cktimes.ca Archives for Notes from a Garage


Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

Flowers, beads and great events in Wallaceburg and Tilbury

Tuesday, January 28, 2003

This has been a great week in my adopted community of Wallaceburg. For the 22nd straight year, sports-minded people in Wallaceburg gathered together to honour and celebrate great sporting accomplishments in the community. It is a truly tremendous evening and one where I get to see a lot of old friends and acquaintances from years gone by. There was Gerald Wicks, King and Melba Simpson and many others who I have met and struck up friendships with over the years. It's really fun evening. My main involvement in the evening is to write the skit that opens the banquet. The skit, which celebrated its 10th year on the Sports Hall of Fame stage this year, is a truly unique way to open a sports banquet – a piece of live theatre, featuring the gang from Johnny's Barber Shop in various venues. Wallaceburgers Paul Cherry, Dr. Tom Perkin and Chuck Juryn are the barbershop gang and this year they settled over a checker board at the Community Centre and talked about all the great sporting people being inducted at the Hall of Fame Banquet. This is one fun and rewarding thing that I do in my travels – I enjoy writing the skit and this year did direction and most of the production on it. The audience really seemed to enjoy it and that's the main thing. Anyway, huge hats off to the Sports Hall of Fame Committee for the great job they do each year. Special hats off to charter members of the Hall of Fame – Mike Griffith, Ticker Celotto, Gord Childs and Ray Aarssen for all the great work they've done over the years. What a bunch of guys! A great event for the Wallaceburg community!

And speaking of great events, those who attended the Tilbury Information and Help Centre's Roaring Twenties Night certainly looked like they were having a good time. That's right, folks. While I had dinner at the Wallaceburg Sports Hall of Fame Dinner, I then climbed into my car and headed off into the snowy night to Tilbury to take a few photos of that community's first time event. Kim and her crew are to be congratulated for putting on such a first-rate event. There could have been a few more people, but there were plenty of folks who were there in costume and really enjoying an evening of gaming with "funny money" and some good camaradarie. Congrats to the whole works of you!

A few words about a couple of columnists this week. Very glad to have my buddy Phil Shaw back safe and sound from his world journeying. Phil has just returned from Bangledesh and recounts some of his adventures in "At Issue" this week. Phil has been one of my best friends for many years now and I was sincerely worried about him heading off for somewhat dangerous territory during a time of world tension. Still, he told me he'd be okay and he was – I'm thankful to have him back and glad to have him in cktimes. Watch for Phil and Dr. Enamul Haque of North South University in Bangledesh to launch an exciting new project in cktimes in the weeks ahead. And now a word about Derry McKeever who writes "Blue Collar" each week. You must read Derry's column this week about the peace march he was at in Windsor. It actually brought tears to my eyes to read about the great spirit of the people who are speaking out against a possible war with Iraq. It brought back memories of the 1960's when we didn't all just sit on our butts and watch it on the evening news. Remember getting involved. Read Derry's column and then get involved. You owe it to yourself and your children and their children. Very proud to have writers like Phil and Derry in cktimes. And can't wait to read Jeff Wesley this week – talking about consultant's fees in our fine municipality. Very interesting. And if you want to read a few words by a proud new pappa, check out Gary Patterson's "That's Sports" – huge congratulations to Gary and his good wife.

Heard a great radio documentary on the "Human Be-Ins" from the 1960's the other day and that was a wonderful half hour of time. Man, do I miss those days when there was so much energy and creation in the air that it actually seemed to crackle with wonderful, positive vibes – remember that word. I know there were a lot of crappy things happening in the 1960's – the threat of nuclear war, war in Nam, race riots and assassinations – but it was a wonderful time to be alive and coming of age. It was all about positive energy and trying to make good things happen. To this day, I wonder how things seemed to have gone so very wrong. The very "Establishment" that the hippies struggled against is now firmly in control and free spirit seems almost dead. Do you remember those Human Be-Ins? They were wonderful gatherings filled with peace and love and beautiful people. I want to make it happen again.

I feel blessed to be operating cktimes and to be out and about in the community meeting such wonderful people. To a person, people seem to really enjoy the paper. One lady was telling me last week that she visits the site several times each week and finds it a very relaxing place to spend some time. And I want you to feel relaxed and comfortable when you read cktimes – I don't want you all uptight and worrying about all the bad stuff going on in the world. I want you to be aware of it and to try to make positive change around you, but I'm not going to ram the negative stuff down your throat. I'll let others do that.

Great Super Bowl Party at Crabby Joe's on Sunday and congrats to Dan Chabhar for the great job he does with the restaurant. Dan is a great community supporter and I'm looking forward to attending many more great events at his place of business.

Take care out there and try to do some good and have some fun.....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.