I Used to Live on Banning Street

By Deborah Donahue

Take a wild and bizarre ride with this coming of age story set in Northwestern Ontario, Canada.
Meet Danielle, a girl growing up in small-town Thunder Bay, as she struggles to find her way through life amidst the heavy party scene and drug culture of the 1980s.
Sex, drugs, and rock and roll set the backdrop as a way of normalcy for Danielle and her friends and cohorts.
Mired down in alcoholism and drug addiction, Danielle later proves to be an inspiration to us all.
With a zany cast of characters thrown into the mix, the hilarious antics of I Used To Live on Banning Street will have you spellbound with every page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Mar 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9780228807391

Book preview

DISCLAIMER

I Used to Live on Banning Street is purely a work of fiction by the author. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination, or have been used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is the aftereffect of recounting silly stories of days gone by to a certain Sweet Caroline. It was only after her third suggestion of, Deb, you ought to write a book, that the idea for this project actually presented itself.

A big thank you to Simon Ogden, Simon Page, Caitlin Ing and the team at Tellwell Publishing for their professional insight, dedication and all the work that they do. I’d especially like to thank my editor Helen Davies for her innovative approach and interpretations that made this book better than what it would have been.

There doesn’t have to be a book in the making for me to acknowledge the support of my friends and family who are there for me day in and day out, regardless. I am so blessed and so fortunate to have the people that I have in my life. I love you all.

That Old Black Magic

Words by Johnny Mercer

Music by Harold Arlen

Copyright © 1942 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

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Run Like Hell

Words and Music by Roger Waters and David Gilmour

Copyright © 1979 Roger Waters Music Overseas Ltd. and Pink Floyd Music Publishers, Inc.

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Free Ride

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Copyright © 1972 EMI Blackwood Music Inc.

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Black Night

Words and Music by Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice

Copyright © 1970 B. Feldman & Co. Ltd.

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In The Bush

Words and Music by Patrick Adams and Sandra Cooper

Copyright © 1978 UNIVERSAL MUSIC CORP., P.A.P. MUSIC, A DIVISION of PATRICK ADAMS

PRODUCTIONS, INC. and KEEP ON MUSIC

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Is She Really Going Out With Him

Words and Music by Joe Jackson

Copyright © 1979 Pokazuka Ltd. and Kobalt Music Copyrights SARL

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(BANG YOUR HEAD) METAL HEALTH

Words and Music by Carlos Cavazo, Kevin Dubrow, Frankie Banali and Tony Cavazo

Copyright © 1983 by Embassy Music Corporation (BMI)

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FIRE by Bruce Springsteen.

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Introduction

A LAWN-MOWING, FROG-STOMPIN’ START TO MY STORY

The idea for this book came to fruition on one unusually cool summer day in August, 2012. What was so unusual about this day is that it was only about 18 degrees Celsius, when for weeks and weeks previous, the temperature had been unrelentingly hot, grossly humid and just plain horrible. So, it was on this fairly cool, cloudy day that I decided to try mowing the lawn, as it was really beginning to get out of hand. If the grass were to grow any higher, I’d have to use a scythe to get the job done.

And I was not attempting to cut just any lawn—I was attempting to cut about as much lawn as a city park would have, as I live on several acres of rural property, in good old Kaministiquia (population about 600), 30 kilometres west of Thunder Bay in northwestern Ontario.

The Finlander that I live with had been in something of a lawn war with the neighbour down the road, whose property looks like a golf course, to say the least. When I first moved out to this place, the Finlander mentioned that he was thinking of cutting back some trees in order to make more lawn. I immediately informed him that we had more than enough lawn to deal with and if he did such a thing he would be looking for another roomie real quick. I won that battle, but the real battle of dealing with the enormity of this lawn—with only a gas-powered push mower—never ceases to exist.

On that fateful day, the Finlander was out of town, so the job fell to me, and so off I went with both barrels blazing on this cool, lawn-mowing day. I was determined to get as much of the job done as I could, but about an hour into it, a little sprinkling of rain began. It gave me pause but did not deter me, as I was bound and determined to finish what I’d started. I kept on going, uttering the odd curse-word when, about 20 minutes after round one of the drizzle stopped, I noticed a silver car slow right down at the end of the driveway. I tried to ignore it, as I was on a mission, but the car came to a complete stop, backed up and then pulled into the yard.

Due to the fact that I’ve watched way too many crime and murder stories on television, I was more than a little creeped out at first. However, upon closer inspection, I realized it was only an elderly couple, probably needing directions. It was unlikely either of them were wielding a machete and if need be, chances were I could out-run them.

I faced a small internal battle as I made the decision to assist them. So very often was the case that when I let go of the throttle on that lawn mower, I would have one bitch of a time pull-starting that sucker back to life again. I decided I didn’t want to face a displaced shoulder, so as I mowed my way over to them to talk to the old guy in the front seat, I made sure to keep a tight grip on the throttle in order to keep the mower running.

His window was already rolled down and as soon as I was within earshot he blurted out excitedly, We used to live on this road! We used to have a farm on this road. We were the first ones to have a farm on this road!

As he babbled on over the noise of the roaring lawnmower, I thought to myself, are you kidding me? I’m in the middle of trying to cut my lawn, it’s about to dump rain all over my head and you want to talk to me—a complete stranger—about the good old days? I don’t care if you had ten fucking farms on this road!

An elderly woman sitting in the front passenger seat smiled benignly at me. There’s your audience, mister, I thought, though I’d never say such a thing out loud. Tell your wife about the ‘good ole days,’ that’s what she’s there for! But instead I smiled and said, What? I can’t hear you over this lawn-mower!

To be clear, I’m easily frustrated, but I’m not a total bitch. If I had been getting the mail out of the mailbox or something, of course I would’ve stopped to talk to the guy for a minute or two ... but c’mon, couldn’t he see that I don’t have just a little eight-by-eight patch of lawn to cut? Could he not tell that, since it had already drizzled once, if I didn’t try my damnedest to ‘git ’er done’ I’d probably get stuck in a full-blown rain-out?

Meanwhile, he kept talking and the lawn-mower kept burning gas until finally, this guy gets right frustrated at its roaring. I can’t talk over that thing! he yells at me, all pissed off and cranky-like.

Me too, I shouted back, anger edging out common sense. I love hotdogs!

He just looked at me—puzzled at having the conversation shifted away from himself—then backed out and drove away as I started givin’ ’er all I had back on the lawn again.

While the unwanted conversationalist had been parked in my yard, Dingo, my dog, had jumped up against the side of the man’s brand-new, shiny Nissan and scratched it near the door handle. He better not come back here and freak out about these scratches, I thought, because I’ll tell him, ‘You know what? I never asked you to drive into my yard in the first place!’ For some reason, the audacity of it all really got my back up.

Later, after the encounter, I was still puzzling out about how annoying it was to have someone not related to me assume I’d drop everything to deal with their neediness. It would be similar, I decided, to me walking up to a complete stranger and saying, Hey!? Did you know that I used to live on Banning Street? Like, how fucked-up would that be?

Right after that—like maybe three seconds after—it struck me. I-Used-to-Live-on-Banning-Street. This would be the title for my book! So much crazy shit happened when I lived on Banning Street that it would be the perfect moniker for my opus.

Later, as I kept mowing the damn lawn, I spotted something on the ground right by the stairs. I had no idea what it was at first, but upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a gargantuan-sized toad that was all mangled up. I gagged. Its stomach area and intestines were hanging out and one of its front legs was torn off. My first thought was, OH MY GOD! Did I run over this poor thing with the lawnmower? Then I thought ... I’m pretty sure if I had, I would’ve heard a big clunking noise or something, for this was one big, fat, whopper of a toad. It was at least 16 inches in circumference, if not more!

Memory kicked in; a couple of nights before this, Dingo had puked inside the house and on the back deck, so I suspected it might’ve been him that had torn this toad apart. Not wanting him to chew on the dead toad any further—I’d heard that the skin of some toads can be poisonous—I went inside, got a clear plastic freezer bag and threw the toad and his detached leg in it. Then I placed the bag of toad in the garage on top of a toaster oven I use in the summer, planning to deal with it later. And then I got right back to mowing the lawn some more.

After two and a half hours more of mowing, with the lawn still not done, I ran out of gas ... a-gain. Off I went to the garage to get more when, to my absolute horror, I happened to look over at the bagged toad to find him not only looking back at me, but STILL BREATHING! FUCK!!! When I had originally picked him up, he was upside down and not moving so I assumed he was a goner. Yet there he was—right side up—the part of his neck under his chin moving in and out, breathing as he stared right back at me!

For a few seconds it was like being in a horror flick. And it got worse, because after I realized he was not a zombie toad, I also realized that the poor thing was not going to survive, so I had to make an executive decision to put him out of his misery. Steeling myself, I put the bag down on the ground and stomped on Mr. Toad’s head and neck about four times, as hard as I could. I felt fucking awful, but what else could I do? I wasn’t about to rush it to the vet. Then I walked down the road a distance and deposited him off in the bushes, where I hoped Dingo wouldn’t get at him ... and that was that.

The Finlander phoned later that night to check in and ask how things were going. I relayed the story of me trying to mow the lawn with the old guy interrupting me and my plight about finding the ‘frog,’ as I now referred to it. Don’t worry about me, I said. I’m just having a lawn-mowing, frog-stompin’ good time out here, I tell ya!

So, if it wasn’t for some senile old buzzard driving around looking for strangers to pester and a mangled-up frog on my front lawn, I wouldn’t have thought of a title for this book or an introduction story. It’s rather odd how life works that way sometimes.

Chapter One

BANNING STREET

When my family and I first moved to Banning Street, ABBA was big and we were all groovin’ out to Leo Sayer’s hit song, ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing,’ on the radio. In my mind ABBA is still big and always will be, and all you have to do is watch the movie Muriel’s Wedding to reaffirm that fact.

Only about four blocks long, Banning Street ran through what, at that time, was a predominately Italian neighbourhood. Most, if not all, Italian people are Roman Catholics and many are deeply religious and like to live near their church. St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church was right on the corner of Banning and Dufferin Streets; therefore, pretty much every second or third household on Banning Street had an Italian family living in it.

The Italian husbands are all excellent gardeners and I firmly believe the Italian wives are the absolute best cooks on the planet. Our good Italian neighbours would occasionally send a plate of something over, for their philosophy was to eat, eat, eat ... mangia, mangia, mangia!

Italians have a long-standing love affair with food and eating well. To them, food is a celebration of love, life, and happiness. A meal brings people together and to cook for someone is to nurture their very soul. If you ever enter an Italian household, chances are that within the first five minutes they will try to feed you. That’s just how they are. They are also about preparing fresh, real food, hence the Mediterranean Diet—based on the way Italians cook—has been touted as one of the healthiest ways to eat in the whole world.

As well as being expert gardeners and cooks, Italians are also expert wine-makers, and when I lived on Banning Street, come every fall they would make their batches of wine for the year. Afterwards, they’d put the remnants of the squashed grapes back in the wooden crates that they came in and would stack them up in the back lane. For the whole month of September, all you could smell was the fragrance of fermenting grapes throughout the whole neighbourhood. Don’t ask me why, but I actually liked the smell of those fermenting grapes.

This homemade hooch my Italian neighbours made was definitely not your run-of-the-mill type of wine; it was like drinking liquid rocket fuel. Our next-door neighbor would occasionally send over a bottle or two, so I know of whence I speak. ‘Porch climber’ is what I called it, because after a few shots you’d be crawling around on your hands and knees on your back porch wondering what the fuck just happened.

Family was also very important to my Italian neighbours—I think it is with most Italians—and each family seemed to have a bunch of kids. There were always kids galore on Banning Street: jumping rope, riding bikes, or just plain roaming around looking for trouble, like kids will do. Some of those local kids taught me how to speak Italian and at one point I could actually ‘parli italiano’ quite well. To this day, I still carry a part of that old neighbourhood with me, for whenever I refer to a ‘sandwich,’ I still call it a ‘sangwidge.’

Every May, St. Anthony’s would put on the ‘Our Lady of Fatima’ parade and feast. The parade came right down Banning Street from the church and was held to commemorate a vision of the Blessed Virgin that appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. After seeing the Blessed Virgin, these children only lived for prayer and sacrifice.

At the front of the procession they carried a large statue of the Madonna on a big platform, surrounded by candles with all of this money stuck all over her. Behind her came the old Italian ladies, dressed in black from head to toe. A marching band was at the back of the procession and it played really drawn-out, depressing marching music as they slowly went along. Morbidity on parade; this may be a Catholic specialty. Possibly it’s an Italian specialty; if so, it was not as appealing to me as their other specialties. Those other specialties included the various Italian shops scattered throughout the neighbourhood that sold a variety of interesting Italian goods. There was Bertucci Grocery on the corner of Dufferin and Secord Street, Squitti’s Grocery on Bay Street, Frank’s Grocery on Oliver Road, and Maltese Grocery on Algoma Street.

Other Italian goodness that I remember from when I used to live on Banning Street includes some popular bars and restaurants, including the ever-famous Old Italian Hall, or ‘The Itai,’ as it was commonly called. The Itai was located on Algoma Street, but in 2000 they tore it down in order to build a whole new facility, called the Italian Cultural Center. But old habits die hard and everyone still calls it ‘The Itai,’ or sometimes the ‘Wop Hall.’ For the uneducated, calling an Italian a wop is kind of like calling an African person a ‘nigger’ ... just don’t do it, ’cause you might wind up with a fist in your teeth—maybe even mine. That having been said, the origin of the word ‘wop’ is ‘guappo,’ meaning ‘dandy,’ ‘dude,’ or ‘stud.’ Who knows, maybe some of the Italian guys like being thought of as studs. Another meaning was also ‘without papers,’ referring to Italian immigrants who arrived in a new country without any documentation. Anyway, don’t blame the messenger. That’s just what they call it.

All of these shops and restaurants co-existed within a three-mile radius of each other, creating an eclectic hub of industry in ‘Little Italy,’ as I used to refer to the old neighbourhood. Other cool places to go in those days included the Leaning Tower of Pizza, or ‘The Tower,’ as everyone referred to it, on the corner of Machar and Cornwall Avenues and, most favored of all, the Last Chance Café, on Algoma Street. For years and years, all the Italian guys in the neighbourhood constantly hung out there. With all that business, I often wondered why that place ever closed down.

While Banning Street was Little Italy, Thunder Bay as a whole is actually more of a Little Finland. Apparently, it has the largest Finnish population outside of Finland itself. This made for some great cultural mixing and matching. Blended in with Little Italy was, and still are, various Finn shops and restaurants such as the Finnish Bookstore (on the corner of Bay and Algoma Streets) and, a little further up Bay Street, Finnport, a store that sells imported goods and sauna supplies from Finland.

Back in the day, on the corner of Bay and Secord Street, was a Finnish grocery store called People’s Co-op, and right next door to that was Kivela Bakery. They’re gone now, but one local institution that is still operating is The Hoito, a restaurant located right in the heart of Bay Street in the Finnish Labour Temple, which was built in 1910. The Hoito has been going strong since 1918. It’s famous for its Finnish Pancakes as well as a big hearty beef stew called Mojakka (pronounced Moy-ah-ka). It also serves other Finnish and Canadian dishes, such as The Finlandia Burger as well as pickled herring and salted fish dishes. There is usually a line up out the door to get into the place. Back in 2009, Rick Mercer even filmed an episode of The Rick Mercer Report at The Hoito. It showed him making pancakes and serving tables, being his usual hilarious self.

A few years back I took a two-day training course outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota, where they also have an extensive Finnish population. There were a few Finn girls in the course with me, and I said to them, I’m surprised that you guys don’t have a Hoito here.

What’s a Hoito? they asked, so I explained to them, and the whole class, what The Hoito was.

For next to nothing you can get a big bowl of Mojakka [pronounced moy-ah-ka], I said, confidently imparting my knowledge of Finn culture.

What’s Mojakka? they asked with blank stares.

Mojakka is this beef stew with big huge chunks of beef, potatoes, turnips and celery in it. They serve that at The Hoito all day. You can also get breakfast all day long if you want. They make these wafer-thin Finnish pancakes the size of dinner plates. They’re amazing, I finished lamely, wondering if they could tear themselves away from their Facebook-addled minds long enough to listen.

One guy blurted out, REALLY?!! You mean, you can walk in there, any time of day, or night, and get a plate of Finn pancakes? As a group, they looked at me with eyes a-goggle. I wasn’t sure what astounded them more, that they could get Finnish pancakes, or that they could get them any time of day or night. But it didn’t matter. Mostly I was glad they listened. And I was glad to tell others about the goodness of my hometown.

All in all, Banning Street was one of the best neighborhoods anyone could ever hope to grow up in, with nice people, nice neighbours and an area steeped in culture and tradition. I feel very privileged to have been able to grow and thrive somewhere that I felt safe and embraced.

It was the centre of my world for so many years. It was where I grew from a child into a teenager and then into a young adult. It helped to mold and shape me into the person I am today.

Chapter Two

CATHOLIC SCHOOL BAD-ASSES

I was just a sweet young thing—until I decided to go to Catholic School. That’s where I ended up meeting and hanging out with three of the worst muthafuckin’ bad-asses the eighth grade ever had to offer.

As a kid, from day one I

Reviews for I Used to Live on Banning Street

[Peter Buffone · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic read , easy and entertaining , it was fun trying to decipher who the characters are in real life.