triptick

So, I'm a real estate investor. Yesterday I went on an extended goose chase looking at the latest tax sales. I did not find any really good investment opportunities but man did I have a neat experience. There's me in my convertible happily thrumming up highway 62 and I see a hitchhiker. Guy is all tattoo'd and got a hair cut like a hell's angel and he's burly too. You'd think, knowing so many fine folk from this website, that I would know better than to judge based on looks but pre-existing conditioning took over. I almost didn't stop for him. This in spite of a policy of picking up hitch-hikers when I am alone (because I won't put others at risk), which policy stems from the fact that I was a hitch-hiker for years in my home town and in fact for two years hitched a ride to work every single day. So I almost passed him by. Then I thought, it's a rural area, he's got six bags of groceries (not one of then having an LCBO or beer store logo) and he's wearing a t-shirt and jeans (not many good places to hide a gun). Yes, at a 110km/hr this was all very quick thinking. So I stopped and picked him up. And that's how I met James Seargent, currently on disability, formerly a remover of trees from properties, pioneer style (with horses so you don't mess up the property). At the end of 20 mins. I dropped him off thinking this is a guy I'd like to come back and visit. I continued on my way to Coe Hill, population, hmmm, about 50? In the process of my investigations I was smiled at, nodded at and continually greeted as a friend in spite of the fact that I have huge metal earrings and a convertible making me clearly not from there. All this and the beautiful smells of nature in immediate proximity combined to

a) remind me of my roots. I grew up in a small mining town where, if you met someone's eye they said hi to you whether they knew you or not.

b) make me think the reason I don't feel like I fit in is because I really don't fit in. I'm half city, half country. I don't really belong in either place but long to feel at home in both. Or maybe I'm at home in both but people don't really get it because I always seem to want the other, I don't know

Ouch! I thought too much