What can I say about the hometown? It’s not really. I’m from Dartmouth, the undermentioned sibling across the harbour, the one that didn’t make the honor roll or the football team, I don’t know which. After the amalgamation in 1996, the municipalities of Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford and Halifax County were dropped into a name-blender and Halifax came out, or Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) for the skilled of tongue. The good news is that I can answer “What city are you from?” with some broader convenience, though most inquiries in the Asian sphere require a follow-up or a good sketch. As for Halifax proper, it’s a place of then and now, but my memories lie with then, before the Oval and the Casino, before Odyssey 2000 shut its doors, before the Africville apology or the Cornwallis row, before I’d learned the Shipyard’s role in the Battle of the Atlantic or that the Town Clock was commissioned by Queen Victoria’s dad, when LPs were a musical thing and Kelly’s on Barrington supplied them, when the Misty Moon was forbidden fruit, when Scotia Square had Woolco and the Hyland Theater screened “E.T.” a decade before a renegade popcorn machine cooked it. It’s still an entirely walkable downtown, in Halifax, that hasn’t changed. Uphill towards the Citadel or down to the ferry and boardwalk. Was there a boardwalk then? It wasn’t as long at least and Theodore Tugboat was just an inkling in the harbour fog. Things change.