Could It Happen Soon

I just have my fingers crossed. I keep hoping that it will happen. Sooner rather than later of course.

I am sure that you know what I'm talking about don't you, dear reader? Yes, I am hoping that the extra long winter is finally going to end and that spring will be here shortly. I have had enough of the cold winter this year. I was never out for a walk once over the last few months unlike other years when the temperatures increased and I was able to go out for strolls for quite a number of times. I really missed being able to do that this year.

I do not want to mention this but if you don't see as many articles being published here as before then you will know that I am going out for nice long walks once the temperature starts getting better. I do that for two reasons as I am sure that you know. First, the weather is just so pleasant that it is a real treat to go out with one of my family members to look around. Secondly, I must do so for my medical reasons. I have to stay medically fit physically by going out for these walks.  I have been doing that since I moved to my new home in Tecumseh.

Of course, I have a theory about why winter has taken so long to end. In fact, it really has not been all that much longer than normal the way I see it.  My opinion is that the winter time frame did not start when it normally does. 

Don't you remember?  Last year it seemed as if the autumn season never ended. I can remember leaves never seeming to fall from the trees for such an extra long time. If that is true, then "winter" never started on time but started much later.  If that is so, then adding on the "normal" winter time length from the time it started until now is probably the same amount of time as usual.  Now you will understand why we are not seeing the start of spring time until now. There, another theory of mine!

I had better start writing some stories now so that you can read them because I am going to start to prepare to go for my walking trips very soon. I want to let you know what I think the important new stories in our area are these days.

QUITE AN EARTHQUAKE 

I am up very early in the morning so I do start getting ready to go to sleep around 8 PM every night. However, earthquake night changed my evening requiring that I stay up later.

I heard the noise all right because it was quite loud but I did not feel too much shaking. Obviously I had no idea what this was all about and my first assumption was that some huge truck was just passing my house on the road nearby. In fact, I went outside the house to see where the truck went or perhaps where parked because I no longer heard a noise. Naturally, I did not see one.

I then received a phone call from my daughter who broke the news to me about what happened. She told me about the earthquake that took place quite a distance away from where we lived I thought. Yet, we were able to hear the horrific sound of what took place. It was quite shocking to be honest as far as I was concerned.

I saw a story written in one of the newspapers saying that we might still feel aftershocks but so far I have not felt any. Thank goodness for that. I just don't need to feel shaking or hear these strange sounds anymore.

I wonder what the consequence is to this earthquake. Are we going to feel another one soon or is this finished for a very long time? If we do get another one, where will it take place? Would it be any bigger in its magnitude? Would it cause damage the next time because this time there was none?

By the way, and I do not want to appear to be strange, but an odd thing occurred that morning. After the earthquake, I just wondered if there was a real reason why what took place in the morning.

I rarely sleep other than going to bed at night. Yet this morning after I got up, had breakfast, checked my computer system and documents and did some work around the house, I felt almost totally exhausted around 10 AM. It was so bad that I had to go back into bed and rested for about another hour. When I got up, I felt quite refreshed.

I know what that was about now I think. My body got a message somehow that I would need extra sleep in order to keep me up to follow up what happened with the earthquake and afterwards that evening! That's my story and I am sticking to it.

GORD AND THE WINDSOR MAYOR

Quite an interesting column in the Windsor Star written by Gord Henderson: "Only Drew Dilkens could derail his own bid for a second term."  

I can't figure out the reason why Gord wrote this story. Here is something that he said right at the beginning that caught my imagination:

"With nominations set to begin in just 10 days, it appears the one person who could derail Mayor Drew Dilkens in his campaign for a second term would be Dilkens himself.

Given that the Windsor economy is on fire and employers are down on their knees begging for workers, it’s hard to view this mayoral race as anything other than a Dilkens coronation."

I found it amazing that he would think that Drew's possibility of being re-elected was that easy. After all, this comment of his a little while later in the column was not very satisfactory about the Mayor:

"But [Drew's] comments are sure to alienate a significant part of his base, conservative voters who’ve had it with political correctness, identity politics and being lectured about their “privileges” — and want their mayor to focus on running an efficient city while holding the line on taxes."

In fact, he really did not give Dilkens much credit for the benefits that are taking place here even though they are seemingly happening these days while he is still the Mayor:

"The task in 2018 is vastly more daunting. How do you challenge a mayor presiding over an economic renaissance? You can claim it wasn’t his doing but there’s no arguing against Windsor’s Lazarus-like recovery this term."

I have my own theory about what was said by Gord that may have no basis in reality at all but it is one that I thought about. To be direct about it, isn't he in fact telling people not to run against Dilkens for the position of Mayor! It is a rather negative sense of comments about Dilkens in this column but in the end he seems to be suggesting that Dilkens will win. 

What I found interesting though about what was said was the names of the people that he mentioned who might be running for Mayor against Dilkens. One person was Matt Marchand while another was Larry Horwitz.  Neither of them really have a chance. Then he mentioned Dave Cooke and his comment about Dilkens: "...impressed with Drew in the last six months."

Presumably, everyone would now think that Dilkens will be Mayor and no one of any significance at all would run against him. After all, why run, spend money and lose badly. Now that may be true except for one thing. A person who still might be running for Mayor was not mentioned at all in the column. That person is the brother of former Mayor, Eddie Francis: Councillor Fred Francis.

I was surprised that the Columnist in the Star did not interview him or even mention him at all nor did he let us know what he thought about his chances of running and perhaps winning. I was rather surprised about it.

Maybe, and I have no idea whether this is true or not, the Councillor may well be running for Mayor but is not going to make that announcement early on. After all, didn't his brother run for Mayor after only one term as Councillor in the past. That is Fred's position today.

I doubt it will scare too many people to run against him if he announces early on so that they have a lot of time to develop a campaign against him. Instead, he will make his announcement as late as possible so that his opponents will have very little time of planning a strategy against him. I expect that Fred will have a well-developed campaign ready especially if his brother is involved in helping him run.

My view also is that Dilkens may know about that happening and not really care very much because he expects to have a new job after his term of Mayor. In other words, he is not running for Mayor again but will not make an announcement until it is probably too late for anyone else to do so other than Councillor Francis.

It will be interesting to see who does run for Mayor in Windsor and who announces that he/she is going to do so. Depending on who runs and when, then I will have a much better idea about who to expect will be the next Mayor of Windsor.