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-
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