Let's say Maritime 'cooperation'

Bob’s column January 9, 2013 

 

You gotta start small to win at MU     

 

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

 

            There has been an ongoing discussion in my daily newspaper (the one I occasionally receive in my mailbox) about ‘Maritime Union’ and it reminds me of the RCMP and federal budgets.

            “I don’t see the connection, Bob,” said everybody I’ve seen, spoken with or took photos of. “What can the RCMP and federal budgets have to do with Maritime Union?”

            Why? Because the instant that politicians hear the phrase ‘Maritime Union’, they immediately gird their loins for battle against the whole idea. And you know why? Well, yes, of course you do and I do. It’s because if the three Maritime provinces united, chances are good that half or more of the present ‘members’ would no longer have a job.

Try using the phrase ‘gun control’ in the U.S.A. and you will find the same reaction.

 

As to the RCMP, whenever the federal government decides to cut their budget, they immediately threaten to disband the hugely populat Musical Ride and that's the end of that.

We all know that Maritime Union would mean we would have a bigger voice in Ottawa and some real power for a change, but it’s never going to happen while we let the politicians decide. Would you shoot yourself in the foot?

We have to start small, even it just means we three provinces getting together and deciding on a set of common rules for ping-pong. Three senators, no doubt bored with eating and sleeping in the Red Chamber, suggested Maritime Union and then immediately one of them – Mike Duffy I think it was – said that PEI and Nova Scotia would have to become officially bilingual, which of course put the whole thing in jeopardy. Why couldn’t NB alone could remain bilingual?

I say we start tomorrow and see what things we three provinces CAN agree on, and start from there, and before too many years, the politicians will blink and miss the fact that Maritime Union is here. Bill Handy down at the Club says they could start with beer. “Does it make sense that people can’t bring beer over provincial borders?” he asked. Of course that was a rhetorical question, because no matter how big a truck we club members drove, it would be empty of beer by the time we approached Amherst.

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Here are a few things I’ve been thinking about lately. Sorry to start off the new year like this.

A week before Christmas, Flug’s 17^th wife Gerda made chocolate covered peanut butter cups. So they wouldn’t have to be refrigerated all the time, she put some shaved cooking wax in the recipe. It’s the kind of melted wax we used to (and maybe still do) melt and put on the top of preserved jellies and jams. Trouble is, the recipe said to include one teaspoon and she put in a half cup of the shaved wax. Would that be a Parowax error?

One of these days I, as a registered old person, am going to write a column about all the things one can’t do as he or she gets old. It will include things that we can’t have in the house – like an aquarium. Allow me to explain. Flug and Gerda bought a 10-gallon aquarium in mid-November and stocked it with a few small goldfish and other exotic varieties not usually found in the Scotch Colony in winter – like piranhas. Of course the goldfish ate the piranhas immediately as you would expect because the goldfish were from the middle east and the piranhas were from Vatican City. But that’s getting away from the point; Flug and Gerda had to jettison the aquarium because of the bubbling of the aerator. Picture two people, age 64 and 67, listening to running, bubbling water while trying to watch a whole TV show at one sitting. I suppose they could move the flush into the TV room, but it is easier to get rid of the aquarium.

As the year 2012 drew to a close, I find there were some things I regretted. For example, I thought I was doing a great thing, a favour, when I bought my wife a hardwood rolling pin in Winnipeg. However, after three concussions, 19 contusions, and countless trips to ER. I begin now to see my error.

Another thing I wish I had done – buy shares a few years ago in those companies whose hand-washing devices are on just about any wall you want to name. And finally, I wish that ten years ago I had bought shares in bottled water companies and pet food companies. There sure are a lot of suckers on this earth.

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