News that makes me sad and mad...

I found about the demise of two longtime companies/institutions recently. I was sad about one, and pissed about the other.

Sad, we shall start off with: the Pendulum in Inglewood is closing up shop after many years. It was pretty much the benchmark consignment clothing shop in town, and always a fab place to drop stuff off for resale, and to have a good old sticky-beak in the rails of clothes, baskets of hats and scarves, and the big display case of pretty, pretty silver jewelies. There was always the faint aroma of incense, funky decor, lovely staff and a dish of candies at the till. I spent many happy times there, poking around and trying stuff on. Now, the Pendulum is no more, and Inglewood will be the poorer for it. Apparently the mum and daughter team who owned and ran it are experiencing serious family health problems, and lack the time and energy to care for their ailing loved ones, and run the shop. Fair enough, and I wish them well and lots of good energies for healing. I will miss that shop to be sure. On the up side, I might have found a new consignment shop nearer to my house, where I can send stuff when the need arises.

Mad now: the South YMCA is closing in September of this year. The building is "old, and in need of repair" and the "funds just aren't there". Funny....there sure seemed to be funds a-plenty earlier in this decade, when a couple of enormous, sprawling new Ys went up in the 'burbs. This bloody city, and its benighted attitude towards anything old sticks in my craw. Heaven forbid that funds be directed to repair and maintain an old building. Just get rid of it already, and build a new one! When that gets old, well, too bad. It goes, too, and another new one shall rise in its place. Grrr... The South Y is an institution in the south central part of town. I have been a long-term member of this comfortable old institution, with its smell of swimming pool, and the coffee machine in the sitting area. There are thriving ESL classes there, a dedicated group who go and excercise, lots of folks who use the before and after school care, seniors who find the atmosphere safe and unthreatening, and walk to the programmes from the apartment blocks nearby, and generations of kids, mine included, who spent a fun-filled part of each summer at the daycamps there. All of this gone, because the building is old, a little shabby, small, and not glistening with new minted plastic in the far flung suburbs of Crapgary. Well done, Calgary and the YMCA.

This city has the most shaming legacy of disrespect for anything not shiny and new. We all want new, bigger malls, new, bigger houses, and new, bigger buildings in which to work and recreate. Small and old never, ever makes the cut here. We demolish old buildings with gay abandon, and then bewail the lack of apparent history and heritage we have here. The threat of the wrecking ball consistently looms over the few older buildings that remain to us. Maintaining them, reworking them and modernising them is never an option. Only destruction. Even more amusing, off we jaunt to other cities with examples of older architecture, and we ooh and aah appreciatively, but never make a collective effort to protect our own, or to make a push to include defenders of history and heritage in our civic politicians.

So, once again, this city has more than lived up to my expectations. And let me tell you, that's not a good thing. When I take my girls to their final daycamp at the Y this summer, I expect I will not be the only one bringing a mixture of anger and disappointment with me. Goodbye Pendulum, and soon, goodbye South Y. Thanks for the years of pleasure and service. And I hope that, when I get old and in need of maintenance and repair, I'm well shot of this burg.