Countyworld

This paper has recently aired various serious and not quite so serious pieces advocating the County’s secession. How about taking a step that stops a little short of that, but that would still generate the revenue to let us control our own destiny? I’m talking about turning the County—the whole County—into a theme park.

The idea came to me from a couple of directions. Last weekend’s business section contained a report that theme parks—such as Canada’s Wonderland north of Toronto and La Ronde in Montreal—are “growing revenues and throwing off gushers of cash.”

Now strictly speaking, I would call these “amusement” parks, not “theme” parks, because they have no theme other than amusement. A theme park offers amusement within the context of what Wikipedia calls “an entire perfect world” that takes guests out of the real world for a day, so in theory it should be doing even better business than an amusement park. Having just returned from a few days in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I can see what they mean. It’s already a virtual theme park. People come from miles away to stare at the Amish bopping along in their buggies—fascinated because the Amish cling to a way of life that is a little different (I didn’t see a single Amish child texting on a smartphone). But as far as the Amish are concerned, they are just living a life that is their normal, and have made some sort of peace with putting up with the curious. They make a decent return off pies and quilts, although they haven’t as yet taken the final step of charging admission to their world. But if I were them, I would.

“An entire perfect world” where people “cling to a way of life that is a little different.” Now that sounds to me like a place I know—a distinct community naturally cut off from the mainland and connected only by three bridges and a ferry. So why don’t we take the next obvious step and charge visitors a theme park llke ticket price to enter “Countyworld’? County residents would just carry on with their ordinary lives, except for the fact that people would be paying to watch them do it.

When you think about it, we don’t really have much competition. After all, how many theme parks are there between Toronto and Montreal? Perhaps Upper Canada Village counts as one, but it’s nowhere near the size of the County. And what do some of the world’s best-known theme parks have that we don’t have? Knott’s Berry Farm? Cue Vicki’s Veggies, please. Busch Gardens? Show me a winery or two, imagine them with a minature golf course or go kart track thrown in, and voila. You want more excitement? Well, we’ve got unexploded ordnance at Weller’s Bay, a wicked undertow at North Beach, and a Macauley Mountain that would be perfect for a waterslide park—or a zipliner track running alongside the sewage plant. GravityFest racing events have demonstrated some of the hair-raising possibilities on the streets of downtown Picton.

Now admittedly, the granddaddy and great uncle of them all, Disneyland and Disney World, have a cast of theme park characters that runs pretty deep, from Mickey Mouse to Peter Pan to Winnie the Pooh to Darth Vader to Miss Piggy. But they all share the obvious limitation: they’re not real. And if people flock to see the Amish, who are real, wouldn’t they come to see the County, where our dramas are more vivid than anything Doctor Bunsen Honeydew can dream up in Muppet Labs?

Will the County be forced to shred its reputation as a tranquil birding oasis as the province refuses to admit the foolhardiness of its commitment to useless wind turbines at any cost? Will the County hospital be sacrificed on the altar of provincial funding formulas? Will a Citizens’ Assembly be able to devise a plan to select a more modest number of councillors that incumbents would graciously give up their seats for? There are enough characters behind those issues to populate several Walt Disney movies—with adult content warnings to boot. Our villains are even better than some of those lame nasties they come up with in professional wrestling. Who could be more perfectly cast than the Ministry of Environment lawyer who triumphantly waves engineering reports in the faces of bewildered but unflustered expert naturalists?

All that we would need to ask of County residents would be that they just, well, be a little bit more themselves than they already are, to make sure interest doesn’t flag. Take our newspaper publisher, for example. He’s already well positioned to play the Champion of Common Sense. If Countyworld happens, we would just ask him to turn purple with indigation every week at some new absurdity, and burst a blood vessel every two or three issues. Our mayor could play the Straight Shooting Cost Cutter, but could perhaps take a couple of lessons from his colleague in Toronto about how to play it a little closer to the edge, and come up with a memorable expression, like “Sink that Gravy Boat.” Our chief admininstrative officer is perfectly cast as The Guy You’ve Gotta Watch Or He’ll Sell the Family Jewels to Balance the Books Which Is Why We Need More Not Fewer Councillors. We’ll just have to outfit him with a white hat and black hat to wear as the occasion demands.

It’s either a theme park or a TV reality show for the County; and theme park sounds a lot better to me, because with a reality show you’d lose creative control and pay too many middlemen; on top of which you’d be tempted constantly to mug for the camera. The Amish don’t fall into that trap; why should we? And unlike the Amish, we’d still get to watch the Leafs lose in seven to the Bruins.

 dsimmonds@wellingtontimes.ca