The English Corner – by R. Ghandhi – January 19 th , 2009

“Verdun’s Coolest Dance Crew: Waiting for the 58 on Wellington”

Approaching the corner of Church and Wellington, I cursed as I saw the 58 westbound cruise by. I’d missed it. With no need to hurry now, as the service is erratic at best, I slowly walked to the Church Metro stop at Galt, with the wind pushing my back.

There were already six people waiting for the next 58. Obviously they had not made it into the last “sardine can”. As I joined the line, we were now seven freezing people standing against the wind being battered by ice pellets.With our hats out, scarves tightened, and gloves pulled higher, we all waited… shivering… together.

Traffic was slow that night, not the usual 5-o’clock bustle of homeward-bounders on Wellington StreetAs others herded into the line behind us, the cold wind picked-up and instantly froze the hardened ice pellets on our mostly-covered faces, as we peeked to our left seeking salvation. It was quite a sight, like a line of Antarctic penguins, all of us were huddled together with our backs to the wind.

Our line now stretched across the front of the metro. With all of us swaying in unison to the force of the wind, exactly like those penguins mentioned earlier, with no bus in sight.

As the wind slowed a little, the Wellington Street Public Radio started playing…we could hear it even through our hoods and hats. The beat became louder, until we could all tell that the song was the Bee-Gees hit, “Stayin’ Alive”. ♫…Well you can tell by the way I walk, I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk…♫As the song continued to rise, you could actually see its effect on our Antarctic “colony”.Knees were bending! Feet were tapping! Legs and arms started to lightly twist and move to the music!Soon each one of us was doing our “own thing” to the beat! It was an awesome site! Looking side-to-side, all of us now seemed to be holding a subtle smile while watching each other’s groove, as the song neared its mid-point. Standing there on this cold winter night, you could tell that each of us felt warmer simply by hearing that song playing above us. We were all still strangers, yet our differences didn’t matter, only that we were all sharing the same uplifting feeling that only music can give.

As the song ended, a local ad played. The sheer wind and icy snow commenced blasting us again. Although we were all warmer from our collective “workouts”, the chill returned. We all smiled again as we saw a bus coming in the distance. The closer it came, the warmer we became, now stepping from one foot to the other, in anticipation of boarding that heated bus. We were almost there! YAHOO!

Yet as the bus neared, it simply rushed past us, filled again to the back. We all lost our unconscious smiles and secretly cursed, as we started regrouping into our “flock”, awaiting our next hope.

The radio played again, but this time it was… The Rolling Stones – “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. As we quickly digested the irony of those lyrics, we forgot that only moments ago we were…“Verdun’s Coolest Dance Crew”.

Rohinton Ghandhi

*Sources – Wellington Street Public Radio *Jive Records *Symphony Records _________________________________________________________________________________________

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