Loading...
The Citizen, 2017-08-03, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 2017. PAGE 5. Other Views The future is wearing me out Given that I've spent 50 years writing about what's new in our community, our region and our country, I could be accused of being hypocritical for saying so but I'm getting tired with our current obsession with all that's new. Technological change has been so rapid in the last decade that people tend to think history began with the invention of the connected world of the smart phone. Everything is interpreted in light of this new "reality". Recently, the problems of Sears Canada have been covered by the media with a persistent story line that this is evidence of the effect of online shopping on traditional retailers. Certainly people buying online is affecting retailers, but one CBC business reporter was wise enough to point out that 90 per cent of retail purchases are still being made in stores. Sears' financial troubles may have been worsened by the trend toward online shopping but they began long before people started buying on the internet in exploding numbers. The place was just plain mismanaged — which makes it particularly galling that the company is paying millions in "retention bonuses" to the top executives who screwed things up while dismissing ordinary workers with no severance pay. (It's also ironic, as someone recently pointed out to me, that Sears was a leader in mail-order shopping but failed to make use of its expertise to dominate online shopping.) Sexy trends can be a handy crutch for bad management. The president of one of Canada's largest newspaper companies (who left briefly to head the party that wants to take Quebec out of Canada), was an early believer that digital media was the future of news distribution. But while he was promoting his view of the future, he was also constantly cutting costs at his Spa Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk newspapers, starving them of the resources needed to continue to make them relevant to their readers and advertisers. Readership dropped. So did advertising revenue. I'm sure that all this only proved to our self- appointed genius that his dire predictions about the future of print were true. Therefore, he made further cuts, which diminished the worth of his publications even more which resulted in fewer readers and less advertising which confirmed his bias and led to further cuts on a spiral into oblivion. Who knows what might have happened if he had decided instead to give his papers the resources to make them so useful to their communities that they were irreplaceable. But people get caught up in the thrill of new things. Right now the story, told over and over on newscasts and business shows, is about the imminent takeover of the trucking industry by driverless trucks. Apparently truck drivers will soon join the long list of people whose jobs no longer exist. Quite frankly, although I've cursed some drivers of big rigs (particularly salt trucks) over the years, the idea of a computer guiding an 18 -wheeler at highway speeds, and in our snowbelt conditions, terrifies me. Next up, the experts say, will be cars without drivers. For futurists this may seem inevitable but I wonder how readily people will sit back in a computer -controlled car after generations of advertising has promoted the pleasure of steering a car along winding country roads. The futurists aren't stopping for such emotional roadblocks. They're rushing ahead, predicting that in the age of driverless cars fewer people will even want to own a car. Instead there will be car sharing. When you actually need a car you'll send a message and the car will come and pick you up and take you where you want to go. I can see the attraction for people living in an 80 -storey condominium where it can cost as much to park your car as it does to park yourself, but somehow I don't see country people being anxious to grasp this future. This car -sharing future, in turn, will mean trouble for car makers because there will be far fewer cars being built. It will also, the predictors say, eliminate traffic jams and reduce space needed for parking lots — which will no doubt be turned into 80 -storey condo towers. Who will be able to buy these tower homes I haven't been able to figure out. Not only entry-level jobs like truck and taxi drivers are likely to be replaced, according to the futurists, but artificial intelligence will replace doctors and lawyers and stock brokers and financial advisers. I even read a prediction this week that in future scripts for movies may be written by smart computers (which I hope are smarter than some of the humans currently writing so many dumb movies). I grew up in an era when saving labour was nearly everyone's goal because the previous generation did back -breaking work. Now I have to wonder who in the future, aside from the handful of people who design and operate these artificial intelligent machines, will have any job at all? hetti sauce and other memories always amazed that, for creatures so reliant on vision, human memories can be J'rn ied so closely to smell and taste. Whether it's the smell of a favourite dessert recalling someone's childhood or the smell of a significant other's perfume harkening back to when the couple first met, smell has a powerful ability to cause humans to recollect the past. One of the best examples I can remember is gingerbread. My grandmother, in Seaforth, had a plug-in air freshener in her kitchen that was shaped like a gingerbread man (or maybe I should say gingerbread person; I don't want to discriminate) and loaded with the sweet smell of the baked dessert. I don't recall any gingerbread ever being baked in that kitchen, but the smell of gingerbread will always take me back to a time before my grandparents remodeled their kitchen and you could catch hints of gingerbread cookies the minute you stepped through the door. My grandparents' Florida vacation home had some kind of rubber windows in part of the house and they had a smell. Sometimes, some rubber things will give me a partial whiff of that smell and I'm reminded of watching U.S. television, eating U.S. cereals and crashing through the door when heavy rains forced me and my sister back indoors. Not all odours bring back pleasant reminders, however. My mother always wore the same perfume to church on Sunday and, to this day, I can't smell it without be transported back to the my early childhood. Before I get into trouble here, there was nothing wrong with going to church and nothing wrong with the perfume. The unpleasant memory was the long, hot car rides from Goderich to Seaforth and back again on Sunday mornings. When I was younger that 25 -minute drive seemed to be endless because Denny Q,,.,rr SCott 1110111 Denny's Den I was particularly prone to motion sickness. I couldn't read or play handheld video games. I had to stare out the window, trying not to sweat through my clothes. To this day, briefly smelling that perfume reminds me of those seemingly long trips in our Sunday best, the same way gingerbread reminds me of my grandmother's kitchen. Taste is a similar thing. The taste and smell of apple pie will always remind me of family celebrations, again, at my grandmother's house. Recently, I discovered that one of the defining smells and tastes of my childhood has been discontinued: Kraft's Bravo spaghetti sauce. I'm not trying to sell anyone on how great the sauce is, I'm just saying that it was a staple of my childhood (and my teen years, and when I moved to school and started making my own spaghetti, and... well up until Kraft announced it was discontinuing it). My wife Ashleigh could never understand why I was so dead set on using Bravo and, while I could explain why I think it's great, I think I'd rather just tie this into the message: it was a smell and a taste from my childhood. There is just something about the smell of Bravo spaghetti sauce with ground beef heating up on the stove that, even as an adult, puts a smile on my face. It's become even more important in recent years because it wasn't just the smell and taste of my mother's kitchen, but the smell and taste of home and home is an important notion. Throughout countless all-nighters before exams or project deadlines, I would eat high- energy food to keep me awake and then, when all the work was done, I would put on a pot of spaghetti made with Bravo and the smell would remind me of home. After a rough week of work where I've had to cover a half-dozen events after-hours and then work the weekend, I could look forward to a Sunday -night spaghetti and Bravo dinner. We're coming up on our vacation here at The Citizen, and, usually that starts with my editor Shawn and I grabbing a meal together to put a symbolic start on the week -and -a -half break. I usually would make spaghetti (made with, you guessed it, Bravo) that night. Like I said, it's not about the flavour being superior and it's not about trying to hawk Bravo (though I'd gladly take a life -time supply to be a spokesperson), it's about tradition. Traditions like Bravo are what bring peace to a rough week or a long day. When everything gets turned upside down, there is something you can rely on to turn it right -side up again. Unfortunately, as I stated, Kraft has discontinued the sauce. There are petitions to bring it back, empassioned pleas and this, my own explanation of what made it important, but in the end, it was likely a fiscally - driven decision and one that's not likely to change. Fortunately for me, Mary Jane hasn't had spaghetti yet, so I have a little time to figure out what our family's very own spaghetti sauce will be and start planning to make it at the end of her rough days. I guess that's the good thing about traditions, it's never too late to put your own spin on something that meant a lot throughout your life. Shawn Loughlin Shawn's Sense A patchwork legacy Jn talking with Jacquie Bishop, chair of the 2017 International Plowing Match (IPM), we discussed an interesting and unconventional legacy the event may leave stamped on the countryside. It was when the Huron County Plowing Match was held in Morris-Turnberry last year that I was first introduced to the concept of a barn quilt. Denny's wife Ashleigh had gone into labour and he was off the grid. That would be the kind of event that Denny would spend most of the day covering, so with him out of the picture, Publisher Keith Roulston and I had to cobble our coverage together. It was a busy time of year, so Keith and I had to really figure out coverage down to the minute, with me showing up to relieve him of his duties just minutes after I had to be somewhere and minutes before he had to be somewhere. However, since Ashleigh was in active labour at the time, I shouldn't get too into how hard it was for me and Keith. When I arrived to take over for him, he told me that I should go speak to Cheryl Gardiner, who was working with the local IPM folks to implement some barn quilts into the Huron County landscape. These wooden panels, he said, are painted beautifully to reflect a family history, heritage or, really, anything the buyer wanted to display on the side of his or her barn. I thought it was nice at the time, but I wasn't quite sure if it would take off. Well it certainly has and Huron County residents have bought in wholeheartedly to the concept, developing their very own trail of barn quilts that will likely consist of dozens of stops by the time the IPM rolls around this September. Much of this credit goes to Gardiner, who was at the forefront of the concept, and to Tim Prior of Brussels Agri -Services, who sponsored the barn quilt competition. It has really encouraged plenty of locals to take part and spruce up their barns or homes, and there are no losers when something like that happens. I know Jack Ryan has one on his home, which serves as a memorial tribute to his late wife Marianna. Brian Schlosser of the Brussels Agricultural Society has one and local organizations like the Huron Pioneer Thresher and Hobby Association have gotten in on the act. These pieces of art just pop off the buildings and really make for beautiful scenery throughout Huron County. Deb Falconer and the rest of the IPM beautification committee wisely made the barn quilt trail part of their mandate and that has no doubt spurred residents on as well. However, back to my conversation with Bishop, the idea of a barn quilt is great ahead of the IPM. The tens of thousands of people travelling Huron County roads in the days leading up to and during the match will see these pieces and they will no doubt be impressed. Once the IPM is over, however, these pieces of art, most of which are a testament to rural life in Ontario, will remain as a lasting, artistic legacy to the IPM. I hadn't thought of the footprint they would leave behind, but it's a great way to memorialize the event that is bound to be a success. By thinking outside the box and embracing a non-traditional form of sprucing things up around the farm, those organizing the 2017 IPM may have accomplished something that no other match before it has and Huron County residents and visitors alike stand to benefit from that decision for years to come.