A few days ago my son Kinley and I
went fishing in a little stream near here, and I was reminded once again that
brook fishing is not for the faint of heart and definitely not for those who
tend to fall down easily.
The Flying Wallendas were clumsy oafs compared to
the average brook fisherman who will be balancing on a blowdown one minute,
climbing across a thicket (note the first syllable of that word) the next, and
a few minutes later squeezing between a butternut tree and a lodged poplar.
Why are people so crazy anyway? I can go to the
grocery store and buy a can of salmon for a couple of dollars and avoid getting
whacked in the face by a fir branch that had every intention of ripping off the
top of my head. And don’t forget, the top of my head is the place this column
comes from. Or could that fir be making a comment? Everybody’s a critic these
days.
We finally made it to the brook, where delicious
trout waited for us to catch them, clean them, and put them in a frying pan.
The only trouble was, somebody – and I’m not mentioning names – forgot to explain
to the trout that their entire function in life was to feed me and mine.
Segueing to the subject of lotteries, we in this
hamlet, sub-village, Local Service District (LSD, man) or community had a
lottery winner last week. My friend Flug’s ex-wife #7, Brunhilde, drove to
Moncton on Monday afternoon and came home with a cheque for $90,000 from the
Atlantic Lottery Corporation. Apparently it started out to be $100,000 but
there were carrying charges, shipping and handling, and things like that.
As a student of social psychology,
I’ve been quite amazed at some of the results of Brunhilde’s winning that
hundred grand. As I mentioned, she used to be Flug’s wife (I’m fairly certain
it was number seven) and the reason she and Flug parted company was that she was
so hard to get along with. Flug is, of course, a perfect human being. A Komodo
Dragon would be charmed by Flug.
Nobody likes Brunhilde though, or
should I say nobody LIKED Brunhilde before she won that money. The funny thing
is, it’s not because people think she’s going to give them some; it’s just that
now she’s right on the edge of being respected, and even liked. After all, to
win a lottery you must be a special human being, right? Last Saturday afternoon
Ed Malrony tipped his baseball cap to her and that is about as unlikely as the
Hatfields and McCoys having a pot luck supper together at Burns Hall and
inviting a cobra to share the head table.
I guess it just goes to show there
just ain’t anyone as confusing as people.
That same afternoon that Ed tipped
his baseball cap, I was walking down toward Muniac Stream for a little fishing
when I passed the Liars’ Bench at the store. On that bench were sitting the
three Pellrick twins. They were staring at an odd-coloured rock that Leroy
Pellrick was holding. Pay attention now; this gets complicated.
Leroy had found that rock the day
before up near Bon Accord Seed Farm and he immediately sprang into action,
which is quite something for Leroy, who is roughly 187 years old as are the
other two Pellrick twins, of course. Did I need to mention that?
After he got home to the Pellrick
estate (a cottage left to them by the fourth twin, Elroy, who took a job in
Qatar) Leroy phoned a geologist he knew and described the rock. His geologist
friend said it was probably Fool’s Gold since Leroy was holding it,
ha-ha-ha-ha, but seriously it sounded like a mineral called painite, which is
worth like $60,000 a carat. Previously it has only been found in Burma.
Apparently Leroy was holding in his
hand a piece of rock worth in the vicinity of $983 billion. So Leroy had to
find out about sub-surface rights, had to lay a claim on that sub-surface lot,
and had to show the rock to a real geologist, face to rock as it were. He did
all that and sure enough, it was painite.
It kind of brings Brunhilde’s lottery win into
perspective, doesn’t it?
-end-
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