There’s a method to the madness of 473 Clinton St. Old toys and unwanted knick-knacks decorate the lawn, forming a pathway to the front door. Small coins and wooden plates are arranged in a series of patterns along the exterior walls. A van covered in tiny plastic bugs sits parked outside. For most people, the semi-detached home is a two-second stop on a walk through Seaton Village. For Albino Carreira, however, it’s a life’s work.The 74-year-old Portuguese immigrant has been building out his “Eccentric Garden” ever since a workplace injury left him permanently disabled and jobless 26 years ago. He’s become, over those years, something of a neighbourhood enigma: that guy who drives around Koreatown in the Bug Van. That guy who schoolchildren whisper about as they pass his home after class.But for passersby brave enough to ring the doorbell, Carreira provides a brief walking tour and thorough explanation. The garden, he says, is more than just a garden. It’s an antidote to a devastating injury. A much-needed distraction during years of intense physical discomfort.“It’s what I do now to pass the time,” he says. Carreira was born and raised in Ourem, Portugal, north of Lisbon, in 1945. He’s the fourth of six siblings, most of whom entered the workforce as stonecutters and craftsmen in the mid-1960s.A young man growing up in a period of political turbulence and economic stagnation, Carreira discovered the limits to prosperity in Portugal after a brief stint as the head salesman of a department store in the late ’60s and moved to Toronto with his wife, Maria, in 1972. He assumed they’d return to Ourem eventually, but within two years the couple had developed a routine that neither wanted to abandon.He began work in construction for a company contracted to help build the CN Tower. They bought a semi-detached home in a relatively Portuguese neighbourhood and had their first child, Steven, in ...
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