cktimes.ca Archives for Notes from a Garage


Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

Huge numbers, a bad back, congrats to Roots organizers, letters to the editor and stuff

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

This has been a great week for cktimes, but not such a great week for yours truly. Our little on-line newspaper totalled over 38,000 hits last week – a new all-time high. More and more of you are checking out Chatham-Kent's good news on the net and you seem to be liking what you find. It has, however, been a bad week for me – sort of. First, I went on a holiday, which I guess is good news, except I knew I'd be missing things in Chatham-Kent that I should be at. Well, I've got to spend some time with my family, so I made the sacrifice and I went away for two whole days. However, when I was in the process of leaving for my brief vacation, I somehow destroyed my back to the point where I couldn't lean over to flush the toilet at my parent's place last Wednesday morning – man, was I in pain. This meant that I spent a painful vacation, but the worst of it was I was going to race back here and cover tons of things before this week's paper. Wrong! After the five-hour drive back from vacation land, I could barely lift myself out of bed Saturday morning. So, I apologize to the good folks in Ridgetown for missing your big summer event and to any others where I was a no show. Anyway, as you read this, I'm still in pain but it seems to be getting better with each passing day – it's just taking its own sweet time. Anyway, thanks for reading along again this week – enough with the excuses.

Huge congratulations to Bob Fox and Lesley Grand and the entire staff at the Chatham Capitol Theatre for making the 2004 Roots Festival work and work well. Attendance at most of the events was better than expected and the Capitol Theatre truly succeeded in bringing some world class entertainment to little old Chatham-Kent. I think we're really on to something here and that this thing can only grow from here and get bigger and better. It takes vision to create an event like the Roots Festival. I've run quite a few events in Wallaceburg (nothing like the Roots Festival), and I know that every time you build an event, you take a huge chance and really put yourself on the line. After watching the Capitol try to pull off the 2003 Roots Festival, a one-day event in Tecumseh Park last summer, it would have been easy for organizers to walk away. It was a dull, rainy overcast day and there were very small crowds out for the event. But I wrote in cktimes at the time that a seed had been planted and that it was a seed that could grow if we nurtured it. A huge next step was taken this year and I can't wait until next year. Once word spreads throughout the community about the incredibly high level of quality presented by each and every one of the Roots Festival acts, it might be hard to get a seat next year. Keep at it, people. It's working. Don't give up on us. We'll come around and it'll all be worthwhile when we see those busloads of tourists pouring into Chatham-Kent! And you can say you read it here first – likely in Jim Gilbert's Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent. That guy is our prophet if we'll only listen to what he's got to say.

We've got some great Letters to the Editor this week in cktimes – one from Wallaceburg, one from Georgia and the other from Fort Collins, Colorado. Wow! Are we an international publication or what? The letter from Georgia is from a former Chatham-Kentite who has discovered us as a good way to get a little glimpse of home, but there were also special words for Jim and Lisa Gilbert and their column, Cultural Musings. And, indeed, more and more people are tuning into Cultural Musings, realizing that some great stuff is being written for that space. So glad to be able to bring this to you. Thanks to Jim and Lisa.

I see our friends to the south are worried about their fall election being disrupted by terrorists – there's even talk of maybe moving the election. I've been expecting this for some time. I think the Bush-Cheney administration will really push this terrorism thing between now and the election because the Kerry-Edwards team is going to be a popular juggernaut that's going to be hard to stop once it gets rolling. 911 made George W. the most popular president in American history for a while and what worked once may well work again – at least that may be the thinking.

Big RM Classic Cars celebration this weekend and it should be a good one. I'm particularly looking forward to the big car show Saturday and the Concours d'Elegance on Sunday in Tecumseh Park, but there's plenty of other stuff going on as well. RM is one of the gems of this community and we should help them celebrate. See you on the weekend!

Pretty well out of time for another week. Check out Phil Shaw's At Issue this week for a great look at the economy or check out Jon Gilbert's Bushwacked to see how well Jon kept up to his grandson. Plenty of great reading in cktimes.ca.

And remember.....take care and "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.