by Robert LaFrance
A few months ago I wrote a column about how spoiled we all are these days; the flood that struck this area March 23-25 served only to underline that theory - again. I’m not right very often; let me have this one, willya?
It was only one day before the flood struck Perth-Andover that I complained about not having enough socks. Today I am thinking of that old story: “I complained because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” I hope we can all get together and help the flood victims get their lives back together.
Before the flood, I was looking over some of my columns from years gone by. In early April 1995 the subject of flooding was part of my column. “The river ice has gone out, leaving Perth-Andover residents angry because it's been such a DULL spring…This year they stayed in their houses, didn't get any appearances on the national news, and just generally cursed the fates who refused them all that attention…It's been a mild winter, followed by this rather milquetoast spring…No flood, no flat tire for a week at least, and my eardrums have now recovered from last week’s rock concert. By gar, I think it's spring!”
It sure goes to show you how even I – usually brilliant, or is that my cousin Sam? - can sure say some dumb things. Like a lot of other people, I thought Perth-Andover was relatively safe from flooding, but this one came along so quickly that it was a shock to every human and computer model ever built. I went uptown on Thursday morning because a lady called me and said that there was a report on the scanner that water was across the road above Perth. Friday morning it was over the road below Perth and Friday afternoon it was over Perth and parts of Andover.
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Since people, especially flood victims, have heard enough about the flood for a while and just want to get on with life, I’ll move on to another subject – Babe Ruth. What could be more logical?
One of those 1995 columns (which I sat and read with the aid of a jar of lemonade) was talking about Babe Ruth’s being somewhat of an economic power back in the 1920s and 1930s. When he endorsed a shaving cream, its sales tripled, but it turns out he was a mere flea compared to the likes of Sydney Crosby today, Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan back in the 1990s. Where the Babe's using Gillette might make that company's stock go up ten or fifteen percent over time, that only amounted to a few million dollars, which, as we know is only a couple of our own paycheques. A million here and a million there soon adds up to money, but still.
In the 1990s Jordan had taken one basketball season off and had tried his hand at professional baseball, in the minor-minor leagues. When he tired of that, just the RUMOUR that he was coming back to play basketball had a bit of an impact - you might say - on Wall Street. He did commercials for Quaker Oats, McDonalds, General Foods, Nike, and Sara Lee. The total increase in value of those five stocks - and the increase is attributed to the rumour alone - was $2.3 BILLION.
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An old friend visited the other day. And yes, I do have friends even if we don’t like each other. Len, from Esterhazy, Sask., stopped by while I was splitting wood, something I usually leave for my wife to do because I have a sore elbow. After we said our hellos, Len watched me split wood for a while.
"It’s using a howitzer to shoot a raccoon," he told me, demonstrating his still-sharp metaphorical skill. He was referring to my using a maul to split drywood. “It reminds me of the time we lived out on the tundra (Qu’appelle Valley, hardly the tundra) with those army cadets who were supposed to be helping us build a barracks for “C” Company. Remember that? One or two of the cadets went into town and got drunk, then spit on the sidewalk or something, so the army disbanded the whole squad of cadets and sent them home.
"Those bad apples should have been weeded out because they went bananas,” Len said. “Every outfit has some lemons."
I asked him if he wanted to add any more fruit to that basket and was afraid for a moment he was going to mention spoiled pomegranates and crushed grapes. He went on: "Those government ministers like Peter MacKay, their free plane rides and all their other scandals – nothing happened, and THEY embarrassed a whole nation. Brian Mulroney went on to honoured retirement, sort of, and it wasn't Richard Hatfield's marijuana, right? There's only justice and understanding if you have money."
Now there's a revelation.
-end-
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