mike cluett

Milton Santa Claus Parade 2009

Mike Cluett

Anthony reminded me yesterday that hes beginning to write up a list for Christmas.  I thought at first…Christmas?  Yikes.

With last weekends fantastic weather, people all over Milton (with the execption of yours truly haha) were putting up Christmas lights to make sure they wouldnt be the ones climbing up and down ladders in sub zero temperatures.  With the coming of the holiday season brings Santa Claus in Milton.

The Milton Santa Claus parade is scheduled for November 22nd at 2pm.  You can go to the Milton HQ for Santa here and see all the details of the route.  Volunteers are always needed so please contact them if you have some time or if you’d like to help out along the parade as marshals.  The more the merrier.  Contact Dianna Bracken at lauranne62@hotmail.com or 905-875-2109.

Looking forward to seeing you along the route.  It’s been said by many people that Milton’s parade is one of the best if not THE best in the area with thousands making their way to downtown Milton to take part.  The floats are amazing and the community spirit of Milton really shines during this time.

See you there!

Milton Walk of Fame Grand Opening

Mike Cluett

From www.milton.ca

The Walk of Fame honours Miltonian’s past and present who have earned significant national and international recognition through their enduring achievements.  Each Walk of Fame inductee is recognized in the glass corridor linking Town Hall west and Town Hall east.  The first 27 inductees will be recognized at this event.

Event to be held on Thursday October 29th at 7pm at Milton Town Hall

Was it really that long ago?  It seems like forever when the 150th Anniversary master committee started back in 2006 to come up with some ideas to commemorate Milton’s 150th anniversary.  I was honoured to be part of that committee and throughout 2007 there were a number of events to promote the town and celebrate such a substantial achievement as being 150 years old.

During that year we had the first street festival in the summer, which has now grown into an annual event.  There was also Milton’s Amazing Race, an idea born from and organized by the committee chair Karin Muller which received rave reviews as dozens of teams raced across Milton to answer questions, pick up clues and win prizes.

One of the definite highlights of my time on that committee was being part of the creation of the Milton Walk of Fame.  With the help of the Milton Historical Society and countless volunteers, we came up with a list of 27 people from Milton, who through the years reached a high level or national and or international success in their fields.  Many people are unaware that there are many famous Miltonians in different fields and the cream rose to the top with our first class in the Walk of Fame.

You can see the full list of inductees here .  Many of these people are well known, but their connection to Milton came as  a shock to many.  Mr Dressup,  Ernie Coombs was a big surprise to quite a few people along with Dr John Wallace, one of the cofounders of Blue Cross.  There are many Milton favourites such as Lt. Col. Chris Hadfield, PL Robertson, John Tonelli, Peter McDuffe and international wrestling icons Tiger Jeet Singh and his son Tiger Ali Singh.

These great Miltonians were announced at the Canada Day Celebrations of 2007  to quite the bit of fan fare in a day I wont soon forget.  Here is the brochure from the Canada Day event that lists each inductee and their bio of what made them the first members of Milton’s Walk of Fame.

So its not just me…

Mike Cluett

Someone sent me an email awhile back asking me why I keep on the fact that there seems to be a lot of poor drivers in town.  While I wont go so far as to say the drivers are poor, but there does seem to be people who for whatever reason, dont pay attention and obey the rules of the road.

That got me thinking…is it just me?  Am I being too picky?  Apparently not as more and more letters to the local paper seem to justify my analysis that there are people taking liberty with the rules of the road when it comes to stop signs, speeding in residential areas and aggressive driving.

John Airyo’s letter to the Champion this week seems to outline the same concerns I, as well as many other people in Milton share.

Here’s his letter.

DEAR EDITOR:There’s a growing trend in Milton that in my own opinion is gradually reaching a frightening dimension.

It concerns the way many people treat traffic stop signs. I can recall more than 15 times recently where drivers haven’t used traffic stop signs properly — with a few of them nearly causing an accident.

In all those cases, it happened that I got to the stop sign and stopped by the white line. My tire touched the white line and I made a complete stop. Then I went forward.

I knew I touched the line before some drivers, but they proceeded before me as if they were blind.

A couple of times I almost ran into those drivers because I had no inkling they were going to advance before me. I don’t know whether they were impatient, rude or simply inexperienced — or a combination of these.

These incidents have happened all over Milton, so I can’t really pinpoint a particular place.

Please use our traffic stop signs properly to avoid an accident.

JOHN ARIYO, MILTON

It’s not an unreasonable request is it?  The stop signs are there for a reason.  To safely control the flow of traffic and help keep drivers and pedestrians alike as safe as possible.  We can go back a couple of years to Yates Drive where a number of these problems lead to a house being hit by a car…twice…in less than a year.  A car driving down Yates at a high rate of speed (for the record a “high rate of speed” was perception based on cars driving the speed limit) drove through an intersection with a stop sign.  The person at the stop sign didnt fully stop and did what was described by witnesses as a fast, rolling stop turning left onto Yates.  The car with the right-away swerved to avoid the car coming from the stop sign, lost control, jumped the curb and sidewalk to slam into this persons home.

The second occurence happened almost identical with the result being the same less than a year later.

I’m sure youve seen it too.  On your way to work in the mornings, or coming home at nights many people take liberty with the rules of the road and most times, nothing ever happens.

A friend commented to me that there should be mandatory retesting for our licences on a regular basis to make sure we remember and comply with the rules of the road.  I dont think that would make much difference because anyone can put on good behaviour during the test, shine the like star that they are and when its securely in their hands…speed off  and fly through a stop sign on the way to make it to the 401 parking lot in the morning.

10 years ago today

Mike Cluett

Heres a tale of two different kinds of days.

Ten years ago today Pat and I were married in Brampton.  It was around this time exactly that we were sitting in Gage Park getting our pictures taken as our wedding party munched on some fast food they got at a drive through on the way back from the church.

The sun was beginning to hide and the cool breeze started to flow as our photographer chirped at us “ok stay there…lets try this.”  Every pose it seemed that he was attempting us to get in didnt seem right and in between shots we held each other and smiled.  “THATS IT” hed say as we seemed much more natural when NOT posing and the photos were beautiful.  It was very calm and relaxing at that point, but several hours earlier, Pat’s day wasn’t going as smoothly.

The night before the wedding I stayed over at my good friend Mike Heenan’s house after being out the night before having a few drinks to calm the nerves and prepare for the next day.  We woke up in the morning and calmly headed downstairs to flick on the Ryder Cup golf tournament.  The smell of eggs and toast filled the air as we sat back with our feet up, watched a few holes of golf and waited for the rest of our wedding party to arrive.  Stress level zero.

Over at our house on Edenridge the totally opposite was happening.  My mother, aunt Betty (who’s birthday is the same day as our anniversary…Happy Birthday Aunt Betty!!) sister in law Deb and Pat’s half of the wedding party were running around getting their hair and make up done and doing what they can to keep everything under control.  Pat, as she always does, did her best to make sure everyone was taken care of so she made some sandwiches for everyone and kept them fed nicely as THEY were trying to do for her.

There were probably 20 or so people running around in different rooms, getting the tuxes on, making last minute changes to dresses and hair and on their make up.  Our niece Ashley and nephew Richard were in the wedding party as well, much younger than they are today and were a going concern to keep an eye on.

Just an FYI the Europeans were in the lead at the Ryder Cup as Mike turned to me and said “More coffee?”  Sure I replied as we refilled and stretched out on the chairs, in what I like to call a “golf haze”.

Needless to say, I still feel kind of guilty that my day wasnt as stressful as hers but we had 20 less people running around and only 3 people to dress.

The limo was there to pick up Pat and the wedding party as the last pictures were taken with her family in a now almost empty living room…all the furniture pushed up to the side to fit everyone, and they headed off to the church.

Mike, Satinder and my brother Rick were waiting anxiously at the church listening for the signal that the limo had arrived.  The minister was with us, trying to see if there was anything he could do to lessen the stress level, but there really wasnt any to relieve.  They were a little late and just as the minister said to us “ok, 3 more minutes and we head to the pub for a pint” the doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of the long white stretch limo containing the future Mrs Cluett.

We had a small contingent of close friends and family members at the church in Brampton as we all lined up front waiting for the music to begin.  A few of my friends looked over at me chuckling “you can run now if you like!” and the usual barbs you give to a nervous groom on his wedding day.  Ah, too late “here comes the bride!”  (Im kidding, I never would have thought of running, besides my knees were knocking too much to be able to run if I wanted.)

Pat took my breath away as she made her journey down the aisle of the church and the knocking of the knees stopped.  My brother even had to make sure I didnt fall over as I tried to catch my breath.

The service was beautiful and even though we missed the opportunity to say our own personal vows and it seemed like a blur until the minister said “you may now kiss the bride”.  Whoo hoo.

Our good friend Neil Sammut sang “When a Man Cries” a song he recorded in Nashville to a captive audience as we went to the back room to sign and make it all legal.  In between the pictures being taken Pat and I snuck around the corner to catch a glimpse of Neil singing as we wanted to be out there listening and watching him.

After talking with a few people today and getting the usual questions of “do you remember that day” my answer is like it was yesterday.

That was ten years ago.  Happy Anniversary Pat.  I love you even more now than I did then.

More people agree about aggressive drivers

Mike Cluett

As I pointed out in a previous post, and commented on by another Milton blogger Zeeshan Hamid, there was a letter to the Champion outlining several instances of aggressive drivers in the Town of Milton.  It seems to be an ongoing problem with no real direction on what changes can be made.

Here’s Jean Paul’s letter this week.  It echos Cristina’s letter from last week.

What can be done?  There seems to be two different problems here.  One of them is aggressive driving and speeding in residential areas and the second being on the main roads like Derry and James Snow Parkway among other major intersections.

traffic calmingI’ve talked about traffic calming zones with speed bumps for residential streets to force drivers to slow down in areas around schools and where kids walk and play.  On the Hawthorne Villager Forum, people have talked about other ideas that possibly include a form of photo radar.

Raising awareness doesnt seem to work well.  You can have blitzes by police on a regular basis, but it seems that people go back to their old habits of driving 10km/hr over the speed limit because they can get away from it.

Why not make the speed limit 40km/hr in every residential area…no execptions.  If youre driving around homes, where there could be children crossing the street or bikes on the road the limit is 40km/hr.  This way if police do catch speeders, the fines will be increased and maybe someone will think twice about going over the speed limit.

There have been comparisons to speeding on the highways and the main streets and residential streets, and to me there is a huge difference.  Highways have an “allowance” of being over the speed limit.  Thats what fast lanes are for I’m told.

The fact of the matter is there are no fast lanes on Derry Road, Clark Blvd, Ferguson, Louis St Laurent, Trudeau or any other residentail street.  That arguement is mute.

It seems to be an ongoing issue.  Any ideas out there?  Let’s discuss.

mcclogo
 
Sep 04, 2009
DEAR EDITOR:

In regard to Cristina Drapeau’s recent letter about aggressive drivers in Milton, I couldn’t agree with her more.

I have lived in Milton for about seven years now and shortly after moving in I started to notice the exact same problems at the same intersections — Derry Road at Trafalgar Road and Derry at James Snow Parkway.

Other drivers have always used the merging lane as a quick pass lane and feel they have the right of way to merge aggressively.

I’ve witnessed a large amount of road rage and aggressive driving. Many of these drivers I see offend repeatedly on a daily basis. At least a few give a wave when you let them in.

Although I understand that the police can’t be everywhere all the time, I feel that everyone should know there’s something citizens can do about this problem. It’s called Community Road Watch.

It’s a community program where if you witness another driver demonstrating unsafe driving behaviour you can report that driver and incident.

The police will send the driver a letter explaining their unsafe behaviour and ask for their voluntary compliance.

If the driver receives multiple letters, then the police may contact the driver and potentially lay charges if they feel it necessary.

It’s quite simple to do. Just remember or jot down the information of the incident, including licence, vehicle, time, driver description, time, and location. You then report it by giving the report to your local police station.

There’s even an on-line system for reporting at www.haltonroadwatch.ca to make it even easier.

However, I do feel it’s important that one takes their time and considers what they’re reporting and if it’s correct or if we are letting our frustration get the better of us.

JOHN-PAUL DELSENY, MILTON