Calluses

Our dealings with the physical world shape our own physiques. For example, I discovered this weekend that my soft bureaucrat's hands become sore after not even one hour of shovelling dirt. I was working in the EcoHouse garden at the university, helping with seeding and weeding, and also researching an article I'll be writing for the Edmonton Journal. I must say, I am better suited to writing than gardening.

These white hands of mine need to become callused.

When you look at the hands of the homeless people at George Spady shelter, you see the effects of their toil. From picking through dumpsters as well as from temp manual work in factories and construction, most of the clients' hands are rough, with dirt worn into the palms and dirt under the nails. A surprising number are missing entire fingers. Many have cuts and scars.

Life on the street can leave an indelible mark. A year, two years -- I'm not sure how long it takes, and maybe it's different for different people -- but after an indeterminate period of time, a person's physical state deterioriates towards being irreversible. The skin is so worn, the premature wrinkles so deep, the scars so numerous, that the street will likely keep its grip on that person even if he or she eventually finds a home. It seems that the greatest effort to help must be made for the youngest clients, or those who are only newly impoverished.

This weekend I met a woman who had been a high school teacher for thirty years. She took up crack cocaine when she was about sixty, after retiring. She had never done anything besides smoke cigarettes before. Then her husband died, and her crack use intensified. She used it every day for two years.

She had never seen the George Spady centre before this weekend. She was determined to get into treatment so that she would never have to see it again. Apparently, her psychiatrist recommended she spend a night there. Maybe that's what they call shock treatment.

And she witnessed one of the peaceful nights! No punch-ups, seizures, vomiting, urinating or shitting.

Crime File

Meanwhile, I feel compelled to include a few parapraphs from today's Edmonton Sun, about the sheer insanity going on at a north-end Edmonton bar early Sunday (or should I say late Saturday?)

The drama at the Belvedere nightspot at 13610 – 58 St., began about 3 a.m., when a man and his common-law wife – both in their early twenties – got into an argument, said EPS staff Sgt. Marc Cochlin. The domestic dispute spilled into the parking lot and escalated to the point where the husband brandished a knife, Cochlin told Sun Media. The wife suffered minor cuts to her hands in an apparent attempt to wrestle the knife away from her husband, Cochlin said, adding she had grabbed the blade but didn't require hospitalization.

As the couple fought outside, at least two men came to the woman's aid and got into a scuffle with her husband, Cochlin said. The husband is facing charges of assault with a weapon, assault and possession of a weapon. Around the same time, a brawl erupted nearby between "numerous people," Cochlin added. During that chaotic scene, a passing motorist parked his vehicle and offered "to lend assistance" - only to have his vehicle stolen by an unknown thief, Cochlin said. And while all that was happening, a man entered the bar and turned over a loaded .22-calibre handgun to a bartender, Cochlin said, adding no shots were fired. The man, who had been carrying the firearm in his boxer shorts, claimed his nephew was chasing him and asked the bartender to hang onto the gun.

Suburban living is clearly too boring for some of our citizens. They need to liven things up with some knife-wielding, gun-toting, and brawling.

A few hours after this, there was yet another incident for the crime file. Edmonton recorded its 12th homicide of 2007: the execution-style shooting of an as-yet unnamed victim in an urban style clothing store.