cktimes.ca Archives for Notes from a Garage


Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

Inside every person is a story waiting to be told

Tuesday, November 5, 2002

Last Friday evening, I was in Blenheim. Saturday morning, I was in Ridgetown, then on to Tilbury, then a stop in Chatham – out to cover an event in Wallaceburg at 9:00 p.m. that night when most people are settled in for the evening. So goes my life these days. Driving the highways and byways of Chatham-Kent, meeting more of you all the time and finding out what an alive and vibrant place this really is. I enjoyed Jim Gilbert's column this week – he wrote about how International Truck got going in Chatham and, you know what, it was a local enterprise in the beginning. I don't know that much about business and industry outside of Wallaceburg, but most of our business concerns in the Glasstown are locally grown. That's really the key to economic growth in most places. It takes local people to plant the seed and to start to make things happen. Big things can grow from small ideas. Indeed, that's sort of what I'm trying to do with cktimes. I'm one of those who's tired of the big boys running the show and telling us what's good for us and shoving it down our throats. I don't like big government or big business unless they can prove to me they're operating in the best interests of the people they're supposed to serve. We need to challenge the establishment at every opportunity – let them know we're watching and we care.

I continue to read the offerings of the cktimes columnists each week, and you know what? – what a great group of writers – likely the best in the great Southwest. We added CKSY sports guy Gary Patterson to our list of columnists last week and Gary was right away taking shots at guys like Barry Bonds and the big money folks in professional sports. cktimes continues to grow and get just a little bit stronger each week. This week I got a note. It read: "You are a genius. Thanks for this informative website". Not sure about the genius part, but the feedback continues to be overwhelmingly positive and it seems you are really enjoying reading about events and stuff going on throughout this very large community. Don't forget to write me and let me know what you think of the site.

You know, my wife and I watched "Cleopatra" on video over the weekend, and I'll tell you, that is one excellent piece of film making. I likely hadn't seen the film since it was in theatres (1962?), and was amazed all over again. They just don't make movies like that any more – even the biggies today aren't close to a Cleopatra or Ben Hur or Lawrence of Arabia or Doctor Zhivago. The boys in Hollywood just can't do it anymore. They try hard with all kinds of smoke and mirrors and other special effects, but they just don't get it. You need a great story, great acting and a bunch of other great stuff that's sadly lacking in today's movies. And have we got a Liz Taylor or Richard Burton today? (laugh now).

Also got to watching "All the President's Men" over the weekend (okay, I had a bad cold), and that's a pretty good flic, too. Very young versions of Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in that one. It's the story of the Watergate affair and it was interesting to watch things come untangled for the Nixon administration some 30 years after the whole sorry debacle. I was really struck by the fact that Nixon's only real problem was that he hired a bunch of bunglers and got caught. Also got to thinking that coverage of the Watergate affair sort of set the tone for news coverage of major events for the next three decades. Not sure if that's good or bad. I'll let you figure that one out.

So, I got talking to one Bob McIntyre over the weekend. Now, Bob is public relations person for Wallaceburg Minor Baseball and works tirelessly at the job. But I found out something else sort of neat about Bob during our meeting. I knew he was pretty fine guitar player, having seen him play several times and enjoying the licks. But I had no idea he was the guitar player in Ronnie Hawkins' band back during the 1980's. To an old rocker like me, this was huge news. After all, Rompin' Ronnie is considered the father of rock 'n' roll in Canada and his bands are always legend – ever hear of THE Band. Anyway, Bob and I had an excellent visit and I look forward to meeting him again. Just goes to prove that inside most people there's an interesting story just waiting to be told.

Snow reported up there in the north, so it won't be long coming this way. I'm still having a hard time believing the summer is over and it's sort of winter. Remember, I'm looking for stories on interesting people and events in Chatham-Kent and hope you'll let me know if you've got something going on. I want to make cktimes.ca your community newspaper, but I need your help to make it happen.

Hope things are going well for you. Even if they're not, better things may be just around the corner. 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.