Arnold Zable
Election day. May 21, 2022. Mid afternoon. I make my way to Canning Street, Carlton North. Stop by my childhood home, the neighbourhood of my youth. Election day was a happy day in that house. My mother and father, Hadassah and Meier, loved the three-block walk to the polling booths. In Lee Street, our local primary school. They were elated at having the right to vote. From where they came, this right had been brutally wrenched away. I retrace the tracks from the house to the booths. I see a man, moving slowly, and steadily, walking crook in hand. We stop and talk. He is 91 years old. It is a magnificent walking stick, I say. It is a cromach, he replies. He had acquired it in Scotland, the ancestral land. The handle is made of antlers, and the stick of highland ash. It’s a shepherd’s crook, once used to scale highland pastures, and for rounding up sheep. He sings in Scottish brogue: 'As step I wi’ my cromach to the isles.' The antlers are shed every year, he says. Shepherds could also use the handle to rest their guns on if poachers came in search of cheap spoils. He props the stick on the pavement and demonstrates how it is done. We stand and talk on a glorious autumn day. I could listen to him for hours, but it’s time for him to be on his way. I continue along Canning Street, by the median strip, lined with bare poplars and palms. Walk past terraced cottages, named after places of the old home — Southwick. Harrow. Meadow Vale. Rosedale. Rosewell. Picnickers are out in Curtain Square. I cut through the lane where the bogey man once lived. We would glimpse him through a crack in the fence, a grizzled old gent, sitting in the backyard, surrounded by a tribe of cats. He struck fear in our prejudiced minds. At the end of the lane — the school. The queues to the booths snake through the yard, as they did many decades ago. The how to vote cards are being handed out. Once they were made of cardboard. I would collect them, regardless of the party, and take them home. Spent hours, building cities, pyramids, and fragile homes. Democracy is fragile, my parents would say. It may be flawed, they understood, but it's far better than what we once had. It provided a sense of belonging. Of safety. And a proud walk, to and from that little cubicle, in which they could, without fear, cast their precious vote. As lovers of social justice, and greater equality, I wonder what they would feel now.
Election day. May 21, 2022. Mid afternoon. I make my way to Canning Street, Carlton North. Stop by my childhood home, the neighbourhood of my youth. Election day was a happy day in that house. My mother and father, Hadassah and Meier, loved the three-block walk to the polling booths. In Lee Street, our local primary school. They were elated at having the right to vote. From where they came, this right had been brutally wrenched away. I retrace the tracks from the house to the booths. I see a man, moving slowly, and steadily, walking crook in hand. We stop and talk. He is 91 years old. It is a magnificent walking stick, I say. It is a cromach, he replies. He had acquired it in Scotland, the ancestral land. The handle is made of antlers, and the stick of highland ash. It’s a shepherd’s crook, once used to scale highland pastures, and for rounding up sheep. He sings in Scottish brogue: 'As step I wi’ my cromach to the isles.' The antlers are shed every year, he says. Shepherds could also use the handle to rest their guns on if poachers came in search of cheap spoils. He props the stick on the pavement and demonstrates how it is done. We stand and talk on a glorious autumn day. I could listen to him for hours, but it’s time for him to be on his way. I continue along Canning Street, by the median strip, lined with bare poplars and palms. Walk past terraced cottages, named after places of the old home — Southwick. Harrow. Meadow Vale. Rosedale. Rosewell. Picnickers are out in Curtain Square. I cut through the lane where the bogey man once lived. We would glimpse him through a crack in the fence, a grizzled old gent, sitting in the backyard, surrounded by a tribe of cats. He struck fear in our prejudiced minds. At the end of the lane — the school. The queues to the booths snake through the yard, as they did many decades ago. The how to vote cards are being handed out. Once they were made of cardboard. I would collect them, regardless of the party, and take them home. Spent hours, building cities, pyramids, and fragile homes. Democracy is fragile, my parents would say. It may be flawed, they understood, but it's far better than what we once had. It provided a sense of belonging. Of safety. And a proud walk, to and from that little cubicle, in which they could, without fear, cast their precious vote. As lovers of social justice, and greater equality, I wonder what they would feel now.
