07 December 2010

Not a week goes by, I don't receive...

...at least one angry, foaming denunciation, demanding to know what I have against Toronto...and, well, not to belabour the point... it's stuff like this...
The Vaughan Rd. and Oakwood Ave.-area house was hit by Molotov cocktails early Monday morning, less than three days after bullets were fired at the house during a drive-by shooting, Toronto Police said.

Cops were called to the home, which sits in an area plagued by gang violence in recent years, just after 11:30 p.m. on Friday after two shots were fired at the front of the house.
I was born in Toronto... and lived there for the first 10 years of my life. I later worked there, for the better part of another decade... most of that right downtown. Thing is... I just don't remember all the mayhem. Now, it's what... a body a week?

And firebombing a home in a residential neighbourhood? What's next... somebody lobs a frag into a high school cafeteria?

The burgeoning violence was no small part of why we chose to pick up stakes 10 years ago and head for the sticks. And it's turned out to be one of the smartest moves of my adult life.

My son is now in high school. I don't think he's ever seen, never mind been involved in, a fist-fight. We can walk out back and come across all kinds of wildlife. The infrequent traffic problems we run up against mostly involve ungulates. And the only cocktails we encounter here... are either fruit or vegetable.

Oh yeah... I used to live on Winona Drive.

Toronto... you can have it.

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RELATED: Hogtown... by the numbers

See... it ain't just the people who die...
Speaking of that, in a year when Toronto has had 300 shooting victims, are we getting our millions' worth on the other programs set up to help them?