I remember as a youngster and young adult here in Vernon, how proud I was of our Christmas lighting in the downtown core and along 32nd Street.
We had the main street lit with these decorations that consisted of a green, tinsel garland outline, (kind of like a house or shield) with three bells inside that were an orangey-red.
They were later replaced by the stars you now only see in the 3400 block on main. Only then, they were kept up, looked good and had colour.
We also had the famous Harold’s Star which hung over the intersection of main street and 32nd Street.
What was nice to see was there was actually some creative effort put into the process of decorating downtown.
The other thing that was so amazing and cool in Vernon was coming into town, especially from the south end, and seeing the red tunnel ahead of the red lights hung on the street lights of 32nd Street.
They were simple but effective because they were large, round red bulbs with red tinsel-type garland to enhance the effect of the lights and it was like a red carpet welcoming all to town.
Well, things have changed haven’t they?
We are now focused on energy-efficient LED lighting.
There are many options out there to choose from and what do we get, white lights put on trees downtown, in no particular pattern, that only cover 60 to 75 per cent of each tree.
The yellowish-gold stars are nice and albeit, not LED, are quite effective, but, with the absence of the Harold’s Star, the absence of colour overall is abundantly apparent.
The downtown should be lit with multi-colours of LED lights, strung properly with more effort into covering the whole tree.
You want to entice people to come downtown and stay awhile, right?
Give us something to enjoy.
Get the colour back in and if some of the tinsel needs fixing, fix it.
There’s an old saying that still holds true, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”
Now, you can go on about what it all costs and how the City Of Vernon doesn’t have the money, but everyone knows that’s a matter of perspective.
The decorations were great back in the day, and made it a pleasure to walk downtown in the snow, or drive through slowly and look up at all of it.
Colour brings out happiness in people, but we are losing that, and guess what (pay attention council and staff), unhappy people don’t like to spend money.
Think about that.
Rory White
Vernon
