I am the proudest slob ever (May 28)

It’s official – I’m Canada’s #1 Slob

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            I may never be on ‘reality’ TV, but I think I have by now proven that I am the most slovenly creature in all of Canada. Among the criteria are: (1) dress and deportment, (2) table manners, and (3) what else is there to slovenliness – if there is such a word.

            At a recent potluck supper where everyone else was dressed to the eights or possibly even the nines, I stood out like Stephen Harper at an Amnesty International  convention.

            It doesn’t matter how many times I am told, or I tell myself, to ALWAYS wear dark coloured clothing to such an event – or anywhere outside our own basement – I went to that potluck supper dressed in a pair of very light brown trousers and a white shirt with thin stripes. Surveying the result in a full-length mirror, I thought I looked almost presentable. That is, as close to presentable as I ever get.

            Eight minutes later I spilled chocolate milk on my pants and had to change them. Talk about learning a lesson: I put on an even lighter coloured pair. They fairly hurt the eyes with their brightness, even though the wearer didn’t project the same characteristic.

            Somehow I got to the car without spilling anything more on myself, then, as I was about to climb in, I noticed that there was a small mud puddle on the ground right near the driver’s side. It was then I knew I should I gotten my wife to drive. Back inside to change my pants again, but this time I was thinking ahead; I backed the car away from the mud puddle. Another pair of light-coloured pants, and we were away.

            It somehow became my job to carry in the rhubarb crisp that my wife had made for the pot luck supper, and I didn’t spill much of the juice. Besides, it was nearly the shade of my shirt. I set the pan down on the counter and dripped more juice, this time on my shoes.

            After some conversation, during which I tried to rub off the stains and made them worse, the hosts served a red liquid, which went nicely with the raspberry stains that had somehow gotten on my shirt, although I had only walked by that dessert. Then it was time for us to pick up our platefuls of food of all colours. By the time I finished the first plateful, my clothes looked like a male peacock’s tailfeathers. There’s another word I’m trying to think of – oh yes, a kaleidoscope.

            After several return engagements to the food counter, it was time for dessert, and what a colourful mélange it was. Coincidentally, when I had finished, my shirt held pretty much the same colours. “Where did you get your Hawaiian shirt?” asked one well-meaning matron. I told her Kincardine and she wanted to know where the clothing store was in that part of the Scotch Colony.

            Finally it was time for us to leave, and if anyone wanted to know which foods I had sampled (if gorging can be called sampling) all they had to do was look at my shirt. Rhubarb crisp, lemon cake, raspberry squares and other colourful and delicious sweets were all there, and there was one black stain that I took to be dark chocolate pie, cake or possibly soufflé.

            When we got home I was called various names for being such a slob, but I tried to defend myself; it wasn’t my fault. Grampy Muff’s genes were still going strong. He couldn’t eat an apple without ruining his coveralls. I pointed out to my wife that her Uncle Earl had bought a sweater in 1935 and was still wearing it in the late 1980s, so her family’s genes were less susceptible to rampant slobbery. She ended the conversation by saying: “If you ever again wear light coloured clothes to a potluck supper – or any other kind of meal except an intravenous one – I will not EVER give you a divorce.”

            A threat like that could be incentive enough for me to be somewhat more meticulous in my eating habits, but of course my style (?) of dress is so far beyond redemption that the Hubble Telescope would belch at any attempt to see it.

I have never understood why I am such a slob at my eating and dressing habits. When I get up in the morning I make a real attempt to put on clothes that don’t embarrass me and my family, but it’s as if my Evil Twin were guiding the whole process. I never liked him.

My friend Flug put it into perspective many years ago when he asked me: “Bob, do you buy your clothes with the stains already on them?”

                                      -end-

Turning 66 beats the alternative (May 21)

Travelling on Canada’s Route 66

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            As I write these lines, I am looking at my reflection in a mirror and am quite amazed. I just turned 66 and I don’t look a day over seventy. Quite an accomplishment after the places I’ve seen and the things I’ve done. There was this place on Jarvis Street in Toronto…but never mind about that for now.

            Birthdays are quite the thing, as Grampy would say. My kids always ask me what I want for my birthday and I always say: “I want you healthy and happy” after which they spit on the ground (tobacco juice stains the chesterfield) and curse because I didn’t make it easy for them.

            One day in early May when we were sitting at the kitchen table, I gently nudged a Roll-Royce catalogue in their direction, but they kept easing it back and looking at the Dollar Store’s 12^th Anniversary sale sheet. I wondered how and why the Dollar Store would have a sale, since most items started out at a dollar, but, as Miss Sara Williams used to say: “Ours is not to wonder why…”

            So the kids finally decided on what to give me for my 66^th birthday (that is, 65^th anniversary of my birthday since we can have only one birthday) and it was with a shudder I saw that they were planning to buy me a chainsaw. “But if you get me that,” I protested, “I will have to do some work! As you know, Dr. Hensaw said that I was allergic to work in any form.”

            Look at it this way, Papa,” said my younger daughter. “Whenever Mum buys a new rolling pin, you can render it an obsolete weapon within minutes.” Smart kid. My new Echo chainsaw that I bought from my cousin Eric LaFrance in Andover works great, even if I don’t. (That’s a free ad for Echo, but not for Eric, since people now question his judgment in selling me such an item.)

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

            Although I write for a newspaper, I don’t listen to and watch many newscasts on radio and TV. When I do, it’s usually a mistake, like hearing about Adolph Poutine of Russia taking over Crimea and working away at eastern Ukraine.

            One exception to its being a mistake though, occurred on Wednesday afternoon. I was sitting on the front porch, sipping a lemonade, and listening to CBC Radio whose announcer was reporting that the value of our Loonie had slipped to 90.3 cents, compared to the American dollar.

            Seeing a chance to make some real money, I borrowed a thousand dollars from my friendly neighbourhood banker, a guy named Narcisse whose office is in the back room of the Scotch Colony Club and Lobster Emporium, and I went uptown. There I spent the whole thousand dollars on Loonies. When it and the American dollar are at par again, I will have made a neat profit of over ten percent, less whatever Narcisse charges for interest.

I don’t care what everyone says, I’m not stupid.

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

            In Ottawa, a place I recently heard described as ‘thirty square miles surrounded by reality’, they are waiting with bated (or possibly baited) breath for the announcement that Senators Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin are to be changed with fraud, etc.

            I continue to be amazed at the so-called Senate Scandal, and not because some Senators were caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Mostly my amazement is a result of what this all has cost to investigate, compared to the sums of money allegedly ripped off from taxpayers, who, I am reminded, include me, especially at this time of the tax year.

            Here’s my estimate: If the allegations are correct and the allegator has decided not to sleep in the swamp (that was an hilarious play on words about alligators) but look into the whole thing, the four Senators under scrutiny have padded their expense claims to the tune of $300,000-$350,000.

            My estimate of how much money has now been spent to nail these alleged miscreants runs toward - and brushes hard – the sum of $2 million, and I might be, if you’ll pardon the expression, conservative in that estimate. RCMP investigators, Senate auditors, independent auditors, time wasted in Parliament talking about this stuff, planes, trains and cars flitting around looking for smoking guns – it goes on and on.

            When the story broke, why didn’t the government just say to these Senators: “Don’t do that again!” and things could have just calmed down right away. We could have gotten on with being Canadians. Doesn’t anybody realize we’re supposed to be dull?  

                                                     -end- 

Senator Bob LaFrance. I like it. (May14)

Ask me! Ask me! I’ll be glad to go to the Senate

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            There was a rather amusing radio show on Sunday evening, quite hilarious really. The gist of it was that ‘The Senate Scandals’ have made several people turn down (or say they would turn down) a Senate appointment.

            Excuse me?

            If Stephen Harper phoned me – even if he interrupted a playoff game between the New York Yankees and Montreal Canadiens – and asked if I would PLEASE take a seat in the Senate, before he uttered the second ‘e’ in the word Senate, I would have my toothbrush and the rest of my keister packed and have the Toyota pointing north and west toward Ottawa.

            I guess it shows that not only do many Senators and others – of the non-hockey playing variety – live in a different world than we do, but it also shows that so far most Senate appointments have been reserved for rich people. Who among us could afford to turn down a basic salary of $138,700 a year plus free haircuts? They get Via Rail passes,  comfortable red chairs, and expenses for everything but toilet paper. Even without doing a Duffy-Pam I would be able to live quite comfortably and would only falsify the bare minimum of expense claims.

            “But Bob, do they have lemonade in Ottawa?” asked Flug, who had been reading over my shoulder as he sipped on one of my lemonades. “Would you like to live in a place where they have only champagne and caviar? Remember I was a barber on Parliament Hill, so I know that lemonade is not easily available.”

            “Flug,” I said, “If my income were $175,000 a year including (mostly legitimate) expenses, don’t you think I could find a way to get the odd two-four of lemonade from New Brunswick to Ottawa?”

            My mention of our province’s name brought to mind another minor hitch. “But what if my most admired and musically talented friend Stephen Harper needed a Senator from Manitoba and not New Brunswick?”

            “Remember that time you and those Victoria County vagrants drove out west looking for work?” asked Flug. “Remember? You passed through Manitoba did you not? Bingo and eureka! You are the new Senator from Manitoba. If Mike Duffy, who didn’t know where the Confederation Bridge was located, can be a Senator from PEI, you can be one from Manitoba.”

            Who could argue with that kind of logic? Well, everybody could, but still it might fly for a while, until I can buy a trailer in Gimli or Brandon. It would be a lot easier though, if Prime Minister Harper, my friend and possible benefactor whom I greatly admire, needed a (non-separatist) Senator from Quebec province. If you have recently looked in the Quebec City phone book, you would have seen nine pages of LaFrances and three pages of either ‘R. LaFrance’ or ‘Robert LaFrance’. Who’s to say I’m not one of those and therefore a resident of Quebec province?

            But will the Prime Minister (my friend, etc.) ever call me to take my place in the Red Chamber of Sober Second Thought? I can assure you, the reader, and all those fine people who work in the Prime Minster’s Office that, far from turning down the invitation, I would embrace, cherish, treasure, relish and revere it as if the invitation were coming from the Queen herself, which of course it technically would be.

            I think he will call. As my family can tell you, were you to call them, I am as optimistic a person as you are ever likely to meet. Cheerful as can be 99% of the time, I walk around with a confident smile on my face (where else?) as I look forward to the next page of good news that will come my way. “Always look at the bright side of things,” I tell people. “I know I do. That’s why I expect to check my email or answer my phone one of these days and find a communication from my pal the Prime Minister himself who is asking if I can clear my calendar for next week to take a trip to Ottawa to be sworn in. Hmmm. Sworn in at Ottawa…sworn at in New Brunswick. Which would you choose?

            I just had a thought, yes another one. What if the Prime Minister chose to offer the Senate’s next vacant red chair to someone who really deserves it, like Mike Duffy’s wife or Rob Ford’s wife?

            No, it’s okay. Prime Minister Harper’s record on giving Senate seats to those who deserve it is – shall we say? – spotty at best. I still think I’m in the running. Who would deserve it less than I? 

                                                           -end- 

Where can NB keep its Oscar? (May 7)

Is there an Oscar for the worst pothole?

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            It’s official. The 2014 Oscar for the Worst Pothole in southern Victoria County, NB, is about to be presented and it will go to the one on East Riverside Drive, Perth-Andover, near Uplands View (RCMP Street as my wife calls it).

            I should quickly explain that this Oscar may be misnamed a bit, because one of the criteria is also the length of time the pothole remains in place, apparently invisible to whatever government department is supposed to fill in those minor canyons. Perhaps that’s the problem; Premier Alward hasn’t created a Pothole Department. It isn’t the Department of Health – I checked – and the people at Advanced Education say it’s not their baby. I just can’t figure out who should be fixing HIGHWAYS so that the TRANSPORTATION of citizens is made easier. It is part of the INFRASTRUCTURE.

            It is a complete mystery to me how a pothole in a well-travelled road – Highway 105 which is also the main street of Perth – can remain in place for months with no apparent effort made to throw a few pails of cold-patch tar into it. I know, the excuse is always that it gets beaten right out in a couple of weeks, but surely it is not rocket science that, once it gets beaten out, you fill it up again until the hot-patch season arrives.

            It has also been a mystery to me for many years that Highway 105 is so ignored when pothole-filling time comes around. While my concern is a selfish one – I travel on it several times a week – there are surely many hundreds and even thousands of people other than me who don’t deserve to drive over what my grandfather would have called ‘a twitchin’ trail’, meaning a path fit only for yarding logs by horse.

            The fact that the ‘powers that be’ for our highways department are located in Edmundston (Brilliant!) might have something to do with the fact that Highway 105 is so bad. Let me make a guess: the secondary roads near Edmundston are in excellent shape and potholes there get quickly filled without an Act of Legislature.

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

            Here is another tidbit from the notebook I carry around with me:

            My old friend Ganderson, originally from Gander, owns a farm just down the road (I should mention that when you live in a hill, everywhere is ‘down the road’.) and he is the original Law-Abiding Citizen.

            It’s disgusting. He has never, in his lifetime, gone through a stop sign, or even done a rolling stop, which is a little disconcerting to those who tailgate his 1983 Gremlin. Nobody realizes that he is actually going to come to ‘a full and complete stop’ because no one else does. He has gotten quite a few insurance cheques because of that.

            To digress for a moment, Ron Ganji smashed into the Gremlin’s bumper in early June last year and Ganderson insisted on ‘putting it through the insurance’ as he said. His cheque was $814.67. The body shop guy charged him only $710. Ganderson sent back a cheque of $104.67 to the insurance company.

            What I was going to say, before you dragged me off-topic, was that Ganderson’s little farm in Lower Kintore is partly on the east side of the road, and partly on the west side. On Tuesday he was faced with a conundrum: he needed to move his pickup truck from one side of the road to the other, but the truck wasn’t licensed.

            You guessed it. With the Gremlin, he drove up to Service New Brunswick to get a licence for the pickup, then was told he had to have insurance, so he called his insurer and paid $55 for temporary insurance so he could obtain the registration. Then, just before he was to take the pickup truck across the road, he noticed that the safety check had run out. He phoned a mechanic and got him to come to his, Ganderson’s, house to check out the vehicle which proved to be short of a working hand brake. The mechanic was willing to put on the sticker anyway, but Ganderson wouldn’t hear of it. He asked the mechanic to put on a ‘rejection sticker’ so he could drive the car into town and get the required work done.

            By the time he was done there, the bill was $109.14 and Ganderson was pleased that he hadn’t compromised his ideals. Back home again, he drove the pickup truck over to the part of his farm on the opposite side of the road from his house and brought over ten square bales of hay for his horse. He parked the pickup truck back in the barn where it would probably stay until the late summer. Total bill for all that? Somewhere around $300, but the important thing is, he didn’t break any laws.

I understand his relatives are looking into nursing homes.

                                      -end-