The Garden City Refugee

On the Road – Political Incorrectness, Biker Babes, Daredevil Cyclists and More

October 4, 2022

Highlights and lowlights from yesterday’s bus-bike trek to Hamilton and Burlington:

1. One young woman who boarded at Fairview Mall was wearing a hoodie kindly informing all that she was studying at Mohawk College to be a paralegal. As if the world needs to know.

1a. They’re still allowed to call the place “Mohawk” College? Fans of the Edmonton Elks Eskimos must be crying foul.

2. Once again, the bus was following a car with SPRM plates on Centennial Parkway. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that place does keep following me around.

3. Public display of affection for Jade . . .

4. Aren’t the terms “disabled” and “aged” stigmatizing?

5. Whether your “businesse” is large or small . . .

6. Note for Peter Mac . . .

7. Video of the ride from the Red Hill Valley Trail to downtown, winding up at the Hamilton GO Center:

8. Good to know that Internet service is “availiable” . . .

9. Let the record reflect that, unlike the case at the Burlington GO station, cash is indeed accepted at the vending machines inside the Hamilton GO Center.

10. Perched on a bench outside the Hamilton GO Center was an old, scruffy bum named Antonio. At least I think his name was Antonio, since the name was written on his cap with a black felt pen. He looked like he didn’t have more than a dime to his name. But he had money for the cigarette he was puffing on, stopping only to cough his guts out. And again, I’m supposed to feel sorry for him.

11. The term “ambulance chaser” comes to mind . . .

12. Passing me on the sidewalk was a prematurely aged woman in her 60s with an attitude and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and wearing a black leather jacket. Something about her just screamed “Hamilton.”

13. Video of the ride from downtown through the Westdale neighborhood to McMaster University:

14. Video of the ride from McMaster to Dundas, using the Cootes Drive trail:

15. Why would anyone put this name on their establishment?

16. How nice of them to cook your food for you. There’s probably an extra charge, though.

17. Going through the McMaster campus on my return trip, I saw a number of nauseating slogans hanging from street lamps. “Working hard to prevent the next pandemic” was one of them. Somehow I don’t think they meant locking up the likes of Bill Gates. “Thank you to McMaster employees for keeping our campus safe” was another. They sure bought into this BS, hook, line and sinker. So much for this institute of “higher learning.”

18. Heading east on Sterling Street, I was following a couple of college-age kids who saw no need to obey stop signs and one of them, despite having a bike lane, was weaving in and out of traffic, seemingly daring passing cars to hit him. And if he survived his journey, he needed to stop at a service station to fill up his back tire.

19. During my travels, I passed by East Street North. How about East Street East?

20. Video of the ride from Dundurn Castle to Burlington. I’d have recorded more if it wasn’t for all the construction on Plains Road.

21. As was the case in my previous two-wheeled trek out there, I did not get a positive impression of the Aldershot neighborhood, which seems full of well-to-do snotty folks and where there is at least one dog per household.

22. Kudos to the management at Mapleview Center for providing a covered bike rack:

23. While sitting in the food court at Mapleview, a woman passed by carrying a take-out meal encased in enough styrofoam to give a Liberal a coronary.

24. Another woman in the food court hastily wolfed down her big meal from Jimmy the Greek, then hurriedly made a beeline for the washroom.

25. Most of the restaurants in the food court had shields up protecting the cash registers with service being handled face to face. I never knew that cash registers were more vulnerable to viruses than humans.

26. The Wrap & Soup the Chopped Leaf was offering looked like something I already ate.

27. I was seemingly the only one walking through the mall not preoccupied with his/her phone. I even spotted one guy with two phones in his hand.

28. I don’t want to know what was in the purple mush a mother at a bubble juice place was feeding her toddler.

29. I chuckled as I listened to the clerk in a jewelry store put a hustle on a young couple. “What are we thinking? What are we feeling?”

30. Throughout the day, I was struck by the incredible number of “Help Wanted” signs on storefronts. No doubt, many of them were among those who eagerly followed their government’s “direction” in purging good, loyal staff by the truckload for not taking poison injections and are now suffering because they can’t find enough workers. What goes around comes around.

30a. Sometimes people have to learn the hard way that the government is not your friend.

31. On the ride back to St. Catharines, a guy boarded at Stoney Creek who gave the driver a song and dance about his buddy transferring $100 to him. “It will just take five minutes,” he said. Then when we got to Grimsby, he told the driver, “I don’t know why it’s taking so long.” Not surprisingly, this alleged “transfer” which he needed to pay his fare never came through. But at least he came up with a sob story, unlike in the case in Winnipeg, where fare evasion is so commonplace scofflaws don’t even bother with lame excuses and take pride in riding the bus for “free.”

32. Boarding at Beamsville was a Middle Eastern guy who, despite his poor grasp of English, was able to communicate to the driver that he needed to buy a ticket. He even flashed a credit card. So the driver started punching up some stuff on the machine, but after the zone wouldn’t come up on the display, he started giving the passenger the business about getting a Presto card. As if it was the passenger’s fault because something wasn’t working properly on the ticket machine. Yet the driver never offered the passenger the option of tapping the card on the Presto machine, a feature that has been available for some time now. As I’ve long since learned about Metrolinx, don’t expect their employees to be as informed about their own policies and procedures as some passengers are.

33. After I got off at Fairview Mall, I watched as a woman alone in her car in the parking lot took off her mask and went out to ask a couple of guys whether or not the bus was headed to Burlington. After being told the bus was headed for the Falls, she got back in her car and put on her mask again. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.