Ward Councillor Terry Whitehead was there as arranged. But as we shook hands in the driveway of the modest brick bungalow, I noticed he was dressed in an open-neck shirt, lightweight summer suit and dark shades.

I was kind of hoping Whitehead would be carrying a flute and wearing a feathered cap, curly-toed shoes and parti-coloured leotards and tunic -- the traditional garb of the legendary Rattenfanger of Hamelin, who rid the German town of a plague of rats in medieval times.

After all, if mechanic Larry Easter is the whistle-blower who alerted the city to the invasion, Whitehead is the Pied Piper of Hamilton who forced it to get off its duff and do something about the teeming vermin.

Easter, a lithe, quick-moving man with a shock of grey hair standing upright on his head -- by style, not the result of his frightful experience with king-sized rodents -- has nothing but good things to say about Whitehead. Source - Andrew Dreschel.