Walked the Danforth
The neighbourhood commercial street is called Danforth Avenue or "The Danforth" as it's commonly referred to. Karen and I did something last night we've been intending to do for years. We walked about 3 kilometers of it.
Our destination was The Renaissance Cafe, a local establishment that features live entertainment. On the way, we stopped at El Sol Mexican Art Cafe and had a fine dinner.
The Danforth walk was quite an eye opener. I'm familiar with some of the strip because I sell and shop there but there are long stretches that I've never walked. There are Ethiopian restaurants with large screen TV's playing the hockey game; there's a store with a large neon sign that reads "PSYCHIC" and she has a little sitting area with a chair and table. I didn't see a crystal ball but there must be one there somewhere. There is a Somalian Community Centre with the brightest lights on the street; there are numerous sports bars with patrons standing outside smoking their brains out. One of the smokers was a fellow Realtor who I've known for years. He was "three sheets to the wind" and even though he looked at me, had no idea who I was. There are many private social clubs full of men playing cards. There are even more vacant storefronts, many dilapidated, boarded up and very uninviting. We saw one shoe store, a chapel/storefront, a religious bookstore for the Christians and another store offering spiritual goodies for the Buddhists and the like. It's called Awakenings of course. There is one jewelry store, a few dollar stores, one rather nice, well stocked groceteria and a couple of lawyer/dentist/doctor offices.
We arrived at the Renaissance and were surprised to discover another fellow Realtor, Ronney Abramson on stage. If you check the link, you'll see that she was quite the singer/songwriter in the 1970's with many excellent credits to brag about. But, she followed a similar path to me when she left the business and became Ronney Abramson, Sales Representative.
We enjoyed her recognizable songs and her very fluid and lovely guitar stylings very much. It appears she's making a bit of a comeback.
When she left the stage, we couldn't help but notice she received a great deal of attention from the fans and she sold quite a few CD's, including one to us.
We'll listen to it this weekend and report back.
