What's Up, Dock?

Have you ever seen the television show Extreme Makeover? Typically some poor people get their house renovated by a team of slick builders/designers hired by even slicker Hollywood types. While the renovations are happening, the po' folks are put up in some swank hotel while they await their domestic conversion. Inevitably, when they're brought back, the chubby children are yo-yoing up and down as though their Ritalin prescription had long since run out. The chubby mother is always teary-eyed. It all ends with the family hugging the chisel jawed host.

The next week? A new chubby family, a new group hug. This is how television works. Find a formula Holstein, then milk it.

We're getting a bit of an extreme makeover here in Cambridge-Narrows. Our village wharf, which we had to call a 'dock' in order to get federal funding, is being re-fronted. The crew arrives every morning and starts their ratta-tat-tatting. I dinna mind the din as it muffles the sound of the sheltie's incessant yapping. Plus it's the sound of progress. The wharf, I mean the dock, was in dire need of some love.

When the last spike has been tatta-tat-tatted, I'm hopeful there will be a grand re-opening ceremony. The mayor could give a grand speech, the type that would be quoted for years afterwards. There will be other dignitaries (perhaps the Federal Minister Of Fisheries, Oceans, Ice Cream, Knee High Socks and Docks, or maybe the executive assistant to the deputy fire chief of Lower Jemseg??). Maybe the Village Idiots could write a song (Sitting By The Dock Of The Lake). The mayor would invite someone from the apartment building to smash a beer bottle, in lieu of Cranpagne, on the dock's edge (been there, done that) to make it all official, then the mayor would invite us all to go for a swim, but not before we enjoy a lengthy group hug.
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