Standing Up For What’s Right in Carleton Place

This week someone on another site jokingly put a video up called Renegade and dedicated it to me. I guess that wouldn’t be far off, but I have been like this since a child, and I am not about to change now. A few years ago I spent time in an 80% black neighbourhood where death, shootings and sadness were a daily occurrence. Concerned about young teenagers being killed or arrested for crime I began a writing campaign about senseless killings over drugs and the homeless.

It took almost two years for the locals to talk to me because I was white, but I never gave up, no matter what names I was called. I can’t even begin to understand what it’s like to be black and deal with things in this world, but I wanted to help.  I eventually became good friends with everyone, and the corner street music bootleggers fondly called me “Lisa in Da Hood”. Of course Lisa wasn’t my name and one day one of them, Lorenzo, read one of my articles in a local newspaper one day and said to me:

“I thought your name was Lisa!”

I told him, ” I have been telling you for a long my name is Linda!”

Lorenzo replied, “Dat be okay, but to us you will always be “Lisa in da hood”.

I always fight for what I believe in–like my home, the town of Carleton Place. In an ideal society, there wouldn’t have been any need of writing on this topic, but right now there is great reason to be concerned about the well-being of our beloved town.

Every time you see something wrong occurring and look the other way thinking this is none of your business, it makes you a part of the issue. Standing up for what you believe in not only makes your character strong, but society won’t change on its own till you at least try to change it.

Invictus once said, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.“

It’s not easy to set yourself apart from others and stand up for what you believe should be changed. But, it all starts with that first step, and Tuesday night at the next council meeting I am going to ask Carleton Place Council for a name change for the Industrial Park for the Dunlop legacy.We need to make things right.

This is what freedom stands for: to be able to speak your mind and act on something that you feel strongly about. Whenever you are faced with any such situation where you are feeling hesitant to take an action- just do it. That is why I write and care so much about Carleton Place. We need to make our town what it once was, and what it could be. Let’s bring back the heart and soul to Carleton Place–because I am always going to be “Linda of Carleton Place”.

Thanks to Jerry Flynn and Volundur Wally Thorbjornsson for their compassion and help

Can We Do What’s Right in Carleton Place? The Dunlop Dilemma

Song and video footage by BFF Kevin Army and to the memories and interviews we did for OCCUPY

This town was made for You and Me