Boy, was I wrong about that flag!       

 

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

 

            In last week’s column I asked the musical question: “Does Canada not exist in the winter?” because I couldn’t find a Canadian flag anywhere. Wrong. A few days after I wrote that column I was motoring in the great village of Florenceville-Bristol, that is the Florenceville part of it, and I decided to visit the Great Canadian Dollar Store in search of a flag.

            Guess what? They not only had the exact size I wanted, but several other sizes too, and the young lady working there called me ‘dear’, something I don’t get called at home. The closest I get to being called ‘dear’ here is being called the nether end of a certain farm animal – not a deer.

            Let’s see, what else is going on in our fair land? One man accused me of being Stephen Harper, and did so in front of the whole membership of the Club because it was darts-and-dinner night. He said that if it weren’t for the beard and the too-grey hair, I would look just like SH. (People use his initials now because it reminds them that he won’t talk to them or the media on any subject except the piano and the NDP.)

            Anyway, to skip to the bottom line, this guy who made the accusation told everyone at the club that he could prove I was actually Stephen Harper. “Tell me this,” he said triumphantly, “have you ever seen Bob and Stephen Harper at the same time, in a photo or otherwise?” To him this was the height of logic.

            “He must be Ed Edwards’s pet iguana too,” shouted Flug. “I’ve never seen them together either!”

            From nonsense to more nonsense, my friend Flug was stopped by the police last week and asked why he kept going over the yellow line. He said there was no reason for it except the lemonade he had drunk at the Club. There’s more to the story of course: Flug was walking at the time. La gendarme who flagged him down was Kincardine Police Const. Maryon Flumeneise, who has long had her eye out for Flug. She offered him a lift home and on the way she said: “If I charged you with impaired walking, what would you say to the judge when he asked you how you plead?”

            “I would say: Oh please, please, please, please don’t find me guilty! How’s that for pleading?”

            There’s been some reaction to my recent column of puns, but I have a big and ugly watchdog, so the comments don’t bother me a bit, although the drive-by shootings are getting a little tedious. Cst. Flumeneise is usually the one who answers the call and she’s always a little peeved that it isn’t Flug who invited her to his house. “I might do a little drive-by shooting myself if he doesn’t smarten up!” she roared gently.

            But back to the subject of puns, people are actually sending ME examples of their favourites even though I am the Pun King of western Kincardine. Eddie asked me why I should be careful not to insult a playing card. I said I didn’t know. “Because they travel in packs! Haw haw haw.”

            Even Cst. Flumeneise had to put in her (less than) two cents worth. “I was questioning a driver last evening,” she said, “and he admitted to drinking – the day before, and didn’t drive while he was imbibing (a good example for our youth and our oldth). He even held up an empty whiskey bottle and of course I had to say ‘something’s gone a rye!’”

            Even Glenn Harvard of Glenn’s Photos had to weigh in with all of his 28 years and 98 pounds on the subject of puns. By the way, he’s one of those people who still use film cameras because he feels the quality is better. “Yeah,” he said, which meant he was about to speak, “yeah, I had one older lady – at least 45 – who wasn’t happy with the photos I gave her, well, sold her, and she asked me if I really thought she looked that bad. Lady, I said, I can happily say the answer is in the negative.”

            After all that additional pun-ishment, I would like to leave readers with this statement by convicted felon Conrad Black who was being interviewed by a British reporter. Although Black has lost much of his fortune, he still has a hundred million or so, it is said. If you want to hear the words of an arrogant, uncaring and blind rich man, listen to this:

            The reporter asked him what he now thinks of his native country, Canada, which has let him back in. “It’s a more interesting country than it was and frankly, John, it’s not that hard to make money. It’s a treasure house and it only has 33 million people in it. There are almost no poor people.”

                                               -end-      

Flemming has brought back Mr. Dressup’s Tickle Trunk   

 

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

 

            New Brunswick’s Health Minister Ted Flemming recently ‘hinted’ – the word used by some journalists – that there would be a new hospital built in Perth-Andover, and high on a hill above the flood zone. I saw the 9.5 minute (unedited) interview on the Internet and he also ‘hinted’ that surgery was not going to be an option for this new facility because ‘Waterville is just down the road’ and Hotel Dieu will flood again.

            Why do I see and hear the fine hand of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), that rather devious Italian politician? Why do I get the impression that he is saying: “Don’t be so upset about losing surgery now, because in the future there will be this fine new hospital overlooking all the sick people.” To be fair, he didn’t say that of course, or I would have pounced on the word ‘overlooking’ which is what we are all afraid of, being overlooked while the greater scheme of things drifts down the river. Oops, wrong analogy.

            Every time I hear one of those future-bright announcements, it reminds me of my favourite kids’ show host, Mr. Dressup. I used to watch that when my kids were growing up. One of his great stage props was his ‘Tickle Trunk’, where he found all sorts of costumes and masks designed to make things look different and better than they really were, if you get my drift.

            Let us be clear: the government(s) have tried to get rid of Hotel Dieu Hospital, and particularly its surgery, ever since Bernard Lord’s little band of minions decided to build a hospital in downtown metropolitan Waterville, where existed a ‘critical mass’ of cow patties. Whether this decision was made after a night of whisky sours and cannabis sativa, we will probably never know, but the kindest thing I can possibly say is that it was a mistake.

            They’re about to make another one by getting rid of surgery in Perth-Andover because the area doesn’t have a ‘critical mass’ (to use the minister’s words) of surgical patients. Well, no kidding. When you refuse to let a second surgeon come to Hotel Dieu and you overwork the first one, that might happen. TV networks use the same method when getting rid of a show; keep changing its place on the schedule until no one can find it any more. Voila! No more critical mass.

            Were I able to see into the future, I would probably see the brand new 2-room Perth-Andover hospital high on the hill in Andover, and I could see nurses reaching into a Horizon Health Tickle Trunk and handing out band-aids. But then I’m cynical.

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            On another subject that probably doesn’t involve politics, I have a question: Does Canada not exist in the winter?

Those of you who drive by our estate out here in the Colony of Scotch cannot help but notice that I proudly fly a Canadian flag on our front lawn. Trouble is, it’s getting a little threadbare and seedy and that is no fault of mine. I have been trying to buy a Canadian flag since the first of November.

No dollar store, no hardware store, no corner grocery, no black market entrepreneur, has a Canadian flag for sale. In one day last week, I visited three dollar stores (where I usually buy flags) and five other types of stores; not a Canadian flag to be had. I asked the cashier in each establishment: “How come you don’t got no Canadian flags for sale? Are we in Portugal or what?”

Pretty well all of them looked at me as if I were something they had just scraped off their shoe, and said, as if they were imparting information from the very Fountain of Logic: “Well, no, we don’t sell flags in the winter.” None of them saw anything bizarre about this, even after I asked: “Does Canada not exist in the winter? It must. I just saw it down the road.”

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

As the reader knows, high finance is one of my specialties, and I'm here to report that I have found an investment that we all can take advantage of and make a good profit without any risk.

Back in the 1970s I bought Clairtone stock at $4.67 and sold it two years later at $1.22, and the next month I bought Redstone Resources at $4.75 and sold it three years later at $1.60. We won’t even mention Nortel, but those days are gone. I have found a sure thing. Those who should know are reporting from all corners of the world that the Canadian dollar is all set to rise against other currencies.

How about if we all buy as many Canadian dollars as our bank accounts will handle and wait for the rise? It won’t be long before our ships come in and we’re vacationing in Minto. As long as its not Waterville, please.

                                    -end-

Do you know Noah Vail? No?

A garbage can full of pun-ishment  

 

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

 

            You can’t say you haven’t been warned; I have said in two different columns this fall that I would soon write a column composed entirely of puns, the lowest form of humour.

I always like to see entrepreneurs come up with new ideas and then go ahead and produce an actual product for sale. Such was the case with Frank Naismith, a local guy who designed a big beer mug (not that anyone around here drinks alcoholic beverages) and put it on the market about two weeks before Hallowe’en, which is supposed to be kind of a scary time. What did he call his invention, you ask? It’s the Frank N. Stein.

            Castor DeMercé, who lives down the road and tries to be a carpenter, stopped by yesterday morning and we each had a  lemonade. The sun WAS over the yardarm because I had put the yardarm into the ditch for the day. Castor was saying that he had built in his garage two shelves for his power tools and they had both collapsed from the weight. Just before he arrived at my estate, he had put up yet another shelf and put the same heavy power tools on it. It was still there half an hour later. I asked him why he didn’t simply put less weight on it. “You gotta believe in your shelf,” he simply.

            My second cousin twice removed (to prison both times) Ernie said – not very originally – that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know and proceeded to prove it. He said when he had been in the slammer, the top dog in his cell block was named Bob Vail. He said that, like Conrad Black, Bob had gourmet meals sent in from the kitchen while the rest of the prison population, and indeed the people of Renous itself, had to be satisfied with sirloin or quiche. “The rest tried to get the good meals too,” Ernie said, “but it was to no avail. I was a good friend of Bob and got good meals too, which proves that the secret is to know a Vail.” If he had continued and mentioned our other cousin Noah Vale, I would have cheerfully killed him. And probably ended up in Renous myself.

            About a month ago my friend Flug decided that he would no longer eat store-bought eggs. He asked me where I got my eggs and I explained that, when one finds a source of ‘free-range’ hens’ eggs – the same as for fiddleheads – he does not divulge that source even if someone gently placed red-hot steel spikes under his fingernails and insulted his grandmother. So Flug, being Flug, decided he would buy a dozen laying hens and keep them in his garage. “One hen never does what the others do,” he complained, and I remembered a similar trouble when I had hens. There’s always one, I told him. I called them ‘henigades’.

            So Flug eventually got rid of the hens, which had laid six eggs in four weeks, and moved on to his next adventure in craziness. The day after he gave the hens away, I looked out my kitchen window and saw Flug going by on his old Schwinn bicycle and then fifteen minutes later I once more saw him going by – backwards this time. I hollered out and asked him why he was doing that and he said that he was ‘recycling’. I think Flug needs a hobby.

            The country music group The Rebels was in town last weekend and one part of their act was a song about Christmas when five men dressed as Santa Claus – one for each of the boys - were to have come out on stage and to do a little dance number. Trouble was, the Santa who was supposed to come out and dance beside Sidney J. had a flat tire on the way to the theatre and didn’t make it. Sidney J. was – one might say – a Rebel without a Claus.

            Everyone in the small community of Pandora is laughing because a fellow named Scott Ginger tried to murder Jayden Hislip’s grandmother for her cash. Everyone but Scott knew better than to annoy Mrs. Grindon. If Scott had asked anyone, he would have learned that she was the wrong one to attack. The reason he wasn’t successful was that she was a trained MI6 operative and knows 46 ways to kill a human and that includes Scott. Why did he do that, you ask? Apparently what happened was that Scott was ‘over-served’ as people say when they have drunk too much, and when someone used the word ‘kilogram’ he decided to try it. He will be out of the hospital by Christmas – of 2013.

                                       -end-

Column for Nov 28/12

Working to pay Brian Mulroney’s pension   

 

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

 

            The stove wood is all piled up (or ‘stacked’ as they say on TV as if they’re talking about cases of corn flakes), the lawn is mown for the last time in 2012, the winter tires are on everybody’s vehicles, the anti-freeze is checked, the insulation in Kezman’s doghouse has been fixed into place, the basement is full of preserves (it seems), the stovepipes are cleaned, and the apples are all picked.

            It’s time to sit down in my favourite chair, put up my feet and…

            “Get your feet off that pillow! I bought that at a yard sale in Minto and it has sentimental value! And get your fat *** out of that chair and feed the dog why don’t you? And by the way, where did you hide my rolling pin? I want to make some cookies.”

            She did finally find her rolling pin, which somehow fell from a drawer in the kitchen to the branches of a Honeygold apple tree at the back of the orchard. Who knows how these things happen? Ours is not to wonder why though, as the late Miss Sara Williams, my old high school English teacher, used to say. (Unfortunately, the second part of that quotation is: “Ours is but to do and die.”)

I believe that’s paraphrased from the Tennyson poem ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ but it could just as easily be from a Bruce Springsteen album, the way my memory works (or doesn’t) these days.

            I mentioned my feeling that my work outside is all done for the year. There is a certain time every fall which is similar in a way to Wednesdays or what we call ‘hump days’ because half the work week is done. I am referring to those 26 New Brunswickers who have jobs. There is a certain ennui that sets in.

My fall ‘hump days’ are just about now, if certain persons would quit picking on me. If you’ve ever been whacked by a hardwood rolling pin, you might understand astronomy a little better (all those stars!) but it’s definitely being picked on.

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

            On to other subjects: Last week I was appalled to see the photo of former prime minister Brian Mulroney on the front page of the daily newspaper I receive once in a while, like three days a week.

            As I dragged the paper out of my group mail box box (as it were) I couldn’t help but wonder what that man could possibly have to say that would put him on the front page of a New Brunswick paper. It turned out that he was pandering to us New Brunswickers and saying to Ottawa’s elite: no transfer payment reduction for NB.

            I was impressed by that, because only the day before, the federal finance minister had pledged there would be no cut in the transfer payments to New Brunswick. So it seems that our former beloved prime minister can now see into the past as well as the future. Remember all the rosy predictions he made on various subjects and how they all came true?

            But I do have to admit one thing about Brian Mulroney: his Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. appears to have been a good thing. Generally speaking that is, unless you happen to own a business in Ontario or a lumber mill somewhere in Canada.

            I should quit talking about Brian M. though, because he did make an effort and he did listen. I keep getting impressions that our present prime minister doesn’t listen all that well, but then I was scared by a politician when I was a baby and they’ve scared me ever since.

            NOTE: When I said Brian Mulroney listened, I didn’t mean to imply that he ever did any more than that. He and Frank McKenna were masters of listening intently to us ‘great unwashed’ (An H. L. Mencken reference there) and then doing what they were going to do in the first place.

            Seeing that face on the front page of my daily paper did cause me a moment of consternation though, but that shouldn’t be confused with constipation. Indeed, the effect was exactly opposite. All that Meech Lake business, the rolling of the dice, the Airbus scandal involving the German alleged miscreant Karlheinz Schreiber – all that came back to me, so I put down the paper and turned on the TV. And there he was again, like a born-again Nixon rising from disgrace to ignominy.

            It hurts to think that I’m helping to pay this guy’s (Mulroney’s) pension while he gets $10,000 speaking fees.

            So I turned to another channel and there was his son Ben Mulroney on some mindless show about Hollywood celebrities where the men don’t know how to shave and the actresses are, in the words of Mort Sahl, female impersonators. We can’t win for losing, but I keep buying lottery tickets anyway.           

                                              -end-