The Wandering Mowmen

After our little park cleaning escapade on Saturday we have somehow managed to get a nickname. quite unintentional, and quite misleading - one of the 'mowmen' is indeed a woman. I guess mowmen just has a better ring the mowpeople. That kinda sounds like we should be living in a dark hole somewhere.

Thank you to all who passed along the post from Saturday, it's nice to see that the word is getting out there that there are people who just don't give a shit anymore about the contract dispute between CUPE and the City of Windsor. There are more people out there who want to get back to normal than carry this ridiculous strike on any further. My blog from Saturday had the most hits of any posting since I started Mid Life Pie. It's not that I'm in it for the hits, but it does lend credence to the idea that people are concerned about the situation and are navigating to stories about it. In this case, a feel good story. We haven't had enough of those, and apparently we won't see them on the news unless we cause them!

We see too much of this...

Or this...

Yes, CUPE has made some public relations afronts, but all too often they are completely overshadowed by the crap their members manage to pull. CUPE put down their picket signs one afternoon to clean up a park in Forest Glade so little league baseball could continue, and they also cleaned up the cenotaph in time for the D Day remembrance ceremonies. I'm sure there are more goodwill gestures, but they have been overshadowed by the public relations boondoggles that have forever branded them with city residents. Could we attribute this to our local media only attending events that will shock viewers? Is it not newsworthy that a group of residents took back a park?

Then there was this...

That answered my question. But even this, was media savvy due to it's somewhat startling nature. People want the clash between the two sides, or so that's how the media portrays things. We could have called the local TV or newspaper when we took back the park, but that wasn't the reason we did it. As much as I would have loved to have seen a feel-good people story in the paper (for the record I would have skulked away at the site of a camera), we did the clean up for the kids. Not for my hits on this site, not for notoriety, not for confrontation, we did it for kids. Our kids, who play in that park. Period.

We want this over. What we did helped in our little way; it did squat to progress the talks, it did loads to help our children have some sense of normality on a beautiful summer day.

Cheers.