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It had been almost six months since we last talked. I approached him as he sat on the wooden bench inside of the Wintergarden and I could tell he had something to get off of his chest. Yeah, it was numbingly cold outside, but Hurricane Chickie C. was getting ready to blow.
"Hey Chick, how are you?" I asked as I extended my hand to the strikingly handsome septuagenarian.
It was only up close I realized that, in addition to his normal attire of a crisply pressed Italian suit, double starched white shirt, imported silk necktie, spectator shoes and ivory walking cane,
Chickie also was sporting dark sunglasses and a deeply tipped fedora.
"Quick, kid, sit down and don't make eye contact wit no one," Chickie said as he flipped a kernel of popcorn to a sparrow who'd decided to leave the winter weather behind and take up residence inside the Wintergarden.
"What's wrong, Chickie, you in trouble with the law?"
"Hey kid, don't insult me. Dere ain't nobody flashin' a badge in this town that don't owe me big-time."
"Sorry, Chick. What's with the low profile then?" I queried.
"Don't you read your own paper, kid? This town's gone bats. I'm jus' about the last person left whoze gettin' oxygen to his brain and I ain't gettin' too close to nobody. I'm afraid that whatever's frying everyone else's brain cells might start in on mine."
"What are you talking about, Chickie? The city's had a run of good news lately," I stated.
"Lean a little closer, kid," Chickie said, then sniffed the air as I complied.
"No, I don't smell no hootch on yer breath. Don't tell me you need a check-up from the neck up, too."
"I'm still not following you, Chick. What exactly are you talking about?" I pleaded.
"What I'm talking about is the future--no, scratch that--your future, and the future of every other young person in dis town, being sold down the river," Chickie spat out.
"How is that happening, Chick?"
"Ya know, kid, yer lika box of sewin' needles. Ya got eyes, but ya jus' can't see. I'm talking about the airport contract and the Love Canal museum."
"What's wrong with the airport deal, Chickie? Is it because Cintra is a foreign company?"
"I got 99 reasons fer what's wrong wit the airport deal, the fact that Cintra is a foreign operation ain't one of 'em. I wuzza foreigner myself once, kid."
"I meant no disrespect, Chickie."
"Look, kid, it ain't what's inna deal or who we're gonna take to the dance that's the problem. It's the term. Ninety-nine years is way too long to lock yerself in for. Even the best marriages inna the world don't last no 99 years."
"I guess you're right, Chick," I said.
"You know what the year wuz 99 calendars ago, kid? It was nineteen-aught-two. It wuz fashionable to say aught fer zero back then, but to say twenty-aught-one today sounds foolish, right?"
I nod.
"That's just one small example of how much things change in 99 years. In 1902, airplanes were just a dream that most people figgered would never come true. Radio, let alone television, had yet to be invented. The Web wuz somethin' that a broom got rid of. Horses were the main mode of transportation fer most people and the citizenry of good ol' planet Earth had never experienced a world war. Now yer tellin' me that our fearless leaders actually believe they can predict the future so accurately as to sign away an airport that will serve yer great-grandkids before the lease is up, kid," Chickie argued.
"I see what you're saying, Chickie, but the airport's been under-utilized for the past 20 years."
"Kid, try to focus here. What's 20 years compared to 99? In the year 2100 are airplanes even gonna be relevant? Will flights be going to the moon, or Mars? Will everyone own some kinda space shuttle?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Exactly, kid, who knows? And to sign away the airport when technology is exploding faster than man can dream is crazy, and only John Prozeralik has the guts to speak up about it."
"What should people do, Chickie?" I asked.
"Let their voices be heard, kid. Tell the politicians that you wanna see the airport fly--pun intended, kid--but that 10, 15 years max, is all that you'll sign off on."
"That's sound advice, Chick, but what's wrong with the proposed Love Canal museum?"
"Were you dropped as a baby, kid? What's right wit it? This is a tourist town, first and foremost. The last thing some jabroni from Wisconsin--who just came a 1,000 miles wit his wife criticizing his driving and his kids screaming in the back seat--the last thing he wants to see on his way to the waterfalls is some tomb dedicated to the memory of Hooker Chemical sludge."
"Proponents of the museum say it will educate other communities on the dangers of landfill dumping," I offered.
"That's rich, kid. Hey, I gotta great idea. Let's go all out wit our money and educate communities with other examples of horrible mistakes we've made in the past. We could have a Benderson Mall museum. You'd pay fer yer ticket here, then have to drive out to the Town of Niagara to actually enter the museum.
"Or how about an E. Dent Lackey museum? We could advertise it as a 'state-of-the-art' urban development gallery. I can see it now, kid. The tour guides would parade people through a big, empty cement lot and point to different areas and say, 'Boy, 30 years ago, before we threw out all of the businesses to have room for the museum, people were jammed in everywhere down here.'
"The topper though, kid, would hafta be a casino gaming museum. We could have forums and town meetings to discuss the benefits of having one fer decades. Then we could all stand and shake our heads when Canada actually builds one before us, and people stand in line to get in."
"Okay, okay, I concede that the museum and the airport proposal are bad ideas," I said. "Will you lead the fight against them, Chickie?"
"At my age? No, that fight is fer the young. I give my concerns to you to take to the people, kid. Everything else I got is fer the birds," Chickie said as he flicked another kernel of popcorn to his winged friend.