I
will pass on watching the Olympics
by
Robert LaFrance
As I write this column, the Olympics
from South Korea are being shown on every TV channel. It is somewhat like when
the Stanley Cup Playoffs used to be on CBC-TV. All the good shows, like soap operas
and soccer, are pushed aside and all we saw was a bunch of overdeveloped
athletes banging into each other and occasionally trying to punch each other in
the helmets. I once had dreams of becoming an champion athlete too, until I was
told that the 25-yard dash and tiddly-winks were not Olympic sports.
“I don’t remember a winter like
this!” I might as well get that out of the way, because that’s what we all say
every week at this time of the year. I suppose it’s like snowflakes – no two
are alike, but I have yet to see anyone offer proof of it.
This winter is a little odd though.
The Flat Earth Society that, strangely enough, think the earth is flat, had to
cancel their 2018 annual general meeting; that’s the first time that happened
since 1948, the year I was born. Up to this point it was quite a feather in my
cap that I had never missed a meeting, but that’s all over now through no fault
of my own. The feather has flown away in a blizzard anyway. Time of the meeting
was 5:15 am Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018, and no one was planning to attend as usual,
but it’s an embarrassment.
This winter, school days have been
cancelled and delayed, church has been cancelled, 4x4s have gone into the
ditch, government snowploughs have gone off the road, and Flug has gotten a cold.
That’s a first. I don’t remember a winter like this.
**********************
In other fabulous occurrences this
winter, I notice that a little nest of potholes had appeared in Highway 105
just south of Perth lagoon.
That road is probably no more than
seven years old and should not have potholes, but perhaps no one told the road
itself. The reason I bring up the subject is that about two weeks ago I took a
photo of that nest when it was tiny and since then, sans repairs of any kind,
it (they) is three times bigger. I will take a photo every few weeks and at the
end of May – if I am still navigating around this earth – I will compare the
size of the pothole nest to its size two weeks ago, and in August, just before
there is a full-scale riot about the road, D.O.T. (DTI) will fix it, just in
time for winter. That’s a prediction and it will come to pass.
Moving a bit south, ever closer to
Donald Trump’s real legal problems, I am impressed when politicians, talking
about politicians on the other side, use the word ‘redacted’. Nobody but Flug
and lawyers ever heard of that word until the media started using it over and
over again. It means ‘censored’ and is used to confuse us, like government
voicemail.
My mailbox, my beloved group
mailbox, is groaning these days with the 217 daily credit card offers, flyers,
and various other kinds of junk mail, the equivalent of telemarketing. Somebody
named Edwin Fitzgerald wants me to try out his Mastercard with no interest
charges for the first two days. “Just think,” he gushed, “If you paid for a new
Cadillac using my credit card you would save $235.03 in interest payments. Mind
you, after those two days things might get a little brisk.”
That poor mailbox of mine has
yielded offers for hearing tests – as if they were disappointed that I hadn’t
been in to see them since my doctor suggested I have a hearing test in 1987. I
saw him at a hockey game last week. “How are things going?” he asked. I thought
he was talking about Donald Trump and ignored him. There was a big roar from
the crowd just then anyway and I had an excuse. I never did find out which side
had scored, or which side won.
For some reason – old age I assume –
I got to thinking about the cars I learned to drive when I first sat behind the
wheel. I mentioned that I had been born in 1948, but the first vehicle, other
than a John Deere tractor, I ever drove was a 1949 Monarch, a large tank of a
car. No truck or Greyhound bus had better get between me and the dairy bar or
they would have been in deep trouble.
I don’t want to imply and I don’t
want you to infer that I was one year old when I started driving that tank; I
was almost ten, so that’s all right.-end-
No comments:
Post a Comment