Save-On

The Save-On at King Edward & Knight has a magazine rack that brackets the bathrooms. An aisle to the east of it advertises cleaning products -- and books! But where? Where on the shelves are these books? I open a scouring pad and turn to Page 50: George Stanley's "Vancouver in April".  Five stanzas down:

I lived here three months
in a house where I never once
heard anyone say please or thanks.

This from someone born and raised in the States, who moved to a country known to use "please" and "thanks" as verbal punctuation. Or was this a house without Canadians? There were number of U.S. Americans living in Vancouver in the early-1970s, people George knew from the San Francisco poetry scene. Rob Blaser, Stan Persky. Never knew Persky to say such things. Never knew Blaser either, though I met him more than once.