"That apartment up there has been vacant since November, 2004." "Oh, yeah? How come?" "Well, it doesn't have the amenities that people require these days - no dishwasher, no elevator..."

I was taking a picture of the entrance-way to the building when he came up and said, "Can I help you"? Probably thought I was a developer thinking about buying his run-down apartment building, knocking it down, and converting it into very expensive condos. Which, in this town, is a very popular thing to do. Homes in this neighbourhood sell for about $800,000 and up - waaaaaaaaaaay up. This guy, who is, as the saying might go, "differently enabled, intellectually", could never afford to live here if it weren't for low-cost housing like this. He'd be sent to the Downtown Eastside to live with all the other human beings considered "damaged goods". Which would, of course, be criminal. But, since when did that count against Big Bucks?

He's an interesting guy. I first ran into him (though he wouldn't remember this) in a calculus class at the college where I now teach. This was about 20 years ago. At math he was a wizard. When he said the apartment had been vacant since November of 2004, I fully believed him. I overheard him once on a bus, regaling the driver with his memories of how the fare system had changed in 1974 - how the colours and print on the transfers had changed.

Math and numbers in general he's great at, it's the rest of life that he seems to have trouble with. He's "eccentric" and I think he unnerves a lot of people. He has no sense of volume when he talks; his conversational level is just short of a shout. But what he says is thoughtful (in its own odd way) and articulate. At a wild guess, I'd say he'd probably be classified as autistic.

But, nice guy. We had a nice chat about his building. Then one of his neighbours came along with her 2-year-old son, and they were off. As was I.