You might know it as the smart NBC comedy that follows a tight-knit study group at a community college called Greendale.

I know it was my neighbourhood.

My weekends have mostly been reserved for walks to my coffee shop in an attempt to keep “last summer’s feeling alive”.

What a great summer that was. Mostly unemployed, basking in the sun, riding around on the GO train to keep entertained and taking up the Ukulele. The best part of last year is the people I met.

Last Sunday turned out to be a wonderful morning to go for a walk under the cover of sunshine and I choose a route that would take me through the local GO station. I couldn’t have imagined that I would end up in a cemetery, talking to locals about the history of my little patch of community!

But that is the fact of this little story.

I was heading towards my GO station, marching along with a mission to see the station again when I spotted to my right, the gates to the cemetery – OPEN. If you know something about me, I like to wander through cemeteries looking at the headstones deciding what these people’s lives might have been like. I suppose one day I’ll end up in a cemetery and perhaps someone will come by and read my headstone and they’ll say “She used to be SOMEBODY!” Aren’t we all “somebodies” 🙂

I wandered through the open gates and was checking the headstones as I strolled along the path when I noticed a man with a red cap, walking my way.

He introduced himself as the guide and he gave me a history lesson on all the Somebodies buried in this particular cemetery. There is only so much “cemetery” conversation two people can have, even if one of you is a guide and quite knowledgeable, after a solid 20 minutes I made way towards the main entrance.

Two older gentlemen stood at the entrance, seemingly lost in conversation and ignoring them I walked on by when the taller of the two shouted in my direction, “I have a trivia question for you!!”

I turned, looked at him, I might have even smiled, I can’t remember and said an unsure “Sure.”

“What was the original name of this road out here?”

Hmmm, this was tricky. How was I suppose to know? I guessed “Mimico?”

“Close,” he gleefully replied, and I MEAN gleefully. He had a twinkle in his eye and he wasn’t about to blurt out the original name of the street, “do you have another guess?”

“No,” I am not really good at guessing games.

He conceded, “It used to be called Church Street,” and with that he launched into a history lesson, tailored just for me, of the surrounding area starting with 1942.

I want to say my favourite part was learning why the names of some of the streets in the area are a little odd like, “Chimes” and “Clockwork” but the very best part was when the guide joined us and randomly blurted out a woman’s name adding “she’s a fantastic fundraiser!!”

I couldn’t believe my ears that we could possibly know the same dynamic, amazing woman that’d I’d only just met 15 months ago!

But she was one and the same and that made my day. I’d made three more connections in my Community 🙂 and to think it all started with open gates and my curiousity of cemeteries.