Propaganda

OH, THE GLORY OF KINGSTON IN THE WINTER, the exhaust fumes from cars stacked up behind Tim Horton’s, their drivers’ waiting for their morning (or any-time-of-day fixes) that will keep them going….”global warming be damned, I’m going to get my Tim’s, else I’ll not be able to make it through the day.” YOUR SCRIBE having given up coffee three years ago, has difficulty imagining this, as tea in the morning and the afternoon is much more civilized. BUT MORE PEOPLE are driving around these days, multitasking, drinking coffee, making phone calls, smoking a cigarette (say that wold take three hands….but it can be and is being done. Drat those passive verbs…..

KINGSTON WHEN IT MIZZLES…..is a place to venture out gingerly, to make certain the ice you didn’t think was under you, indeed, was not there; to get the shopping done early, and to swear at the blue hornets all too ready on a -20C day to hover and warm their little hearts by slapping tickets wherever they can. Some should slap themselves, parking in citable spots, but obviously above the need to put their own two bits or four or eight in the meters. Most Kingstonians in the winter have gotten wise; with the threat of the hornets, and even more, the need to slide out and over the snowbanks the city seems to love to leave for physical exercise purposes, to feed those all-weather bandits. SO MUCH nicer to head to the Cat Mall out West…..the downtown could so use a thoughtful shopping centre, so important is shopping to the village fathers (and mothers)

BUT NO ONE WANTS TO GO DOWNTOWN ANYMORE….why should they when the big boxes are all out west…..and one can shop and shop and shop ’til you drop in the warmth. And there are Tim Horton’s there, and everywhere…..In the cold winter some days, there are no cars at all parked along Clarence west of King. That venue used to be the site of near shoving matches (Kingston’s version of road rage) when the market ruled. But the market — the real market — seems a pale imitation of what it once was, a glorious magnet bringing people to what Steve Lukits of RMC marveled as “commerce and conversation.” That is huge in the health of a city…. And of course with the “lovely new skating rink” which people avail themselves when the temperature rises to -5 or so, we should be doing better than we are. Indeed, it’s sad to consider the West End as one of the centre’s of China’s economic trojan horse to bring down the North American economy. That, of coure, is Wal-Mart, avowedly American to its core,but in fact, a conduit that carries Chinese goods that undercut in price everything else. Love that globalization……Shop RONA? or the TIRE?

SO BEING GRUMPY IS ONE OF THE byproducts of being out in the damp cold. “Get a life, Geoff!” I hear someone shouting, and yes, I am trying to teach myself to skate again, after a hiatus of about fifteen years (I was really bad then, and you should see it now: a guy in a striped shirt skating over to me as I hung on the boards at Jock Harty the other day…..”Two minutes for skating,” he bellowed and gestured over at the penalty box……

KINGSTON WHEN IT PIZZLES….Yes, it’s tough to wonder why the little sidewalk zamboni that comes along sometime around 4 a.m leaves a beautiful ice surface on the sidewalks, when it is supposed to clear them of snow and ice. Well, it’s a great equalizer, bringing similarity to the walks of those who didn’t clear, and those who did. The little machines, which take the place of the bylaw that would charge $200 for failing to clear walks within 12 hrs or so after a storm, leave smooth sailing, right down to the bum……

BUT LET’S GET REAL–Things could be much worse here in Baghdad on the Cataraqui. We’ve got those gorgeous winter days, when everything stands still, when chirping birds are the only noise, when one recognizes that it’s wonderful not to have a huge pollution problem, where the authorities bloat both the size of Kingston and the population (That was a Tory thing, wasn’t it?), where local high schools have fist fights but precious few incidents involving guns and knives, and a place where, when one flies back to K’Town Int’l Airport after a trip to LA, the Big Apple, London, Paris, or Moscow (no not Ontario!), one can feel good about coming home. Kingston is a great town to come home to, nothing more, nothing less.

The alchemy needs assessment. We could be Baghdad on the Potomac, Baghdad on Lake Erie, or Baghdad on James Bay.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Culture & Society, Whimsy & Misc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.