by Robert LaFrance
Last week I read Adolph Hitler’s book ‘Mein Kampf’. It had one good idea in it. On the last page it said ‘The End’. He wasn’t a nice person; I’m not sure if anyone else noticed this, but I tell you what: I’d keep an eye on that guy.
When people categorize other people, they often use words like ‘redneck’ or ‘hippie’. My problem (because I like to be precise) is that there don’t seem to be enough nuances (as they say) of these words. For example, if a guy is a redneck, but not really serious about his status, why wouldn’t he be called a ‘pinkneck’?
Two evenings ago at the club the Perfessor was talking to us – lecturing us – about Horace, the Roman poet (as opposed to the roamin’ poet) and in walked Flug. He obtained a lemonade and sat down with us. Trouble is, he never heard of Rome or Horace, and thought the Perfessor was talking about Hoss, the character on the old western TV show ‘Bonanza’. It wasn’t pretty, but it was entertaining.
As we all know, euphemisms are everywhere, especially when it comes to things like dying. The latest one to appear is possibly the worst of all time. People have talked for years about others ‘passing away’ but now I keep hearing that so-and-so has ‘passed’ which almost sounds as if the person in question has been successful in his final exams.
Eddie Stanton lives a few kilometres down the road and sometimes drops by to get some apples so he can attract deer so he can shoot deer so he can eat deer. We both went to high school in Andover (now part of Perth-Andover) and sometimes reminisce about those teenage years. “Remember Miss Sara Williams, our English teacher?” he said one day. Asking someone that is like asking a D-day participant if he remembers World War II. “Remember that day you asked if one of the other students was ‘a rebel without a clause’”? Yes, I remembered it well. The scars are almost healed.
Speaking of old school days, I recall that the first time I heard about ‘necking’ and ‘petting’ I was totally baffled. I told my friend Eldred that I knew what ‘Petting’ was because I had a dog, but what is ‘necking’? It sounded a little painful, or maybe something giraffes did on a Saturday night. Please remember that I grew up in rural New Brunswick and wasn’t sophisticated like those from the urban cores of Four Falls or Anfield.
So you don’t think we rely too much on technology? Apparently I do, even if you don’t. The power went off here about three weeks ago and I lit lamps and used flashlights to read a certain novel, but then I decided that I wanted to play a few tunes on the piano. I searched high and low (as they say) but could only find seven ‘D’ batteries, but needed eight for my electronic keyboard. After ten minutes I gave up searching and walked toward my chair where I had been reading. On the way there I happened to glance at a large object sitting there in my living room. A full-size upright piano, a real one and in tune since I had tuned it myself. We all need to go live in a cabin by a brook. By the way, the power is back on now.
After my son had his latest birthday, he received a notice from a certain bank (the one that sponsors the Toronto FC soccer team) that now that he had turned nineteen and wasn’t attending school full time, he had to pay $8.50 a month service charge on his savings account. Since this was hardly offset by the 47 cents interest he received every month he closed the account. It may be time that our governments started looking closely at bank charges, especially ‘service’ charges like that. They charge the customer money merely for keeping his or her money that they, the banks, have invested. One thing that governments and customers should ask themselves is: “What SERVICE did you perform for that $8.50?”
Two weeks ago I bought a new cellphone and it actually came with a manual. That’s what I said: a printed-out-on-paper real manual that I can read while sitting in a chair and relaxing while listening to Mozart’s latest pop tune. Those who aren’t into computers and other technology don’t realize how rare that is nowadays. Buy a computer program—or even a computer—and you will find that just about every manual is ‘online’, and just about as helpful as a strawberry to a guy who just realized his parachute wasn’t going to open.
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