Q: What is Stoney Creek?

A: Not what the official designation is, I'll tell you that much.

As you would know if you've been reading this blog, I grew up in Stoney Creek in the 60s and 70s. Back then, I distinctly remember 'Stoney Creek' wavering around a population of about 8,000. Then various stages of amalgamation took place. Becoming one with Saltfleet. Absorbing Fruitland and Winona. Being gobbled by Hamilton. So that now, my reference as to what constitutes Stoney Creek isn't just 'dated'...it's downright antiquated. Antediluvian. So, seeing as this is my blog, I'm going to go all arbitrary and clarify what 'Stoney Creek' is to me.

Most times when I'm talking about Stoney Creek, I'll use the term 'authentic Stoney Creek'. This is from Centennial to Gray, Hwy #8 to the Escarpment. Period.

There's a part of me that can concede that even going back fifty years, you could expand this north to Barton Street and east to where Hwy #8 meets King Street East, but that's it. Finito. The absolute limit of Stoney Creek. To me. From my perspective. As 'My Stoney Creek' overlord.

So I guess the first question is 'What would you call everything else?'

Oh, you mean those areas such as 'Upper Stoney Creek'?

I really don't care what they call them.

But whatever the names are, they shouldn't be some derivative of 'Stoney Creek'. Let them come up with something appropriate.

Am I a curmudgeonly stick-in-the-mud? Yup. I believe in calling something what it actually is, and not what is expedient. Especially when it comes to 'burgeoning peripheral areas that suck the attention of planners and government away from where everything began, only to effect the slow-destruction-by-way-of-neglect that you can see quite easily in Downtown Hamilton'. (Rant over.)

But then, I believe in clan, I believe in neighbourhoods, I believe in community...I believe in a sense of place, in a sense of history, in a sense of shared experience and heritage....

...while connecting with friends halfway around the world via my laptop.

So I'm not entirely consistent; sue me.

(As the Brits are wont to say: 'Good luck with that.')