The Born Loser doesn`t always lose (Jan. 28, 2015)

DIARY

An important – no, vital - winter question

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            Each season of the year has its own problems and winter is not an exception. My neighbour Eldridge, who lives just the other side of Flug (and don’t get on the wrong side of Flug!) had just cleaned out our front driveway after one of our recent (and un-forecast) snowstorms, when the important thought hit me that I didn’t know the correct word for what Eldridge had done.

            Should I say he snowblowed the driveway or snowblew the driveway? I mentioned this conundrum to the next several people I spoke to and they all started edging away to urgent appointments. I leave it to the faithful reader – which is correct?

            Thinking of word usage, I remember my Aunt Ella Adams (1905-2004) and some of the summers I spent over in Maine, near New Sweden where she and Uncle Mark had a potato farm. Specifically what I was thinking about was her tendency to warn me about ‘flatulence’ when other people were around.

            “Now Bob,” she would say just before Pastor Dischinger and his wife were to arrive for tea, “I want you to be very careful not to break wind, especially while we’re all eating. What would they think of me?” Of course you can guess what happened almost every time. It got so she would only feed me potatoes for two days prior to this visit.

            Then yesterday my wife handed me a coat as I was preparing to go outside. “Here, Bob, put on this windbreaker.”

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            In my daily newspaper is a comic called ‘Born Loser’ which I always read, for some reason identifying with it. In one of the mid-January cartoons the Born Loser is sitting and watching television when his wife comes into the room.

            “Why are you watching TV with the sound turned off?” she asked.

            “A lot of the programs are more interesting that way,” was his answer, and I almost fell off my barstool, because only the day before my wife and I had had the same conversation. I was reading while waiting for ‘Downton Abbey’ or something equally realistic to come on, but occasionally looked up at the screen where one of those ‘reality’ shows was struggling to finish its 60-minute life, at least for that week.

            I grew up watching westerns, detective shows, game shows when I wasn’t out fishing in Pelkey Brook – which was most of the time – and, looking at today’s production values, they were TERRIBLE while entertaining, and had plots.

            So I’m not talking about the good old days, when all was cheery and bright and every show was Bonanza; I’m saying that the folks who make TV shows today don’t put a whole lot of thought into plot.

            Did I say they don’t put “a whole lot” of thought into plot? They don’t put ANY  thought into plot. Every show except Jeopardy features incredible violence that takes the place of thought, and those ‘reality’ shows are, at best, laughable – far more than the comedies.

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            That was enough of a rant for a while; now let’s get on to things that really matter, like the harassment of a totally innocent woman by the local police. I am talking about officers from the Kincardine detachment of the Scotch Colony Police Department who will not let my Aunt Grenadine alone.

            True, Aunt G. does have an illegal still where she manufactures her own brand of fire and water she calls, well, Firewater. “She’s only a whiskey maker, but we love her still,” quipped my friend Flug, who has been known to sample Aunt G’s particular brand of aperitif, especially the morning after a long night of arguing at the club.

            In other news, some parents held a protest at Kincardine Middle-High School about the level of organization that is required of their kids.

            “EVERYTHING is organized right down to the last molecule,” commented Mrs. Ernestine Cauchon, whose son Bobby plays on every sports team that KMHS fields. “Why, Bobby no sooner gets home from school than he’s off to hockey practice and he goes from there to basketball practice, and about eight o’clock every evening it’s Ultimate Frisbee. He’s exhausted! God knows when he gets his homework done.”

            Several other parents rose to speak and they all had the same complaint. After they had said their pieces, Principal Getand Punkin rose to address the fifteen or so parents. “I have an idea,” he said. “If your kids are in too many sports, they may drop out of some. Is this rocket science?” (He didn’t say that last part out loud.)

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