Stay Away

Oh man, so I've been out of Corner Brook for over a month and it just feels so good. There are a few things there I'm gonna miss. Mostly the park. I heart that little spot, all shaded by the waterfall. Sit down with my discman and a book or an old TPB of Preacher and waste away a day. Or sitting next to the dammed up stream swimming pool and playing go with Dan. Those were fun times. And I miss Brewed Awakening, a cozy little coffee shop that played good music. But oh man there are way more things I'll be happy to never ever see or hear again.

Let's make a list!

- the streets: You have never ever seen streets as messed up as in Corner Brook. Ignoring the fact that structurally they were in shambles, the way they were laid out boggles the mind. In all the places worth going to, like the theatres or the downtown area there are more one way streets than two-way ones. And one of the malls has a one way parking lot where you have to circle the whole building to leave again, unless you are trying to turn left onto the main drag, then you have to leave on the other side of the mall on an access road to the mill and take two extra streets to get back on track. And that's not even the worst situation I've come across, just the easiest to explain. Hate the streets. And good luck trying to find a map of the place

- the streetlights: The only thing that made the streets worse is the streetlights. They last about a minute and a half and aren't traffic actuated. So if you get a red light, you might as well put the car in park. Even if there's nothing coming the other way you'll be there a while. And for some unknown reason, they put them all in 4-way stop / flashing red mode at 11 pm. I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't want your street lights working, but I guess someone did.

- the crosswalks: You know they only way you can screw up a crosswalk? Instead of putting up a crosswalk, you put up traffic lights that also last about a minute and half. And you put 3 of them on the biggest road. I've stopped for a kid at one of them, had him cross and go into a store and was on his way out by the time I got to go again. It's insane! Crosswalks don't need traffic lights, just those flashing lights at most to grab your attention

- the crazy people: Corner Brook is home the craziest of the crazy people. One time, this guy came into the Ultramar at 3AM. He looked at the magazines and picked out a national geographic and started reading it, talking about some park in BC that his daughter went to one time and how he was gonna buy it for her but he'd have to come back with the money. This guy looked pretty homeless. He was wearing a touque with ratty holes in it, three grandpa sweaters and sweat pants that were tucked into his socks and rubber boots. And he was wearing those plastic sports glasses frames with the elastic band in the back, except these were broken and taped back together. He left then came back later with enough change to buy it, and no coins bigger than a quarter. When I told this story to a co-worker another time when he was in the store, I was informed he was the town's surgeon. I was surprised he wasn't the mayor

- the language: Yes I know that it's Newfoundland, and everyone makes fun of the accent, but if I never hear "can a drink" ever again it'll be too soon. Plus some weird usage of the word after that I just can't reproduce... it doesn't make sense anyway. And that's just when I could understand what people were asking me.

- the snow: If it's somewhere between the months of September and May you can safely bet on it snowing. And not just snowing, on it snowing all day, just like the last two weeks. I'd never had to brush off my car 5 times in one day before, but it soon became habit. Anywhere you stopped and went inside, you'd have to clean it of when you got back out, no matter how quick you were. And it turned out that our little tucked away street got the most snow in the city.

- the stores: There is not a whole lot of places to go shop in Corner Brook, unless you're looking for Christian literature. No comic book store and the malls shut down at 6pm. It's a consumer paradise! Also, they had no Wendy's or Burger King, which is just horrible. And we bought a pizza that was so bad that we threw it away. I've never thrown away pizza before, not even when I worked a pizza place for years, I always took it and ate it.


I'm sure there's more things I disliked, like gas prices or just how far away it is from here, but that's enough to get across my warnings. Don't move to Corner Brook.