By Rick Stiebel
Random thoughts on what to install in our roundabout
I was sitting in the garage – or my version of a man cave as I like to consider it – soaking up the smell of paint we’ll never use, nicotine clouds and other assorted noxious fumes and reading the Sooke News Mirror the other night when I came across some readers’ proposals for our roundabout.
Gotta say right away that I’m not in favour of a clock tower. The last thing we need to do is remind the lunatic fringe that treats it like a freeway just how far behind schedule they are.
They prefer the rules of the rude as opposed to the rules of the road, so giving them a timely incentive to hit the gas can only lead to crashes that cause the rest of us to become painfully behind schedule as well.
Although it’s been less than a year, it seems like the roundabout has been there forever.
But there’s still, according to the bride, quite a collection of the disturbed, arrogant and those that could care less about a rat’s derriere or yours or mine, who just don’t get it.
For reasons beyond their selfish grasp, they refuse to get a handle on rules of driving in a circle that most first graders comprehend in the blink of a turn signal.
So based on that sad fact and considering that we’re all supposed to slow down in the roundabout anyway, perhaps the good folks at City Hall should consider putting up a four-sided or circular sign that lists the traffic circle dos and don’ts. Preferably in a font sized small enough so that you actually have to slow down to read it.
Since that will never make the cut at the council table, I humbly suggest something for the circle that ties in with our illustrious heritage.
Why not commission a carving of a logger on a tree or logger’s pole? It wouldn’t take up much space or require a lot of maintenance, and might create a little cash flow for our community’s collection of starving artists.
It may also rekindle interest in resurrecting All Sooke Day, that event from our not so distant past that actually used to draw a fair amount of city folk out here to see what all the fuss was about.
Legend has it All Sooke Day died on the operating table because local business no longer considered it worth the investment, forever tarnishing our trademark as a volunteer capital. Maybe there’s enough new businesses in town now that could pitch in to bring it back from the dead.
At the very least, it would have our visitors chatting up more than just our roundabout on the drive back to the big city.
•••
Rick Stiebel is a Sooke resident and semi-retired journalist.