Yet
again no Senate seat or lottery win
by
Robert LaFrance
It was quite a nervous time on April
13 as we all waited at the club and clutched our 6/49 lottery tickets.
Something like $65 million was at stake, or, as Flug said referring to his
future diet if he won: “at steak”.
When the announcer uttered the
fateful words that the fifteen winners were all from Alberta and B.C., we all
deflated as if it were chili night. Then I remembered that I have a daughter, a
nephew, a great-nephew, and a great-niece living in Alberta. Although it was
midnight in New Brunswick, it was only 9:00 pm out there. We started calling
our relatives out west to re-establish family ties, as it were, just in case
one of our kin had won three and a half million or so.
Nasty? Surly? Grumpy? Sneezy? (I
guess I strayed into a kid’s story there.) Of the 79 relatives we club members
called, only four (my relatives of course) were polite about the thing. Icily
polite you might say. They had hoped to win just as much as we had. However, if
they had won, they would have found out around midnight our time and probably
wouldn’t have called us, for fear of waking us up.
A final note on the subject: Prime
Minister Harper hasn’t called to see if I’d accept a Senate seat. I would.
This is the time of year when people
are complaining about potholes. I know I always have, but I think this year I
will do something different. There are no fewer potholes than other years
perhaps, and the gov’mint is fixing some of them, but I’ve always found that
complaining doesn’t make the fill-ins go any more quickly.
So here’s my plan: I am going to
assemble a crackerjack team of professional filmmakers and make a video for
YouTube, or Steven Spielberg, whichever is closest at hand, and we are going to
make a film (called ‘video’ nowadays) CELEBRATING potholes, not complaining
about them. Some people might think we are being sarcastic, but we are totally,
like totally serious and sincere.
“Bob,” said Flug, after I had told
him about my plan, “I would say the weakest magnet in Christendom would pick up
the irony in that idea.” Remember when they said that ‘Waterworld’ wasn’t going
to be a great movie? There are always sceptics.
I’m not going to mention any names,
but last week my first wife came into the kitchen when I was preparing supper
and asked what I was cooking. “Coq au vin,” I told her. “It will be a taste
treat, a bouquet for the taste buds.”
“Cocoa van?” she said. “Is that when
you drive the Plymouth Voyager to the takeout window and order hot chocolate?
Hahahahaha!” It doesn’t take much to amuse some people. “I hope it will turn
out better than the Radish Soufflé.” I assured her that it would, and it did.
Barely. The less said about it the better.
As a reporter who often covers
hockey, basketball, soccer, and other games, I often get warned about using
sports clichés. “He gave 110%” is a phrase that, even if it were used by a
respected – indeed famous – reporter like me would result in instant execution
– ‘shot at the stake’ as a former Victoria County Record employee used to say.
But my least favourite cliché has nothing to do with words, but with the vision
of a 270-pound professional basketball player reaching down and dunking the
ball, then hanging onto and swinging from the rim. I’ve heard there’s a fine
for that, but whatever it is, it’s not enough.
Have you heard that we recently
added a new member to the constabulary here? Constable Leadwell Godington is
the newest officer on the Scotch Colony force, bringing the total number up to
one. Our previous police force, Eggert Slumd,
transferred himself to the Cayman Islands last May, along with Rev.
Sackett’s wife and all the pastor’s stocks and bonds. Eggert was kind of an odd
duck right from the get-go anyway. He had previously been stationed with the
local force at Beaufort Harbour, NWT where he had a wonderful team of sled
dogs, Malmutes or huskies or possibly Scotch Terriers, I can’t tell the
difference. When he arrived here in mid-May of 2004, the dogs were not happy.
It was +26C that day and not looking to get colder right away. Eggert shipped
the dogs back up north before they turned on him, which some said would have
been cannibalism.
I’m going to miss old Eggy. He had
the greatest way with words. He would say: “I can’t make hide nor hair out of
that” when he meant “head nor tail”. One day he was talking about something
being obvious and he said: “Hey’ it’s not rocket fuel you
know." Maybe next winter, when it’s about ninety below, I’ll visit him and
Mrs. Sackett down south.
-end-
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