by
Robert LaFrance
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.
-end-
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