Lights, laughs and prostitution

I met up with Dordt's Toronto PLIA group last night. I love you guys. They saw the CN Tower on Saturday and of course made the trip to Niagara Falls on Sunday, but good for them for WANTING to see the REAL Toronto. Thanks to Ann for her suggestions. Toronto's actually a really safe city. It has less crime than Montreal, Vancouver and doesn't even compare to any other U.S. city of it's size, BUT people still live in cardboard boxes and sell themselves to the willing public, just like everywhere else. I don't have a picture of that; I only have the one they paste on those glossy travel booklets you find around.

I lead them through what I'd call the sketchier Toronto, through Boys Town, the sex shops, the "Gay District" and the transexual and women's prostitution strips. It was a cool, drippy night and well, we weren't exactly out for fun, so the mood was a little . . . wavering.
Even so, all said and done, it was a pretty good one considering there wasn't a lot going on and not as much to be exposed to as per usual. . . usual. . . . Hope that doesn't sound too heartless. Sorry, but you just don't get all warm and fuzzy-feeling passing girls on the street corner with big hair and skirts much too short for icy weather.
But yes, it was a good quiet night. We couldn't even find enough street folk to give our food to walking back to the lighter side of the city. I've never seen less of the homeless in the city than last night. Being Monday would explain the quieter street life, but the homeless don't just disappear. Hmm.

So anyway, interesting story. I'm leading them on this shady-walking-tour-of-sorts in an area tourists don't walk alone in at night and we're headed toward the sex-shops on younge st. There's this 2nd hand bookstore, the magazine racks littered with lots of women and too much cleavage. . . and what do ya know, it's a book by James C. Schaap sitting outside the shop on top of the $1 sale stack. Okay, so there are a lot of people in Toronto, but it is beyond me how that book made it to that exact spot in the city. If only books could talk.

This story isn't that interesting to read, I know, but it was just one of those nights. . . . the kind that sends you driving home on a barren stretch of highway with the windshield wipers on to the tune of Cockburn's Charity of Night.

I have people who love me, a job, a car, more blank stechbooks than I can fill in a year. How is that some people get dealt a shitty hand? And how is it that I was dealt something else?
I've never gotten over that one.