TTIAIMTITD
& AULV LOE

-¢'strictly personal ©

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1 CAN'T stand to see an eco-system, even a banal fittle
eco-system like a suburban Toronto lawn, suffering. You
could almost hear the grass erying out: Water me! Water

off.

The term “water hogs’’ was
kicked around to describe anyone
so awful as to be worrying about
their lawn while top-floor apart-
ment dwellers were having to haul
buckets up from below and borrow
other people’s bathrooms.

For a while, the only difference
in the suburbs was that they look-

omar Le PRR EETT)

is spraying away from me, but
something always happens. I get
tangled in the hose or have it snag
on something. And get sprayed.

No big deal. 1t’s a great way to
cool off. But then a heat wave
comes along, and the simple task
of keeping the lawn green becomes
a life-or-death struggle involving
covert operations.

Tie term ‘water hogs’ was kicked around to describe
anyone so awful as to be worrying about their lawn while
top-floor apartment dwellers were having to haul buckets up
from below and borrow other people’s bathrooms.”

me!

A neighbor tells me the grass
isn’t really dead. lt has gone dor-
mant, that’s all. It does this during
heat waves.

For a coastal British Columbian,
the notion of grass dying from lack
of rain, is, of course, incredible.
The idea of even sprinkling one’s
Jawn is rather bizarre, but here
everybody has to have a sprinkler
or they just don’t have a Jawn.

1 explain laughingly that back
home, the problem is letting your
lawn dry out. Ho ho. 1 describe
gumboots and explain about
brollies. They shake their heads,
amazed.

In the suburb of North York,
where I’m staying, the greenness of

Booth set up

THE SAVE Our Buses (SOB)
committee, a group lobbying for
the retention of a North Van-
couver B.C. Transit bus depot, will
be setting up an information booth
at Capilano Mall Saturday, July
30.

Members of the group have been
working North Vancouver streets
since Saturday collecting signatures
on a petition.

For more information about
SOB call 434-7611.

one’s Jawn is, if not quite a status
symbol, a token of cilizenship.
That is, if you don’t take care of
your lawn, you're letting down the
whole block.

This is a simple thing to unders-
tand. The neighborhood looks
more park-like if everybody tends
their patch properly. I suppose, at
acertain level, the value of the
properties themselves could be af-
fected. Serious business.

Normally, it's no great problem
with the lawn being as small as it
is, to move the sprinkler around a
few times and (urn the tap of f and
on.

Ihave tried repeatedly to grab
the sprinkler from behind while it

{¢ isn’t that Toronto lacks water.
It’s just that the water it has is so
polluted that it has to be filtered
through pumping stations into res-
ervoirs -- and the reservoirs
haven’t been able to keep up with
the demand.

As the weeks went by and no
hint of rain came, the level of the
reservoirs sank dangerously low.
When they got down to 40 per cent
of their capacity, the taps went dry
on the top Moors of some apart-
ment blocks.

Officials asked the public to stop
using water for anything except
essential purposes.

Green Jawns were not deemed
essential. All good citizens were
requested to leave tne outside taps

from the

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‘

ed rather lifeless without the ubi-
quitous front-yard showers giving
off their little rainbows.

The lawns started to turn
yellowish. But this only went so far
before they mysteriously stabilized.
And many — horror of horrors!

— remained a lush green,

Being slow, it took me a while to
figure out that certain people must
be sneaking our at night to water
their lawns while the rest of us
were sleeping. :

By ‘certain people,"’ | mean
just about everyone but me.

Cheating on sprinkling was a
way of life, {| could see,

It’s a helluva thing (o confess to,

but soon 1, 100, was tip-toeirg
outside in the dead of night and
delicately turning on the tap. The
difference was that instead of us-
ing the sprinkler, ! had the nozzle
re-attached to the hose so | could
move quickly and target more
directly,

Sometimes | glimpsed other
midnight water hogs down the
street, creeping around like me in
their pyjamas.

Needless to say, we pretended
not to see each other. But in the
following days, if we happened to
pass, we would ¢ither exchange
guilty looks or look away. There
could neve; be a public acknowl-
edgement of our criminality.

It was as \hough the
neighborhocd harbored a terrible
secret. On ine surface we appeared
to be law-abiding proper citizens.
Yet at night, we changed into
water thieves. And the proof of
our crime was plain for everyone
to see the next day.

It wasn’t until the fifth week of
the heat wave that some of the
municipalities, including ours.
brought in fines for water abusers.
So far as 1 know, nobody has been
busted, but it sure wouldn't be
hara to track us down.

4; dirty business, keeping your
lawn alive in Toronto @

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