Where Have all the Bungalows Gone?

For the past year I have been watching an Australian cop show. I discovered it while looking up an actor from another favourite Aussie show, and gave it a try. I was hooked from the start. It is one of those shows that takes me to another place, another time, and gives me a needed escape from the current reality of pandemics, wars and invasions, and the general uncertainty of our times. The fact that this show gives me forty-five minutes of entertainment nearly every day, and that justice is almost always served with a side of humour, is not the reason I bring up the show. I'm not telling anyone they should watch it. In fact, I am sure many of my friends would find it far too quaint. I bring it up for a different reason: its architecture and set design. 

The cop show which ran from 1994 to 2006, and is comprised of a whopping five-hundred and ten episodes, is called Blue Heelers. In watching the show, which takes place in a fictional small town called Mt. Thomas situated a couple of hours from Melbourne, I noticed how modest the houses were. Most of the characters live in older, one-storey ranch style homes often with peeling paint, rusty door hinges, and the very basics in modern conveniences and decoration. Sure, there are fancier homes featured now and again in the show, but those are rare and provide contrast to help illustrate a character. Everything in the show is much more aesthetically humble than what we have become accustomed to nowadays, both in mainstream film and television and in real life, and I find that thought-provoking. 

Blue Heelers reminds me of what my hometown was like in the 1970's and 80's before people came from the cities and restored it to the mini San Francisco it was originally built to be before time, weather, changing fashions (imagine beautifully carved stone buildings modernized with a face of tin siding) and economic ups and downs had their way. The characters in the show are wary of  'yuppies from Melbourne' buying up small farms and changing the vibe, and the property values, of their community, so perhaps Mt. Thomas has since gone the way of many other charming small towns and become a haven for city folks looking for that je ne sais quoi. I don't know yet - I am only on season four of twelve. Anyway, my point is, in this age of Instagram and renovation shows we in North America have come to expect a rather heightened standard of what our houses and communities should look like, (and I believe this standard is, in some small part, to blame for the ridiculous property values in British Columbia, but that is a topic for another time). 

Don't get me wrong. I am as guilty of aesthetic snobbery as the next person, and sometimes renovations and rebuilds are necessary, but to be completely honest, I like a little dingy alleyway, slanting shed or crooked fence mixed in with all this perfection. I like a hole-in-the-wall second hand bookshop that smells of old books, the occasional grandma's house that hasn't been updated in thirty-five years, or a bar that serves good beer but mediocre food on scratched tables perched on faded carpet. There can be an undeniable honesty to places that have not yet been smoothed over and made presentable with the latest in decorative touches and architectural features. I believe it's called character, and my favourite cop show has it in spades.

Perhaps I am merely a sad romantic, but I don't care about that. I care that we are slowly but surely gentrifying the heck out of our communities and that our kids may never know the fun of dancing to a great live band in a dive bar, of drying their underwear on an old radiator in their first apartment above a pizza place, or the struggle of saving for a first home that is somehow attainable for them even without Mom and Dad giving them a 300,000 dollar down payment (true story). Humble beginnings can be good beginnings and lead to true appreciation of all we have through life.

Until next time, 

Rebecca