NIAGARA FALLS — When I made my way back home a few years ago after spending the better part of a quarter century in South Florida, I had the wild idea that I might be able to help my fair city find her way back to her former glory. I was convinced that, with a little help, I could make a difference.

I did not think it would take much, we have so much going for us already, you know, with the falls and all.

It seemed simple, get the tourists who already come here to spend more time and money in the city.

Easy, right?

What’s so hard? Millions of people come here from all over the world to enjoy the magnificence of the water and all the beauty that comes along with it.

It’s just a short walk from the state park to the city line. A few steps and they’re in.

But in what?

I am no travel and tourism expert, but I don’t think it takes a great deal of expertise to see the obvious, or in this case, to see what’s missing.

Eureka ... I found it!

When I arrived in Montreal a few days ago, I discovered some of what has been missing and I am convinced that, with a little help, we can offer it to our millions of guests who can’t find it in the state park after they’ve experienced the lure of the falls.

My parents and a few of their close friends used to travel to Montreal and Quebec City for a few days during the summer months when my sisters and I were knee high to the grasshoppers. We’d get to spend time at summer camp, or at our grandparents home in Lockport hanging out with cousins while mom and dad and at least one or two other adult couples traipsed off to Canada.

Looking back, it was probably a good thing for mom and dad to have a little time away from the children, and no doubt it was good for us. It helped wean us away from total dependency on our parents, and it helped to socialize us, bringing us and our cousins closer together creating lifelong familial ties that we still hold on to today.

We traveled together as a family, too, going all the way to New Jersey, the Thousand Islands and to Florida way before Disney World. We took lots of shorter trips together ,too, but mom and dad appreciated their time alone together as much as we enjoyed our time without them.

When we finally got back together after what seemed like an eternity, we all had plenty to talk about; my sisters couldn’t wait to tell on me, hoping I’d get my just due for chasing them with whatever I could get my hands on to scare the daylights out of them, or to otherwise taunt them just because I could, and my parents could not wait for the picture slides to be developed and come back from the drugstore so they could show everyone what they had seen.

Naturally, we watched and listened without interest to their stories about their trips. We sat impatiently through the slide shows as they relived their travels in the living room with us and their good friends, a truly captive audience just about every weekend for months after they returned with souvenirs and boring tales about their escapades.

As children, we had better things to do and they did not include sitting through the same old stories about the same old place over and over again, but I must admit I was beginning to get more than a little curious about Montreal.

I wondered, “What’s all the fuss about?”

Well, I found out this week, and I think I discovered what it will take to help us solve what appears to be the mystery as to why our guests don’t stay longer, spend a little more.

The missing ingredient is YOU!

That’s right ...

What people from other places really want to see is US and the unique things that we have to offer; our great foods, shops, talents, stories, spaces, smells, music, dress and most of all, our hospitality, especially our hospitality!

As I walk through the crowded streets of Montreal, passing one amazing place after another I realize what has made this place so popular as an international destination; it is the people and the incredible things they have done and their willingness to share it; it is their ability to open themselves to diversity and to change; to embrace it and incorporate it; to celebrate it.

Canada, our once sleeping neighbor to the northwest has awakened to find herself at the center of world attention. This is an astonishing place to be in and near as the world comes to assess its progress toward achieving some level of understanding of itself and its responsibilities to each other.

Right now, as the G20 convenes outside of Toronto to contemplate how the world will deal with some of our most pressing problems, nearly 40,000 Rotarians from all over the planet have invaded Montreal to reaffirm their commitment to help in every way possible through volunteering their time and money while physicist Stephen Hawking and other scientists are gathered at nearby Waterloo’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics to contemplate the cosmos.

It is fitting that the G8, once a small club of mighty international powers which has seemingly run its course and expanded into the new reality, G20, that is that it takes a planet to save a planet, and it is fitting that that realization is manifesting itself in Canada.

All of this is happening in Canada because her people have made it an intriguing place; something we can do. To make that happen, we need to come out of hiding. This weekend’s Niagara Homecoming is one way to start, and we can do that by simply showing up.

Yep ... we are the missing ingredient, and we means all of us, the various cultures and flavors that make us the unique place that we have always been and now must rediscover is what will help us restore or glory.

Without it, we’ll never be much more than a parking lot.

Contact Bill Bradberry at bill.bradberry@yahoo.com.