I Forgot Why Regina Made Me Crazy All Summer

This will be a short post. I've been back for three days and the frustration of trying to have a social life in Regina has had a negative impact on each of them. Why is everything in Regina so damn far apart, with no good way to get in between them? The city is so disparate as to make it nearly impossible to, say, pick up a friend, go to Bushwakker (may-it-live-forever), and then get home again, without either massive taxi fares or driving drunk. How have none of the city's major attractions -- the university, Dewdney Ave., downtown, the East End's semi-entertaining conglomeration of eateries, 13th Ave -- managed to spawn a large enough nightlife corridor that an entire evening is possible within walking distance? Worse, how are none of these linked or close to residential areas?

I guess we don't realize, being spoiled by our adopted city's diverse and dense neighbourhoods, that we are lucky to be able to count on travelling to and from nightlife areas with relative ease, both on foot and by bus. Or are we? I think it's just ignorance that, for example, there are no busses that go down Dewdney Ave., or that Scarth Street only closes to vehicular traffic for the Farmer's Market? Not to belabour the point (because I really do, do, do love Regina, I do!) but we just need some good leadership on City Council to figure out how to make it possible to enjoy more than one of Regina's attractions in one night. Dinner at the Crushed Grape then drinks at Bushwakker and a 11 PM concert at McNally's should be a plausible evening, since they're all a stone's throw apart. It shouldn't have to involve 45-minute waits for taxis, a dark and scary stumble toward Albert Street hoping for bus luck, or (worst, and obviously not recommended) getting in a car with someone you know should really be passenging themselves.

No easy answers here, and a lot of it would require just closing off further expansion of the city till we fill the donut back up again. But some vision and leadership could make Regina an actually interesting city with huge possibilities for that very lucrative 20-to-40 demographic -- you know, the ones who actually like nightlife.

Just some thoughts.

Boo Hoo, I'm a Landlord

If you drive down College Avenue, at one point you will see a rented sign proclaiming (I paraphrase because I can't remember), "Landlords - Troubles with Tenants? Join the Landlord Association." I assume this is a new interest group brought together by dire need and government neglect.

Oh, poor landlords. My heart is bleeding for them. They make money solely because they already have enough money to buy property. A couple of months ago, a pathetic representative of Regina landlords wailed to the Leader-Post in a third page article about how one of his 300 properties had been trashed. What a rough life.

I don't think I need to say much more.

Going Green

I don't know anyone who wouldn't agree with me that Regina Transit is abysmal. It consists of a system of buses that ramble through the city every hour or so but not during the night or on holidays and only from 12-6 on Sundays and don't do certain areas of town and yet charge over two dollars for an adult fare. I once got a job in the industrial area of town, but was forced to quit it the next day because I simply couldn't get to work in a timely fashion on the bus (or at all, on Sundays). The nearest bus stop was over a kilometre from the workplace, accessible by walking along the shoulder of a heavy truck route.

It is no surprise to me that almost all the buses I see travelling around the city are empty. It has long been thus (although the fares keep rising). The new aspect that I can complain about is the ridiculous approach of City Hall towards increasing transit usage.

First, there was an ad campaign. "Oh, that makes sense," you say. "Encourage people to take the bus, point out the convenience." No, this award-winning ad campaign was actually an innovative way of decorating the buses inside and out to make them more appealing to ride in. Because I know I'd gladly wait half an hour at a stop in -40 weather and then slap down $2.10 to ride in a bus with a pretty painted inside.

Now, there's a subcommittee that is trying to work on the issue, tying it into greenifying Regina. I talked to a friendly woman at the Farmer's Market about this as she manned a City of Regina booth. No, don't worry that your tax dollars are being spent on building a baby seal habitat in the Twin Towers. She was far from a revolutionary tree-hugger. She was handing out pamphlets on turning your car off while idling. She gave me the impression that she'd heard all of my transit improvement suggestions, and that none of them were workable.

Fact is, they probably aren't: the transit system needs to spend a whole whack of money on improving service before they can begin to make any back, and the City is not willing to do it. If I was in charge, I would try running some high-usage routes for free - like the University route at peak times. Get people used to riding and then they'd take the bus other places and pay. Or borrow a page from the transit system we used Down South, and slap a charge onto every student's university fees to help pay for public transit. Or eliminate parking for City employees and force them to use the bus. With improved service first.

I took the bus for years, through high school and university. Now, post-baby, I don't take it anymore. And I do feel some guilt. But it's just not a practical thing to do if you can avoid it. And I hate that.

Is "hate" too strong a word?

Remember "In Minutes?" On the front page of the L-P, when I was growing up, there would be little summaries of the news headlines from (as I remember it) all around Canada -- big stories that would be found in various sections of the newspaper. It was a sidebar, of course, as the most pressing story of the day would be dealt with on the front page, or maybe two or three stories.

Flash forward to 2006, when A-Channel, in Calgary, decides that there are enough "hard news" shows being run in Calgary, and that they will, basically, become an entertainment and e-news network. A close friend who is a cameraman for A-Channel went from following police scanners and political scandals to, basically, filming garden shows and cultural festivals. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this; I think there is probably a desperate need for artistic support in Calgary, and as for their news show, while it may be mostly comprised of Lindsay Lohan's latest screwup or a Michelle Pfeiffer interview, at least they're straightforward about what they're doing.

My parallel here is rather clunky but obvious: the Leader-Post has clearly decided to become an entertainment newsmagazine, leaving behind all pretense of reporting, international news, or even a scrap of objectivity. As you can imagine, I would gladly write a book about the shittiness of Bob Hughes, but that doesn't even begin to cover the problems with the paper in general (especially since he is no longer the general editor, and is apparently kept on staff simply to rant about the two most irrelevant subjects he possibly can). What about local reporters digging into stories, instead of interviewing cutesy or kitschy characters for feel-good tales of Regina bravado and achievement? What about wire stories being, say, commented on, or at least run at their full length so the rare reader who makes it to page B8 isn't left wondering whether the government of Holland did, indeed, fall? What about -- gasp -- copyediting, at least for content if not for spelling?

The "In Minutes" section I mentioned above has been cut for one obvious reason: There is no actual content within the paper to summarize on the front page. If forced to use this format again, the L-P editors would simply point out to us that their "In Minutes" is virtually identical to the Table of Contents in "People" magazine. In the past week, I have read no less than three different "entertainment columnists" rehashing crappy Hollywood gossip they got off their MSN sign-in webpage. As well, I read Christalee Froese's complete tripe about how her small town life was better than Calgary (according to her 8-and 11- year old niece and nephew, who were on vacation and had nothing to do but eat ice cream and have fun), which had at least two spelling errors and at most 0 coherent arguments.

Christalee Froese, however, is not to be blamed; she's just doing what she is told, which, in my opinion, comes straight out of Bob Hughes' mouth and must be something like this:

*Write something inoffensive, with almost no real thesis;
*Write something that, if people do disagree, it won't really matter (therefore, try to stick to subjects that will affect almost no-one directly);
* Write as quickly as you can, so it sounds like you're talking, or rambling if you prefer.

Now, I realize that I might be overimagining the greatness of yesteryear's Leader-Post, and I have no solid evidence that they actually had, for example, comprehensive international coverage, original content, or any sort of curious (or dubious) scrutiny of local happenings. However, it is a well-known fact that Conrad Black gutted the reporting staff when he bought the paper, as he does (or did) as a matter of policy. L-P staff byline strikes go unreported, wire stories make up the bulk of the newspaper, and Doug Cuthand was fired outright for comparing the First Nations situation in Canada to that of Palestine.

This is not, clearly, what we would refer to as journalistic integrity. I think it is instead what we might call another feather in the cap of the corporate media machine, or perhaps, if I wished to be dramatic, another stab in the corpse of skepticism, curiosity, or truth. The Leader-Post is merely a much less cutting-edge version of A-Channel's "e-news" reportage, but under the pretense of somehow conveying news, facts, or something vaguely educational.

So, this being a blog, I'm not obliged to conclude with how I proved my point, but merely how I'm feeling. (There is something to be said for the lack of journalistic integrity here, as well, I suppose.) Therefore: The Leader-Post makes me angry every time I open it, Regina's population continues to be stunningly unaware of itself (its demographics, its sprawl, its population trends, etc) due to a 100% focus on white-middle-class views, news, and issues, and I hate Bob Hughes with a passion that I do not feel is healthy for my soul.

I'm going to read The Onion now ..... check this out in the meantime.

The Kindness of Strangers

I knew that I would see Regina differently when I returned with a baby. I imagined that I would now notice playgrounds, and sidewalks lacking corner ramps. I would seldom see Bushwakkers, but I would swim in an outdoor pool for the first time in years. I didn't predict the major difference I found as a new mother: being ignored.

Canada supposedly has a reputation for friendliness, but we found that The South really is the friendly place it is reputed to be. In Regina, I was used to looking over people's heads when standing in line, sitting on a bus, or waiting in a restaurant. I enjoyed the fact that interactions with service personnel were brief and impersonal. I never learned small talk.

In The South, out with my baby, every possible category of person would talk to us, smile at the baby, even touch him. This was done in such a way that I didn't even feel our personal space was being invaded. On a typical outing, an old Mexican abuelo would tickle the baby then help me on the bus with my grocery bags. An Asian college student would offer me his seat (and I'd refuse - it got to be a joke between us as we often took the same bus); once seated, the sorority girls would flirt with the baby and he'd smile and coo. A young black man would compliment me on his crocheted hat, and a white business-type would ask me where I got the baby carrier and if the mom who made it at home would like marketing advice. If the baby ever fussed, strangers would come forward to sing to him.

It got so that the baby expected people to look at him and smile. If he sat on the bus near someone who was ignoring him, he would coo at them. If they didn't look (which was rare), he'd tilt his head to one side and coo louder: "Aaaaa!" They would invariably look, and smile.

When I arrived in Regina in May, my first social appearance was at Smitty's. Smitty's was full of elderly people, whom I had come to assume were all surrogate grandparent wannabees. As we waited for a friend to arrive, the baby stood on the seat and looked over the back at the array of strangers. He smiled. He cooed. He cooed loudly. No one even turned their heads to look.

It was shocking. I was shocked. The baby was nonplussed. And now, three months later, he no longer coos at strangers. He is no longer the first to smile when he sees someone. And I am once more rehabituated to ignoring strangers and having them ignore me. But now, I know what I'm missing.

Eastender Blues

I grew up in Regina's east end, and I've recently returned. I hardly left it until I was in my twenties, and I still don't feel totally at home anywhere else. The trouble is, lately I don't feel at home here, either.

I don't want to talk about everything that's wrong with the east end. The critic has talked about that already. Yes, it's tragic that east Regina is turning into a dreadful pastel suburbia full of SUVs and parking lots and ticky-tacky little boxes and bigger boxes where you can buy tacky furniture for your little ticky-tacky box. North Regina is going the same way. It's happened to many, many parts of many other cities, and it will happen to many more. This is sad; but the real tragedy lies less in where these places have gone than in what they've lost getting there.

I know: east Regina was never on anyone's five-neighbourhoods-to-see- before-you-die list. When I was a kid, it was nothing but low-income housing and a highway. When they built the mall, it was across from a plant that made concrete bricks. We lived close to the edge of the city: I could walk a block, and see fields full of stubble. The only thing further east was a lot that sold used trailers. It wasn't exactly pretty.

It wasn't exactly affluent, either. The neighbourhood I lived in was just wealthy enough to be boring. It was full of the sort of families who could afford a house -- but only the sort of house where the builders had cut corners, like using aluminum wiring (legal here in those days) or putting the studs in the walls too far apart to save lumber. There were lots of kids, lots of pickup trucks, lots of street hockey and lots of fights.

This all sounds like a terribly generic blue-collar suburb in the 1980s. It wasn't. It was terrifically, sometimes painfully specific: I was always aware that whatever happened there, good or bad, would never have happened in quite the same way anywhere else. That's why for years I hated it more than any other place on the planet: everything bad that had happened to me happened to me in that particular way because I lived in east Regina. Then I lived in a few other places for a while. Good and bad things happened there, too -- every bit as good and bad as they had been in east Regina, just not quite the same. I didn't hate it anymore. I started to miss it. I didn't have any romantic delusions that things would be better back home; I just missed the peculiar east-Reginan way that things happened there.

And now I'm living here again, and I still miss it. The particularity of east Regina is gone. Instead, there's a certainty that anything here (and increasingly, that anyone here) could be found in just about any other suburb in English-speaking North America.

Some might claim that this is the price of growth and affluence. But any new wealth remains concentrated in a few hands. The nice, new subdivisions have nice, new walls around them; the working-class neighbourhoods are still gritty and, in places, squalid -- perhaps more so than ever. But even the poorer neighbourhoods have no sense of place, now. Thanks to the creeping Walmartization of virtually every major retailer, even squalor has become generic.

What saddens me is that east Regina now seems to signify precisely this generic quality, this utter lack of uniqueness, when the real east Regina was wiped out and paved over almost before it could figure out what it was. It was rough and a bit dodgy, but it was itself, and when you were there, you knew where you were.

The Need for Speed

I grew up in southern Saskatchewan, and called Regina home during highschool, four years of university, and four more years of life as a teacher. However, like many young Saskatchewanians seeking an adventure and a life without Agribition, my wife and I ventured overseas to teach.

For two years, we dealt with a constant language barrier, unresponsive public utilities, corrupt traffic police, shady trips through immigration, an inconsistent grocery supply, and everything else that comes with living as an expat in a developing country. The biggest initial shock was the traffic: there are some traffic lights, but they aren't necessarily obeyed. There are five motorbikes on the road for every car. On each of these five motorbikes are up to seven people at a time. Yes, I said seven. At one time. Traffic never really stops -- and isn't confined to the right side of the road. However, with practice, we both became comfortable navigating the streets.

That said, in the last months before coming home, we both reflected that we were excited to get back to driving in Regina. However, all it took was our first trip on Ring Road to notice the need for speed Reginans now feel. Driving in the right hand lane at 100km/h is almost dangerous because you are going so slow compared to the rest of the traffic. God forbid you try driving 90km/h to conserve. Expect people to come up behind you quickly, and give you a dirty look as they fly by, shaking their heads.

When did we get into such a hurry? To travel on Ring Road from Albert Street North to Albert Street South is 16km. At 90km/h it will take 10 minutes and 40 seconds. At 100km/h this will take 9 minutes and 36 seconds. At 110km/h it will take 8 minutes and 43 seconds. At 120 km/h it will take 8 minutes. What are people doing with that 1:36 that makes it worth endangering people's lives for? Watching 2/75ths of an episode of So You Think You Can Dance?

A New Power Rises in the East

When I was in high school, the city was divided North-South. The Northenders had mullets, drove Camaros, wore tight black jeans, and listened to heavy metal. They parked their Camaros in the Toys-R-Us parking lot and compared engines of a Friday night. The Southenders were rich, snobby preps who studied for their IB exams and/or got drunk at basketball games of a Friday night - or so my Eastender husband tells me. I would have painted the Southenders differently, being one.

At the time, the East End was dead to me. It only had one high school and a lame mall. It was a non-entity.

Twelve years later, I fear the East End. It is a bloating, teeming, florid conglomeration of our neediest, most thoughtless desires. Feeling lonely, and in need of a new coffee table for a pick-me up? Drive your SUV down a warren of poorly-planned, treeless roads to an Ikea knock-off box store. Want a glass column filled with coloured pebbles for your coffee table? Visit one of many dollar stores or craft bazaars. Crave a faux Italian eating experience? Select from several chain restaurants with patios overlooking neighbouring concrete parking lots. Still not happy? Why not? Don't you live in an enormous beige stucco pasteboard house overlooking mud flats on the eastern edge of the city? Is your daily solo commute downtown not quite long enough to prove that you live in the most desirable eastern location?? Is your lawn sprouting a weed???

I have a feeling this will be the first of a few posts about the east end.

Regina Nostalgia

Thank you The Critic for starting this page. I’ve been away living in Toronto for almost four years and my last visit was a week long, back in October 2006. A week is not a lot of time to observe how the city is really changing, so my recollections of my hometown are already way outdated. I’m returning for eight months on contract for work. It will be interesting to jot down my nostalgic notions of the place before I get to know the new Regina.

Unlike The Critic, I love change. Regina stayed the same for too long for me. The same job for a small company. The same walk through same deteriorating downtown. The same students at the fitness centre where I taught. The same pubs, the same stores, the same faces at the super market.

When I moved to Toronto (I moved for love, not for Toronto), I discovered what transition is really about. I swear, businesses in my neighbourhood rotate every month. A Thai restaurant is suddenly a water specialty store (?). That girl down the street who looked friendly moved before I could ever say hi. I have yet to see the same person twice at my gym. This city changes on the hour and sometimes it makes me very nervous.

I missed familiarity. Regina started to look better and better. In Regina, I not only knew how to get somewhere, I knew the shortcut. I had a great routine. I knew people. I could afford to buy a house someday soon (though I hear that may not be the case anymore). Overall, I think I was healthier and happier.

Or, was I? This is the Grand Experiment for me.

Things I’m looking forward to:

• Knowing where everything is
• Wide, open spaces to run the dog
  
• Sky you can see to the end
• Fewer line-ups
• Fresh, breathable air
• Rider pride enthusiasm and community spirit

Things I’m not looking forward to (and that are certainly not unique to Regina):

• That suburb feeling and big box store culture
• Having no choice but to buy a car
• Polite but firm dismissal of anything having to do with Toronto. Regina can be very “why would you ever live anywhere else?" More so than Toronto, actually (it’s too busy gazing at London, New York and LA, but that’s another column).

I think that a lot of these are assumptions based on nostalgia and memory, both suspect on a good day. The Real Regina might be something completely different by now. Will I love it? Will I hate it? Will I have absolutely no opinion at all?

I wonder.

Is there still a turtle at Les Sherman park?

Kicking off the Campaign

Regina is the place that I always come home to. I've lived in a big west coast city, a small northern village, a Eurasian capital, and a university town in the Deep South, but I've always come home to this claustrophobe's paradise. I appreciate Regina anew each time I return. After my last sojourn away, I am proclaiming my love for Regina because I have never seen a cockroach here. (No, don't tell me your cockroach stories. I have never seen one here and never intend to.) I love the tenacious handplanted trees that blanket the city. I enjoy the small city size that allows me to frequently run into people I know and yet easily avoid seeing people I don't want to see. Mostly, I like the familiarity and the memories that places evoke - I'm an elderly person at heart.

Because I am elderly-hearted, I hate change. You could chalk up this curmudgeonly blog to my excessive nostalgia - if I hadn't recruited other ex-pat Reginans to contribute as well. There have been incremental changes for a while now, but in this past year, Regina has changed remarkably. Perhaps irrevocably. And we're going to complain about it.

Let the finely honed, articulate, incisive carping begin!