Monday, January 23, 2006

Good turn out on Lebreton

I had a fine time voting today. "Lebreton Street," said the poll clerk, "we're getting a high turnout from Lebreton."

She and the Deputy Returning Officer chuckled politely when I said, "maybe you could write a letter to that effect to our City Councillor."

Then when I handed in my ballot they thanked me. "Thank you," I said, "see you next election, it'll probably be soon." Again they laughed politely.

On the way home, I spotted a red mitten placed on the top of a fire hydrant marker.

There are those who suggest this isn't the best neighbourhood in Ottawa, (okay, I was one of them on my recent request for re-assessment, but seriously, I couldn't sell this house for what MPAC says I could) but not only do we have a high turnout from Lebreton Street, someone who spotted a lost mitten picked it up off the ground and put it somewhere that it would get spotted and not get buried or walked on, driven over or snowplowed to the snowdump.

This thing about putting lost mittens and tuques on hydrant markers, parking meters and other such places... it's sort of new, isn't it? I don't remember seeing this in the '60s and '70s. We didn't have hydrant markers then either, but I just remember seeing lost winter gear lying on the ground getting smushed to tatters.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why didn't you pick them up, in the past, then?

David Scrimshaw said...

It never occurred to me until I had a little "aha" moment when I saw that someone else had done it. I think it was in the late '80s or early '90s.

Now I'm a dedicated put-lost-things-where-people-will-see-them person.

Anonymous said...

My mitten!!

David Scrimshaw said...

NW corner of Bell and Louisa.