Post #37


 Here we have a bit of a trip back to the early 90s.  
Two old friends are in the picture here, Greg behind the newspaper, and Tim beside him.  
This was taken at Green Gables convenience store on John Street here in Moncton, which doesn't exist anymore anywhere.  This was one of the last locations around before it morphed into "Needs", once TRA Foods, who owned the Sobeys chain at the time, bought the Green Gables stores outright and began changing them all into cookie-cutter uniformed stores.  
Greg was a staple at these stores when we worked at them.  I was actually an assistant manager at a location on West Lane, where I started and worked my first real job, and was where I met Janice, Tim and Greg.  After I got hired, eventually Janice joined in, and Tim also got a job there at West Lane.  There's a whole lot of Green Gables DNA in our relationships, orchestrated kind of by a fellow named Donnie Goguen, quite possibly the smartest guy I've ever gotten the privilege to know and work for.  A lot of relationships formed from the days working there.
Tim and me took part in more shenanigans than I can speak of while working for these stores.  Tim also came on as an employee at John Street for a short time.  The trouble we got in....!  Enough to write a book about.  And I just might.
This period in time was quite tumultuous for me, though.  I'd just lost what should have been a career job at Irving Tissue due to dubious circumstances, had to leave the house I lived in all of my life up to then, broke up with someone I'd been with for seven years, lost a TON of friends for various reasons, felt alienated completely from family, and ultimately left that workplace to go absolutely nowhere for years.  Janice and I moved in together, essentially saving me from being on the street.  Mom came down with dementia.  Various relatives died.  I got in debt up to my ears through a nefarious student loan that lead me to nowhere... Let's just say the early part of that decade was quite cruel.  It's partly why I hate grunge music and that whole hippie vibe that was happening.  That genre of music stole the escapism that the fun 80s gave me relief from.
However.... it's where Janice and me began our journey.  And that constitutes an ongoing happy ending.

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