I’ve just received some shocking news.
It’s about Winnipeg, a city I have never visited and yet, have known well—at least one part of it.
It’s about the corner of Portage and Main, that famed intersection immortalized in song and joke, that windiest of all corners where pedestrians cringe
and hunker against the bitter driving wind. How long I have imagined them, shivering as they wait for the light. How often have I, shivering at an Edmonton
crossing, thanked the stars that I do not live in Winnipeg, where I would have to huddle at Portage and Main?
The news has cut me to the quick. For I have received, from a trustworthy source, information about that famed corner. It is apparently a huge wide
street,
much too wide for a safe pedestrian crossing. And so the crossing is done underground. Pedestrians, aided by escalators, ride down in comfort and cross
safely out of the wind.
What does this suggest about all the other assumptions that guide my view of the world?
It’s about Winnipeg, a city I have never visited and yet, have known well—at least one part of it.
It’s about the corner of Portage and Main, that famed intersection immortalized in song and joke, that windiest of all corners where pedestrians cringe
and hunker against the bitter driving wind. How long I have imagined them, shivering as they wait for the light. How often have I, shivering at an Edmonton
crossing, thanked the stars that I do not live in Winnipeg, where I would have to huddle at Portage and Main?
The news has cut me to the quick. For I have received, from a trustworthy source, information about that famed corner. It is apparently a huge wide
street,
much too wide for a safe pedestrian crossing. And so the crossing is done underground. Pedestrians, aided by escalators, ride down in comfort and cross
safely out of the wind.
What does this suggest about all the other assumptions that guide my view of the world?
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