Downtown Halifax, despite the construction, was mostly neat and orderly when I took a stroll there Thursday.

The passersby — office workers with take-out coffees, tourists taking their time, working men entering and leaving job sites — were alert and clear-eyed.  

The traffic moved in a well-behaved manner. The vibe was 21st-century industrious. 

The only hint that this is a city with a wild side that can bubble to the surface was a man with dark sunglasses and a closed umbrella, which he waved about expressively while talking smack to pedestrians as he made his way down Grafton Street. 

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When our paths crossed, he informed me that rap music was the future.  

“Well, then, I guess you are the future.” 

“Hell no, I am the past,” he said, before turning to weave his way toward the city’s core. 

Since this exchange happened May 8, I took it as meaningful.  

Precisely 80  years before, you see, the streets of Halifax, in the memorable words of author Stephen Kimber, “resembled the wreckage of a storm-tossed carnival where revelry had curdled into lawlessness and the only music left was the crash of glass and the laughter of the drunk.” 

Things indeed did get a mite out of control here on VE (