Mike Farwell

Like many of you, I spend most winters longing for the days the snow has melted, the sun is shining warmer, and I don’t have to scrape the snow off my windshield before leaving for work. And then there are days like today.

I just cut the grass for the first time this season. Guess I know what I’ll be doing every Saturday morning between now and October. If you know the bright side to this (or know or have a kid that works cheap), I’m all ears.

The city of Kitchener is making a mistake by trying to re-locate a group that feeds the homeless on Saturdays from a site in front of City Hall. The group, known as Food Not Bombs, has been making use of space at the corner of King and Young for nine years. The group is there with the city’s blessing. But now, as revitalization becomes the multi-syllabic buzzword of the day in Kitchener’s core, council would rather hide the homeless and the hungry. Shame on them.

The city insists that it has no issue with its hungry citizens being fed, and I believe that. But I also believe that council’s insistence that this group re-locate — perhaps to a less visible side of City Hall — is a bid to mask what is a very real, and perhaps even growing problem in our community. Allowing Food Not Bombs the right to provide food for the underprivileged is only solving half of the problem. The other half will be solved when we acknowledge that the issue exists and we begin to address its root causes.

This is not only a community of great affluence, it is one of great intelligence. Surely to goodness there is a way of addressing the problem of poverty without trying to tuck it into a less visible corner. Perhaps we can look down the 401 to Toronto, where Mayor David Miller is being lauded for his approach to cracking down on panhandling. After a series of complaints from citizens and businesspeople, Mayor Miller adopted an approach that employed street workers to find permanent housing. Three years after launching the initiative, the “Streets to Home” program has housed 1750 people who at one time had been Toronto’s problem panhandlers. If Toronto can accomplish that in three years, it makes you wonder what Kitchener has been doing for the past nine. And still, rather than address the issue, the city simply wants to hide it.

We can make the problem go away, but we will not accomplish that by simply moving it to another locale. We need a collective effort and a multi-pronged approach that involves council, business, police, and citizens like you and I. It won’t make the problem disappear overnight but it is unfair of us to further ostracize these already marginalized members of our community in the meantime.

A telemarketer did a remarkable thing yesterday. She actually left a message on my answering machine at home. Yes, this young woman was persistent. Sadly, all credit for that persistence was lost in the first few words she spoke.

The voicemail began with “this is a message for the lady of the house” and I simply had to ask myself, in this day and age of 50% divorce rates, is that really the most appropriate way to launch a sales pitch? Based on the statistics alone, half your potential audience may not even have that other half. But over and above that, as a single guy, I’d like to know if these people are just trying to make me feel bad! I know there is no “lady of the house” at my house. That’s abundantly clear on a daily basis, thank you very much. And I’m not so sure I appreciate the reminder. I don’t even remember what she was selling because I quickly deleted the message.

Something else that comes with being a single guy is advice, and I’m often told that meeting the right person is all in the approach. What I need, so I’m told, is that perfect opening line. Maybe these telemarketers could take a lesson.

Good thing I was quickly able to overcome the sadness of my singledom that followed the message. I just cracked a beer and sat on the couch to watch the sports highlights. Because that’s what single guys do.

So here we sit on the eve of the Ontario Hockey League finals. After posting a record 53 regular season wins, and then storming through the playoffs with a 12-1 record to date, is it any wonder that the Rangers are one of the teams vying for championship? The ride of the 2007-08 season has been nothing short of remarkable.

And still I approach tomorrow’s game with mixed feelings. Having watched this remarkable run from the press box alongside my Rogers TV partner Mike Torchia, you can’t help but feel an attachment to it. I’m not suggesting we played any role in the record- setting season but we have no doubt been there every step of the way. As it turns out, though, tomorrow’s game could be the final Rogers TV broadcast of the season.

Every now and again, the “big guys” (Peter Loubardias and Sam Cosentino) from our parent network, Rogers SportsNet, will come to Kitchener to call a game. They’ve selected Game 3 of this series, which falls on Sunday in Kitchener. Mike Torchia and I don’t call the road games for Rogers, so if this series is a sweep for either team, it will end next Tuesday in Belleville. And that means it’s conceivable that tomorrow’s game could be our last broadcast of the season, as SportsNet also broadcasts every game during the Memorial Cup tournament. I’ll try not to think about that too much as we drop the puck for what should be a very exciting series.

I guess all good things really do come to an end.

I’m done with drive-thrus. Actually, I’m sure you know that already. Now I want you to be done with them, too. Please. If for no other reason than when the Martians invade and see what we’re doing, we’re really going to be displaying a complete lack of intelligence “down here.”

To wit, this morning I found myself on the opposite side of Kitchener as I came to work from Grand River Hospital. So rather than stop at my usual Tim’s, I pulled into the outlet at King and Andrew, beside Central Meat Market. More appropriately, I should say I tried to pull into Tim’s because at this tiny coffee stop there is precious little parking, and even less space for the drive-thru. So the cars were backed up into the street. I finally found an opening in the line, turned into the parking lot, parked, and went inside the store. There was not a sole waiting to be served inside. Not one. I was in and out so quickly that I walked past the front of the same car on my way out of the store as I had walked past on my way in. It hadn’t moved.

If drive-thrus are supposed to be demonstrating our efficiency, I must be missing something. I’ve seen a lot of dumb things in my life, but the 14 or so people waiting in their cars this morning have got to be among the dumbest. What on earth is the matter with us?

What a welcome return to milder weather this weekend. Not only did it add a decidedly spring-like touch to the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival, but it just brought more people “out.” Everywhere you looked there was another jogger, dog walker, or family simply enjoying the opportunity to be outdoors without a parka. Some even wore shorts. It might be a little early for that in my mind but hey, more power to them.

Of course, the end of winter raises the inevitable question in these here parts. Would we appreciate the spring and summer as much as we do if not for the winter that interrupts it? Most people I talk to say no, we wouldn’t. I say there’s only one way to find out. I’ll send you a postcard from California in December and let you know how much I miss the snow.

While en route to the Rogers Television studios the other night, I made a phone call. I know that makes me a horrible human being in the books of some, and I apologize. But the fact of the matter is that I find the ten minute drive to the studio to be quite useful for getting things accomplished every now and again, and the other night was no exception. Still, with recent talk of provincial cell phone bans ringing in my ears, I was more aware than ever of the chance I was taking. When the person on the other end of the phone started giving me the phone numbers of some other people I should call, I knew I had to take drastic action.

I pulled over to the side of the road. I might have been able to remember one number until I had a chance to write it down later, but certainly not a handful of them. So I pulled onto the shoulder of Highway 8, just as you come off the flyover. It’s a wide shoulder and there’s plenty of room. Or so I thought. But as I sat at the side of the road, scribbling down phone numbers and staying out of harm’s way, not one or two, but several passing cars blared their horns. So much for safely pulling to the side of the road to continue a cell phone conversation.

 I’ll just assume that each blast of the horn was a blast of support.

When I was a kid, my dad used to take me to Kitchener Rangers games. My fanaticism would have been at its peak when the likes of Brian Bellows, Al MacInnis, Paul Coffey and Scott Stevens were skating on Auditorium ice, though the significance of that was lost entirely on me at the time. I was just a kid watching my hockey heroes.

It occurs to me that things haven’t changed all that much. Though calling hockey players half my age my “heroes” might be a bit of a stretch, I certainly admire the season the Kitchener Rangers just had. The thing is, it didn’t dawn on me until after the fact just how special this season has really been. I suspect it’s got something to do with being so close to the team, covering it as I do for Rogers Television. This past season, winning just became sort of routine. And it wasn’t until the day after that record-setting 53rd win that it really occurred to me that I had watched history unfold over the past six months. The 53 wins put up by this year’s edition of the Kitchener Rangers surpasses the 52 victories earned by those teams that featured the likes of Bellows, MacInnis, Coffey, Stevens et al. The significance this time is not lost on me, and I’m proud to have been as closely asssociated with the team as I have been this season. In fact, every one of you as fans should be equally proud. More than six thousand of you packed the Grand Ol’ Barn in Kitchener every Friday night. We all had a first-hand account of a historical season.

I couldn’t help but reflect on this last night as we watched the Rangers exorcise a ghost of playoffs past by sweeping aside the Plymouth Whalers — the team that eliminated Kitchener last year.

Of course, it’s worth noting that the Rangers also swept their first round series last season.

I put something in the mail today. Not in the electronic mail, but in one of those red boxes that are serviced by Canada Post. I know, it’s strange. But believe it or not, the company that provides heating oil to my home does not offer the option of making an online payment, so I write a cheque every month and drop it in the mail. Still works, too. Imagine that.

As I carried out the monthly ritual this morning, I did as I have always done. Open the slot, drop in the envelope, then re-open the slot to ensure the envelope found it’s way into the box — lest the mail carrier miss it. Just the way Mom taught me when I used to mail letters as a kid. I guess old habits really do die hard.

So researchers at the University of Florida have decided that red light cameras cause more crashes. Of course they do. I mean, I’ve driven through the four intersections (soon to be eight) in Waterloo Region that have the cameras installed and every time I do, that darn camera flashes that blinding light that causes me to lose control. Huh?

What the researchers found is that there are more crashes, especially rear-enders, at intersections where the cameras are installed. The theory is that drivers realize too late that they’re about to earn a 110-dollar ticket, so they slam on the brakes. And the driver behind slams into them. Presto! More crashes. But to say it’s the camera causing the crash is asinine, if not downright irresponsible.

Note to researchers: it’s not the camera’s fault. The driver is to blame, same as always! The bottom line is that if the first driver wasn’t in such a hurry, he or she wouldn’t be gambling on hitting the gas pedal at the first sign of a yellow signal. And if the second driver wasn’t following too closely, he or she would not have run into the back of the first car.

Here’s the simple equation that should come out of every driving study. One bad driver plus another bad driver equals one rear end collision. They ought to make that required learning in the driver’s ed curriculum.