Reader’s Choice/Tom’s Top Tunes….Song #65/250: Waterfront by Simple Minds….Family Road Trip Edition: Part VI

The first five parts of this road trip series can be found here, here, here, here and here.

Occasionally all of us find ourselves dealing with big events that are a bit out of the norm for our usual routines. Funerals, weddings, graduations, departing on a long vacation, etc., are all times when much discussion, thought and planning are required. If your family is anything like mine, in order to successfully pull these big events off, you will have researched things online, talked to others who had already experienced the same event you are about to and, no doubt, you will have talked yourself out, discussing the very minutiae of it all with those involved in your big day. As the date of your special event draws ever closer, you almost reach a point where it has consumed your thoughts to the nth degree and you are ready for it to all simply be over. 

While today’s post chronicles the sixth day of our family journey to get our daughter to her first university move-in date on time, as a family, we had actually been preparing for this moment for well over a year. It had been a process that began with our daughter compiling a list of potential universities that had the sort of programmes she was interested in while she was still in Grade 10 and 11. From there, she conducted her own online research and narrowed the list down. Once her list reached a manageable number, we began arranging in-person university tours. We also attended information sessions hosted by these same universities whenever representatives were traveling in our area. Eventually, our daughter narrowed her focus to just a handful of Maritime finalists. Our research intensified. We talked to people who had attended these universities or who had children attend them. From there, one of the final universities received a critique that proved devastating to its chances. One of my wife’s colleagues described one of the three remaining universities as a place known for partying. To my introverted daughter, that description was like sunlight to a vampire. It burned!  That university was immediately withdrawn from consideration. My daughter and I flew down to check out the remaining contenders, as well as sneaking in a visit with my Mom and my cousin in Glace Bay. That campus visit sealed the deal. My daughter had made her decision. 

But even then, the planning process continued with the search for scholarship opportunities, the actual application process, the uploading of Grade 12 school marks and so on. Our daughter was accepted to her university of choice on a scholarship in October of 2023. From that moment on, our world became packing lists, shopping for dorm supplies, organizing the details of the very family trip you have been reading about and so much more. Now we find ourselves back in our packed-to-the-rafters car. We are driving today for five hours. We are saying goodbye to Cape Breton Island. Our final destination is Halifax. Once there, we will meet my sister and her husband for supper on the beautiful waterfront of that great city. That get-together will be the final event we have on our trip itinerary before move-in day. Thus, today is move-in day eve. It is the day before the day that so much thought and planning has gone into. As we drive along listening to “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter and then, “Miles On It” by Kane Brown and Marshmello, my thoughts are a mix of just being so tired of thinking about it all but also, so unwilling to wish it all away. On this day, my wife and I have two children in our car. We will never have a full day of that being the case again. I guess we had better enjoy it while we can. So, goodbye to the island that I love. Hello to Halifax! Welcome to day number six of this journey. Thanks for coming along for the ride. Let’s do this! Here we go!

Aside from a couple of stops for bathroom breaks and lunch in Truro, Nova Scotia, our drive to Halifax was fairly uneventful. We managed to make it there by mid-afternoon. I have always enjoyed driving into Halifax. It is a city that was built hundreds of years ago on the site of one of North America’s great natural harbours. It is a vast harbour that is spanned by two enormous bridges known as the Angus L. MacDonald Bridge (which is connected to the centre of the city) and the A. Murray MacKay Bridge (which drops you off to the city’s western side). In both cases, the bridges connect the cities of Dartmouth and Halifax with each other. Dartmouth is on the north side of the harbour while Halifax sits on the south side, (for those of you drawing your own mental maps). There are ferries that run on a regular schedule throughout the day that can get you from one side to the other but, for my money, nothing beats driving over a grand bridge to get your heart pumping. So that is what we do. We travel over the A. Murray MacKay Bridge and enter Halifax via one of its longest streets, Barrington Street. Our family has many personal connections with the city, one of which concerns itself with Barrington Street and the infamous Halifax Explosion. *(You can read about that connection from a previously written post here). Barrington Street unfolds along the waterfront. It takes you past the giant drydocks and shipyards that have come to define so much of what goes on in the city. As we drive along, we pass naval ships and freighters, tugboats and tourist boats, jet skis and schooners, too. The harbourfront is alive with the business of sailing and the sea. I am certain that citizens of Halifax and Dartmouth must come to take these sights for granted but for people from away like us, it is heartening to see a place so steeped in our nation’s history to be so alive with activity. We drive a little further along Barrington Street and soon enter the city centre. Our hotel is downtown, not too far from the watchful hilltop eye of the CItadel Fortress that guards the city. Our hotel is also not too far from the waterfront boardwalk area. If you ever find yourself in Halifax for the first time, one of your stops has to be the waterfront boardwalk. Halifax has done a wonderful job of creating an inviting place for families, for tourists and for people who just like to walk in interesting surroundings. The Halifax waterfront is filled with restaurants, shops, museums, and many public gathering spots while, at the same time, hosting active businesses and organizations that help the city run, such as the ferry terminal and the arrivals centre for cruise ships that come to call. As a family, we have been coming to the Halifax waterfront as long as we have been traveling to the east coast, which is forever. We love it there. I imagine we will find ourselves there on trips down to see our daughter in the years to come as well. 

All throughout our journey, we have found ourselves in places (Moncton, Sydney and now, Halifax) where a formal political and cultural emphasis has been placed on developing the waterfront areas and making them into destinations that local citizens and tourists can be proud of. As we leave our hotel and head down to the Halifax waterfront, I am reminded of the story of another city, far across the pond, that had a once-vibrant harbour area. That city is Glasgow, Scotland. As you may know, the name of the province of Nova Scotia translates almost directly into the words “New Scotland”. Nova Scotia and Scotland have many historical, geographic and cultural connections. For the sake of this post, I will focus on the shared maritime history that both places possess. Halifax finds itself next to the mighty Atlantic Ocean. Scotland also has the waters of the Atlantic wash upon its shores on the western side of the land, with the tumultuous North Sea on its eastern side. Shipping and shipbuilding have contributed much to the economies of many Scottish cities over the centuries, one of the most important of which is Glasgow. Like Halifax, Glasgow is home to a fine natural harbour. The Firth of Clyde flows inland from the Atlantic, over the northern tip of Ireland, and provides a watery artery that terminates in Glasgow. Again, like Halifax, Glasgow was a welcome port in a storm and served as a hub for a thriving shipbuilding and commercial transportation industry in southern Scotland. But, like all industrial cities and towns, the port of Glasgow was vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of the world’s maritime economy. For a while during the 1960s and 1970s, the port of Glasgow actually experienced a period of stagnation and even economic decline. The flow of cargo in and out of the port dried up. Drydocks sat empty. Unemployment rose. The harbour area began to deteriorate and become home to unsavory and/or down on their luck human characters. In short, Glasgow found itself in an economic downturn. Spirits in the city were low. It was during this time, as the 1970s were coming to an end and the 1980s were beginning, that a new Scottish band was formed that went by the name Simple Minds. You may know Simple Minds from their biggest commercial hit “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” from the soundtrack of the movie The Breakfast Club. That hit was still a few years in the future when lead singer Jim Kerr found himself wandering around the Glasgow docklands one day. What he saw saddened him. He decided to attempt to do something to reverse that city’s fortunes. What he did was to write a new song called “Waterfront”. This song begins with a throbbing bass note that repeats for several seconds before giving way to a crash of drums as the song explodes to life. At this time of the band’s career, they had achieved some measure of success and had made the progression from playing to small crowds in small clubs, all the way to beginning to play stadiums and large arenas. “Waterfront” is a grand song meant to fill the space in a large venue. Its big sound was also intended to serve as a rallying point for the people of Glasgow and its once-important harbour area. The entire song is a cry for politicians and ordinary citizens to work together to revive and restore Glasgow harbour to its former glory. Ironically enough, I first heard “Waterfront” when I was newly in university. The album Sparkle in the Rain from which this song is but one of several great tunes, was one of the first “Toronto” albums that I fell in love with. As I listened to “Book of Brilliant Things”, “Up On The Catwalk”, “Speed Your Love to Me” and “Waterfront” on repeat, along with Simple Mind’s previous hit, “Someone, Somewhere in Summertime”, it was one of the first times that I knew I wasn’t in Cape Breton anymore but was actually somewhere that was helping me learn and grow and become the person that I am today.

For my wife and daughters, the soundtrack to this journey may be found in the songs of the summer of 2024 but, for me, the soundtrack of this trip was sung entirely in my head. Chappell Roan got me through Quebec. The Rankin Family got me onto and off of Cape Breton Island. And now, as we headed to the Halifax waterfront boardwalk to meet my sister and brother-in-law, it was Simple Minds and “Waterfront” that played on repeat in my mind and put the strut into my stride. I have never been to a place like Glasgow but hopefully one day I will be able to tour my Scottish homeland and see Glasgow and its waterfront for myself. But on this night, I am in Halifax with the people I love. The place is hopping! There is music all around us. A cruise ship is blasting its horn and sailing past the place where we are eating. All manner of seaworthy crafts were sailing past us as well. Folks were riding bicycles and skateboards. Couples were strolling by, hand-in-hand. Children were enjoying after-supper ice cream cones. The stores were open. The stars were beginning to shine. There were stories shared at our table and lots of warm hugs when supper was all finished. We said our goodbyes to the final members of my family and headed back to our hotel room.

It was just us now. All together for one final evening under the stars next to the moonlit waters of Halifax Harbour. Nothing left for us to do except to sleep well, dream happy dreams and head for the university in the morning. Over a year’s worth of research and planning has brought us to this point. All that is left for us to do is say goodbye.

The link to the video for the song “Waterfront” by Simple Minds can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here. ***The link to a very interesting video that takes a closer look at the background of the song, of Glasgow’s star of affairs in the early 1980s and so on, can be found here.

The link to the official website for Simple Minds can be found here.

The link to the official website for the city of Glasgow, Scotland can be found here.

The link to the official website for the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia can be found here.

The link to the official website for Sapori, the excellent waterfront restaurant that we ate at that night, can be found here.

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