A lot of people came a long way to see the powerhouse at Lakeview Generating Station finally implode this morning, but not many did it by hitching half-way across the country to their hometown.
Waiting... and... waiting... and waiting for hours on end for the steady northwest winds required to blow the dust from the station demolition out over the Lake makes for a lot of idle conversation among the spectators.
A few people stood out in the small crowd, especially the guy with the throwback ’60s long-haired look and the Trailer Park Boys uniform.
Turns out he is 42-year-old Glenn Wells, who loves to talk as much as he loves to travel. He is wearing a blue athletic sweater with the word Sunnyvale on an angle across the front and the name “Ricky” emblazoned across the shoulders, bearing the number 422. The latter probably refers to the lottery pick Ricky got when they handed out brains at Sunnyvale Trailer Park.
Wells says proudly under his breath that he picked up the shirt for five bucks at a thrift shop.
In the course of passing our time until the big bang, Wells explains that he has arrived in Mississauga again this summer to visit his mother by thumbing from his home in Abbotsford, B.C.
Since he started the practice eight years ago, it has become a summer ritual. He takes a few weeks off work from his job as a painter, hits the road with a couple of hundred bucks and bums his way across the Prairies so he can return to Lakeview to see his Mum.
He happened to hit it right last year and was part of the huge group that heard Hazel do the countdown and push the button that brought the Four Sisters down.
This year, Wells was in one of the waterfront parks when he noticed a sign explaining the powerhouse destruction. “My stepfather used to work there,” he says of the big station. He wanted to see its final end.
While we watch the signets sleep in seemingly impossible positions, observe the black water dog chase the stick continuously and return to proudly deposit it with a thorough shake and hear OPG spokesman Bob Osborne periodically tell us that nothing has changed, Wells imparts his acquired knowledge from 26 years of hitching.
“Every year is different. This year I had a guy who used to be a paramedic and is now a truck driver pick me up. He told me stories you would not believe. In Canada, hitching is friendly and easy. Some people invite you into their homes and offer you a place to eat. Sometimes they even give you money.”
It turned out that the truck driver was illiterate and needed help reading road signs and was headed for North Bay, where he’d never been before.
“He offered to bought all my meals along the way. That’s what kind of people you meet. It’s amazing.”
On one trip a woman twice drove by him and didn’t pick him up. She stopped the the third time. “She turned out to be the deputy coroner of Pennyslvania. She drove me to Regina from Edmonton.”
There is a lot of common sense required in hitching, like in everything else. Wells is a sustainable guy. He carries a bright sign, in yellow with black lettering. It says “East Please” on one side and “West Please” on the other.
If you put a specific city’s name on your sign, people won’t stop if they aren’t going that far. A number of people have told him they stopped to pick him up just because he asked nicely with his sign.
Music is also important. His favourite accompaniment on his MP3 player is Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World.
Wells has learned from experience that there are two kind of drivers who pick up people. “Some of them want to listen to you and some want you to listen.” He can tell which is which within a few minutes.
Someday, Wells plans to write a book about his adventures.
In the meantime he dreams, like everybody else, about winning the lottery. If that happened, he would buy himself a limousine and head cross-country, picking up hitchers along the way – as long as they were good listeners.
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Am heading for the cottage for three weeks. Will blog at you again when I return.