Ossington: Last Part

I really enjoyed the situation we had in that old hardware store on Ossington Ave, back in the 80s. I hadn't really thought about how long I would be there, or what I would do if I had to move. Things were changing around us and changing fast.

The flavour and texture of the neighbourhood changed radically over a short few months. Vietnamese coffee/karaoke places were opening up all up and down the street. I think at one point, there were nine of them between Queen and Dundas. I thought, great, I could find some excellent Vietnamese food there, but these weren't like Pho places I had often eaten at. They seemed to be more like culturally exclusive clubs. I went in one and sat down, and was ignored for about 10 minutes in an almost empty place. Finally, somebody brought me a coffee menu. I felt like I wasn't welcome there, and that I was being carefully watched, but I thought it would be really rude to just get up and leave, so I asked for a coffee, quickly drank it, left some money and walked back home.

One of these places opened up next door on the north side. They played what I guess you would call a mix tape all day and all evening. The same tape. Every day the same tape. It was mostly a mix of American music from the 70s. There was a Canadian exception. Once each hour I could hear Seasons in the Sun. I really disliked that song, and hearing it every hour through the walls didn't help.

There was a guy who started parking in front of our place who had what I'm going to characterize as a "sort of" muscle car. This was a remarkable sight. It had the jacked up back end and the mag wheels and racing stripes. But this was no Dodge Dart. It was a Monte Carlo. I knew that because MONTE CARLO was painted across the trunk in huge letters.

Then one day our landlord came to see us. He had been offered a lot of cash for the building. He said he had a place back in the Azores and with all that money, he could take his family back there and live well. The buyer wanted the place empty. We had a couple months to find new places. This turned out to be a challenge, since we were in the midst of a housing boom, when rental places were expensive and hard to get. After we left, the old studio was quickly converted into another of those coffee and karaoke joints.

I camped out in the basement of a couple of generous and dear friends for a while, until I found a little apartment at Palmerston and Harbord. Soon after, I found a very good shared studio situation down in the old casket factory at Niagara and Tecumseth. Eventually, I would live in that building for several years, but that's a story for another time.