I’m going to come right out and admit that I’m only hijacking the prompt for today’s post as I’ll probably get more readers here than starting a blank post…I think.
Anyway, I don’t have an actual nickname. CJ to a handful, Ceej to one or two.
I was driving to Walmart yesterday and decided to take the scenic route, the 70 stretch. Well, it used to be the scenic route.
Because of the forest fires all around us, the city and all the fire fighting personnel have been doing this “asset protection” or “value protection” thing and bulldozed and cut down so many trees. Outside of the city and within the city.
The landscape looks very very different.
Anyway, “the 70 stretch” is one of our city’s iconic places. You know how each city or town has a place or two, you know distinctly because of it?
Well we have a couple of them, “the statue”, a place on the outskirts of town where kids pull over and chat, smoke, whatever, rev their engines, squeal their tires, all while a huge statue of a miner is watching over what they’re doing.
And the other is the 70 stretch. It’s a curved, downhill piece of road just before you reach downtown, with trees (well not anymore) on one side and a rock wall on the other. Probably the most scenic street in Thompson, (well not anymore).
It’s called the 70 stretch because unlike the speed limit in the rest of the city, which is mostly 50 km/hr, the speed limit on the 70 stretch is, 70 km/hr.
So yesterday when I saw how terrible it now looks with all the trees cut down, to save our homes from fires, yes I understand but it’s still ugly, I was thinking about the t-shirt business I once tried to create.
Ten or so years ago, I decided to design and (try to) sell t-shirts with Thompson things on them. Besides the business side of it, I thought it might generate some community pride as well. Hey we don’t have much to be proud of but what we do have, let’s poke fun at but also appreciate. We’re pretty unique up here.
My kids were so embarrassed, as per usual, with my attempt at a side business. I sold a few just through Facebook and then shut it down.
bloom.planted.north 
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