Awfully hello, salutations and great expectations for the new year. This is the twentieth year for The Great Bendinni’s perilous predictions for Revelstoke. FYI; the top ten tales for the future started as a feature on our local radio station. Then just as Bendinni was severing ties with EZ Rock a very enlightened scribe called David Rooney invited The Great One to a platform on The Current. Smart man.
Fortunately, for Bendinni, the enlightenment continues with new editor and publisher Shaun Aquiline. Clever man.
20 years of incorrect, wrong and spurious predictions continue, retaining a perfect record of not one coming true, essential for keeping an amateur status.
10. Another traffic circle will be constructed at the corner of 4th. and Victoria. Since city budget money is so tight, local businessman and uber entrepreneur Fred Beruschi will pay for the entire project provided traffic enters and leaves by Cheers and the 112.
9. The new helipad at the hospital will be used summer evenings for roller derby tournaments, a new source of revenue for our cash strapped krankhause. Signs will be erected, IF YOU HEAR A CHOPPER LEAVE IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL NEED THE NEARBY EMERGENCY ROOM.
8. RMR will build a second Mountain Coaster with an intersection to the first Coaster and a direct line phone to the helipad. Hospital officials will be delighted exclaiming that ‘this will bring us the increased numbers that will boost our budget from the Province.’
7. Extremely ridiculous predictions:- streets 1 through 8 will get repaired sidewalks, the city will buy rubber snow ploughs to save our curbs and City Hall will get all new, clear glass cladding – transparency in government.
6. Next civic election Steven Hui will run for mayor but the majority will start an underground movement under the NO DON’T banner. We need you where you can actually get many of your great community proposals and ideas accomplished.
5. The Columbia Park Cessation Society will finally separate from the rest of Revelstoke sighting we can’t get across the highway anymore, anyway. Traffic circle? Traffic schmirkle!
4. The speed limit on the Trans Canada Highway will be raised again to 130 kph. saying it’s the only way to keep the 18-wheelers from tailgating. Highways justified the move by saying, at 130 all the trucks should be ahead of you….we think. How fast can those big rigs go anyway?
3. Some enterprising soul will start a business in Revelstoke to sell real snow to Hollywood. It’s a natural. Why hasn’t anyone thought of it before?
2. More extremely ridiculous predictions:- Parking infractions, bicycle helmet laws and handicapped zones will be strictly enforced. Local drivers will start to read stop signs and use their turn signals. Grocery and gas prices will drop in the ‘stoke.
1. The spirit of David Rooney will appear as a wispy vision resembling a statue. It will appear at the centre of the traffic circle to wish all Revelstokians well. Then there will be a huge clap of thunder and the apparition will loudly declare, ” God I hate autocorrect.”
Bendinni now returns to his regenerating retreat in the Himalayas where he is working on a new mantra, perhaps a message he saw on a bumper sticker on a magic carpet. “Just because you have one, you don’t need to be one.”
Happy New Year,
The Great Bendinni.
