Early Immigrant Days-3

I had been prepared for life in North America, by fantasy clouded perusals of old issues of the Reader's Digest. The first wave
of indoctrination, about the First World countries, north of us, across the Atlantic, was from the Mother Country. The second
was in the form of American movies, Life and Time magazines, and, of course, the Digest. For some reason, I couldn't distinguish between Canada and the United States, back then. Norman Rockwell could not have done a better painting in my head, of the world of hot dogs and Jello Instant Pudding, than the disseminators of "northern culture" I've mentioned, did. I
took in my pablum of the mind enthusiastically from the Digest's pages, augmented by frequent visits to the local cinemas, to be inspired and pushed further northwards, by the enviable style of John Wayne and Jimmy Cagney. And so...those first
days in Canada, were a time of checking out that picture I had nurtured for so long, of one of the lands from where all things
bright and beautiful came, with what I found around me. I was like someone who had escaped a sentence for life in some dark dungeon and somehow had found himself in a kind of fairy land.The high rise lights beckoned me in a million different
directions...the neon lights, fragments of a lurid rainbow, called me to come and partake of a thousand new pleasures..there
was an erotic urgency...as the many coloured chrome ornamented vehicles, of all shapes and sizes...honked and zoomed by me...the slow wide-eyed one...transfixed by this assault on my hitherto sheltered senses...the super-markets with their
million rainbow-wrapped presents...urged me to pick them up...because they were only for me...adding to the mirage that I
had hit the jackpot...all this was mine for the taking....the rest was a formality. The days were filled with easy wonder and
youthful inspiration...to make something of myself in this land of endless bounty. The nights were laden with the possibility
of adventures downtown...where anything was possible. I found myself walking around in a high triggered by the blitzing of
my tender senses...a high that was bound to fade as soon as the smile on a used car salesman's face...when you tell him you
are only looking. It wasn't long before I was surveying my new surroundings with a sobriety...that began to release questions
...about my new way of life..................Quester.