My offspring the inveterate traveller just recently wrote a blog from Barcelona, Spain in which he speaks of the difference between North America and parts of Europe (Click on my sidebar Where's Teddy Now). One of his points is that here people would rather stay at home with their tv's and movies etc. than to go out walking at night and maybe meet people they know. Speaking for myself living in big bad Toronto I would like to say that walking out at night can be dangerous in this city. We all remember the Boxing Day shooting of an innocent girl and there have been numerous others since. I have always felt relatively safe in my neighbourhood, sleepy East York. Of course the furthest I go at night is into the backyard to have a cigarette. Oh, I know that's dangerous also if one remembers last summer when a young woman was murdered under the same circumstance. She went out to have a smoke and her neighbour did her in. Sad isn't it when your own yard becomes unsafe.

Last summer on our street every night from midnight until 3 am, there was a group of teens terrorizing the street on their skateboards. I nicknamed them the "skaterboys" and complained numerous times to our councillor Janet Davis. I was basically told I was nuts to worry about it and that they were harmless. I pointed out to Ms. Davis that small stuff leads to big stuff and I felt that police should patrol periodically and ask these boys to go home. In my opinion, young teens shouldn't be out at 3 am. She was no help and the boys are back at it.

On Saturday night as I was out in the backyard around 10 or so I heard lots of sirens, more than normal. I went inside to watch the 11 o'clock news and heard the "breaking news" of a shooting just down the street. Seems a young man was shot three times and a stray bullet went thru a window of a ground floor apartment. Two assailants were still on the loose. Bit of a shock really because I really didn't think it could happen here. Dumb huh! The young man in question will survive, but surprise surprise, he is not helping the police find his assailants.

Why we don't walk out at night? I think right there is a big reason why I don't and also why I wont sit in my backyard at night alone anymore. Sad really isn't it that life in the big city has come to this. Maybe Europe is safer after all