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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
An awakening: Ex-Winnipegger returns after three-decade absence and finds city all grown-up
Doug McKeag on the "positively alive" Portage Avenue. (WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ) Photo Store
I grew up in the Peg, trained as a performer here, and left for greener theatre pastures 30 years ago.
Now, like a salmon returning to the river of its creation, I wend my way back to a much different Winnipeg: The grotty is now green, the run-down is looking up.
When I left a quarter century ago, I had forever abandoned the Tuxedo suburbs of my youth and was renting a party house near the University of Winnipeg. My hood was the downtown core -- from the messy rail yards of The Forks to a hippy happy Osborne Village to a Portage Avenue that still included the neon glow of Clifford's.
As a young teen I explored all of downtown from my bedroom in Government House. I am so grateful for my five years there -- there were limitless seedy and sensational things within a comfortable walk: buying incense and black-light posters on Osborne Street, claiming the free birthday sundae at Dutch Maid; searching out amazing record deals at Opus 69; buying giant stereo equipment at Western Sound; trading in crap music at the Record Exchange (Hey! I just bought back a Shaun Phillips record I traded in there 30 years ago! Complete with my concert hall ticket stub!).
And look at the Forks now! And all of Waterfront Drive! Stonkin' big museum, awesome ballpark, condos, pretty landscaping and hundreds of downtown pioneers, setting up their homes near the arts, the games and the priceless splendour of all these old buildings.
Look at Portage Avenue, finally having the Renaissance it has deserved for so long! It is positively alive with the MTS Centre, new condos, hotels... And while the Village has lost most of its boho haunts, it's still where I go for groovy music and great patio action.
My incense and Buddhist chanting CDs and hemp soap now come from The Forks. I haven't skated on the river yet (nobody did that 25 years ago!), but it's delightful that the river has been claimed as a playground and not ignored as a meandering nuisance.
My Winnipeg is downtown. My wish is for all those gorgeous empty old buildings to find love -- they are so beautiful and so deserving. Anyone? Live downtown! It's what big-city folk do!
Doug is currently appearing in Footloose at Rainbow Stage. Today is the last performance.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 8, 2012 A8
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