DIARY
Billy is a member of the Atheist Church
by Robert LaFrance
Flug and I were
walking to (and past) the church this bright and shiny Sunday morning when I saw a fellow on his knees in
the graveyard. It was Billy the Barber.
“I wonder why
he’s genuflecting,” I said to Flug, who looked blankly at me.
“Fetched up on
his knees,” I said. It turned out that Billy, on his way to fish in Bubie Brook, had tripped over a gravestone –
his own, as it happens – and fell onto his knees. I wondered about that…Billy
has been a member of the Atheist Church since 1954.
The use of the
word ‘genuflect’ got me to thinking though. I wondered about its origins so of
course when I got back home I had to look it up on Wikipedia. “Genuflect –
verb…to find yourself on one knee after tripping over a gravestone on your way
to brook fishing.”
To quote Joe
Clark, I really didn’t expect that much specificity.
*************************
Speaking of
walking down the road, I find that my pessimism is ruining, or at least damaging,
what should be my enjoyment of the fabulous weather we’ve been having for the
past few weeks.
I realize we’re
supposed to have some snow this winter – Flug told me that – but he said that I
should appreciate the sunny, hot and muggy weather of early September. We were
talking about it yesterday and he very gently told me that I should enjoy the
fine weather while we have it.
“You’re an idiot,
Bob,” he said – as I said, gently – “and if someone gave you a million dollars
you would think it should be ten million.” As someone who has been married
fourteen times, Flug knows about happiness and how life should be lived –
divorced.
It was no good
though. His advice went unfollowed. I went fishing and fell in. Someone tell me
why I should be an optimist.
***************************
Could I possibly
write a column and not mention the federal election and politics in general?
I’m getting so I
feel sorry for Stephen Harper – almost. Going forward from the Mike Duffy
trial, he has now found that two of Toronto area Tory candidates had to be
executed, one of them for peeing in a coffee cup in a restaurant kitchen.
I never did hear
whether that particular cup of java had actually been served, but the idea was
enough for me. I believe that happened in Scarborough, and I used to live in
Scarborough. It pains me to learn that someone could have drunk Brand X coffee
at Larry’s Restaurant on Lawrence Avenue, and then went home to Mrs.
Littlewood’s boarding house where I stayed.
This cup-peeing
gentleman and the other former Tory candidate were both caught out by
electronics. The first guy was caught by a hidden camera and the other was
doing his thing – whatever that was – on YouTube. Lesson learned? Don’t do
stuff like that when there’s the slightest possibility of being caught on
‘film’.
Half a century
ago, when I was a teenager, it was quite rare to have one’s photo taken, unless
the family was – shall we say – rich. Therefore the majority of the
‘historical’ photos of families are only of people who had enough money to buy
ten or twenty dollars worth of film every month. Now we just need fifty dollars
to buy a digital camera and a computer to plug it into and we’re good to go (as
they say). I haven’t run out of film for years.
************************
A few of the
recent events here in Kincardine need to be commented on. When I was in school
I thought this place, and the Scotch Colony generally, was probably quite dull
except for the magnetic hill near the Upper Kintore Burns Hall (burned long
ago), but really, the people here are wild.
Just yesterday I
was at Gibson’s Funeral Parlour, Takeout and Hardware store and talking to the
secretary Maud who was telling me about all the happenings that had taken place
in the previous week. Wow. However, her credibility went severely into question
when she commented to me that I was looking like an athlete these days. I was
flattered until Flug told me that she had meant one of those racing dogs, and
the wrong end at that.
*************************
I remember a few decades
ago that Canada was considered one of the most caring nations on earth, but in
the past decade I have begun to wonder. It took the drowning of a 3-year-old
boy whose body washed up on a Turkish beach to make a lot of people realize
that we are no longer that caring country. Germany will take 800,000 Syrian
refugees in the next year; we have taken 2300 in the past three years.
-end-
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