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Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

More than a little yogurt; a less than crowded bus service; and the Capitol lineup……

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

So, as most of you know, I’ve undergone some surgery lately. And as part of the procedure, it was necessary to ingest quite a few antibiotics to get rid of the chance for infection. Well, apparently, the antibiotics kill quite a few good bacteria along with the bad, so you need to replace those. People suggested I try eating yogurt, which I have never really liked, mainly because of my feeling that it’s full of bacteria…..which I guess, in this case, is actually a good thing. So, my wife has been buying me some yogurt and I’ve discovered the stuff isn’t half bad so I’m trying to eat some every day….and it’s supposed to be good for me. Well the other night I was out of yogurt and Carol was too busy to go to the store, so I headed out into groceryland. And when I reached the yogurt section, I was veritably bedazzled by the sheer number of different kinds of yogurt. I could not even begin to count them. A single company might produce three or four different brands and there seem to be an endless lineup of companies in the business. There’s low fat, no fat, zero fat, less than zero fat, slightly more than zero fat, lots of fat, probiotics, bacterium regularis, enriched with vitamins and not enriched with vitamins. After several hours of confusion, I purchased a couple of kinds and headed home. I ask my wife how she decides what to buy. She says she’s studied all the labels – and she buys the kind that is the simplest – with the fewest additives – the fewest natural ingredients. She reasons that yogurt is supposed to be an extraordinarily healthy food even when it’s in its most natural state. So, why would you add all his junk to what is a naturally wholesome food. Man, what a waste of time and resources and just about everything else producing all these different types of varieties of the same thing. It’s just an unbelievable waste of stuff. Plus it’s really confusing. Each of the companies tells you that they produce the healthiest stuff – they parade out sort of bogus doctors in lab coats and list off study after study. And we all wander around like zombies completely overmatched by the marketing…..oh well, dumb but true….

You know, when the municipality of Chatham-Kent came into being a number of years ago, I wasn’t a big supporter of the whole thing. But I’ve tried to take the advice of my old friend, Mike Childs, who said it wasn’t going away so we might as well try to work with it. It’s one of the reasons I started cktimes was to try to give us more of a sense of community in Chatham-Kent. There were, however, a few physical things that I also felt could make a difference. For one thing, it shouldn’t be long distance to telephone from Wallaceburg to Blenheim or Ridgetown or Wheatley. We’re all in the same city for Pete’s sake and this is just a money grab. Bell could probably change this all to a local calling area by flipping a few switches in some big, black building somewhere. The other thing I originally thought would be a good idea was a bus service connecting the community and I know that has happened. One of the connecting C-K Transit buses rolls past our place several times a day coming from and going to Dresden. Now as I said, I originally endorsed a connecting bus service for the community, but I’ve got tell you that the bus that rolls past our place each day several times is not exactly crowded. In fact, on most trips it seems empty. Which leads me to wonder if bus service in other smaller communities in Chatham-Kent is not perhaps going gangbusters either. Which makes me wonder what it’s costing to operate? I know I’ve seen grants come in from the province to help offset the cost of the bus service, but I’m still left to wonder if it’s very cost effective and at what point do you admit it just ain’t working…just some food for thought.

Capitol Theatre rolled out its inaugural season on Monday morning in the box office area of the under construction building. It is a somewhat impressive lineup – especially on the Canadian side of things, but it left me wondering if it’s unique enough to fill a 1,200 seat theatre on a regular basis. And don’t get me wrong….I’ll be cheering them on and really hoping that things go well. But the lineup left me wondering what the Cultural Centre will do and if the Capitol and the Cultural Centre are working together to dovetail operations. The success of an operation like Stratford doesn’t lie in one big theatre. It lies in presenting a diverse theatre lineup at four separate venues. I sort of still feel we needed a niche for the Captiol and they haven’t gone after that…..I’m still thinking Afro-American and Charles Dickens, but clearly no one is listening…..

Out of time for another week and am feeling better all the time…..tomorrow I’m off to get the teeth checked over to see if everything is coming along okay….take care and remember…..”Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may.”



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.