Local History Expert – A Homeless Man in Halifax

Although in some sense they may be less reliable in accuracy sometimes, local, home-grown, self-made history experts are far more interesting than than the official ones.

I had a chance to experience such an expert in Halifax.  While my brother and I, along with our families, were walking down the street in Halifax past the historic church building known as the “Little Dutch Church” (pictured) and chatting about why this Anglican Church had been built for Lutheran German immigrants, a homeless man walking by overheard us, and took it upon himself to jump in the conversation and share what he knew.

Yes, the church was Anglican, he confirmed, even though the parish members were German immigrants.  The round church building just a block or two away (St. George’s) was also Anglican.  He knew about their history; he had slept in both churches in the past.  The one we were looking at – the “Little Dutch Church” – had been the scene of some archaeological controversy as well; some excavation under the building had unearthed some bones, which were recorded by archaeologists and then re-buried (see picture.)

These stories were told with the enthusiasm and eagerness of someone who simply wanted to share what he knew, and had no agenda, purpose, format or guideline in doing so.

We never learned the significance of the bones since at that point we reached the soup kitchen where the man was headed.

Short Shorts in Halifax

For people who live in a touristy beachfront town in Mexico like Playa del Carmen, where it’s common to see people in all places hardly wearing anything at all, it’s difficult to find a place where they can be surprised by the revealing clothing.  This is the case for me and my wife, but on a recent visit to Halifax, we were, indeed, surprised by the shortness of the shorts that women were wearing there.

About two weeks go, my wife and I were parked at Tim Horton’s in Halifax (a very popular doughnut shop chain in Canada) for her to use the washroom.  Just before she came back out to the car, a group of young women walked out of the doughnut shop; I couldn’t help but to notice how incredibly short their shorts were.

When my wife got into the car, she looked over at me and asked, “Did you see those girls?”  She had also noticed.  I don’t suppose too many people – male or female – couldn’t notice.

As we were driving, we came to several conclusions:

• This was not an isolated incident; short shorts are much more common – and shorter - in Halifax than any other place we’d been recently. Out of pure curiosity my wife and I counted as we drove down the street and it seemed that half of all the young women were wearing these really short shorts.
  
• Coming out of Mennonite country, this sight was probably surprising because of its sharp contrast. But …
  
• even in less “modest” parts of Ontario (like Toronto) we were sure we hadn’t seen this many short shorts.  My brother said it was because Halifax is a university town.  But Waterloo is even more of a university town, and I can’t recall seeing ANY short shorts there; I visit the city once a week on average, usually driving right through the university district.
  
• The most important fact is that for the past few years we were living in Playa del Carmen, on a Mexican beach where “modesty” is not an idea that really factors into clothing styles.  Sure, on the beach women wear bikinis, and off the beach clothing is often fairly scanty, I don’t recall seeing shorts as short as the ones in Halifax, or in that frequency.  While you can easily predict the shock of a couple coming out of Mennonite country, clothing really does have to be revealing to shock people coming from a touristy beach town like Playa del Carmen.

I don’t why, but Halifax seems to have a trend towards really short shorts.  The weather most certainly doesn’t justify it; Halifax was no longer hot at this time, and the evenings were actually getting cool, at least by our standards. We’re not sure how they managed not to feel cold.