The simple invitation is written in black marker across the top of white canvas boards nailed to a wooden telephone pole on the northwest corner of James Street South and Charlton Avenue.
A faded green alien dangles nearby on a rusty key chain. There are ribbons; bunches of artificial flowers; photos of a little girl.
This is not the place where Daniel Abdolalian-Dolmer, 20, took his last breath — he died in hospital after being struck by a car while he was riding his longboard down James Street South on May 7, 2011 — but this is where his loved ones, from time to time, come to remember him.
“I think the accident scene is always an unanswered question. How did it happen and why did it happen?” says Morteza Abdolalian, Daniel’s father.
At last count, the city’s road operations department knew of 29 makeshift memorials scattered throughout Hamilton. There is no formal policy for dealing with them, although roadside crews often inspect them to make sure they’re not a hazard when they spot one while on routine road patrols.
Bryan Shynal, the city’s director of operations, says staff have noticed more memorials in the last decade and will look into whether the city should implement a policy on them when they review the streets bylaw in the coming year. Other jurisdictions already have policies in place, including outright bans that label memorials as distractions for drivers.
Hamilton’s memorials are as varied as the incidents that prompted them.
There’s the one just past Clappison’s Corners on Highway 6, near Parkside Drive. Four white metal crosses stand in a row, paint peeling and rust forming. A fifth cross stands apart from the group. They mark the spot where a car crash just before Christmas 2005, killed Vivian Porto, 43, her two children and niece, as well as Robert Fox, 40, of Cambridge, who died of his injuries a few weeks later.
Or the more unconventional memorial in the middle of the soccer field of the West 5th campus of St. Joseph’s. From afar, it appears a mound of weeds amid the expanse of a neatly mowed lawn. Up close, there is a stalk of corn, small pink flowers, a broken candle jar and some stones. There are no photos or names, but presumably, this spot is meant to mark the spot where Michael Brewer, 30, was killed earlier this summer.
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