This week’s Writing the City post by Shaun Hunter features a novel I really enjoyed: Love Minus Zero, by Lori Hahnel. Sadly, perhaps, I identified with the novel’s naive protagonist and her hopeless, too-long obsessive love for a creep. I also appreciated the novel’s abundant Calgary setting and glimpse of the city’s 1980s punk rock scene by an author who was there the thick of it.

Shaun Hunter’s blog post on Writing the City shows how author, Will Ferguson, used the Calgary Stampede to reveal character in his novel 419. The incident he describes in the book reminded me of a grocery shopping trip with my father when I was a child.  Perhaps to keep me quiet through the asiles, my dad let me buy a box of animal cookies, which I munched on through the cash. After we left the store, he realized he’d neglected to pay for the cookies. Rather than take off, pleased with a freebee, he went back to pay for them.  That kind of action imparts values to kids in ways parents are scarcely aware of.

At this year’s Stampede, my sister-in-law found a dime on the cement. Someone else I know found a loonie. There was no one to return them to and who would do that for such small amounts? I’m sure a lot of change gets dropped at the Stampede grounds. An enterprising person with sharp eyes could probably collect enough to buy a bag of warm mini-donuts. Mmmm.