Quebec nixed the Energy East pipeline (Oct. 18)

DIARY

Rowena now has a yellow line

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Talk about some mealy-mouthed explanations for the cancellation of the Energy East pipeline!

            One news organization said it was because the National Energy Board had tightened its environmental regulations and made it uneconomical for the Trans Canada Pipeline; another said it was because of two new pipelines, one going into the U.S. and one going to Burnaby, BC, so Energy East wasn’t needed.

            There was a third reason, carefully unmentioned. Quebec didn’t want it, and no federal political party will go to the washroom if Quebec says don’t do it. And Quebec is not going to do ANYTHING that benefits Canada east of Cabano and Matapedia.

            Moving on to a more cheerful subject, I have just had a report that the people of Rowena are giddy with joy at the recent change to their infrastructure and, I might add, that change once again illustrates the power of the press.

            Specifically, the recent work involves a change that I have mentioned in this column at least twice over the years: Rowena now has, according to what was reported to me, a brand new yellow line down the centre of Highway 390.

            It all goes to show that when I speak, government listens. It was only three years ago when I first suggested that Rowena’s fine citizens (wish I could say that about my crowd) need and deserve a yellow line on their road.

            It reminds me of the days when the estimable Bernard Lord was Premier of our Picture Province. We couldn’t get a pail full of chipseal put on our road no matter how often I whined. I thought all the time that it was because someone thought I and my neighbours were on the wrong side of politics (I am not a member of any political party), but it turned out that those who made the decisions merely wanted to use the money for more important things, like fact-finding trips to St. Lucia in February.

            St. Lucia does have a lot of facts, to be sure, especially when it’s –31ºC here.

                                                ***********************

            Referring to the climate and weather in country of India, the year 2017 has produced a great ‘Indian Summer’. Of course by the time that this column appears in print, it will be –31º with two feet of snow on the ground, but right at the moment it is a great fall.

            Even the rain we received yesterday wasn’t the downpour with wind that usually arrives the minute the maple trees turn to their brightest colours. I realize that sometime in the next few weeks the leaves will all fall down, but I’ve been busy taking photos of the red ones we have now.

            I even picked a raspberry this week, but that’s not a record for here. Back about fifteen years ago I had a second crop of raspberries and have the photo to prove it. I took that day’s copy of the Telegraph-Journal out to the berry patch and got a passer-by to put down her rolling pin long enough to take a few ‘snapshots’ as they used to be called. She wanted me to also take a photo of her, but I said that my digital camera was out of film.

            Still talking about modern technology, I have sent several emails, without reply, to Toyota Canada with whom I have a severe bone to pick.

            Their first letter in return was from a Japanese guy named Sean O’Reilly who wrote, among other things, that if I wanted to place a formal complaint with the company I should “talk English you muttonhead!” which I felt was a little rough. He had no idea or inkling what the phrase “a bone to pick” meant.

            He had sent his toll-free number, so I immediately (after lunch) called him back. I told him that I had ‘an issue’ with the colours of his Corolla models, notably the red ones. “How *&^%$*&* many red Toyota Corollas did you let loose in Canada in 2014?” I queried. “Two days ago I came out of Clarks’ grocery store in Perth-Andover and, weighed down by whole wheat flour, pineapple juice and toothpicks, I opened the door of what I thought was my red Corolla and put in those staples.” (Yes, I had staples too.)

            “Lo and behold,” I continued, “THAT red Toyota belonged to a farmer from Four Falls, so I moved to the next one. An Anabaptist usher was actually sitting in that car when I put in my groceries. In despair, I searched for my own car, seeing 43 red Toyota Corollas, and then realized I had brought my grey Yaris to town instead of the Corolla. I beg of you, help!”

            He didn’t help, beyond offering to paint my Corolla for a mere $4000. Like Sampson when he first gazed on Delilah, I was tempted, but finally declined. My next vehicle will be a HumVee.

                                           -end-

An encounter with a bear (Oct. 11)

DIARY

Trump equals Hurricane Mouth

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Since I have an orchard of five or six dozen apple trees and three pear trees, I am very careful when I walk among those trees. Careful about what I step in (left by bears) and careful about what wants to chew on me (also bears).

            Yesterday about 7:00 pm – when the bears usually come out – I took a walk out that way. I was armed with my walking stick (a pool cue) and two cans of bear spray, just in case.

            During my 20-minute walk, I encountered no ‘animal of interest’ and my boots were still clean. Back at the house, I put the two cans of bear spray on my shed steps and leaned the pool cue up against the shed before going to my garden to get a couple of ripe tomatoes for munching purposes. After I picked them, I started walking back to the house and was taken aback by what was dead ahead, but not dead.

            A HUGE bear was walking on all fours and looking right at me as if I had been the one who had shot his grandmother in 2009. Then, getting ready to charge, he stood up. I moved over to my right until I stood behind the compost pile. At least Mister Bruno would have to get his feet dirty before he ripped me to shreds.

            Then, in a move that the ancient playwrights used to call a ‘deus ex machina’ (magic solution) out from the porch ran my killer corgi Klingon II, barking and snarling like mad. Confused at all that firepower coming at him, sort of, from two directions, Bruno ran toward Manse Hill Road. I looked at Klingon and she looked at me. I hollered after the bear: “And don’t come back!”

                                                ***********************

            As much as I want to avoid talking about Donald Trump, I am finding I have to anyway. He went to Puerto Rico two weeks after Hurricane Maria Flattened it – and I mean FLATTENED it – and told the people that they were sure using up a lot of the U.S.A. budget and, as if that weren’t insulting enough, compared their hurricane to Hurricane Katrina that devastated Louisiana and other places in 2005. “That was a real catashtrophe,” he told the people of Puerto Rico and the world, “because Katrina killed thousands.”

            Still in the U.S.A. (technically speaking, Puerto Rico isn’t part of it) as I write these words, the massacre in Las Vegas is only a day old, but I am willing to make a bet that the chap who did all that shooting will not be called ‘a terrorist’ because he’s white.

            Prediction: No gun control will come of this although the guy had a total of 47 weapons in three locations, killed 59, and wounded 527.

                                                **********************

            Folks around the Scotch Colony, Kilburn and Jawbone Mountain area will be missing Richard Elliott whom we would see walking just about every day. He carried one or two plastic bags to pick up returnable bottles and cans and wasn’t shy about also picking up recyclable things like beer cases and coffee cups that people threw out their vehicle windows. He kept the place clean.

            Although I had seen him many times along the road and knew his name, I had never met him until Garth Farquhar of Upper Kintore suggested I interview Richard about all the walking he was doing. So in July I ventured to his home to talk. I was astonished to hear that walking five to ten kilometres a day was about usual. Although suffering from terminal cancer, he got up every day about 5:00 am and started walking.

            I get tired walking from my fridge to my living room chair.

            On September 29 Richard died and I want him to know, wherever he is, that I think about him every time I drive to Muniac or Kintore. I was glad I had written that story in July when the Scotch Colony History Committee gave him a cheque for $150 and a certificate of thanks for all his clean-up activities over the years. I hope the picking is good where he is.

                                                **********************      

            People often ask me about my stay in the Northwest Territories when I was a weather man for my country. I often mention two stories, each involving Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Our staff joked that we had higher security clearances than the prime minister, since he’d travelled in so-called Red China and the USSR. And there was the time that one of my colleagues pointed a hunting rifle at Trudeau – and lived.

            This colleague, whom we’ll call Tom, had been stationed in Churchill, Manitoba, when a government jet landed on the runway and taxi-ed to the far end. Tom, working in the tower, wanted to find out who was on the plane and looked through the scope at the group on the runway.

            Shaken because he had just pointed a firearm at the prime minister, Tom quickly put down the rifle; ten seconds later two heavily armed Mounties came into the tower. No word on the amount of Delsey needed by Tom and the others.
                                   -end-

Watch it! A mischief of mice (Oct. 4)

DIARY

A miracle happened right in your home town

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Every year at this time I say goodnight to the folks of Alert, Nunavut, as they say goodnight to the sun that they will not see again until March 4^th.

            I was stationed there, 450 nautical miles from the North Pole, from May 1974 to May 1975 as one of Canada’s Fighting Men Not in Uniform. There were over a hundred Canadian Armed Forces personnel there, and just down the hill from the base was the weather station where I worked for 54 straight weeks.

            It was actually 53 straight weeks; my last week there was in a haze and a daze because I was scheduled to fly to Trenton, Ontario, on a Hercules C-130 but when I went to the runway the pilot told me I wasn’t on the passenger list of six. While I waited for the next Thursday’s flight I practised drinking.

            Thinking about seasons this morning, I walked outside in the summer weather – although it was late September – and looked up to see two Canada Geese winging their way south. Rats deserting a sinking ship. You’d think that with a name like Canada Geese they should be forced to stay here year-around.

                                                ***********************

            Taking a big turn from Alert and geese, I am wondering why people send viruses to the Internet, to email and to Facebook. People hack all kinds of accounts and in that case I can see that they’re trying to steal money; they are modern day bank robbers, but why send viruses to individuals?

            One day about ten years ago I was in Caribou, Maine, where I stopped in to see a friend who ran a computer shop. He was saying that he was having fun avoiding a computer meltdown that one of his ‘customers’ was trying to give him.

            Ron, as we’ll call the store owner because that was his name, said that at least once a week a certain guy would come in and sit at one of Ron’s computers that he let the public use, and he would try to wipe out the hard drive by going into an internal file to change it.

            It was a battle of wits, but finally this guy succeeded in damaging the software of that computer so that it took Ron half an hour to repair it. Fed up with the foolishness, he sent the guy an email that, when opened, showed a photo of this vandal at Ron’s computer and contained this message: “Don’t come back!” He didn’t.

                                                ***************************

            Thinking about the phrase ‘collective nouns’ means. Not to get too technical, it means a group of something alive, like a herd of cows. The word ‘herd’ is a collective noun.

            Imagine my surprise when, listening to a CBC Radio program about Canadian wildlife, I heard an ‘expert’ say that the proper term for a group of beavers is a ‘malocclusion’ because their teeth don’t meet. This chap was very convincing too and I didn’t know at the time that he was full of male cow manure. Unfortunately I didn’t get his name or I would have sent him an email, complete with virus.

            As I mentioned, little did I know, as I was admiring this man’s fountain of knowledge, that he was somewhat off the mark. Whether he just didn’t know, or was sending the listeners a verbal virus, I don’t know.

            Here are some other collective nouns and phrases: a COLONY of beavers, a murder of crows, a congregation of alligators, a bellowing of bullfinches, a gulp of cormorants, a confusion of Guinea fowl, a mischief of mice, a murmuration of starlings, an exultation of larks, a descent of woodpeckers and a gulp of swallows.

                                                ***********************

            As one who often eats in restaurants (my wife won’t show me where the cookstove is) I continue to be amazed at those napkin dispensers that won’t dispense a napkin and those little teapots from which it is impossible to pour tea without spreading it all over the table.

            I fondly remember the day in 1997 when I got out ONE napkin, and only one. The waitress and three of the diners applauded me. Usually if one can get out as few as five serviettes he, she or it is doing well. Why do restaurants have those things?

            Then there are those little silver teapots designed by South American death squad alumni. (They have to do SOMETHING when they retire, right?) The chances of filling one’s cup with tea and not pouring the hot liquid on the table or one’s hands are about the same as one’s chances of winning a $40 million lottery.

            However, two weeks ago, at a restaurant in a certain mountain village, I did just that – pour the cup of tea I mean, not win that lottery. A short while later I received a phone call from the Vatican wanting details of the Miracle.
                                     -end-

All hail 'crowd-funding' (Sept. 27)

DIARY

A delicate operation on the brain

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Driving along Highway 109 near Arthurette, I saw that my old friend Trout (real name Angler) was brandishing a Husqvarna weed-eater along the ditch near his front lawn. I stopped to chat and heard an earful.

            “Would you come into my office (Trout is an accountant) and interrupt me when I was working on someone’s income tax return? No you would not,” he answered his own question before I had a chance to. “Would you interrupt a surgeon who was performing a delicate operation on your brain?”

            (Which I would have thought was redundant since – I would have thought – any operation on the brain, even mine, would be delicate.)

            He wasn’t finished. “Do you know how many people have stopped to talk and interrupt me while I am trying to get rid of this grass along the ditch, since the government doesn’t seem to want to?” Before I could answer that question, he was off again. “Nine people!” he said. “Nine people stopped just because they recognized me.”

            “But Trout,” I said, “I am sure that I and the other eight people who stopped did so because of our liking and admiration for you…” I went on for a while in this vein, lying like a cedar log in a brook. Then he scratched his chin and looked thoughtful.

            You are right, ” he said, and put down his weed-eater, just like he had been putting me down earlier. “Let’s go have a coffee.”

                                                ***********************

            Last evening I was talking to someone at the club when he said he had to go home because his ‘better half’ had threatened she would not go through with their promised divorce if he stayed out after nine o’clock.

            It was unusual to hear that expression; people don’t often say ‘the better half’ much these days. The reason for, of course, is that it has been ‘clinically proven’ as they say, that husbands are the better half.

            Still on that subject, we all know the phrase “see how the other half lives”, meaning that we who are wealthy should take a look at how poorer people live – for example only being able to have an iPhone 4 instead of the latest model.

            That phrase “the other half” is obsolete now and has been for a decade or two, or three, because the poor(er) now make up about 99% of the population and that, if I remember my math, is a kilometre or two away from half. The average rich guy would have to say he wants to “see how the other 99% live” and he’s not going to do that, is he? People were trying to get government to notice them when they voted for the current (and possibly last) U.S. president.

                                                ***************************

            The Internet has brought us some great ideas for making money and one of the best for individuals is ‘crowd-funding’.

            That’s where you or I or my dog Fang go onto an alleged non-profit crowd-funding website and ask for money for our particular cause. We might want to raise money to build a statue honouring a certain dead hero so they ask other people to send them money for that purpose. Of course a certain amount may stick to their fingers, but with the humidity lately, that’s understandable.

            Listening yesterday to a radio program, I was astounded to hear that one enterprising young man from Manitoba had turned to crowd-funding to pay for his education. His goal was $100,000 for a four-year degree course, but I have news for him. According to my recollection, each of our children’s education cost us approximately one million dollars a month so that young man was rather optimistic.

            Crowd-funding is a simple concept. You find a crowd-funding site on the Internet and get accepted after you explain what you want the money for. What could possibly go wrong?

            I have been preparing my own application. I have to work on the wording, but this is the concept: “I want people to send me money until I have enough. I will let you know when that happens.”

                                                *********************

            Watching the news coverage of the plethora of hurricanes now pummelling the Caribbean, I am impressed by the technology in use these days.

            One can look at computer models of Hurricane Maria – that’s today’s storm – and see that the eye is perfectly round, what they call symmetrical, and that’s supposed to be important. Then the TV weather people show the probable track of the storm – both the British and the American guesses – so they can have that on record for the next day when they say the exact opposite.

            One thing I have noticed: In spite of all the technology today, hurricanes cause just as much damage as before. The people on the ground in Puerto Rico are getting blown around just as much as they would have in 1955; it’s just that they are getting warned earlier. 
                                         -end-

Barbecuing in all seasons (Sept. 20)

DIARY

Marching to the beat of a different drummer

                        by Robert LaFrance

            So all it took were a few hurricanes to shut Donald Trump’s Twitter mouth for a week or two? Who knew? As I write this, the American president has not tweeted a controversial sentence for what seems like months.

            Hurricane Harvey in southeast Texas and later Louisiana, then Hurricane Irma followed by Hurricane and Tropical Storm José flattened a lot of buildings and killed a lot of people who would probably have preferred to have remained living even though Trump was sending his stupid twits – I mean tweets – worldwide.

            To bring the results of the hurricanes a bit closer to home, I can safely say I went a little strange and then stranger as I looked at all the television coverage of these disasters, mostly of Irma.

            I watched CNN a lot because they had so many reporters on the scene to report on all the destruction in the Caribbean and Florida; one evening I was sitting in my favourite chair while some poor schmuck was standing out in the wind and rain at Miami. He had to hang on to a lamp post so he didn’t get blown into the sea.

            “WHAT’S GOING ON?” said my wife as she came home from a church meeting or some such gathering. “Why do you have plywood on all the windows? Also, I don’t appreciate having to crawl over a lilac bush and in a kitchen window because you have the TV so loud and the doors all braced shut.”

            “I was just battening down the hatches,” I defended myself. “You can’t be too careful.”

            “Actually, you can be too careful,” was her rejoinder. “AND YOU HAVE BEEN! Do you realize that it’s warm and sunny here with only a breeze? You’re not in Florida you know.”

            I shook my head in acknowledgement of her comment. “I guess I went a little overboard,” I said, and she didn’t argue. “There’s good news though. All that plywood…I’ve been needing a new chicken coop for years.” But she was gone to unload the car whose back seat was full of food she had bought ‘just in case’, and the trunk was full of gasoline containers in case we had to mow the lawn with no advance notice.

                                                **********************

            Speaking of mowing the lawn, I think people are weird.

            My friend Flug (Richard LaFrance, no relation) was out mowing his front lawn when I got home from town yesterday afternoon. He was zooming around as if he were Hercules cleaning the Augean Stables which I am sure you’ll recall from the Greek myth.  Flug, like Hercules, did finish the job and when he shut off the mower he walked over to say hello where I was pulling carrots out of my garden. (If you want to dig carrots, a garden is an ideal place to find them.)

            “Glad to get that job done,” he said. “Now I won’t have to think about it until May.”

            That got me thinking (no mean feat, as they say) about attitudes. In April everyone is drooling for the summer to come so we can, among other things, mow lawns, but now in September people seem to have given up and have thrown in the towel on summer as if they were eager for it to end and eager for that 4-letter S-word to show up. This is all very strange to a Tilley boy and we Tilley boys are known for our intellectual achievements.

                                                ***********************

            Warning: this is an entirely new subject – barbecuing.

            Around our estate here in Kincardine, we (that is, I) are/am just as likely to barbecue in February as in July. In fact, I can’t wait until the winter barby season to begin. When we invite people to our Valentine’s Day event they are often startled, staggered and amazed when they arrive and find me standing on the front porch and brushing sauce onto burgers and sausages. The effect is increased if there is a minor blizzard occurring.

            Back to the subject: why should we always barbecue the same things? I’ll bet the philosopher Henry David Thoreau never barbecued hot dogs, or even cooked corn wrapped in tinfoil on the barby. Here’s a quote from him: “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.”

            Excuse me, that had nothing whatsoever to do with barbecuing. Here’s the one I was thinking about: “Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

            That wasn’t it either. Maybe this is the one I wanted: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.” And so last evening I barbecued anchovies, sunchokes and peas. I’ll show him who’s a different drummer.
                                        -end-

Is 'problematic' the same as a problem? (Sept 13)

DIARY

Notes from a dwindling summer

                        by Robert LaFrance

            What’s wrong with television’s weather boys and girls? They are getting a bit ahead of themselves.

            I have counted five instances when one of them referred to September 1^st as “the last day of the summer season”. This has to stop. It’s not unusual (as the singer Tom Jones used to bellow) for us to have very warm weather in late September and even the first half of October, but I’ll tell you one thing: the first day of September is not the border line between summer and fall.

            True, as I write this on September 6^th, it is quite cold and feels like fall – or even winter – and it will be quite a few weeks before the season changes from summer. Officially it’s something like September 21^st. Let’s appreciate that as well as any warm weather we have left.

            I don’t know if it’s the season, the weather, or the position of the moon in the heavens, but the word ‘Houston’ seems to have driven people crazy – crazier than usual that is.

            Tomorrow, because of refineries having closed in Texas, that price of gasoline at the pumps is supposed to rise something like 14 cents a litre and Frankie, my wife’s third cousin’s father-in-law’s uncle, drove from Moose Mountain to Perth-Andover to fill his Gremlin with gas. When he finished doing that, the gasoline in the car was worth more than the car itself, but that didn’t faze Frankie.

            All over the place, people were emerging from their homes to fill up with gas before the price went up. I was not innocent. I jumped in my Corolla that was three-quarters full of gas and started for town, 20 kilometres away, but before I got to the bottom of Manse Hill where I live, sanity sneaked in. “Do the math!” I said to myself, and I did. Driving that far would use up more gas than that price increase would take care of in two weeks.

            In other important commentary, I often notice, as you have, signs that read “Lots for sale”. One of these days I hope to see a sign that will help to even things out. How about this one? “Not a lot for sale, just a bit. A pittance really.”

            It’s wonderful how the English language is evolving. Back in the old days, when we ran up against something that we would rather not have, it was a problem. Now, in 2017, it’s “problematic”. People use the word ‘impact’ as a verb when we already had a perfectly good one – ‘affect’.

            Two days ago I heard someone uptown say: “Roll up the car windows, George!” Most car windows these days are mysteriously moved by something electronic and that is not rolling. (As soon as I wrote this, I thought of Frankie’s Gremlin. He still rolls up his windows.)

            I think advertising is a great occupation, with some of the world’s greatest ideas seeing the light through an advertising agency. The Mormon Church commercials from years ago were great, and how about those Volkswaggen bug commercials that were more entertaining than the shows they were attached to? Tim Horton’s commercials are great. However, great commercials don’t ALWAYS mean a great product. It is my considered opinion that the people who make those excellent commercials advertising Coors beer should be incarcerated.

            Just a thought: Many people don’t know the different between ‘cement’ and ‘concrete’ and use the words interchangeably. Correct me if you must, but I am fairly certain that cement is an ingredient of concrete and not the final product such as my front step on which I just fell and gave myself a bruise.

            Looking back on my earlier comments, I am thinking I watch too much television, but I have yet another comment on a TV show. Last evening I was dozing in my favourite chair and woke up to hear a talk show host say to his studio audience: “Choose a winner by casting your ballast!” He said this twice. Of course we educated people know that ballast is pretty grubby stuff and I laughed at this guy’s ignorance. Then I remembered last November’s U.S. election during which voters clearly chose a winner by casting their ballast.

            There’s always somebody around who is cheerful and optimistic and don’t you hate those guys? Watching the TV news last evening, I was interested to see and hear an interview with a chap who had survived the huge hurricanes Katrina and Harvey and was bracing for Hurricane Irma that was bearing down on Florida and probably Louisiana. He lived on a hill in the latter state and expected to survive yet another flood and associated good stuff. “Your altitude determines your attitude,” he said with a maddening grin.
                                       -end-

He asked to see Bella's backside (Sept 6)

DIARY

To err is human, to forgive divine

                        by Robert LaFrance

            If you drive by our house, you will see a new stovewood pile, or I should say three piles or tiers of beech, birch and maple, but you will not marvel at their neatness.

            I don’t know whether it is non-conformism, contrariness, or myopia, but I am not capable of piling wood – or ‘stacking logs’ as some people say – in a nice neat row. Most people do. I drive by their homes and see that their woodpiles are neat as two pins and a canary, then I wonder how they can be so neat.

            Two days ago I stopped at such a home because the husband was standing there, apparently admiring the pile. “Hi ho, old boy,” I said. “Tell me this: how can you get your woodpiles so neat? I know you will tell me the truth because if you don’t I will have to make public some of your activities when we lived in Hamilton.”

            “You don’t have to threaten me, Bob,” he remonstrated. “Here, I will show you.” We walked out behind the woodpile and what a mess it was on that side! Jagged piling or what? “There’s the secret,” he smirked. “You make sure the front side – that the public sees – is smooth as a baby’s butt and never mind the side nobody looks at.”

            So the next time you see a really nice ‘stack of logs’ stop and ask to see the part away from the road. However, learn this lesson from my friend Flug: ask the husband,  not the wife.

            He stopped at George and Bella LeFond’s place on Tuesday and, George being away, asked if he could see her backside. When he regained consciousness…

                                                ***********************

            More information gleaned from my travels around Victoria County and even the far-flung places of Carleton and Madawaska counties.

            Gregoire Allamand, who lives just outside St. Andre – about 40 kilometres outside, in Four Falls – is always railing about rich people and whining because he isn’t rich. The last time he dropped a hint about his ‘net worth’ (as people say when they’re talking about money) he had almost $450,000 in RRSPs and $325,000 in Microsoft preferred stock. Yet he watches for sales on no-name tomato soup and buys 2-day-old bread at half price. Complaining about some rich guy, he said: “You can tell what God thinks of money,” he said. “Look at the people he gives it to.” Looking at the box of old bread in the back seat of his car, I thought: “How very, very true.”

            The Dollar Store phenomenon has been one of the major merchandising stories of the past two decades, but here’s a question: isn’t EVERY store a dollar store?

            We’ve all been so amused at Donald Trump’s antics that most of us have forgotten about Mike Duffy. Now he has decided to sue the federal government and us taxpayers for $7.8 million for, among other things, ‘loss of reputation’. At last, Canadian journalists (that’s me) will have something ridiculous to write about other than that tank full of buffoons on the other side of the border.

            Around this time every year I remember the birthday of Dave Nasagalawak, an Inuit trapper whom I knew when I worked at the Sachs Harbour, NWT, weather station. He was probably the only Sachs Harbour (Banks Island) resident ever featured on the front page of Time Magazine, the U.S. edition. This was in 1976 when his photo appeared with the information that he had trapped white foxes whose skins were worth $100,000, a vast amount of money for anyone, but especially for a guy who lived in a little house looking out at the Beaufort Sea. I asked him one day how he felt, being famous. He said: “They didn’t even get the amount right. It was only $95,000.”

            I don’t exactly live in a small town, but in what might be called a ‘hamlet’. There’s no town council, no mayor, no department of transportation and no municipal building. However, the family and I do our shopping in the village of Perth-Andover and more-or-less identify with that village. My friend Zeke, who does live in Perth-Andover, refers to the situation as “the cachet of small town living”. People in vast metropolitan areas like Woodstock can go to a takeout and the employee announces over a loudspeaker “large fries and onion rings” whereas at takeouts in Perth-Andover they holler out the side door: “Zeke, come and get your grub before I feed it to the dogs!”

            Some signs I would like to see:

At a music concert in India: “This evening - Haydn Sikh”...At the door of a legislative committee meeting about mining policies: "Pit bull in progress"…At the entrance of a fitness camp owned by a very rich family named Getty: “Come and enjoy a week at Spa Getty”…In front of a bike repair shop: “Recycling our specialty”…In front of a cow stable that has just installed a new air circulation system to alleviate the stink: “To air is human, to forgive bovine".
                                  -end-

I'm happy to beer (Aug. 30)

DIARY

Larry needs a lift after his operation

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Looking at the calendar, I am truly staggered and it is not because of alcohol or drugs.

            It’s the end of August, for crying out loud! And crying out loud is what I did all last winter as I waited (im)patiently for Spring to arrive. Now here we are, on the cusp of September. As Beatrix Potter wrote in all those kids’ books, I think I shall go distracted.

            In spite of that horrific news, we must move on with our careers. Donald Trump aside (what a pleasant thought!), there are other things going on in the world. School is about to start on its fall season and I can see and hear the sassy smirks, grinning guffaws and giggles, the chortling and chuckling of long-suffering parents who have been at their wits’ ends trying to entertain the little darlings.

            “In loco parentis” is a Latin phrase meaning ‘in place of the parents’ which is what teachers are expected to be, and after school starts THEIR teeth will be getting ground down to match those of the parents who took their little gangsters to everything from the Grafton Marble Championships to the Lerwick Canoe Races – anything to keep the little brutes quiet.

            NOTE: Since I brought up three little brats, I am qualified to comment.

                                                **********************

            Other comments on things that have already happened this short summer:

            About ten days ago I was driving along Kintore Road in Lower Kintore when I met a tractor-trailer – almost met it, because I pulled WAY off the road. The driver apparently thought he was on the Indiannapolis Speedway. The logging trailer was empty and actually bouncing when he passed me. Not sure what the hurry was, but the rocks were flying.

            Listening to an MPBN radio program called ‘Living on Earth’, I heard an interviewer welcoming a chap from the midwestern U.S.A. The chap answered “Happy to beer”. I am always interested in accents and this was a dandy. “Happy to be here,” was what he said, but it had the effect of making me pay attention and walk to the fridge. By the way, they were talking about elephant tusks. That may be important.

            Electronic devices are everywhere. Smartphones here and there; and people keep saying: “There’s an app for that.” What they mean of course is that there is an application for a certain action. Just download from the Internet a little icon for The Weather Channel and when you want to know the forecast for Saskatoon, just tap it. However some people, especially in restaurants, keep talking to their smartphones and pressing their apps. Usually what comes to my mind is the sentence: “There’s a slap for that.”

            Speaking of The Weather Channel, quite a few people (men) I know have suggested that the women on that network had been chosen for their appearance (they all look like models) but as a former weather service guy, I can tell you that they really do a good job of presenting the weather to an ignorant public. I was a TV weather forecaster – filling in for someone competent – in Inuvik for one week back in the 1970s and it’s a hard job.

            My friend Flug’s cousin Larry just emerged the hospital yesterday and we’re all glad to see him back. He had had a hernia operation. What caused this condition was his carrying around so many keys. Now he keeps them in a ‘man-purse’ around his waist. Down at the club last evening he showed us all the keys he used to carry around in his pocket. Two GMC pickup keys, two freezer keys, his Toyota car keys, seven unidentified keys, probably from previously owned vehicles but he doesn’t dare throw them away, a key to the church, to his dog’s kennel fence, to various chests, etc. etc. We asked why he didn’t leave some keys home under an ashtray or something; he said that if he did that he’d need it immediately. Just then a TV show on the club’s big screen announced that singer Alicia Keys was about to perform. Larry turned pale and dashed out, shouting over his shoulder: “No more!”

            Last evening when I was driving home from town a vehicle was following me very closely all the way, with the added bonus that the driver kept on his high beams. When we met a vehicle, he dimmed his headlights, but as soon as that vehicle was by he put the high beams back on so they filled my rear-view mirrors. I slowed down several times so he would pass, but he wouldn’t until I put on my left signal light to turn into my road. Then he zoomed by. Is there a button on some drivers’ seats that turn drivers  stupid? By the way, the pickup looked a lot like Larry’s. I hope he picks up an anvil.
                              -end-

Fixing Route 105 - finally (Aug. 23)

DIARY

How to get rid of an unwanted guitar

                        by Robert LaFrance

            We all know about the 2008 debacle when a dude named Dave Carroll had his guitar broken during a United airlines flight. His song “United Breaks Guitars” was a big hit, mainly because the airlines wouldn’t do anything to replace his guitar. Public relations geniuses.

            Then in April of this year, United Airlines dragged a passenger off an overbooked flight to the delight of YouTube viewers. The man had a black eye and of course sued the airline. You’d wonder if UA even has a public relations department.

            But that’s neither here nor there. My point is (or are) guitars, not airlines. A Fredericton performer named Mike Bravener had his Epiphone AJ-200 guitar stolen several years ago and, against all odds, had it returned to him after an unidentified man saw it in a pawn shop and recognized it from social media posts.

            You might say that, in each of those cases, it was a happy ending, but now we come to my case.

            For years I have had an old guitar I have been trying to get rid of. I don’t know anything about guitars, but inside is the name Martin D-28 and somebody named Roy or Ray Acuff has autographed it.

            I left that guitar in a public washroom in Cabano, Quebec, but an guy came rushing out to my car with the guitar; I laid it behind a bulldozer’s laig on a construction site, but an old lady returned it and insisted on a reward, then said she used to play with the Tommy Dorsey Band; I left it in a car in the hot sun and assumed the guitar would be melted when I came out from the grocery store. It sounded even better than it had.

            For months I tried to get rid of that old guitar and then my friend Flug suggested: “Why not take a United Airlines flight?” And so I did. I took the noon flight in an Airbus A320 from Minto to Moncton and when I got to Moncton my guitar and case resembled, more than anything else, a giant pancake. Would I ever get compensation for my grievous loss?

            Why, yes I did. Before the plane’s wheels stopping smoking from the rough landing, a United Airlines rep was racing over to the baggage carousel. “Here, take this and go buy yourself another guitar. He handed me $19,000 in small bills. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I had bought the guitar in 1967 at Expo in Montreal and paid $25 for it. United is not so bad after all. Now the problem is, how are they going to get that Airbus off that short runway in Moncton? The pilot had read his flight plan wrong; we were supposed to be in Montreal.

                                                ***********************

            A Wisconsin company, Three Square Market, has brought us closer to a time when we won’t need to use our brains any more.

            Many reading that sentence will not be surprised and will be saying to themselves: “Bob, you’ve functioned without a brain for decades!” Insults aside, this is a true news story. This company has implanted microchips under the skin of many of their employees so these people will no longer have to carry around credit cards, bank machine cards, identification cards of many kinds. They will just have to give the finger to all these electronic gadgets. Just think, they can go to Burger King or Wendy’s takeout lines and have their orders presented like after-shave lotion – unscented of course.

            The program is a voluntary one, but you know how that goes. When a company wants an employee to do something, they ‘ask’ and if you say no, say hello to your new job as washroom janitor.

            I am looking forward to more information as time goes by. Just think of the possibilities. You get the implant that is the size of a grain of rice, and immediately have your finger hacked. Of course this is not the same as ‘hacked off’. Washroom janitoring isn’t so bad anyway.

                                                ***********************

            Things are getting a little scary along Highway 105, just at the Victoria-Carleton county line. It looks as if the government, or technically the contractor Acott Construction, is about to tear up the old ‘pavement’ and replace it will a new road. After driving over that ‘road’ for years, I don’t think I will know how to react when it’s smooth. Even so, there will be still be a 5-km stretch not done, but it is not as bad a piece of road. That part will be replaced next year that, coincidentally, will be an election year.

            It is a nice stretch of New Brunswick along there, and I always enjoy the scenery in the Beechwood area. What has baffled me over the years is the fact that this road, barely driveable at times, is part of the River Valley Scenic Route.
                                            -end-

Flug disturbed a bear (Aug. 16)

DIARY

Thoughts on a summer day

                        by Robert LaFrance

            A certain individual in this house has a clock radio that she uses as an alarm. One recent morning I awoke to the ‘music’ of an acid rock punk heavy metal grunge band and almost went through the ceiling. Accordingly, I have now spoken to various members of Parliament and the mayor of Kincardine in an attempt to have a new law struck. No more of that in the morning! On the other hand, it did get me out of bed.

            Some things in life are inevitable, like the pronunciation of the word ‘inevitable’ when I was a young feller, I was a great reader, but many of the words I had never heard pronounced, correctly or otherwise. The teacher got me to read a passage from a textbook and I pronounced the word ‘in-eVET-able’. She laughed and embarrassed me, because it’s supposed to be pronounced ‘in-EVitable’. Oh, the pain of growing up.

            Speaking of inevitable, some things in life are just that, like Murphy’s Law. In this case though, I refer to someone, anyone, who goes by the initials C.D. They have to be called ‘Seedy’, no matter how many people they beat up for doing just that. Also, if one’s name is Stanley, he WILL be called ‘Stan the Man’. The nicknames of many Winstons is ‘Wink’.

            Some things in life are not to be believed. Everywhere we look, there is astronaut Chris Hadfield playing his guitar and singing, or appearing in a garden show in Ernfold, Saskatchewan. He’s has had quite a career in space and I hope it’s made him a billion dollars afterward. It must have been quite something to look out the window (porthole?) of his spacecraft and down at the earth. That’s why it surprised me (who am rarely surprised) when I found out last week that Chris Hadfield, who received his pilot’s licence at age fifteen, is afraid of heights.

            In last week’s column I mentioned that ordinary tap water is every bit as good as bottled water, and while this is true in almost all cases (except northeastern Gambia) there are cases when tap water is less than alluring. On the day I sent that column in to this newspaper, I went uptown and heard two stories in ten minutes from people whose tap water wasn’t fit for Joseph Stalin. In both cases their tap water was a reddish brown colour. So, okay, in those two cases bottled water is better, but not in everyone else’s homes. No wait, I had better check that out.

            NEWS FLASH! Another possible error. Excuse me for reporting earlier in this column that astronaut Chris Hadfield was afraid of heights. I had some incorrect information there. It appears that it came from Russia and the U.S. White House, who wouldn’t know the truth if it landed Splat! on their tailfeathers. I do apologize to the readers and to Chris who has friends in high places and visits them often.

            Watching a CNN commentary show last evening, I heard one guest refer to a Donald Trump statement as “a bald-faced assertion that runs contrary to the facts”. Erin Burnett, a wonderful interviewer, asked if that wouldn’t be better “characterized” as a lie; the guest, a Washington Post reporter whose name I can’t remember, said: “You got that right, Erin.” Ironically, the thing about Donald Trump is not that he’s a liar, but that he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Ever.

            My friend Flug’s nephew Grover was visiting the big guy last week and the two spent the whole week fishing up around Trout Brook in the Birch Ridge area where I used to live. They also spent some time trying to drag huge trout – at least that was the story – out of Odellac Stream, and yes I know the name has about five official spellings. Maggie’s Falls was also called Robinson Falls among other thing, especially the day I slipped and slid about a hundred feet downstream on some mighty hard rocks.

            The point I’m getting to is that Flug and Grover have some bear spray to thank for their arriving back home in one piece. Flug always carries two cans of anti-bear spray when he goes into the woods (while at the same time NOT carrying an EpiPen for his hornet allergy). As they stepped over a log they disturbed a large bear who must have been watching Coronation Street and you know what those viewers are like. The bear spray slowed down the bear that Grover swore was a brown bear even though only black bears are found in New Brunswick. Good thing I didn’t call him a liar, because the next day a ranger told me that some black bears are brown in colour. Go figure.
                                  -end-