DIARY
February
observations from here
by
Robert LaFrance
Last evening we all went to a
retirement party for McGinty, who had just turned 78 and decided he had had
enough of chainsaws for one lifetime. I would have said five or six lifetimes,
but then I’m lazy as a cut cat.
I mention McGinty as a point of
contrast. He left school in grade seven and went to work in the woods – this
was in 1951 – and, as far as I know, never took on another career, never took a
vacation, and worked six days every week, barring severe storm (he remembers
the tail-end of Hurricane Hazel going past), injury, weddings and funerals.
McGinty was and still is one tough
bird. When he retired last week he still had the Husqvarna chainsaw he bought
in 1981 and he still had all its chains hanging in the barn. Because the chains
wore out and he didn’t, this proves he was tougher than steel. “And slightly
stubborn,” giggled his wife Ethel last evening after she had become a little
tipsy on a half glass of Portugeuse wine that I had given her.
While we were revelling last
evening, the phone rang. McGinty answered it on the old wall dial phone. He
talked for a while and we could see he was disappointed about something. After
the call he came over to where a gaggle of us ne’er-do-wells were standing.
“That was my grandson Amos,” he said. “I mean Nathan – he doesn’t like to be
called by the old-fashioned name Amos – and he said he was sorry he couldn’t
come up from Bristol for this party. He had to meet some business people. I was
hoping he’d come up because the last time he was here was at Christmas for a
few hours.”
McGinty was probably thinking about
the many thousands of dollars he had contributed toward Amos’s business degrees
and thinking about the weekend a decade before when he had driven to Truro in a
rainy gale for Amos’s wedding.
On second thought, I doubt if McGinty was thinking
that at all. He’s not that type of guy.
************************
What got me thinking about the
contrast between McGinty and his grandson – whose income is in the $85,000
range thanks to his grandpa – was that this morning I heard on the radio the
country song ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ by Billy Ray Cyrus.
While this man is a competent singer
and musician, he is not in the range of, say, the late Ernest Tubb or Kidd Baker.
Looking on Wikipedia, I found that
Billy Ray Cyrus’s ‘net worth’ as the phrase goes, is about $25 million, and his
daughter Miley makes that much in a month. You will notice I didn’t say EARNS.
When I think of them or the omnipresent bunch of no-talent rappers getting rich, I
think of great musicians who barely earn a living and can’t stop touring or the
tax man would pay them a call.
Or I think of McGinty and his ungrateful
grandson. It don’t hardly seem fair, do it?
****************************
Here’s a wild change of subject:
Every time I sit down in front of my television I see yet another mention of
automatic (driverless) cars. It is said that one of them could be sent on its
way from Citadel Hill in Halifax and arrive safely at Stanley Park in
Vancouver, but I would not want to be on the road while this is happening –
four-lane, 2-lane, or woodland trail.
Somebody, somewhere, thinks this is
a good idea, but (this is going to shock you) people make mistakes. Look at the
nearest Toronto Maple Leaf fan. Just kidding. My knowledge of hockey is almost
nil, so I could hardly scoff at a team in the NHL. Besides, the Leafs are a
great money machine. Who cares if they rarely score a touchdown?
Back to the subject at hand before
it gets away, I recall one sunny day in the fall of 1982. My wife had
successfully begged and pleaded with me to marry her, and we were back in
Kincardine after the honeymoon. We had stopped to visit her family as we were
on our way to our estate in Birch Ridge.
I was walking around and chanced to
walk onto Manse Hill Road just as a small red Chev car came zooming up over the
hill, almost ran over my foot, and turned into my in-laws’ driveway. (Magic!) I
then noticed that no one was driving.
I dashed in the driveway and there
was the car, parked by my in-laws’ front door. How could this be? What miracle
of technology made this possible? I went in the house to tell everyone the
news, and almost got trampled by my wife’s Aunt, who was all of 4-foot-11 in
heels if she had been in heels. In a hurry, she smiled, said hello and dashed
out to her car. Sure enough, she could not be seen once she sat down. She
peered out through the steering wheel – the bottom half – and zoomed away.
-end-
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