DIARY
My
cold doesn’t seem ‘common’ to me
by
Robert LaFrance
As we speak, I am in, if not the depths of despair
because of this cold, then certainly not many rungs from the bottom and The Big
Swamp.
I, and I am sure most people, don’t want it to be
called a common cold. It is not common to me, at least since last fall. To make
it even worse, it’s a beautiful sunny day outside.
I was up all night coughing and my wife was too. It
was a virtual symphony, and then Minnie the dog joined in. Far down in the valley
I could hear the bagpipes being played by someone whose musicianship was
dubious at best. A symphony indeed!
Why me? I asked of whoever might be listening. The
answer came quickly from the heavens: “Because exactly four days ago you were
telling your friend Flug that you didn’t get colds. You went on and said that
you hadn’t had a flat tire for ten years. You must be demented! By the way, I
hope you had fun changing that tire.”
*******************
Two days ago I drove by Flug’s house
and looked in to see him washing his car. A Shop-Vac was sitting in his
driveway. I waved to him with one finger. Communist.
Down in the depths of the Scotch
Colony and the heights of it (Upper Kintore) I spotted four more people out
washing their cars inside and out, making a lot of work in spite of the fact
that the vehicles would be dirty again in mere months, maybe six.
I looked down at my floor mats and
took great comfort that they looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned since
Winston Churchill died (1965), which was quite a feat since the car is a 2014
Toyota Corolla. It wasn’t through lack of effort; I’ve had to work hard to keep
Certain Persons from pushing her way into the car with three or four Shop-Vacs.
You know what wives are like.
So I continued my drive up along the
Tobique where still more otherwise sober looking individuals were elbow
greasing around their cars. If they would even take the cars out of sight
behind a manure pile or something! It’s quite annoying.
It was after supper (Tilley Takeout) when I got
home, and I had the eerie feeling that something was amiss. You know the
feeling – you’re walking through a graveyard at 3:00 am and you start to get
nervous when you see a headstone with your name on it. I walked into the silent
house and couldn’t find anyone. That was suspicious right there; then I heard
it – the sound of a vacuum cleaner and it was coming from outside, at 3:14 am.
You can guess the rest. It’s been two days now, and
I’m still not calm after the treachery I witnessed inside and around that
innocent Corolla. It’s as clean as a crow’s wing. It is clear that certain
people can’t be trusted when there’s a vacuum cleaner around.
Even my son went over to the dark side and cleaned
his car, inside and out.
Still on the same general line, cars, I was
impressed that so many people cleaned their cars on June 6, which is of course
D-Day, when the Allies hit the beaches of Normandy in 1944. Today D-day means
something quite different and that’s why so many sad sacks are out washing
their cars.
In 2017 the hyphenated word D-day stands for
Daydream-day - which is what we should be doing instead of cleaning vehicles.
************************
At first when Donald Trump took over the rains
(that’s not a misspelling) of power in the U.S.A., I, like many other
journalists and columnists, was quite pleased because it meant we would have
something to talk about,
However…he has ceased to be funny. I think he’s
dangerous. I don’t think he is going to attack North Korea, because that would
be the end of South Korea, but there is one country that should be wary of
things ‘the Donald’ says and does,
I refer to our beloved Canada. Since the American
public appears to both weak-minded (they elected him, didn’t they?) and ready
to invade any country, why not invade the closest? Some people reading this are
saying: “Mexico’s closer, you (t)wit!” But by the time he decided to send the
troops into Acapulco, the Wall may hinder troop movements.
So let’s watch our backs and fronts.
Meanwhile, here’s a
quote from George Faludy, whose 1986 memoir I recently read again. “Of all the
good things about Canada, one of the best is that it is definitely not the
United States.” Hear, hear.-end-
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