Tina Turner did not Shoot JFK

            Although I’ve decided to step away from responding to certain political memes on social media, because any time and research I put into my responses tend to be pearls before swine, I thought I’d finish up whatever threads that are ongoing. On Saturday morning just before getting ready to leave for the food bank there was a non-hateful and more educated than usual message from someone responding to a comment that I’d made in reaction to a meme arguing against convicted terrorist Zakaria Amara being allowed to keep his Canadian citizenship.

The person that responded to me argued that Canadian citizenship should be taken away from terrorists but could be offered back as a reward for rehabilitation. He didn’t mention whether this should apply to those born here, but I assume he was only talking about immigrants to Canada that have become terrorists.
            I told him that unless you are going to take away the Canadian citizenship of native-born Canadians when they commit acts of terrorism you are automatically creating two classes of Canadian citizens. You can’t give immigrants Canadian citizenship and tell them that they will never be as Canadian as someone that was born here. You also can’t take away the Canadian citizenship of someone born in Canada unless they have committed treason against Canada on behalf of another country. If they do that then they have a state to go to if and when they are released from prison in Canada. But if they commit a terrorist act in the service of a group like ISIL then there is no state to return them to and you can’t leave someone stateless. Therefore all Canadian terrorists have to remain Canadian whether born here or not. 

As I was riding my bike between the westbound streetcar tracks and signalling that I was about to cross over in front of 1499 Queen Street West, a white van that looked like the food bank van was pulling away from the curb beside the building and heading east. As I was locking my bike I noticed that Robbie had the number 2 around his wrist and he confirmed when I asked that Martina had already given out the numbers.

I went downstairs to see if Martina was there but the volunteers on duty brushed me off and said I’d have to wait until she came back upstairs with more numbers. When I returned to the street one of the regulars explained to me that Martina had gone off in the van with the manager and that it had already been announced that they would be opening at 11:00 this time rather than 10:30, because of an undisclosed problem.

About ten or fifteen minutes later the van came back. Martina counted everybody that had arrived since she’d given out the first wave of numbers and then she came back with her box. I stepped into line to take a number and pulled out disappointing number 25, which meant, since they wouldn’t be opening till 11:00 that it would be at least 11:30 before I was served. I thought about just going home for a while but I decided that I might as well stick around.

The line-up was shorter than usual because we were at the beginning of the month and people had gotten their social service cheques. We also had the warmest Saturday of the year so far and so it was a lot less uncomfortable to be standing around, except for the swarms of midges that were landing on everybody. I returned to reading the Honoré de Balzac story “The Atheist’s Mass” in my dual language collection of French stories with the French on the left and the English translation on the right. The midges were constantly landing on the pages and on my hands but since they are non-biting insects I didn’t try to kill them. Usually I was able to just blow them away, but sometimes I would unconsciously brush them away, which often killed them anyway because they would stupidly cling to the surface that I was trying to sweep them from and end up smooshed.

I finally arrived at the part of the Balzac story that gave some indication of the meaning of the title. A prominent surgeon was known to be a raging atheist, but one day his assistant happened to be on the street when he noticed his master from a distance, slipping into a church the way some men might sneak into a brothel. He discreetly followed him and hid while he watched his atheist employer taking mass.

Sitting on the steps of the apartment building at 1501 Queen was a middle-aged man wearing ear buds and singing along with whatever he was listening to. The lyrics were very complicated like one of the longer old Bob Dylan songs, except that they didn’t seem to rhyme. His singing was toneless and strained and so everything he sang had the exact same lack of melody. When I later heard him just talking to himself his words were similar and so I wondered if he’d really been singing along with any song al all. He said things like, “Tina Turner did not shoot JFK!” and also said something about one of Conrad Black’s sons being his former lover.

There were three women speaking French with one another that were either from Haiti or one of the former French colonies in Africa. Another woman that seemed to be from the same place was standing closer to me and was having a rough time dealing with the midge flies.

Bart wasn’t in the food bank line-up but I saw him backing out of PARC, shouting obscenities back inside as he left and then walked east while continuing to shout.  A tall and very large man that hangs around PARC came out at around the same time carrying a mug of coffee. He commented very loudly about Bart to people in the line-up, “Crazy! That's what ya call that!” I was standing next to the Canada Post box as big man walked up to me and asked, “How’s it goin?” then he said “Excuse me” because it seemed like he wanted to get past me on my left. But after I’d moved he installed himself where I’d been next to the mailbox so he could lean on it, set his mug down and have a smoke, as is his habit. If I’d known he hadn’t just wanted to get by I wouldn’t have moved. 

There is a native woman with an old dog that looks like it’s mostly black Lab. The dog wears a leash but often just drags it around on the sidewalk though he doesn’t wander very far from his caregiver. He was near the food bank entrance at one point when he dropped to his right hip and began scratching himself behind the ears while his large pink erection wobbled from the vibration.

Once I was downstairs and had shown my card to one of the women at the computers, I was waiting for one of the volunteers to serve me and overheard one of the women talking with Lana who was sitting nearby. Lana commented about the other woman always smiling but she said that inside she was depressed. Lana mentioned how people say that she never smiles. The smiling woman said, “You’re probably smiling on the inside!” but Lana told her, “No. I’m depressed too.”

At the top of the first shelf, among other odd items, were 355 ml bottles of hemp oil. I was intrigued, so I took one. My volunteer cautioned me that hemp oil is not for cooking, but rather for putting on one’s food. It says on the bottle not to heat it higher than 150 degrees centigrade, but it doesn’t say why. According information online though, anything higher than 150 depletes it of nutrients and takes away its nutty taste. It’s also supposed to serve as a very good wood finish.

I got two packages of GimMe teriyaki flavoured roasted organic seaweed. The package informed me that “gim” actually means “roasted seaweed” in Korean.

I got eight oats and chocolate chewy bars, a can of flaked mackerel, a can of chickpeas and a can of spicy red pepper and chillies pasta sauce.
            There were a few things I skipped from the shelves, like Chex cereal, pasta, “baked” beans and coconut water. I was also pretty picky at Angie’s section and didn’t take 2% milk, frozen ground chicken, veggie cheese or frozen falafel (which Angie pronounces “falafeeawl”). I think I got food poisoning the last time I ate the same kind of falafel from the food bank.

What I did take was the bag of three small eggs, the bottle of green apple, kiwi, kale and spinach juice and a bag of frozen onion rings with chilli.

Sylvia gave me a cauliflower, frozen carrots, two large tomatoes that were soft on to but firm on the bottom, an orange pepper, three small oranges with brown spots,

I eschewed potatoes, carrots, and an eggplant. I noticed that she had seedless cucumbers and though she didn’t offer one to me I would have turned that down as well.

Lately in the bread section all they’ve had are white loaves and buns, and this time it was the same, except for one roasted garlic oval, which I took.

The shelves were fairly well stocked this time and have been for a while and there wasn’t a bad selection of vegetables this time but the dairy was more sparse than usual and onion rings aren’t exactly a real meal. They had us waiting a little too long as well, but at least the midge flies weren’t the biting kind.