There’s
gonna be a revolution in 2014
by
Robert LaFrance
The Victoria Star in which this
column is to appear will probably be dated January 1, 2014, although it may be
later when you read it because the mail delivery on New Year’s Day is usually
spotty.
Which brings me to the first topic
of this treatise – home delivery of mail.
There has been a great hue and cry
over Canada Post’s decision to stop home delivery everywhere, which,
translated, means in the cities since the corporation has stopped home delivery
almost everywhere else under the pretext of looking out for their letter
carriers’ safety. That of course was a lie, comparing well to the Canada Post
statement that followed every post office closing in the 1990s: “This will not
affect mail delivery”. And Goldilocks was an entomologist who would never steal
anyone’s porridge.
Where were all those protesting
voices when Canada Post was taking away OUR home delivery a few years ago? I
used to walk to the end of our driveway to get our mail (and flyers), but now
if I want to get both I have to drive over four kilometres. That’s about 1300
kilometres a year. More taxes out of my pocket and into David’s and Stephen’s.
It’s quite amusing to listen to all
the arguments people are using now to protest the dropping of home delivery in
the cities. The elderly, the handicapped, and others who will have a hard job
getting to a group mailbox which, in the city, could be a couple of blocks
away, but not quite 1300 kilometres. Correct me if you must, but when they were
cutting off our home delivery nobody spoke up for those folks, and they exist
in rural Canada as well as in the cities. Oh wait, there are more votes in the
cities, unless you buy that male cow manure about Canada Post’s being a Crown
Corporation and not under the influence of the government.
Moving on from that rant, I now
mention the subject in the title of this column. It is a hopeful title, because
we do need a revolution and that’s going to be the first New Year’s Resolution
I have ever made.
The revolution to which I refer is
not a violent one – unless someone has to fight for the kitchen table – but is
a revolution. You know all those family photos you have lurking in boxes at the
back of your closets and your attics? Many of them are a century old; I refer
to black and white photos of your family’s and your community’s history. Would
you PLEASE go to your old photos – Canada’s history – and, with a pencil,
identify the people, places and the time?
It is rather disappointing to be
shown dozens of black and white photos with nary a name, year or place
mentioned. My Aunt Ella Adams (1905-2004) could identify people back to her
great-grandparents, but after she died no one else around these parts could recognize
any of my ancestors from those days. From 1988 to about 1990 I wrote a LaFrance
family history and if it hadn’t been for Aunt Ella I wouldn’t have known who
any of the old codgers were.
For many years I had wanted to write a book called
‘A readable History of Perth-Andover, NB’ but in late 2012 I realized I could
not find the $60,000-$80,000 that would be needed for all the research, the
time involved, and the printing costs. My decision was to abandon the idea of
the book and instead open up a Facebook Group called ‘Old Photos of Victoria
County, NB’. I doubted if more than a few hundred people would be interested in
the group, which was really focussed on southern Victoria County; Plaster Rock
and the Tobique and other areas needed their own groups.
Surprise! As of this week, my group
has 1968 members. I won’t say that I am astonished, because it’s well beyond
that, but what pleases me most is that it is INTERACTIVE in a way that the book
could never be. I put a photo on there and quite often, within a day or two,
there are 20+ comments outlining many details of the unknown person’s life.
Here’s my New Year’s Resolution: I
am going to try and keep southern Victoria County’s history alive, as are those
who have groups from the Rowena, Carlingford, Plaster Rock, and other areas.
This is real history. Any photos I have, I am going to print (lightly in
pencil) on the back just who’s who and what’s what.
-end-
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