Wednesday, August 28, 2012

Martha and Elvis had a great summer  

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

 

            I am not sure why this summer has spawned so many wonderful observations and comments; it must be the warm and dry weather that leads to warm and especially dry humour.

            A couple was standing beside a store in Grand Falls mall and gazing at a 24-hour clock within the store. The clock read 14:23. It was twenty-three minutes past two o’clock. The man scratched his head and said: “I don’t know, Martha. It must be one of them new metric clocks.”

            Among the gems in my notebook was this: at exactly 1:07 pm on Friday, March 23, when the Perth-Andover flood was just getting to a vigorous stage, I was sitting on the hill and about to go home and hope that our mountain wasn’t flooded. As soon as I got in the car and turned on the radio, I heard the 1960s song ‘Downtown’ by Petula Clark. Part of the lyrics was: “Downtown, everything will be fine…” Not in the least funny. The irony could have been picked up by a magnet.

            After a bean and salad supper in June, a country music group was playing the theme from the TV show ‘Red Green’. Getting up from the table, one former musician asked another: “What key is that in? “ There was an extra noise and the other chap answered: “I think it was the key of B Flatulence, Clyde.” (Those with perfect pitch like my son and brother will know it is in the key of ‘C’.)

            Lo and behold – and I mean both – one day after I saw Martha and her husband looking at the new metric clock, I saw them in a grocery store. I swear upon every bible in Christendon, she was saying to the store worker: “Hello dear, I’m about to start canning. Do you have any of them Perry Mason Jars?”

            Several people have remarked this summer on the decreasing sizes of electronic devices. In its day, the Sony Walkman was a wonderful invention, but in 2012, it seems to be something out of the Dark Ages. Remember the original computers that took up whole rooms? One evening at the club I was saying that the iPod Touch I held in my hand contained thousands of times  as much information as that roomful of computer. “For every million brain cells we lose in our old age,” mused Flug, “music players get ten percent smaller.” Then he collapsed onto and into a bag of Doritos he had placed strategically under his chin.

            Remember Martha and her husband (whose name turned out to be Elvis) from earlier in this column? They were at Squeaky’s and buying some Doritos (speaking of Doritos) when he turned to her and said they had to go home and turn on the computer so they could ‘surf the innertube’.

            Thinking about so many millionaires in the world who shouldn’t have their money because they had gained it under false pretences, and thinking that I should have it just for being a nice guy, I picked up my guitar and attempted to sing “Roy Rogers” which is an old Elton John song. I recorded it too, which marks the first time I have ever heard a digital voice recorder cry out loud. So now I know I can’t sing, but can Bob Dylan? Neil Young? I enjoy listening to them both, but can they sing? Then I remembered growing up and listening to country music heroes like Ernest Tubb who couldn’t carry a tune with a crane. However, don’t ever say a word about Hank Williams (the real one) around me or it’s Boot Hill for you.

 

            About a month ago – I think it was late July – my wife was driving our Toyota BMR Off-Road AWD Sport (Corolla) downriver when all of a sudden it looked as if a piece of the windshield rubber was coming off. Then she realized it wasn’t part of a windshield wiper, but a snake. A small garden snake, a Maritime garter snake as they’re called, had somehow crawled out there, probably up from the engine area. She almost (1) hit a motorcycle head-on, and (2) went in the ditch, but she hung on. She was still shaky when she was telling me about it hours later, but, sensitivity not being my strong suit, I asked her if it could be called a windshield viper. When I regained consciousness, I could hear the words ‘horse’s asp’ ringing in my battered ears. When I could focus, I made a note: “We’re getting aluminum frying pans. Cast iron doesn’t give worth a damn.”
                                                          -end-

Column for August 22, 2012

Some things just plain don’t make sense        

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            Every day we are faced with a lot of things – a plethora, as Miss Sara Williams (English teacher 1921-1966 or so) used to say – that make no sense at all. Here’s one: You sit down to a fine meal of Chicken a la King, baked potatoes, peas and carrots from your own garden, and a dessert of apple pie, the apples from your own orchard. Ah, those flavours and aromas! Then, THEY say, you are supposed to go brush your teeth, as in ‘after every meal’. So all that delicious meal’s pleasure is replaced by the chemical taste of Colgate or Crest.

            On to the subject of the Olympics, the summer version of which just wound up in England, I find that the Games’ definition of ‘amateur’ is, at best, bizarre. It used to be that the participants were not allowed to earn one thin dime from their sport or accept any prize or gift related to their sport. Now, an athlete who doesn’t earn money from his or her sport is the exception. Just last year the American swimmer Michael Phelps made (I almost said earned) $400 million from product endorsements.

            One of the great gimmicks for selling new cars these days is ‘employee pricing’. This phrase carries on from the theory that those who work for the car company are able to buy that company’s car at a big discount. My question is: how do the employees feel about this? I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised that some of those Ford, GM, and Toyota assembly line workers making a mere $65 an hour would simply say: “Take this job and shove it”, a sentiment made famous by the late country singer Johnny Paycheck. I would resent it too.

            I sometimes find job references a bit weird. A couple of decades ago a young man asked me to give him a reference to be used against the company where he was applying for a job. First of all, why he would want ME, well-known iconoclast, to give him a reference was a mystery, but I did it. I wrote: “I have found (George, Bill, Clod, whatever) a responsible young man in all my dealings with him and would not hesitate to recommend him for any position you have to offer.” What I was really saying was that George, etc. was undoubtedly responsible for most of the problems in the town he lived in – thefts, vandalism, hooliganism – and while I would not hesitate to recommend him, it certainly wouldn’t be for any job that affected the well-being of humans or decent dogs. Those who think about such things have noticed that I used the word ‘would’ which is in the ‘subjunctive mood’, meaning ‘not in a donkey’s year, my friend!’. Bottom line: he got the job and was eventually transferred to Brisbane, Australia. Mission accomplished.

            While there is some wonderful scenery around in the summer time, human and otherwise, one thing that always amazes me is the sight of people going on ‘vacation’ and taking their entire house and household with them in the form of an RV. I cannot picture myself having a 3-week vacation and having to care for and worry about a $150,000 Winnebago type affair, or a great heavy-duty pickup truck with a fifth wheel and the 40-foot trailer behind it filled with all that I’m trying to get away from. I would spend my whole vacation worrying about how many wheels were about to fall off it on the way home. They do, you know. If I wanted to get away that badly, I would jump in the car (51 mpg) and stay at motels ($70-$90/night) with no idea where I would be the next night. I did say I was an iconoclast.

            It is true that redundancies are weird because they result in people using many more words than necessary. I often rail about the use of redundancies such as ‘hot water heater’ and ‘first started’ but there’s one I thought of the other day when I talked to my younger daughter who now lives in Calgary. She had been to Lake Louise and other places in the area and said those little  hills were called ‘The Rocky Mountains’. “My dear,” I remonstrated, “you don’t have to say rocky mountains; it is assumed that mountains are rocky, unless it’s an Australian mountain made of empty beer bottles and cans. When you go west from Calgary, you just have to say you’re going to The Mountains.”

Mount Carleton here in New Brunswick is rocky too; you may have noticed if you fell off it. Ouch!

                                                 -end-

Looking for a well-paying job? Grow Christmas trees          

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            No doubt by the time this column appears in print we here in Kincardine will have had lots of rain – too much rain – but as of today it has been something like five weeks since we’ve had a good downpour, and I’m not talking about those 5-minute deluges after which you need a kayak to go from your garage to your mailbox, if you have one. We don’t, at least not a Canada Post one.

            It might be great weather for growing muskmelons, but I doubt that some potato farms and farmers are having a great summer. They can’t seem to win; last year there was too much rain and their potatoes got late blight (made famous in Ireland in the 1840s) and this year there’s not enough rain to scrub down a gnat unless there’s a monsoon that sends their topsoil onto the road.

            The word ‘drought’ could very well be applied here at our estate. Many times in the last month we have seen Mars Hill Mountain, across the St. John River and just into Maine, drowned in rain while the sun shone here. Other times the thunder rumbled and the rain fell to our south, in Carleton County, or up toward Perth-Andover and Tilley area while it continued as dry as a bone here.

            It all reminds me of the spring of 1980, just after I bought a house and fifty acres in Birch Ridge, near Maggie’s Falls, or Robinson Falls if you prefer. One of the things I did during the week after I moved in was dig up 55 balsam fir seedlings from the woods and transplant them into the field behind my house. That was to be the beginning of my Christmas tree plantation. I wanted to get wealthy too, like everyone else who had those plantations. Going into Christmas trees was like a licence to print money.

            I may have been over-optimistic. Since those days I have found out that not EVERY Christmas tree grower became a millionaire. However, my point is, I started into the industry with bright and shining eyes. With each seedling I transplanted, I watered it nicely from a spring on the sidehill of my property. It was quite a job to make that many trips, but I wanted them to get a good start. As luck would have it, it rained the next day anyway.

            A week later though, it hadn’t rained, so I spent a couple of hours watering the seedlings. A week after that still no rain, but I didn’t water the trees. I had an attack of ennui. A week later, I fell and hurt my leg and couldn’t water them. By that time I had resolved to just let nature take its course. Several of them had turned brown and were goners anyway.

            To make a long story slightly shorter, my estate went forty-two (42) days without one drop of rain. It rained in Plaster Rock, Sisson Ridge, Tilley, Currie Siding, and even Arthurette, less than three miles away, but not one molecule of H2O fell on Birch Ridge. When it finally did rain, it rained for two weeks, but only three of my 55 seedlings remained alive. Thus went my career as a Christmas tree farmer.

                                                            ********************************

            Notes from this year’s hot summer:

            I thought I had made my fortune last week – or at least a thousand dollars – when I bought a Duncan Fife table at a yard sale in town. They only wanted fifty dollars for it and I knew a Duncan Fife table like that would be worth somewhere between $800 and $1500. I strapped it to the roof of the Chrysler Intrepid and brought it home, beaming. I mean I was beaming, not the table. As soon as I came in my driveway, Flug came over and asked why I had bought the table when I already had three. I triumphantly showed him the underside of the table where the name ‘Duncan Fife’ had been signed. “Pity he didn’t know how to spell his own name,” Flug said. “It’s P-H-Y-F-E.” Don’t get me wrong; I like Flug, it’s just that sometimes he acts a little too – shall we say? – smart. “Anyway, I think it’s more of a style than the fact of him making them,” he continued.

            I watched a certain number of minutes of the Olympics, mostly after scouring the TV guide for ‘Beach volleyball’. I felt that because Canada had been a part of Britain, I should try and renew old ties by watching the Olympic Games from England. Particularly Beach Volleyball, which I noticed every network listed as coming on TV next. It rarely did, but I tried to support them – those scantily clad extremely fit young women I mean – by watching when I could.

                                                      -end-

Dancing 'The Highland Sling' with gusto

Bob LaFrance and his new dance       

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            I attended the 2012 New Brunswick Highland Games in Fredericton and they say I invented a new dance. A piper was playing a tune called ‘Break out the whisky!' and I naturally broke into a Highland fling. Those who were there to witness the event say it resembled an aardvark trying to play bongos while baking a cherry pie, but the bottom line is that I fell and broke both arms just below the knees (I know, it doesn't sound possible) and so for evermore that dance will be called The Highland Sling.

            One might wonder why a chap with no Scottish blood flowing through his veins would be even at Highland Games, let alone dancing at them, but let us just say that every year I follow instructions. Indeed, with my French, Irish, German, and other mongrel ancestry, I should probably be dancing the gavotte, drinking whisky, and sitting in a hofbrauhaus, but I am just too dignified for that.

            There is a lot of history in New Brunswick, Scottish and otherwise, and I have been thinking for some time that when I retire – if I manage to make it that far – I would like to write a book called A Readable History of Perth-Andover and Area. The Tobique has already had many books written about it, and I now live in southern Victoria County, so I think I will concentrate on these acres.

            This 2-year project is going to cost somewhere between $60,000 and $100,000 so if you have that sum in a cookie jar, think of me.

            When I use the word ‘readable’ I mean it will not be like many history books which, while interesting, can be as dry as the Sahara. I will be writing stories about Sahara – I mean Sara – Williams, the legendary English teacher who put fear into the hearts of her students, and probably her colleagues. To me, THIS is history, just as much as the date the treaty ending the Aroostook War  so we wouldn’t get what is now Aroostook County, Maine.

            The golf course that used to be in Perth, Ann’s Tea Room, reminiscences of area folks like Joe Farquhar, the South Tilley Fair, railroading stories from Aroostook, stories from the Perth and Andover Fire Departments in the old days when their personal firefighting clothing consisted of their own coats and hats – this is history too.

            A couple of weeks ago Trudi Ranger of Perth-Andover, lent me some newspapers from 1934, 1936, and 1944. They were the Telegraph-Journal, the Victoria County News, and the Victorian respectively and, as always, it was very interesting to read news about what were then ordinary everyday events and what is now history.

            From that August 1934 T-J, which concentrated on world events rather than those in New Brunswick, we learn that there was a riot in Ireland, a Nazi uprising in Austria, and a huge piece broke off the rock at the top of Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. Of course that was years before Marilyn Monroe went there to film the movie ‘Niagara’. No doubt when she got there the rock rose up and went back to where it belonged.

            There was one front-page story from New Brunswick though, the Conservative Party, led by Premier Leonard Percy Dewolfe Tilley (not to be confused with Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley, the Father of Confederation). There was no mention of a flood in Perth-Andover. But wait! Perth-Andover hadn’t been created yet, nor had Beechwood Dam, if you get my drift.

            The Victoria County News of August 1935 reported that Mrs. R.S. Wright of the Armstrong Golf Club in Perth had led the field with a 98 in a tournament held at her home club. The clubs represented were Perth of course, Aroostook Valley, Woodstock, and Campbellton. Only a week or so before I read this, I wrote a newspaper article about Herrick Hansen winning a seniors’ tournament at Aroostook Valley, HIS home club, so things tend to keep on going, don’t they? NOTE: When I played golf, my best score was 98 too - for nine holes.

            In that same issue of the newspaper was an information story about the upcoming South Tilley Fair which I just vaguely remember – not because of strong drink, but because it closed when I was about in grade one. People were also reminded in that edition that a full pound of Castile Soap cost 10 cents at O. C. Johnson’s Drug Store in Perth.

            In the June 29, 1944 Victorian, we were informed that high school graduation exercises would be held ‘At various centres’ during the coming week. ‘Various centres’ included Aroostook, Plaster Rock, Perth, and Andover. Students received prizes and one of the most interesting ones, I thought, went to Anna Johnson in Plaster Rock because she ‘had the most constructive influence on the school during the year’.

            Now THAT’S the kind of thing I call history. Even though it may not find its way into the history books written by others, it would in my history book. An historian has to write about affairs of state, but he shouldn’t forget it’s the people who make up the state, meaning county in this case.

                                                            -END-

Tales of an incompetent bird-watcher

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            First things first, bird-watchers aren’t bird-watchers any more; they (we) are ‘birders’. Usually I object to changes in names by which groups have been known for 111 years, but in this case it’s shorter by one whole syllable so I’ll let it go. However, if you look for me to say ‘fisher’ instead of ‘fisherman’ your eyes will get pretty tired. People are so silly.

            In today’s column we shall go over the rules of bird-watching – which of course includes ‘bird-listening’ – and the first rule is this:

            When you are outside (one assumes) and see an unusual bird and do your best to memorize every feature of that bird, you will not find it in your $27.75 book entitled Birds of Eastern Canada. Never. So you grab your camera and put on a telephoto lens, which leads us to rule number two:

            You will never, never see that bird or any other bird except chickadees and robins while you are holding your camera at the ready. As a test, take your camera and place it carefully on the ground beside your hammock and it’s the same two birds gambolling around your yard. Next, take the camera and set it on a woodpile ten feet away. There will be an instant array of California condors, Minto Marsh hawks, ostriches, and Baltimore Cardinals (mixed breed) – so many you’ll have to shove them aside to get to your camera, at which point they’ll all disappear and you are left with the chickadees and robins. And possibly a Canada Post carrier pigeon who has lost his way.

            There’s something about a camera that makes relatives and birds shy, not to mention any other kind of wildlife except Flug’s nephew Flagg, who just moved here from Arizona. Flagstaff, Arizona of course. We’ll mention Flagg later.

            I recall the days back in the late 1970s when I and relatives would drive from Tilley for what seemed like 99 miles (it’s even farther in kilometres) to fish in Clearwater Brook which crosses the Renous Highway, such as it is and was, about 23 miles from Plaster Rock. If I had my camera we would see a mosquito or two and maybe a dead toad, but should I forget to bring that Kodak gem, the road would be covered with everything from aardvarks to polar bears to moose to leopards. We’d all swear to this too, but no one would believe us.

            Such is the way it is with bird-watchers, at least this birdwatcher. I could walk from here (Kincardine) to Riley Brook and my camera need never be brought to my eye. Other people – and I won’t mention Murray Watters’s name - report seeing a Ruby Crowned Kinglet, but I count it a great coup if I can see a barn swallow. (“See a barn swallow what?” you might well ask.)

            In all seriousness, this year I have made a real effort to learn the names of birds I see around here. There are nuthatches (called ass-ups by a certain birder uptown – no names I said – because they are upside down when they eat), purple finches, the birds I mentioned before, a catbird, grosbeaks, evening primroses…

            “Wait a minute!” said Flug, who had been reading over my shoulder, as is his habit. “An evening primrose is a flower, not a bird.”

            Flug has been jealous of me for a long time because this column of mine is read by tens of thousands of people all over the world and he is…well, he is merely Flug. I happen to know that an evening primrose is a bird and not a flower. Next he’ll be telling me that a titmouse isn’t a mouse.

            “It isn’t,” he said over my shoulder again. “It’s a bird.”

            Tomorrow morning I plan to go on a serious bird-watching expedition up in the north country of the Scotch Colony – Upper Kintore. Many have gone there, but few have returned. Those who have returned brought back tales of a wild band of fourth generation Scotsmen and women throwing large sticks through the air, and rocks as big as birthday cakes landing with a crash on people’s Toyotas. Those stories won’t deter me though. I have heard reports that the dreaded Robbie Burns Manure Hawk has been spotted up near the fire tower. When I say I’m going to go there I mean I’m going to go there.

            (No sooner did I write the above than Flug’s nephew Flagg stopped by and said he wanted to go too. “I saw a California Condor once, in Arizona,” he explained, “and I want to see a Quebec Wren in New Brunswick to sort of even things out.” )

            Do you blame me for drinking, er, lemonade, sometimes to excess?                    

                                        -end-