Meaford downtown after 11 p.m. is quite the experience.

There are moments when all one can hear is the hum of electricity through the lights and at times, the knowledge this big beautiful bay is right at our front door because she's crashing up a storm.

It's easy to slide back 100 odd years and picture the horses, the mud, the dress, the difference in the content of the noise, horses to cars. This downtown core breathes history and she shares it with you but these have not been this town's finest hours. It feels more like 180 degrees to our finest hour actually.

Outside of this building, there are some benches Pam Poetker and I put along side the mural for guests to "sit back" and take it all in... like Jack, this very happy guy watching the world go by almost on a daily basis. We've missed him this winter. Someone busted a few boards on two of the benches and I wonder why this happens.

Lots of possible answers, I know, but there is one that would be very important to me. We adults, based on the performance of our town in the last number of years, all of us are responsible, in some way through our actions but also for those of who have stayed out of it, like my wife and I, who have disengaged to some degree with the town proper or maybe better said, loving this town but more as a loner than a contributor.

We are like a family in the middle of a big tiff and all of us play a role, some play a big role and many of us a small part. Kids are supposed to gather the tools we teach them through our actions, words and deeds and based on how this town has crumbled in its morale, I wonder how our kids would rate us? Would they aspire to spend tens of thousands of dollars on university to have these amazing results?  Or vote by tossing flower pots off bridges, railings out of gazebos or painting big boobs on the women in the mural?

As I walked back to my building, I remembered the graffiti that was scribbled all over the third floor plaster before we renovated. This is the floor above the big mural across from Foodland, the mural that also gets vandalized a lot, the mural Gunter Neumann repaired numerous times, taking hours, and he told no one about his donation of time.

I like that quality in a person. Pencil, chalk, paint, knife, markers were the tools used to chronicle over 100 years of individual perspectives of folks who worked here, visited here, or broke in and shared a few beers, kissed their first girl here. The glaring spelling mistake from 1937, "Lary Loves Betsy" or the 1943 "Another 17 soldiers shipped out of Owen Sound today" and the 1982 "Thanks Meaford for a great time! Laughing Water Festival Committee."
 

The 1980's... those were great years here... we can do it again... this town deserves to be a happy town, a grateful town. This is paradise... this is an option that is open to us.

Just an opinion but a passionate one. What a gem we have and I believe we are ready to kiss and make up and then let's party! Let's begin asking the question, "What is it we as a town, as families, as individuals, as elderly, as kids, as animal lovers, as business folks, farmers want this town and municipality to be for you and how can we all get along respecting each other?"

Let's develop through constructive dialogue a vision that will be fun creating every step of the way, all of us contributing a part, minimal as it may be. We may learn to respect each other, respect each other for doing our part and because of this respect, we begin to relax and enjoy each other's contributions. This is not hard... it's just a choice.

Stand on the Main Street of Meaford after 11 p.m. and let the moment take you away in time... those times when this community banded together in a very cool, intense and meaningful way. The answer lies in those great times. It's easier than we think and it doesn't need the assistance of wars, a depression, or any other tragedy to do this.

It's time to STOP and start asking the hard questions of what we all want to create as a town, as a municipality. There is no "real" master plan put together by this very large family. We have given this current "democratic" process enough time and based on the current conversations I am hearing, it sounds like we are in for much more of the same.

That would be a crying shame, a shame! If we cannot resolve a Georgian Beach conflict or the current dysfunctional state, how could we ever begin to imagine a peaceful Middle East or any location on this planet. It's so simple IF there is a collective will!