Saturday, March 28, 2009
Re: Public Benches
To whom it may concern:
I commend the city's recent actions to provide new recycling/litter containers and benches on the streets of Toronto. They improve the cityscape and delight the eye. However, I would like to observe the following:
For most of my adult life I have existed in a state of near-exhaustion. I am like that bicycle which cannot stand up by itself because it is two tired. Those who know me will acknowledge that I spend most of my time semi-alert for the next horizontal surface: I have successfully slept on the floors of airports, the corridors of trains, the reclined driver's seats of cars (stationary), in the bottom of canoes, and across the most deliberately and diabolically uncomfortable bench seating on the ferry between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. I am sure that those who have seen me in these accomodations have dismissed me as indigent. Fortunately not; just knackered.
I do not understand why a public bench has to have an armrest halfway along it other than to prevent someone from stretching out comfortably. In fact, I think that is the only reason, and a hostile one, for designing such an armrest. It does not enhance the enjoyment of sitting on a bench (in fact, it reduces the number of close friends able to sit down in a row). But it is a slap in the face (or an armrest to the kidney) for anyone wishing to sleep.
I am aware that there may be some who feel that a man sleeping on a bench is an eyesore, especially if the man looks as if he has no fixed address. I tell you what is an eyesore, and that is trying to keep them open. How one is dressed doesn't come into it.
With the weather improving, I would recommend that everyone avail themselves of the older benches throughout the city. All of them were designed by people who knew that there is nothing more pleasant than a drowsy hour passed on a mild afternoon, lulled by the distant sounds of the city, and the closer sounds of children playing, dogs barking, and the man on the next bench snoring.
Especially when you have been looking since you woke up for a place to lie down.
Yours, etc. ¶ 10:15 AM
I commend the city's recent actions to provide new recycling/litter containers and benches on the streets of Toronto. They improve the cityscape and delight the eye. However, I would like to observe the following:
For most of my adult life I have existed in a state of near-exhaustion. I am like that bicycle which cannot stand up by itself because it is two tired. Those who know me will acknowledge that I spend most of my time semi-alert for the next horizontal surface: I have successfully slept on the floors of airports, the corridors of trains, the reclined driver's seats of cars (stationary), in the bottom of canoes, and across the most deliberately and diabolically uncomfortable bench seating on the ferry between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. I am sure that those who have seen me in these accomodations have dismissed me as indigent. Fortunately not; just knackered.
I do not understand why a public bench has to have an armrest halfway along it other than to prevent someone from stretching out comfortably. In fact, I think that is the only reason, and a hostile one, for designing such an armrest. It does not enhance the enjoyment of sitting on a bench (in fact, it reduces the number of close friends able to sit down in a row). But it is a slap in the face (or an armrest to the kidney) for anyone wishing to sleep.
I am aware that there may be some who feel that a man sleeping on a bench is an eyesore, especially if the man looks as if he has no fixed address. I tell you what is an eyesore, and that is trying to keep them open. How one is dressed doesn't come into it.
With the weather improving, I would recommend that everyone avail themselves of the older benches throughout the city. All of them were designed by people who knew that there is nothing more pleasant than a drowsy hour passed on a mild afternoon, lulled by the distant sounds of the city, and the closer sounds of children playing, dogs barking, and the man on the next bench snoring.
Especially when you have been looking since you woke up for a place to lie down.
Yours, etc. ¶ 10:15 AM
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