dirtyfacedan
Well-known member
Winnipeg is a neat city. It's just old, and can be as rough as a Canadian city can get. I got booted off a grainer in Revelstoke a few years bakc, and i'm pissed off about it..A shot in the arm to my freedom i think to myself. Some guy picks me up. He says he'll give me a ride to Winni. He's a poet, and likes to travel he says. He turns north at Calgary, an i'm wondering "what the fuck". He says he needs to visit a friend in Prison. I was nervous at this point...but hey, i wasn't about to turn down a ride that far. We get to the Native healing Centre prison, and the guard, she says "visiting hours are over", but the guy puts his ID on the Table, and she looks at him square in the eye, and smiles! she then asks who the hell I am, and i gave her my ID. No problems. Turns out, the guy is David Milgaard...spent 26 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. Suddenly, my freedom ment more to me. On the way, we stop at pubs in the middle of nowhere, the kind of place Al Purdy would write about. He drops me off on the far side of Winnipeg, at that truck stop beside the tracks. I continue on my way. On my way back out west, I stop in Winnipeg, and sleep by the river in Osbourne village, big mistake..the bugs made sleep impossible.Once morning hits, I'm off to pan some money for food, and a coffee by the Toad in the hole pub, and this guy hands me a coffee, and we start to talk about the city. I mention my meeting David, and he offers me a ride out of town. Turns out, this guy is the Asper family gardener, or so he says. The asper family is not a good one in my books, Leonard only took Davids Wrongfull conviction case to elevate himself, and to further the status of his Media consolidating family. (sorry David, that's how i see things). The gardener shows me a bit of the city, my own private car tour, old train stations, the asper family home, the Eaton family home, that sort of shit. He drops me off in Portage La Prairie, and hands me 40$. I take it, even though the guy gives me the creeps. As he drops me off, he points to the prison across the highway..it's Headingley Max, David had spent years in there. I wait for another ride, while reading the photocopy poetry 'zine David gave me, thinking to myself....I'm free! It was Amazing. I had learned a lot that summer, a lot about my freedom.
