DIARY
Various
observations from the hills of Kincardine
by
Robert LaFrance
The grocery store I frequent has had
their garden seed out for weeks. In fact, I know the exact day they brought
them out – the day of the big storm of snow and freezing rain. There oughta be
a law against stores producing such harbingers of spring until April is half
over. Every time I go there – which is every day – I leave in tears as I yearn
for the day when I can plant some peas and lettuce.
Remember the days when
everyone who had email could look forward several times a week to a letter from
Nigeria? We would be told that a long-lost relative had died without a will and
we were in line for a share of $17 million if only we would send $198 in administration
fees to a certain barrister in Lagos. This morning’s mail brought me a serious
letter from the African country of Togo. Apparently I have inherited $2,628,456
from a relative I didn’t know I had. It’s nice to see some geographic variety.
I stopped at a huge grocery store in
Fredericton because I was hungry for a sandwich. I asked a young chap who was
listening to his iPad through ear buds where the canned tuna was kept. He took
out one bud and asked me to repeat what I had said. “Oh, you mean tunaFISH,” he
emphasized. I was thus corrected. On the way home I asked myself if I should
have bought tunaHORSE or tunaCAT.
The legalization of marijuana is
continuing, some would say “at a snail’s pace” and others would say “like a
rocketship”. I have been wondering if Canadians should set up a series of small
communities – let’s call them the Republics of Mariwonna – where marijuana can
be grown like canola or potatoes. These would preferably be islands where the
prevailing winds would periodically waft the smoke from their test kitchens
right over my front porch. Just for quality control you understand.
Looking over the work quality and
work rates of two particular provincial government departments, I am wondering
if those who apply for supervisory jobs there fill out a special job
application in each case. Question: Are you hidebould and ignorant, never
willing to make a decision? Question: Are you willing to continue to reward
sloth with permanent contracts while your best workers leave for other pastures
without any attempt on your part to keep them? (I couldn’t go any further with
this. The joke was too close to the truth.)
The rain-snow-freezing rain cycle in
late February has demolished Highway 105 between Bath and (the former) Muniac
Park and I learned today from budget estimates that only a third of that,
starting at Bath, will be rebuilt this summer and the rest will be
‘cold-patched’ to get rid of the worst of the potholes which are vast. I shall
keep my eye on that job and report back to you. Although Highway 105 should be
a great tourist road, it won’t be until the road is passable by something
better than a dog cart. The summer of 2018 should see that stretch of road
fixed to the same quality as the road between Kilburn and lower Perth was last
summer.
I’m writing this in the midst of the
U.S. primary political races and I continue to be gobsmacked by how much
influence Poland had on those contests. “The Poles put Hillary Clinton ahead by
a margin of 3-2” said one headline and in another media outlet it was said that
“The poles indicate…” One wouldn’t think that one relatively insignificant
country in eastern Europe would wield that much power, or at least that its
emigrant citizens – the diaspora as the word goes – would be the ones to say that
Bernie or Ted would lose the South Carolina primare. You don’t hear that Canada
or Belize is that important to those contests that some commentators call
‘horse races’ but I suggest, from the candidates I’ve seen, that if a horse is
involved, it is the back end only. As Grampy would say: “The south end of a
northbould horse”.
My daily newspaper has recently
printed a few stories about the government’s wanting to have libraries open
seven days a week for various numbers of hours each day. My question is: did
you or your cousin Clem ever request that libraries remain open on Sunday? The
winter hours have the Perth-Andover Library, for example, open Thursday evening
until 8:00 and open all day Saturday, lots of times for working people to get
there. They are closed Mondays. The cost of the 7-day-a-week opening would be
$900,000 a year, the government says. Translation: $2 million. It makes no
sense.
Last observation: When I start my
2014 Toyota Corolla and put it into gear, a sign comes on the backup camera
screen: “Drive safely and obey traffic rules. Watching this screen while
driving (remember, the car is in gear) can result in accident…Read safety
instructions in your owner’s manual.” Reading all that gives one plenty of time
to go into the ditch.
-end-
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