Songs are sung and stories are told about people who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, or had to survive in the boondocks, ghettos or gang-infested ‘hoods.
For some, it taught them survival instincts and somehow made their lives richer if they survived and later managed to thrive.
Like several Saskatchewan kids, I never had that opportunity to survive the mean streets.
In the town I grew up in, there was no wrong side of the tracks. Oh ya, we had tracks, for sure, it was a CPR divisional point with a big station and roundhouse, but unlike other communities (i.e. Estevan) our town was not separated by tracks. If memory serves me, there were only a couple of small acreage farmers living on the immediate north side of the rail line. Everything else was built to the south. We never had to suffer the consequences of waiting for the railway before we could go about our business. The rail station signaled the dead end of Bosworth which was our main street. I loved the fact that my hometown had a main street that was labelled something other than Main Street. It was Bosworth and I don’t know why. The central business district was Bosworth and Avenue B.
My home town was well designed … probably by accident.
The Yellowhead Highway was on the southern outskirts of my town and as a teenager, I often wondered out loud why there weren’t any businesses setting up along the south side of that highway to capture the attention of motorists. The golf course was seen from the highway. Our welcoming sign was at the Y, which was the double entrance – exit turn-off into my town, which I thought was a great designing feat since it made the main entrance and exit a very safe process for motorists.
I was thrilled when I returned to that town about eight years ago, after being away for decades, to discover about a dozen businesses had set up operations on the south side of that highway, making it a real tempting stop and go target. There were gas stations, motels, restaurants and a manufacturing plant. It confirmed that I wasn’t such a stupid teenager after all.
But, even though we had 1,500 citizens back then, we didn’t have a “wrong side of town.” We just had east and west and a little north and south and no tracks in the equation.
There was no tough side of town. The closest we got to that would be where the meanest dog happened to live. Nobody had dogs on leashes in our town. Dogs got the run of the joint and they did a good job of policing us with the help of the for real police.
On the east side we had the rinks, pool, one great playpark, elementary school and courthouse all in one concentrated sector as well as the community’s one and only significant hill with houses built up and down it.
On the west side we had the fairgrounds, major baseball diamond, golf course, high school and seniors’ home.
To me, that’s a well balanced town. Genius planning or luck?
Your address wasn’t that important in that town
It wasn’t like Vancouver’s east side versus Grey Point or Marine Drive.
We could walk wherever we needed to go within 15 minutes and never acknowledged and didn’t care if we were west enders or east enders. We just were.
But, you know, we had the hospital and big coulee on the east side of town, so that probably made us better!
