We’ve all the heard the saying, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.” However, it always seems to be the one breaking the egg who comes out with that comment.
The equipment to build the new Mufford overpass has moved on site and the work has started. Regardless of your position on where it’s supposed to go, we need to keep traffic moving as the trains get longer and more people move into our community.
At the risk of sounding like a tree hugger, I’m sad to see the trees come down along Glover and the rich farmland being peeled back and hauled away.
I was scooting along Hog Alley (look it up!) between 216 Street and Glover, and I noticed two huge herons watching the ponds for lunch. Just behind them a couple of deer were barely visible grazing among the trees. They were all oblivious to the signs advertising the overpass and the stakes with orange ribbon fluttering in the breeze. No doubt they will be losing their lunch counter.
But most of all I am dismayed to watch the old family homes crushed and broken in a matter of minutes by huge machines. They remind of simpler times, big working farms and kids I went to school with.
The latest home to go is Pat and Merv Mufford’s home on Mufford Crescent. You’ve all passed the little blue and white rancher many times on the way to Costco or Canadian Tire. Lately, the yard was overgrown, the roof covered with a tarp and old cars littered the lawn — a far cry from the tidy home the Muffords lived in.
It was built just close enough to the barn to walk across the field and just far enough away to get the mud off Merv’ s boots when he came home for lunch. It was originally built at the dead end of a gravel lane that became Mufford Crescent. They were my neighbours and paper customers. The house was home to people I knew.
Our heritage society does an amazing job preserving and dedicating what they can, and we are all better for their strong voice when it comes to saving our history.
After all, the houses can’t speak for themselves, but when I see them sitting abandoned, staring out windows that look like hollow, vacant eyes, I do believe they would much rather be filled with laughter and surrounded by family once again. At least that’s what McGregor says.
Homesick
I wonder when they’re coming back,
They’ve been gone for quite awhile;
The wind has bruised
The open door again;
It’s damp inside, and puddles lie,
Under shingles being
Bullied by the rain.
I wonder when they’re coming back
It’s been quiet far too long;
I need to hold
A child’s laugh inside;
It’s damp outside and puddles lie,
Formed by lonely
Teardrops I have cried.
