Relishing my daily snackie — an SDD and a tractor tire (small double double and a honey cruller) at Timmies store No. 2 on Concession Street — I was aware peripherally of a woman on my right, motionless and staring at the side of my aging fizzog.
Slowly, as if startled by her presence, I  turned and said, “Hello there!” The lady responded shyly, as if caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
“Oh. my, I couldn’t help but notice that Indianna Jones type hat you’re wearing — are you the gentleman that writes that article in the Mountain News called ‘Rusty Corners’?”
I didn’t think that I looked that rusty yet, but politely corrected her, saying, “Oh yes, but it’s Dusty Corners, not Rusty Corners.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me because I am new to the Mountain and don’t know much about it. Why do they call this a mountain?”
She took a seat as I scrambled through the catacombs of my rapidly erroding memory bank.
“Got time?” I asked. “I’ll get a coffee. Be right back.”
I went on. “We Mountain folks hate the term the Mountain that never was, because in our minds it is the longest, lowest, flatest mountain in the world.”
Some call it the serpent’s backbone because from the air it looks like a long twisty snake, stretching from New York state to Manitoulin Island.
Before the City of Hamilton intruded in our affairs in 1912, folks up here always called it Mount Hamilton.
Toronto can only dream of having a 20 mile long forest running right through the centre of the city.
That huge forest is what defines us as very different any day.
Go see our three major waterfalls like Sherman, Tews, Chedoke and Mount Albion (not Albion Mountain).
Heck, we are the Waterfalls Capital of the world, my dear!
Mountain climber Sir Edmond Hillary visited our Sam Lawrence Park in the 1950s  and supported the name Mount Hamilton, saying, “If I climbed it, then it has to be a mountain!”
An artist’s paradise, too. Leonard Hutchinson, Blair Bruce, Arthur Heming and Frank Panabaker, all world-class artists, proud to call Mount Hamilton home.
Where else in central Canada can you find a spectacular, panoramic view of the head of Lake Ontario? Scarborough Heights perhaps? Not likely!
Try the Mountain’s classy airport, called Mount Hope Airbase back in 1940 (not Hope Mountain).
Yes, we are  still a little out in the sticks with our famous Ancaster Fair, Festival of Friends, Binbrook Fair and Concession Streetfest — you can take the boy out of the country, but not the country out of the boy as the old saying goes.
Oddities — try mysterious Fish Lake under the Juravinski Hospital, or the awesome “Devil’s Punch Bowl.”
Let’s not forget that Tim Hortons Store No. 2 is the second store in that iconic chain, right here on what we called the Stone Road.
Thank Canada Post in 1955 for replacing the Mount Hamilton P.O. on Concession Street with P.O. Stn. ‘D’ and designating the area “Hamilton Mountain” rather than Mount Hamilton.
My guest went away enlightened. Have you heard of a tune called “The Mountain Rose?” Comin’ up!
Mountain historian Colwyn Beynon can be reached at crsw389@sympatico.ca.