We headed into town from the north. The first thing you see (after you pass my old best friend's farm) is the public school I was forced to attend from Kindergarten to Grade Two. We pulled into the parking lot to check it out. As I was marvelling at how identical the playground looked, some lady in grey track pants and a dirty green golf shirt comes out of the building.
"Do you have a reason to be driving on school property?" She barks.
"Yes."
"Well, get out!" she screams. (No hyperbole here -- she really did scream.) I guess she wasn't actually interested in our reason. "I'm taking down your license plate and calling the police," she keeps yelling. She's waving her arms at us.
"Go ahead," we reply. I'm sure the Ontario Provincial Police will post an APB to track down the Honda Civic that pulled into this rural public school parking lot on a sunny summer Wednesday afternoon.
So, it's the first time I've been back to this town in twenty-five years, I've been inside the town limits approximately forty seconds, and already some ugly miserable beast of a woman has called the police on me.
With the cops in hot pursuit, I found my old house on the other side of town. It confused me a little -- someone has added a huge carport and moved the driveway to the other side of the house. (And the trees out front are twenty-five years taller.)
And no, this is not a picture of the mean crazy lady. This is mia Nonna.
