Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Memorial on Bike Path


A small bouquet of plastic lillies and a funeral folder sit behind a small charred spot of grass where the Ottawa River bike path goes under the Prince of Wales railway Bridge. The charred spot looked like maybe a sweetgrass fire yesterday; today it has a votive candle in a holder there.
The spot is so peaceful, a steady stream of cyclists, joggers, and pedestrians goes by. The sun shines. Geese swim by. The water looks cool and refreshing.
Are we doing something to be remembered by?
Cylist Paul Kenneth Dabene was murdered there on July 27, 2009.

4 comments:

  1. A cyclist was murdered here? I don't remember hearing about this, and couldn't find a news story. What happened?

    ReplyDelete
  2. On or about July 28 the gentleman cycled to the bridge location where he interacted with a group of other persons, at night, and was murdered. He was not murdered while cycling, but cycling to the scene. The newspapers covered it, check the archives around July 28-30th.
    Thanks for reading.
    -Eric Darwin

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the info. I did find a news story. Now I see why there was not much news coverage: clearly, our lives are not equally valuable in this city. What a sad story.

    Great blog, btw.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I stopped at this exact location the other day and spent about 20 minutes cleaning up a smashed beer bottle, no doubt tossed there by some lout partying on the bridge. Maybe the same guy who thought it was okay to attack a fellow reveller.

    ReplyDelete