Walking up my street the other night, I met my neighbor of four doors down and started with the usual pleasantries.
But the woman, who drives a bus for a religious school, had something more urgent to discuss – she interrupted to say she hoped “those people” down at the occupation were okay and that she had just phoned St. James Church urging them to invite protesters inside in the cold weather.
Somehow I was surprised, as if I hadn’t really absorbed what I’ve been going around telling people: the encampment would have had to pull up tent pegs two weeks ago without, not just the charity of unionists, but the backing of city residents.
Like Mao, the king of usually stupid aphorisms famously said, the fish must swim in the water, ie, revolutionaries have to be sustained by the people around them.
On Thursday, at the park, hanging at the logistics tent, I met Loretta, a gray-haired, well-dressed woman from the Beaches. She was delivering six pairs of hand-knitted gloves – she brought ten last week – with the fingers free, she says, for wriggling agreement at meetings.
Citizens will supply, that’s the glorious message at St. James.
At the “kind kitchen”, Nicaraguan-born Alvaro, tells me ladelling out potato soup, that food servers have no list, and no forwarning of the arrival of any dish literally, no one knows what is coming in at any given day, at any given moment and yet the tent serves occupiers, plus visitors three meals a day.
“Just a few hours ago, there wasn’t anything,” he says waving his hand over the spread of potted beans, soup, spagetti, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a large tin foil pan of cole slaw. We expect the food to come and it comes.”
Staples, granola bars, bread, apples, box cereals, noodle packages, not to mention hot water for tea and hot chocolate and coffee (courtesy of the long electric cord leading to the Church) are also available during kitchen hours from 10 am to 10 pm, and the hungry wander back and forth grabbing grub – sort of like, well, at home.
Currently there’s mega discussion about how to use the red yurt near the kitchen, now mostly padlocked. Consensus has been difficult. Some want the structure open 24/7 with cold offerings so people can make midnight sandwiches, others want it as a meeting space, but there’s contention about how to monitor the closed space and maintain security.
Some people Alvaro says, come and take raw supplies and go home and cook stuff up, and others just show up, arms full, like the quite respectable looking older man to my left who just dumped a huge bag of apples on the table.
As I’m absorbing the meaning of this socialist plenty, I meet retirees, Nathan Borenstein and Agnes Borensten from Richmond Hill. They’re delivering three pots of soup – last week, it was a fully dressed turkey and next week, it’s going to be pizza
“I’ve got arthritis, so I can’t pitch a tent,” says the ebullient Nathan Borenstein. “So we bring food. Canada has lost its democracy and rich politicians are running the country. Some say the occupation is a waste of time, but I want done what I think is right – like all the people in this park do.”
Memo to the city executive, now deliberating on the camp’s future: the happening at King and Church is much more than a few hundred campers.
