The Patrician

People take wonders for granted. Growing up on the east coast, I took the ocean for granted. Visitors would gush about its awesome power each summer I worked the tourist bureau in Halifax, but for locals it was just the ocean and was always going to be there. When I moved to Calgary, the mountains took my breath away. Calgarians appreciated them, but seemed ambivalent. While I would catch myself stopping to stare from my perch on the 20th floor of the NOVA Gas Tower, the long-term residents of Cowtown went on with their lives. We become ambivalent to the sublime the longer we’re exposed to it.

Wonders come in all shapes and sizes. The big ones are breathtaking and inspiring, but the little ones are the building blocks of our lives. The tragic difference is the little ones have a bad habit of disappearing.

The Patrician Grill’s been around since the 1950s. In downtown Toronto, that’s an eternity. This city loves tearing down the old to throw up the new. Along the way, it’s developed the bad habit of gutting heritage buildings, booting out the original inhabitants and tacking the facade onto 50 stories of condo, like some kind of awkward exercise in architectural taxidermy. Real estate is expensive in this place, no matter what kind of downturn we might be in, so the sacrifice of older buildings and businesses to feed the condo beast isn’t stopping anytime soon.

The Patrician defies that destiny: it’s a single-story diner slowly getting crowded out by condo after condo. It’s like a bantam fighter that resolutely wakes up every morning to duke it out with the heavyweights, and somehow, incredibly, keeps coming up with a draw. It’s nothing short of a minor miracle that anything that small can endure in the heart of a city determined to become Manhattan North.

I’ve lived in the neighbourhood for 12 years and seen a slew of businesses rise and fall. Some of them are headscratchers. Did the owners of that coffee shop not do their research? There’s nowhere near enough foot traffic to sustain them. How is that restaurant going to survive on that corner with those kind of prices? A florist on that street — really? I’m slightly ashamed to admit it, but I run a dead pool in my head each time a new place opens, knowing the neighbourhood far better than so many unfortunate owners with big dreams and inadequate business plans.

That’s why a diner that’s only open for breakfast and lunch six days a week is flabbergasting. But somehow I took it for granted as it faded into the background each day I walked by. The place had changed hands from the original owner to a new one, to the new one’s kids and would (I assumed) be handed down to their kids.

Until one day it wasn’t.

After seventy-some years, the Patrician was closing. Locals were legitimately shocked: it had survived till 2026 and gave every impression of surviving further. I realized having a place like that show up on the street every day and inject a little colour, a little anachronism, a little originality into a city whose unofficial colour is medium grey, lifted my soul just a touch. A tinge of guilt followed: I had never been in, not even for a coffee. I made sure to remedy the situation.

A sign outside proudly proclaims, “In this neighbourhood you can pay $5 for an Italian coffee or $2.25 for a coffee served by a guy who kinda looks Italian.” The inside isn’t overloaded with mementos the way I had imagined. There’s art on the walls, actual paintings, not prefab neon kitsch and dogs playing poker. A jazz station plays over the speakers. Locals start to drift in, mostly older folk, and the staff reliably recite their orders before they’ve even uttered a word. The people behind the counter are busy but relaxed, and seem to genuinely enjoy themselves, with the kind of banter I’d expect from a Hollywood version of a corner diner: the Leafs, the weather and everything in between.

It’s easy to wax nostalgic about places like this and hold onto them for dear life. I find myself falling into this habit the older I get. That’s why it’s important to recognize the small wonders life has to offer and embrace them while you can: they’re the difference between an indifferent, anonymous world and one with sparks of life and originality that make it worth enjoying.

I demolish an omelette and cup of coffee in short order, get to the cash register and feel my heart sink: cash only. Part of me scolds myself for not realizing a place like this operates on tight margins and wouldn’t accept credit cards. Part of me wants to shout “Buddy, did you not get the memo that it’s 2026?!” Luckily, I keep $20 in a pocket on the back of my phone for emergencies and manage to cover the bill, but with next to nothing for a tip. “Don’t worry about it; you’ll be back, right?” the co-owner asks.

I guess so. Like so many of the faithful, I’ll be back to experience a small wonder while I still can.

Tags Diner, Restaurant, toronto

Thoughts Toronto Uncategorised

The Hill

The Hill itself

In my mind it looms large. In reality it’s little more than a path leading out of a Toronto park, a former quarry. Generations scooped out shale and clay for the bricks that built old town Toronto. After that ran out, the local conservation authority bought the land and turned it into a park. Now tourists, wedding parties and cyclists saunter leisurely through the landscaped pit, admiring the ponds where steam shovels formerly ripped the earth

I don’t saunter. I pit myself against “The Hill” as I call the path. It’s my own Tour de France mountain stage, a personal biking challenge, even though it’s only about 80 feet high.

If no one’s lollygagging at the base, I can gather speed and let momentum carry me partway up. That never lasts long before I need to start pumping the pedals. It wouldn’t be difficult if it didn’t snake up and around on its way to the top. It’s those damn turns that make it challenging.

A hot day makes it even tougher, as my lungs labour to compress the sticky soup Toronto calls summer air. Even without the added difficulty, there’s a point where doubt starts creeping in: am I going to make it?

That sounds terribly dramatic but is entirely self-inflicted. Not making it means walking the rest of the way, not falling to my doom. There are no medals for reaching the top, except the one in my mind that says “Not today, Hill. I win.”

But a few years ago, the realization hit me: one day The Hill is going to win, finally and forever. Over the last few years, I’ve had to admit defeat and perform my self-inflicted walk of shame more often than I care to admit. Those times seem to be coming more frequently, even though I’m still in my early 50s. At moments like those I think about my dad.

He passed away last summer, but in his final years he was able to do fewer and fewer things that were dear to him. First he had to give up his house and move to a seniors facility. Then he had to stop driving. Then the long walks stopped, and eventually walking anywhere aside from the dining hall ceased. But the loss I remember most is fishing. For years, I tried to go fishing with him one last time, like we did when I was a little boy. I could see the day coming when we wouldn’t be able to do so ever again. I tried convincing him again and again to let me drive him down to St. Margaret’s Bay outside Halifax, where we used to cast for mackerel.

But there always seemed to be a reason not to go until one day age won, and I realized we were never going to go fishing together again. I think about that whenever I catch myself crafting an excuse not to do something I enjoy, or when I feel like giving up before the finish. The little victories I earn atop The Hill makes me feel alive in some small way, and I try to remind myself that one day the choice to try again won’t be there.

That’s what I tell myself whenever I’m feeling the burn going up The Hill. Near the top there’s sometimes a panic moment when I start to wonder, breath labouring, “What happens if I pass out? Has anyone had a coronary trying to summit this thing?” It’s pretty silly, and is more about anxiety than imminent system collapse. I realize it’s not the Pyrenees and I’m not in the Tour de France. But when I’m pedalling like crazy and starting to doubt myself, my mind can spiral away in strange directions.

The reward is a view of the Don Valley, a lush canopy struggling to eclipse the taller and taller towers Toronto is continually pushing up downtown.

One day will be the last victory. I won’t know which one it is. It’ll just be a good day before a not-so-good day. But then the next day will be another not-so-good day, and another, until I finally realize The Hill has won.

This is the way of all flesh: the things that were easy a few years, a few decades ago, one day seem hard.

Age is a process, not an event. It’s a companion you develop a closer relationship with the longer you last, a kind of friend you grow closer to. Age gradually takes things away, some good and some bad. It takes away selfishness, immaturity and impulsiveness. It also takes away strength and reflexes. I didn’t say it was always a kind friend, but it’s the only lifelong friend you’ll ever have.

Maybe I’ll get a better bike, a real racer, that will buy a few more years of victories and delay the inevitable. That day will come, but not quite yet. For now, in man vs. Hill, I’m still coming out on top more often than not.

Tags Brickworks, Hill, toronto

Life Thoughts

Learning to Buy

Money changes everything

A scarcity mindset is hard to shake. It scratches a groove into your psyche that’s hard to haul yourself out of, and it’s never accidental. Mine began as the child of parents who grew up in the shadow of WW II. My sisters and I still remember tales of ration coupons and making do with less — my favourite example was war cake, a miraculous confection somehow made without eggs, milk or butter.

Poverty was never far from my parents upbringing in mid-century industrial Cape Breton. Mom recalled that in 1940s Sydney you knew which families didn’t have much money, because when their kids bent over, “you could see Robin Hood.” That meant their mothers had sewn clothes out of flour sacks, exposing the logo when they leaned over. Or so she claimed.

Thanks to hard work and education, my folks gave our family a solidly middle-class lifestyle, but a scarcity mindset was a constant background. Nothing was willingly thrown out, whether it was old containers, clothes, power cords — you might be able to use them later, and God forbid you’d buy something twice in a lifetime.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

When we wanted a table for the backyard, a giant cast-off cable spool from a construction site magically appeared. Dad was always there to hammer the lesson home, asking where I was going to find the money to get the things I wanted. How was I going to make ends meet on my own? What was I going to do if such-and-such happened? There might have been genuine concern underneath the questions, but instead of preparing me for life, they instilled a fear that it would chew me up and spit me out. When I went out into the world, the mindset tagged along.

I don’t blame mom and dad for how I think — they were wonderful parents, but growing up with those messages had an effect.

The thought of getting new clothes instead of repairing the current ones never occurred to me. Looking back, I wonder how many people actually darned socks in the 21st century instead of simply buying new ones. On trips I stayed in hostels unless it was on the company dime, because why pay for a hotel room when you can get a bed and toilet privileges for a fraction of the price? Why buy lunch or coffee at work when you can bring them from home and save money? Why take an Uber or the subway when you can walk and save a few bucks? Who cares if it’s pouring rain?

Destitute and on the Street

Underneath all that penny-pinching was the irrational belief that if I didn’t scrimp and save, I was going to end up penniless and destitute in my old age. It didn’t matter who pointed out how tremendously unlikely that scenario was, because the worry was too deeply ingrained. It would have been like telling an arachnophobe that tarantulas are actually soft and harmless: the truth is irrelevant when illogical beliefs are running the show.

So I earned and scrimped and saved, investing as much as possible, knowing that each paycheque meant just a little more cushioning between me and my self-inflicted spectre of poverty.

But one day, something changed. It snuck up on me: I realized I was actually likely to retire in the foreseeable future. That was no longer some far-flung horizon: it was years — not decades — away. I looked at my bank account and wondered, “How am I going to spend this money?” That wouldn’t be a challenge for most people: I’m not talking about millions of dollars. But for someone who treated money like a scarce resource to be conserved at all costs, it’s harder than you think.

Embracing your Inner Spend

I decided I needed to be ok with the idea of spending, even if I couldn’t fully embrace it. I feel a little guilty saying that, because we live in a world where the evils of conspicuous consumption and consumer culture are so thoroughly condemned. But I don’t have kids, so unless I want to leave it all to charity, I feel I should learn to enjoy the fruits of my labour while I can. I earned them, after all.

But that might be the hardest part: telling myself I’m worth spending money on, after so many years of denial.

I’m starting small. Once a week it’s now ok to buy lunch, and not pack the 3,000th salad of my career. Buying a latte now and then isn’t going to break the bank. Spending $30 on a tin of luxury tea would have seemed like an irrational indulgence a year ago. Now it feels like a challenge: can I treat myself? Can I actually enjoy spending money on me?

In Search of the Big Ticket

There are bigger-ticket items I’d like: my bike is 25 years old and held together with hockey tape and hope. I’ve kept it going for a quarter century, but its best days are behind it, and I’d like a ride from the current millennium.

So in March I’ll make the rounds of bike shops to see if I can embrace my hard-earned cash as something to be enjoyed, not accumulated for its own sake. After that, who knows? A new laptop? A trip? We’ll see.

I’m trying to accept the idea that I have enough, and I can’t take it with me, so I had better start enjoying it. That means learning to buy.

Tags Money, Retirement, Spending