Around the city

by Mikey
(Port Colborne, Ontario)

Don your winter hat and coat and come walk with me.

It is only a small city of 17,000 people. 2 miles north to south and 2 miles east to west. I don’t know why they call it a city, it seems like a town to me...

It is 20 f , 10.30 Sunday morning, not that cold but there was an icy wind coming off the lake. I was only out for about ten minutes and my face was already feeling like a Popsicle....

I started at the west end of the downtown main street. It has about 30 stores, 9 of which have gone out of business over the years.

It is 4 blocks long and during that 10 minute walk I saw only 5 people and a half a dozen cars using the road.

Welland canal is at the end of the downtown, it runs north to Lake Erie. I started heading north along side the canal on the train tracks. The only movement around was the wild geese, which were also on the tracks. As I got closer to them, they honked at me for making them move from their spot.

I walked along the track for about 2 miles crossing a couple of roads on which there were a few cars passing by. The canal had several huge cargo ships docked there for the winter, they looked abandoned and were sitting high up on the ice because they were empty.

I then headed east along the road that runs across the top of the city, there were a few more cars on it because it is the main road that runs in and out of town. After 4 blocks I headed south again and then 2 miles back to home.

All that time since I left down town I only saw 2 more people that were coming out of a restaurant. I passed 2 restaurants, 3 churches and 1 supermarket. Their parking lots were almost full.

That accounts for about 300 people. I wonder where the other 16,700 are ?

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