I was thrust, in late April, into a period of anticipation. Much of what I had been involved with in preceding months was over. I found myself asking: what’s next?
I had just completed the Boston Marathon. Four months of winter training had come to an end. I was disappointed with my run, believing I could have done better. I consoled myself that sport was a mercurial business. And thanks to the support of my Bower Street neighbours, I looked to my running future with a measure of hope, trying to imagine what it held.
My Mainstreeter experience mirrored my running, though with a happier outcome. I put together the May-June issue and came to the end of my first year as editor. There had been challenges: missed deadlines the most significant. But they were offset to a great degree by many words of encouragement from readers. As I had with my running, I contemplated stories that lay ahead.
So it is with our community at large. What will we remember from the spring of 2014? Well, we survived what some had predicted would be the flood of the century. We emerged from our homes, surveyed the landscape and asked each other: where do we go from here? On the front page of this issue, we find the story of Pauline Lynch-Stewart, a Glengarry Road resident trying to organize her neighbourhood to be ready to fight the Rideau River’s next surge. Peter Croal’s images of Brantwood Park in the aftermath of this year’s battle are reminders of some anxious weeks. But what I took from Lynch-Stewart was a sense of reassurance. If next year brings high water, she and other Old Ottawa East residents plan to be ready to fight it together.
Page One also contains a story about Pawel Fiett’s latest project: the modernization of our Old Town Hall. When I interviewed Pawel for that piece, he spoke about changes coming not only to the familiar landmark, but to OOE’s primary thoroughfare. “I think that Main Street in its current format is going to change dramatically,” he said, looking to next year’s planned reconstruction. “That’s why I’m excited.”
There I had it: the answer to my future-oriented post-Boston question. More marathons, a newspaper that readers continued to cherish, a neighbourhood coming together, a Main Street worthy of its name.
I can’t wait.
