Change is Bad... And now for some change (aka Yes, Katie finally updated her blog)

Do you remember that Hershey’s commercial with the little boy attending school? The first year, he has a beautiful, soft spoken teacher who you just know smells like freshly baked cookies and gives great hugs. The next year, he walks into the classroom that first day and is greeted by a fire breathing old bat---you know the one. You had her as a teacher at some point, for sure. “CHANGE IS BAD,” the commercial says, and then continues with “Hershey’s, unchanged since blah, blah, blah (I’m no go with dates).

Anyhow, I’ve always kind of agreed with that philosophy. Secretly--and sometimes not so secretly--I consider ‘change for the sake of change’ people to be wingnuts and idiots. I subscribe to the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ theory of life.

A few weeks ago I visited my college town of Woodstock, N.B. Imagine my dismay--nay, my horror--to discover that my beloved Riverside Pub was in the midst of a renovation. Gone, I was told, were the tables decorated with laminated beer caps. Gone was the wooden table that I had chipped the paint off of in the shape of a peacock (the owner of said table did not seem to appreciate my artistry). The bar and eating area were now two separate areas: the restaurant now served by bitchy waitresses instead of the bartender whenever he could spare himself from the bar.

“It’s classy,” I was told.

This change made no sense to me. College students frequent the Riverside because of its close proximity to the school--not because of its ‘class.’ They go because on Thursdays, happy hour offers two for one bar shots. It’s the start of a Thursday night that begins with the consumption of as many doubles as is humanly possible in an hour, followed by stumbling home and continuing to drink for the next several hours, followed by stumbling out to the pool hall later that night for more of the same. All of which, of course, in a time honoured tradition, is followed by stumbling into class Friday morning a little green around the gills, if not still drunk.

I ask you: why would they mess with that?

What, you may ask, is the point of this nostalgic monologue on evil elementary school teachers and the alcoholism of college students?

I guess the point of it all is that I’m a bit of a hypocrite. Yes, change is bad. Except, that is, when I’m the one who has decided to make the change.

When last I updated this blog I was living in Banff, Alberta. Since then, I’ve been home to New Brunswick, have visited my family in Ontario, and am now living in Smithers, B.C.

It was time, I guess, for a change