Caledon Election Wrap-up

It has been a wild ride. What a year to start learning about Caledon. It used to be a place for farmers and equestrian enthusiasts but over the past few years it had slowly simmered until the boiling point that was the election of 2010.

This was an election where the good guys won. A little Mayor from a little town stood up tall against developers from somewhere different. Mayor Marolyn Morrison was all set to retire. She was ready to hand over the reigns and enjoy spending time with John and go visit the grand kids every once in a while. But given that the only person running against her was being happily pushed along and led by the hand by people with less than honorable intentions, Mayor Morrison felt that she had an obligation to give people a choice.

In recent years there has been an anti-incumbent trend. The most popular thing to say is something along the lines of "now is the time for change." The beautiful thing about Caledon is that the people voted strongly in favor of not changing, mainly because it wouldn't have made any sense to sell the town. That's what we would have been doing.

Even if Annette Groves isn't in the pocket of developers she certainly has their best interests at heart. This is the paradox that is Ms. Groves. On the one hand, she is extremely likable and well spoken. On the other, she is supremely naive. At best, she would have been Bolton's Mayor.

In listening to Annie speak you'd swear she had a few good points, until you stopped to think about them. Losing this election is the best thing that could have ever happened to Annette Groves because along with it hopefully she will lose her backers and maybe a loose cannon or two.

We have not seen the last of Annette, and I hope that we haven't be because I really do like her. But the lady needs a reality check or two. From what I have been told she wasn't always like this and perhaps this is an opportunity for her to go back to her roots.



Perhaps some time out in the real world will teach her the difference between good business and borderline insider trading tendencies. Just because something makes good math sense doesn't make it practicing in good faith.

Then there is Allan Thompson, the hardest working politician I have ever met. He was up against a self-serving farmer looking to protect little more than his own homestead and a school board trustee veteran who was hoping to get elected by hosting tea parties.

The only reason he lost Valleywood is because these are people that needed a scapegoat after the 410. Well you can't blame these people too much because some men got in a room and decided to drop in a subdivision in the middle of nowhere, with only one exit in or out and highway cutting through half of it.

I used to say, I have no pity for these folks but the truth is that the development is 17 years old, not 10, which means that at least the folks in phase one had no idea about Hwy 410 before they bought there. So, if you can't give it to Dalton yet, at least you can try to give it to Allan. Good thing he has broad shoulders.

I used to have a friend named Liz

A long time ago I used to have a girl friend named Liz. She was a sweet girl who had the great misfortune of having lost her mother early and a father who drank. We were friends for years and she did what she could to cope. She was the woman of the house, went to school and was starting a career.

At the time I tried to tell her she was worth more than she gave herself credit for. She was selling herself short by not going to school and getting a better education. She didn't think she was smart enough, or strong enough to do it. She was a sweet girl and I didn't agree with her personal self-assessment.

I tried to get her to talk to people who could understand her situation but she balked at the idea. She coped and hopefully is continuing to cope. Hopefully she's married and with kids of her own now.

I remember being really taken aback when she told me that to help manage with everything they ate off paper plates each night so that she didn't have to deal with doing dishes. That was crazy, I thought. Now I'm starting to understand her a bit better.

Every once in a while I remember my old friend from Richmond Hill and wonder how she's doing these days.

Caledon Election update: last minute campaign tactics

Every election is a critical one but none has been more important for Caledon as the one that will take place on Monday, October 25, 2010.
Being a small town (well a large land mass but still a small town) the style of politics is of a much different flavor that what the good people of Toronto are used to. But so much is at stake this time around that the gap in styles has narrowed significantly.
I haven't been in Caledon long but from what I've seen and heard, the level of lies and underhanded tactics used this time around are truly unprecedented.
Most of it was more or less relayed through third party reports, though I did see signs missing that had been there in the morning and mysteriously vanished the next time I looked.
There were also reports of some unsavory prerecorded telephone calls. I think I got one but tend to hang up as soon as I hear a non-human voice following a pause when I pick up the phone. Still, enough people didn't hang up fast enough and heard all sorts of gag worthy innuendos.
Today, two days before the election we've reached a new low. Making sure that the signs would not be taken down due to timing they popped up where surely they would not have been permitted to go had permission been requested.
This squeals of desperation. If the support was really there they wouldn't have to wait for until after business hours on the 11th hour.
Here's hoping the good guys will win because the people of Caledon really aren't that gullible.

Halloween: The new commercial holiday

For as long as I can remember people have complained about the commercialization of Christmas. This really is shameful because at the heart of it Christmas is about family and friends getting together and arguing over family feuds that lay dormant for the the better part of the rest of the year. But, business being business, it has has turned in to a great revenue generator, as well.

Over the past ten or twenty years, the costume industry has taken the quaint custom of home made costumes into the dark ages. A large part of the fun used to be who could come up with the best costumes but now everybody shows up wearing the same off-the rack jobs.

Disney is one of the worst culprits. You used to be able to find a decent costume, as little as four years ago for $15. These days, they have added sparkle, shine, and on average about $50 to the price tag. You can go to Wal-Mart or Zellers or even Value Village but you are still looking at $27 a costume and starting to think that this is a pretty good deal.

Now that you have the costume in hand, where to go with it is the next question. Sure they get to go to school dressed up but most of the costumes are for in door use and Trick or Treating is usually done outside. Places like Old Navy have started selling great padded out-door costumes so there is evolution.

Anyway, back to where to go. I opened the latest Parent City magazine and was amazed to see the multitude, a venerable plethora of venues promising a howling good times`. The most interesting is the Haunted Forest shindig being held by the Friends of Terra Cotta, in Caledon. All they want is $5 in advance or $7 at the door. So, I am thinking that this is a good deal, plus the scenery is beautiful.

Now to decorations. You can spend a pretty penny for these things. Everybody from the dollar stores to the big box chains is hoping that you`ll do what you can to get into the spirit. Well who can blame them? If the appetite is there, why not try to feed it for a profit.

The fault really lies with our society. What ever happened to real world old-school pot luck gatherings? We are just that disjointed with our friends, family, and neighbors that it is simply easier to go out and buy a bunch of stuff instead of do a little planning and make one bowl of punch or a plate of haunted cup cakes.

The biggest problem with commercialization of holiday institutions is not that people want to opt for convenience. It's that the object of the game gets lost and all you are left with is the things you bought, not what you bought them for. The point loses substance and becomes a hollow shadow of what it started off as being.

So what to do? Either push your friends and family to put together gatherings worth holding where everybody does a little something or understand that this is the evolution and a step closer to the decline of the Western Civilization. These are all symptoms of a bigger affliction.

Remember that all things organic have a life cycle and we are on the way down. So either strap in for a speedy descent or realize that convenience is an emotional paradigm. It will be inconvenient to realize that all of your kids memories when they become adults will have been store bought.

Volunteering to care and why bother

I have to admit that most people don't get me. There are times that I start to not get myself but that's probably just because I let things bother me and wonder if they might have a point. In truth there really aren't all that many alternatives. You either live life like it matters or you sink deeper and deeper into self-absorbed apathy with each passing year.

You could call it a symptom of parenthood, wanting to create a better world for the next generation. I don't think that's it. That wouldn't explain all the years prior to now.

Much more likely, the disconnect is that people who are born and raised, and more than one generation in to a democratic society tend to take democracy for granted. They live in a false sense of security that this is the best of all possible worlds and surely the most logical so why bother defending it when it reason and common sense defends it for us. Horse shit!

Democracy is a fickle lover. While we sit and ponder and debate anybody who has subscribed to a different doctrine and believes in it with gusto is a threat to our way of life. Even our constitution will not protect us in a democratic society because it is entirely democratic to re-write the constitution to favor Sharia Law for Canada. All it would take is enough votes and the way current trends are moving, this won't take long to accomplish.

It used to be that what attracted people to Canada was a new and better way of life. I don't care what country or culture you come from, this was a universal fact. But somewhere along the line that changed. It became a safe-haven for terrorists in training and now I'm becoming convinced that they leave where they are from not to escape political and theological oppression as much as to bring their own back into the fold and enjoy a more humane climate (it's less hot here for most of the year). A few years ago there was an interesting little article about this being a preferred destination to escape unbearably hot Summers back home.

There is a silent war taking place on Western culture that is eroding and destabilizing the false security that has been enjoyed in North America for as long as Europeans were the chief source of import of new blood. Entire schools are being taught in languages other than English or even French because there is enough of a population to bear it, and they don't understand English or French all that well anyway.

Ask yourself, if they don't learn English, what else are they not learning. More importantly, what are they being taught?

Before you get your back up too much in reading this, ask yourself when is the last time you went to a minimum wage fast food outlet and saw mostly brown girls women behind the counter doing a lot more chatting and laughing (and not in English) and a lot less promptly serving the customer. They get to you, but after they finish their conversations. Ask yourself also, doesn't it seem like there are a whole bunch more people behind the counter than you were used to seeing but the service has gotten slower? If you haven't noticed it yet, just wait a little.

These aren't even the early signs that the face of North America is changing. It changed. A while ago. What are you going to do about it common sense is not waht you were brought up to believe it should be.

Caledon Meals on Wheels

There are a few fundamental truths to life and one of them is that if you are lucky enough to grow old you are likely to watch many of your friends and loved ones leave you. Each year brings a smaller inner circle until eventually you are surrounded by mostly strangers.

Twilight years deserve dignity and the arrogance of youth is rarely forgiving enough to adequately pay it forward. So, although it would truly be a perfect world if people realized that as a society we have a responsibility to care for the young, old, and infirm, we do not live in a perfect world.

How fortunate then that there are people who spend their days returning even a shred of human decency to those who have long since earned their place in this world. Organizations such as Caledon Meals on Wheels serve an essential function within our community, especially since geographically there is sometimes a tremendous amount of space between people who can no longer get around as well as they used to.

This coming Spring the SouthFields Village Voice will be putting on a fundraiser for Caledon Meals on Wheels. The event will include local artists, musicians, and an auction, as well as a fine meal. Proceeds will go to this worthy organization who should and must be supported by those who one day may very well be glad for their services.

If you are interested in helping organize the event please contact the SouthFields Village Voice.

The problem with communities pulling together

I just came home from a community school meeting. This is a group of mostly women sitting around a table, and God bless the one or two token men in the room to bring down the estrogen levels, discussing what can be done to raise money for programs and events within the school.

These are the people behind the field trips and books in the library and uniforms and multitudes of expenses that just are not covered by the province or the board.

They don't do it by sending their kids into the streets to knock on doors to sell cookies and chocolates. They get creative. Really creative. They have fun and they banter and except for the people who are part of the group they get very little thanks. People just take, accept and complain about yet another fundraiser, whether their kids benefit from the earnings or not.

The best part about it is that when the province gets wind of groups like this, they pull back their contribution even more because the community is filling in the gap. It's like getting a nice firm kick, and not in the behind.

So why do it? Why not? At the end of the day it is our kids and our school and you just have to do what you have to do. Sometimes you take the raw end of the stick because it isn't worth the sacrifice not to.

The reward is in the pudding, the kind the volunteers bring to the bake sales and the proverbial kind. It is in the smiles and the relationships and the pride that people, even the smallest people take in where the live and how they grew up.

I'm a city girl living in the country and I love the country.