Goodbye, Young Fella.

A LIVABLE SOCIETY is built on small things. That's something I firmly believe. Everyone wants to talk about the big stuff, the grand idea, but I think the further we get away from human-scaled things, the less we connect with one another, and the harder it is to relate.

They say that the secret to radio was thinking that you were out there talking to one person -- one person only. I kind of think that way about my writing, too. I imagine an audience of one -- what do I want them to feel?

But this isn't a writing post. Well, not exactly. This is a post about a man who was never famous, who not a lot of people knew well -- none of us even knew his real name.

But he made a difference. By selling hot dogs.

Ronald Alexander, better known as Ernie, Ryerson University's corner hot dog vendor for over 25 years, has died. He was 80 years old.

He retired 18 months ago from his familiar perch at the corner of Yonge and Gould Streets, just down from Sam the Record Man -- now gone too.

It's the small things that matter. Goodbye Ernie. Thanks for everything.

Here's a piece I wrote on this blog back in March 2006, when Ernie retired.

Do You Know This Man?

His name is Ernie.

Well, not really. That's just a nickname. But Ernie has been a fixture at the corner of Yonge & Gould Streets in Downtown Toronto for 25 years.

In my yooot, like thousands of other Ryerson University students, I would pass by Ernie's cart every day. His hotdogs were good, and they were cheap. He gave a bursary to students low on cash. He told corny jokes and played the best of the Village People. And he was there. Always.
Well, he's not going to be there anymore. Ernie retired last week, at the age of 78 -- for the second time. The first time he retired, it was as an electrical engineer in fibre optics. He traded fibre for processed meat, and the bellies and hearts of Downtown Toronto students were all the better for it.

There's a lot I'll miss about Ernie. Not the least of which was his penchant for greeting me -- every time -- with a delighted, "Hello, young fella!"

Now, I'm sure he greeted every "young fella" that way. But that's not the way I remember it. Not long after graduating Ryerson, after working in the industry for a few years, one of my writing mentors lured me back to start teaching part time. I was 25 -- not that much older than the students I was teaching. Well, the march of time is cruel -- because over the next 10+ years, I got another year older and they stayed exactly the same age. I can't believe more teachers don't go batshit crazy. My teaching experience now has pretty much left me with the inability to remember a name. That's what having to learn forty new names every three months and then never see them again does to you. But when I passed Ernie's cart, rushing back to my day job, or post-day job, walking down the street after class trying to figure which coffee shop would bear my writing burden today, I was always up for an Ernie dog. And I was always a young fella.

When you spend a lot of time inside your own head, and when you live alone, to boot -- it's easy to lose perspective. I've been in a bit of a melancholy downtick, lately. Nothing too serious. The kind of thing that you know you're going to bounce back from, you just aren't too sure of the timing. (In fact, sometime in the next few days, I think I'm going to have news. Good news.)

Anyway, when I'm feeling the mean reds, I think of Ernie - a guy who survived leukemia, who walked away from one life, and found another. Who always had a kind word, and who never failed to call out to a young fella who was probably taking himself too seriously.

Anyway, Ernie, goodbye and thanks for the sauteed onions at no charge. That's the kind of value you don't find in Toronto.