September 25, 2007
Donairs
I had never heard of a donair until Nova Scotia. Even when I once helped raise money for an engineering school. We had donors and donees, but only the big givers assumed what one might call superior attitudes.
Up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where we’ve just recently been, we were wandering a few blocks away from the Commons House B&B where we were staying. We were looking for a place to eat dinner. We met a couple apparently on the way back, having found one. I would have been pleased with smiles and hellos, but CP sensed immediately with her well-honed set of perceptives that they’d been out to eat and wanted to know where. Sure enough, they’d been just around the corner at Tony’s, a pizza place, they said, and so should we. I’d no sooner recovered from the idea of a Canadian pizza, when they said they’d had “donairs” and recommended we do the same. So that was the beginning.
Tony is Lebanese, some 37 years in Halifax and in the pizza business. We ordered donairs which proved to be a sort of burrito complete with a Greek salad enclosed. When I started eating mine I ended with the salad on the side. Reluctantly, I recommend you might try one somewhere, maybe even eating it.
The folk who suggested the donair are from the Yukon Territory. CP asked them about Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. They told us that Eddy’s dog was named King.
It might even be worth a trip to Halifax if only for the weather (it was 91º the night we got back in our town). They ban smoking everywhere, have washrooms instead of restrooms, and give free bus rides on buses named Fred. The central city park is named “Victorian” and looks it, complete with band concerts in the gazebo and flowers only CP could name. Canada drives on the right side of the road (in your face, Mother Country). Nova Scotia has not a lot of use for Canada. Cape Breton has even less for Nova Scotia. Some things always remind us of Texas.
The manager of our B&B gave us directions to All Saints Cathedral on Sunday morning and asked us to say a prayer for him. We did. The Canadian Anglican congregation looked sort of like many, seniors, gray hair, few. The parson announced that the usual snack after church would be a covered-dish lunch instead. That settled for us where we’d have lunch. We could just follow the people to wherever it would be covered. First, we introduced ourselves to the cleric who proved to be another interim “while-we-are-looking” and thought he’d probably invite us to lunch. He didn’t. So as a sort of major hint we asked where there might be a handy walking-distance place for lunch, and he told us. Consistent with the ambiance, it is called Trinity’s.
The Titanic Museum (a Nova Scotian feature because NS sea farers had gone to the liner’s rescue) reported among other things that the old notion of Women and Children First at a shipwreck had not held on that occasion. The Titanic had more first class men in its life boats than third class children in theirs. Somehow, I was reminded of that on our return flight as we were herded into steerage, the airlines’ bread and butter that they seem to overlook. Indeed, there’re no free lunches on airlines anymore, either.
Of all the bumper-sticker type literature one finds on vacations, this one caught our eye: “Attention young adults and teenagers: If you’re tired of being hassled by unreasonable parents… Now is the time for action! Move out and pay your own way while you still know everything.” Time has gone long since that we’d have any use for that, but maybe you can get some mileage out of it. — The Accidental Tourist
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