cktimes.ca Archives for Notes from a Garage


Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

Life in a refugee camp, a successful Glass Onion, the rich and the poor and missing the NHL – or not!

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Life in the fast lane. That's the way most of us live today. Running around like chickens with our heads cut off. It's the way of our world. Someone I know was complaining about the pace of life last week, so I asked them what they thought was causing this headlong rush through life. I think it's the media and I told this person so. I also told them to imagine being a refugee or living in one of the poorer parts of the world. I imagine time moves tediously slowly for those folks. They're not worried about cell phone calls or checking their e-mail, or which restaurant to eat dinner in. They're only worried about where their next meal is coming from and whether they'll survive until it gets there. A very slow life, indeed. Maybe we should, in some ways, be thankful for our fast paced lives. It may beat the alternative.

Hugely successful evening at the Glass Onion Folk Club this past Saturday evening. We had renowned Canadian folksinger Valdy on stage at the Glass Onion and it was truly an evening to remember. We were packed to the rafters – capacity crowd – but once people settled in they thoroughly enjoyed the evening. Valdy was wonderful. And if you want to know why I'm crazy enough to keep doing these shows, Saturday night provided the answer. Right near the end of the night, Valdy did an old Roger Miller favourite called King of the Road. As he was performing it, pretty well the entire audience joined in and you had about 140 voices singing together in joyous harmony. Oh, what a feeling, what a rushshshsh.......I mean, what an unbelievable feeling can be made to happen when you put the right person on stage and the mood is just right. I had tears in my eyes a few times the other night as I thought how we could all work together to make the world a better place – if we just joined in and sang along. Anyway, huge thanks to Valdy, Jerry Gregson, Laura Massey, Dave Babbitt and Carol Koop and, of course, my wife, for helping me to pull this off. And thanks to the Wallaceburg and District Council for the Arts for putting up with me for the last 10 years.

I continue to be flabergasted by many things in life. It's just that I can't quite figure it out. For example, how do the rich people get the poor people to work for them? Why don't the poor people just say enough is enough and take over? Why would anybody work for anyone if they had any choice? I mean, it's really just a glorified type of slavery that's going on here. But I've studied political philosophy. I know that the rich people give the poor people just enough stuff to keep them sort of happy. A lot of complaining from the poor people but no actual rioting in the streets – that's what the rich people's plan is. But when you see some of the shows on TV – like the one where they show how opulently the movie stars live – it really makes your blood curdle – or it should. How can some people (a small group) have so damned much while so many other people have so damned little (sorry about the language)? It just ain't right, people, and one of these days it's all going to get sorted out. The poor people will finally get tired of having so little and they'll force a change on the rich people. It's the way of the world. And the rich people will tell the poor people to eat cake and the poor people will cut off a few heads and things will go on pretty much like before. It's a shame, but remember, you read it here first.

So, who's missing NHL hockey – hands up! I'm certainly not and I hope those pampered wannabe athletes don't ever play again – I hope they have to go out and get ordinary jobs and really have to work for a living. Maybe then, they'd realize how great they've had it being professional athletes. As I've said before, here's a group of guys doing exactly what they want in life and being paid millions of dollars to do it and all they do it whine and complain about how hard done by they are. Strange, but true. I say back to the coal mines with them. Back to the days when hockey players had to work in the off season to pay the bills. Then we'll see how uppity they are. Anyway, that's my take on it. I'm glad I said that.

Anyway, out of time for another week. Hope you're enjoying reading along in cktimes. Another great round of columns and good news stories. 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.