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Lone
Wolf
Howl:
COCHRANE'S ALL AMERICAN FUTURE??
(Originally
published
in
Cochrane Times: April 26, 2006)
for the Cochrane Times — On a sunny Friday afternoon last week, a few hundred of the faithful were out for a walk down main street, carrying a cross, stopping for prayers, singing a few hymns.Is it just me, or does anyone else fail to recall any notice in the papers saying the streets would be closed off for a portion of the holiday? Did the issue go before town council? I don’t recollect any outcry from downtown businesses, concerned about the stoppage of traffic. Funny how last summer, a proposal to shut off a side street (not the main drag) for an Artwalk was not only met with opposition but successfully overruled forcing the event to take place in an alley. Priorities. It strikes me as odd that the march down Via Dolorosa is commemorated as the peak event of the Passion, and not the crucifixion (or should I say– for those of you up on the recent bestseller list – crucifiction). I guess nailing some poor volunteer up on a cross to re-enact the atonement of bloodshed is a bit too extreme, even in an age where religious fundamentalists freely fly planes into skyscrapers on the basis of their beliefs. In any case, the true defining moment of the entire Christian mystery as I understand it – the one event that separated the Christian experience from the flotsam and jetsam of all the other mythologies washing up on the shore of the Dead Sea at the time – lies with the resurrection of the body (not its exhausting march to Calvary and subsequent destruction). Someone rising from the dead… now that would be worth closing the streets over. Turns out the only thing resurrected in this town last week was the issue of Wal-Mart. The debate pops up wherever and whenever this big name American corporation dares to close in on a small town market, making it hard for the mom & pop outfits of fair little burgs like ours to thrive and survive. A fair little burg, mind you, that already boasts two Starbucks, a Blockbuster, a Safeway, and a handful of other big name chains with their links originating from south of the border. Any memos sent to Chamber of Commerce members to get feedback before they moved in? Any support networks in place for businesses facing struggles from them? Again, I think I missed those news reports. Drive into town someday off the Trans Canada; ride your bike down the 22 and what do you see? A strip of services that makes this town look like every other town in Alberta, in Canada, and ultimately (the final solution), like every American town has looked since we kicked the Indians off the land and opened for business. What makes Cochrane so special we think we can stop the ineluctable slide towards complete and total homogenization? So bring on the Wal-Mart, I say, but let’s consider where we build it. Why not construct it along the western edge of town (if said edge ever stands still long enough to pinpoint), and add a second and third storey to it so it’s the biggest, best Wal-Mart for miles around? Let’s not do things modestly! This is Cochrane, after all. The best part is this megastorey megastore will block out the view of the mountains once and for all leaving no reminders of what this town once was, or what it could have (and perhaps should have) been. I will only be able to tolerate the ugliness of Wal-Mart if I’m not reminded of the surrounding beauty it has violated. After the mega-Mart is up and taking its place as our new temple of worship, some radical member of the paganmuslimchristianhindubuddhistjewishevangelicalAmway sect will fly her 747 into it and wipe it off the face of Easter once and for all. We’ll build a mountain of a monument (sponsored by Burger King) commemorating the fallen. Every Good Friday (renamed the Ronald McDonald Great Friday Tradition because ‘good’ Friday wasn’t good enough for corporate branding), we’ll gather as a community and march up Bill Gates Avenue, crosses in hand, which we’ll erect on our monumental mountain (with wood purchased at The Home Depot, as Spray Lakes will have long since been put out of business). Or better yet, we’ll stay home and watch the event every year on one of the 10 plasma screens we each have in our modest 5,500 square foot homes. That is if we aren’t too busy keeping watch over our lawns – guns in hand – waiting for that damn kid to walk across it just one more time. So bring on the Wal-Mart, I say! Bring on the Wal-Mart, and by so doing we’ll bring on those good ole’ boy American values they keep locked and loaded on a rack in the cab of their Ford pickups. In the words of Alberta guitarist extraordinaire Lester Quitzau (who, BTW, will play the Cochrane Valley Folk Club next season): "Welcome to America. Ain’t it strange." (barry@lonewoftheatre.com) Back to Resources Page |