DIARY
Who and what can last another 40 years?
by Robert LaFrance
Listening to CBC
Radio this morning, I heard that India and Pakistan were once more in open
battle over the Kashmir region that each country claims. Such a report is a bit
unsettling because those two countries are both equipped with nuclear weapons.
Or Nuke-you-ler
weapons as George W. Bush would say.
So I says to
myself: okay, there must be a lot of oil or precious minerals in Kashmir, or
the Jammu and Kashmir area as it is called, but perusing my Encyclopedia
Brittanica I did not find any mention of anything more valuable than a 1975
Pinto car owned by some guy named Achmed O’Kelly.
Like the disputes
between Russia and Japan over some islands, it’s not oil; it’s just a bunch of
people who get a little bored.
************************
Speaking of the
status quo, there doesn’t seem to be one here in Kincardine. Early yesterday
morning Flug and I went fishing in Bubie Brook which is just down the hill from
my place, and passes in behind Burns Hall. In the past it has been a good
source of trout for my frying pan, but this was the first time I have been able
to fish this summer.
About 7:30 am
Flug and I, having caught our limit, which I believe is 50 if there are no
rangers around, were carrying our stringers of trout along the brook when we
discovered we weren’t alone, although how two people could be alone was beyond
me anyway.
It was Mike
Duffy. He had a backpack that was fairly bulging with trout. “Still up to your
old tricks, are you Mike?” asked Flug, who used to cut Mike’s hair when he,
Flug, was a barber on Parliament Hill, and therefore who knew the Senator well.
“Are those PEI or Ontario trout, Mike?”
Duffy couldn’t
help but laugh. “I just felt like having a feed of fried trout before I
continue on my way,” he smiled. “Nothing like New Brunswick brook trout. And by
the way, before you ask, I don’t have a fishing licence but I’m a senator. The
prime minister said I could fish here all I want and…”
“Prime Minister
Stephen Harper gave you permission to brook fish wherever you want?” I asked,
my jaw dropping until it hit a birch stump by my foot.
“No, Prime
Minister Mulcair,” he uttered, to my amazement. “It’s all been settled. Harper
stepped down yesterday morning and handed over the reins to Mulcair and the
NDP.”
And the NDP allow
Senator Mike Duffy to fish in NB brooks whenever he wants? I want to speak to his lawyer. And by the
way, has anyone ever asked himself who’s paying Mike Duffy’s legal fees? If he
couldn’t afford to repay either $32,000 or $90,000 to the Senate, where is he
getting the money now to pay his lawyer, whose billable hours must be worth
about two million by now?
*************************
Going from one
old dog to another, I recently read that research from the School of Veterinary
Medicine at the University of Vienna, Austria, had made an extensive study of
how to keep your dog from getting sunburned.
They were pretty cagey about how much
this study cost, but I gathered it was in the $80,000 range.
Here’s the first major tip - keep him
out of the sun.
I don’t think I would have thought of
that. The study went on to say that you can put sunscreen on your dog and if
it’s really hot and the dog has very short hair, you can put a sweater on him.
Eighty thousand dollars, huh?
*************************
Finally, this
item is for people who have bought asphalt shingles with a 25-year guarantee,
or maybe even a 40-year one. Did we ever ask ourselves – in the unlikely event
that we live another 25 years or forty – who would be around to replace our
curled up shingles?
My friend Flug,
bless his soul, bought some 25 year shingles about 15 years ago and is now
finding they have curled up and the wind is flipping pieces of them to parts
unknown. He took a few to the hardware store where he bought them.
“Are you kidding
me?” was the reaction. “That company has been renamed three times in the past
decade and is now bankrupt. They’re all like that.” Flug came back to his home
in a sad mood and said he would never again buy 25 year shingles.
“I’ll get the 40
year ones next time,” he said. Hence his
childhood nickname – ‘Cementhead’.
-end-
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