The Journal loves a good quote. Here are 10 that caught our eye in 2016.
10 - “The long hair came in and people didn’t get their hair cut as much. We thought it was going to be a passing trend but long hair was in for 28 years.”
- City barber Jim Canton, 70, who hung up his clippers after a 51-year career.
9 - “If he showed up with a beer and cowboy boots on, I knew I had to get a bottle of whiskey into me so it wouldn’t hurt as much.”
- Sarnia’s Ann Laforge, who left a life of drugs, alcohol and abuse behind to work on a family feedback project with the Children’s Aid Society
8 - It’s not a secret organization, it’s an organization with secrets.”
- Ivan Bryce, Deputy Grandmaster of the Sarnia District Masons
7 - “I opened the basement door and thought I’d opened a door to a closet. It turned out to be a 15-by-30-foot rec room so full of toys, magazines, papers and stuff that it touched the light bulbs on the ceiling.”
- Roel Bus, co-chair of a local home response collaborative, on problem hoarding in Sarnia
6 - “The main thing people enjoy here is meat and potatoes.”
- Veteran city restaurateur Steve Economou, on deciding to open a poutine shop
5 - “Ultimately, it will drown us. The interest alone could be spent on much better things, but people don’t care about that when they vote.”
- Sarnia’s Mike Grunte, on the $3.3 million the government spends daily in interest charges on the federal debt
4 - “There was a big after-party. But I didn’t go because I had patients to see at 8 a.m. the next morning.”
- Rising music star – and chiropractor - Eric Ethridge after winning the Discovery Award at the Canadian Country Music Awards
3 - “When the City of Sarnia did an impact study about the neighbourhood if SCITS was closed, the (school) board just brushed it off and treated it like an opinion piece, when they should be listening to how school closings impact fragile neighbourhoods.”
- Susan MacKenzie, who after a failed effort to save SCITS created the Ontario Alliance Against School Closures
2 - “Far too often, people fail to understand the very brief window that occurs in the life of an addict when everything aligns and they are mentally, emotionally and physically ready to get the help they need. If there isn’t something for them to grab on to for that very brief moment, quite often you’re no longer willing or able to take that first step. People die. It really is a matter of life or death.”
- Coun. Brian White, on the need for a residential detox centre in Sarnia
And the winner is …
1 - “We’re an axe-throwing range where you can have a beer. We’re not a bar with axes.”
- Bo Tait, co-owner of Valley Axe on London Line, the first axe-throwing venue in Ontario to obtain a liquor licence.