Cupfuls of Love
'Everybody was just doing stuff for everybody.'
During the weeks Guy and Mike sat in their trucks in Ottawa as part of the Freedom Convoy protest, some members of the public informally adopted them. Amongst these was a married couple from Montreal who had taken a hotel room close by, and who delivered coffee every morning.
Many of the cups had personalized messages inscribed. Guy saved some of them, brought them home to Nova Scotia, and later lined them up so I could take photos.
In his words:
Everybody was just doing stuff for everybody. One lady, every day she'd be there to pick up your laundry, go do it, and come back. And she lived 20, 30 miles outta town. And the couple that brought coffee every day, they'd just come check up on you, right.
When the truckers arrived in town on the last weekend of January 2022, Guy says some local residents had been locked down so long, they were afraid:
People, they'd come outta their apartment and they'd peek around the corner. So I went up to this lady, I said, ‘No one's gonna bother you. Why aren't you coming out to talk?’
She said, ‘We'll get arrested if we're outside without an essential reason.’ Right in Ottawa. Another lady came up the first night and asked, ‘What do you take in your coffee?’
And I already had like five coffees in the truck. I said, ‘Ma'am, I got too many now.’
She says, ‘This is the first time in two years I've been to Tim Horton's without a mask, I'm gonna go get you one anyway.’
Every day there was stuff like that. That's why I took pictures - one of the reasons. I'll bet you I could talk for probably a month. I can look at one picture and tell you all about that day. Because so many things happened.
A life-changing breath of hope in a crazy-dark time. I can hardly recognize my old hometown.
Once upon a time, people in communities looked out for and took care of one another. Now it is left up to the government. As the convoy demonstrated, sometimes the old ways are a lot better.