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Hero and Villain of the Week: April 10
Every week, Toronto is filled with Heroes and Villains. These are their stories.
Hero of the Week: Peter Hamilton
We would all like to think that we could rise to the moment and show a level of heroism that meets the seriousness of a given situation. This week, Peter Hamilton did exactly that.
The Leslieville resident went out to walk his dog like he does every day, but the circumstances became exceptional. He heard a voice yell “help” from a porch, and it was a woman lying down, bound and restrained, with her underwear around her ankles. Hamilton leapt into action, and the woman, who had been missing for five days, got the help she needed. The police would later arrest a man, and no charges have yet been proven in court.
It’s easy to think that we would all act the same way, but it’s not as easy to do. A moment’s hesitation, betraying fear to her alleged captor—it could have changed the situation. But he didn’t act that way, and hopefully in the situations that we all encounter that are more mundane than this, we can all be a bit more like Peter Hamilton.
Villain of the Week: The Passive-Agressive Cabbagetown Notemaker
We all value neighbourhoods for different reasons. For some people, there’s the proximity to good schools, or well-stocked LCBOs. For others, the neighbourhood is a good place to raise your family, meet new people, or otherwise engage with the city. And there are those for whom it is a good place to leave anonymous notes.
An anonymous Cabbagetowner left a note encouraging encouraging his or her neighbour to hide their bikes in the back, take down their basketball net, and ditch the Christmas lights (on the latter, there’s a fair point, as it is after January 1). The reason: ““It would be appreciated if your home could look a little more like it did in the 1800s.” You see, Cabbagetown has some historic walking tours—which is great, Torontoist loves our heritage—but it’s a bit much to ask your neighbour to take down their basketball net so you can anonymously enjoy historic verisimilitude.
It’s not even particularly good history, as basketball was invented in 1891, and bicycles were even used to wage war on those awful Sunday streetcars.
So this is our non-anonymous note to the Anonymous Cabbagetowner: Stop it.