The Chronicles of Nairnia
Monday, March 31st, 2008I recently finished a project for United Communities Credit Union (UCCU). The UCCU is made up of two divisions: the Woodslee Credit Union and the Heartland Credit Union. Therefore, the project was shot in two locations: the nearby town of Essex, and the not so nearby town of Clinton (about three hours northeast of Windsor). It was pretty far to go, especially since the actual shoot probably only lasted about half an hour, but I had a good time and I was not alone. My friend David, who also works for UCCU, accompanied me for the journey and took on the role of co-pilot.
There seems to be an unwritten rule that says, the smaller the town, the more obscure the name of said town. Am I right? Locally, we have towns like Puce, Ruscom, and Staples. Staples is so small their sign should read, “you are now entering AND exiting Staples.” As David and I made our way north of London, we passed through many small towns with great names, but our favourite by far was definitely Nairn. In fact, Nairn has become part of our daily vocabulary. For instance, now when I’m speaking with David, I sometimes call him by his name but I will also refer to him as Nairn, especially when he is talking smack. I will say something like “now you listen here, Nairn” and then he knows I mean business. So, congratulations Nairn, you’re someone! The runner-up was Birr.
As we passed through each new town in the greater Exeter-Clinton region, I noticed one thing that remained the same. There was an abnormally large amount of buildings with yellow brick. This was especially true amongst the churches, but it definitely applied to the average home and place of business. It took a while for me to catch on, but when I did, I had to mention it to David. As I witnessed more yellow brick, I laughed more and more. I think I went a little crazy for a minute there, but I did eventually regain my composure. There’s nothing wrong with yellow brick, it just kind of had that eerie “twilight zone” feel to it. I mean, why would you want yellow brick for your house when all your neighbours have it? It was everywhere! I will have to visit again to solve this mystery.
On our way back, we stopped for dinner in Strathroy. What’s strange about this small town is that they have every major fast food franchise (McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, KFC), yet only one local restaurant, called Johnny Bucks. So that’s where we went. The service was good and the food was great. We got to talking to our waitress, explaining where we were from and what we were doing and how we laughed at small towns like Nairn. Guess where she was from? Yup, Nairn.
Nairn, what would I do without you?