So, "known them" is a bit of an overstatement. But it comes from the same "they're nice people" place.

Anyway, back to the real story... And then there's The Cart Lady. She drives a scooter around collecting cans around the park, neighbourhood and golf course. Whiskey used to HATE her cart. All carts, really. They would send her into a prey drive frenzy. But The Cart Lady recognized Whiskey's craziness and would stop far away. Whiskey came to know the lady and stopped freaking out as she drove past. Whiskey's now really good with her cart, at least, so she has helped us break Whiskey of that hate. She also loves Whiskey and gives air smooches when she's picking up the cans. The cans that happen to be around us.

Like everyone, we've done the obligatory “Hello!”, “Thank-you!”, “Bye bye”. The other day, she opened up to us. She's an older European lady (unsure of region based on accent). From that conversation, we learned that she doesn't speak English very well. We had no idea! She told her story about her daughter's dog dying and how much she loved that dog and how sad she has been. That's why she loves seeing Whiskey.

Often when we're sitting there, she will drive by and if we're early in our shift (i.e. Only a can or two out), she'll make her rounds and come back later. You know, once those park hooligans drop more cans near us.

But the other day, she rolled up in her cart and stopped. She took a few moments to get out of her cart and rather than grabbing her bag of cans, she grabs this paper bag.

She walks right up to us with the paper bag and hands it to me. I take it. She says “From my garden. Tomatoes.”.

I open up the bag and look at 4 glorious, HUGE, beautiful tomatoes. She goes back to her cart and grabs her phone and starts scrolling. Shows me 5 or so pictures of her garden. Cucumbers, tomatoes, squash. All beautiful plants full of fruit.

We're both very appreciative. She goes back to her cart to drop off her phone, grabs her bag of cans and cleans up after us.

Then she walked back up to us and says “See, see, see” as she points at several parts of the park. Parts we've been known to sit. Then “See!!” as she points at us.

She harvested these tomatoes specifically for us and roamed around hoping to find us.