I’ve noted in the past how prankster firebombers destroyed
a bunch of buildings including the Maycourt charity business
my mother’s still very involved in, a past-President and
key respected figure ongoing.
To note, the young Middle Eastern background men across the street with their pizza shop, also with a newer grocery business in the next building and had a small grocery business going, they’ve never returned,
both businesses sit dormant, no insurance. Just awful, sad beyond good.
That young men of any background running a pizza jointwould win such approval from the women of Maycourt
shows they must be fine young men. I mean consider
the easy contrast to other young men in the neighbourhood,
ie those who arbitrarily firebomb charities and grocery stores!
Trusting the neighbours can hardly be thought automatic
in east Windsor. So I still feel bad about that.
(Vandalism continues apace in the area.
Is it really useful? Arbitary worsening of other’s lives?)
Maycourt however has won back claim to reality though.
Huge good news on the Maycourt front
definitely to be cheered. 
Maycourt had good insurance, and all is repaired, re-opened and business has never been better.
Not only that, imagine this, the insurance company people were so appalled that young punks would burn down Maycourt,
they went beyond, and every employee of the insurance company
contributed all sorts of clothing
and goods to stock the shelves. The reopening set records for sales.
(inexpensive for all, tshirts 3 dollars, blouses 4 dollars, jackets 7.
It can be a real boost to some in the area, and they also
employ poor people with difficulties around working.
(Think of all the people for whom a 5 day 9 to 5
would be all but impossible to arrange,
and need a more collective approach
and flexible employer. Everything about it works
in all reality.)
Also when re-opening was immanent
the insurance company contacted media
throughout the city and got them all sorts
of publicity. It’s good publicity for the insurance company too
but I’m good with that. Seems well deserved. I’m thankful for it.
This all came up because Maycourt had its
once a decade gathering of all the Maycourts
and it was in Windsor, so all these well intentioned people made the trip. My mother was on the welcoming committee,
meeting them as they arrived, and taking little groups to lunch. It sounded stellar, meeting all these others like themselves
from Waterford, London, and so on.
A boon to the city having them in town in the hotels, restaurants
and just humanizing the town, the same way
Toronto seems a nicer place when one sees
energetic Syrian families hurrying around periodically
all over the city. Not hundreds of them as in a cartoon
but at least 3 times in the last few weeks
getting off the bus in Downsview or biking around
with this special recognizable energy,
mothers and grandmothers in the gentle Syrian clothing style
and children dashing along with them
always staying close and with constant
urgent communication, as if the journey
from the bus to the grocery store would have this
naturally mighty character, definitely a different energy
than other ttc users and pedestrians, and yet with such
excited optimism “because it does seem to go well here”
the simple business of a bit of grocery shopping,
it’s become a joy of the spring, seeing Syrian families
successfully grocery shopping.
Saturday night Maycourt had its grand dinner.
Every one of these women, and they’re not all rich by any means,
after travelling all this way, paid a fair bit
for what sounded like a most enjoyable dinner,
and all the different city’s Maycourts gave speeches and reports
on how things were going where they were.
One town has an asbestos problem in their building,
which is a sad thing to find out. The Windsor experience
with the fire stirred the winds of these good people,
and everyone was much more candid,
and I feel like the organization probably
felt more deeply the good of what they’re doing,
and how it brings people together in a friendly way
and in a productive way in so many ways as well inspired by the story.
These brave women, some very elderly, taking on the world for the good.
And just their presence.
Imagine if they weren’t there,
and the pizza shop and grocery store felt targetted for being from the Middle East, how awful that would be; instead they see the kind women of Maycourt had their impoverished
building arbitarily firebombed as well. Presence makes a difference. It glues the world together in the right way.
The great presence of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean
people who have found Windsor to be home for many generations
going back a century, so long integrated they are
simply common Windsor names and even street names.
Windsor’s climate and foliage is, rare for Canada,
good for growing egg plant and garlic, tomatoes and peas,
moreso than wheat. It’s orchard country and froglegs for free
as well though these latter former highlights
of Windsor and Essex County have been
paved over or just gone decrepit in competition
from industrial scale farming elsewhere.
Fresh local fruit still exists, but a lot of the
best longtime orchards I passed daily as a teenager
were just rolled under by the changing business of food production.
There’s always this sense that Windsor has it all,
with the county a place able to be self-sustaining,
essentially independent, some of the most arable land and thorough water arteries, gentle winters
ample summers, parks, fish and birds, arts.
And the people are on the whole, in the good sense quite liberal in their thinking, preferring kindness and “what’s best” in the majority, so just let that be a warning to bad politics. There’s a lot of “what’s best” people out here.
Windsor’s more of a good politics place, though things do go wrong;
Good, everyone knows what it is. Just go with that.
Oversion 