A
good head on his shoulders
by
Robert LaFrance
Somebody said to me yesterday that
my cousin Vinnie (short for vinyard) had “a good head on his shoulders”. I am
not sure that a human should be described in this way although it might be
accurate and more appropriate to say that a glass of beer has a good head on
it. Note: Vinnie is not the sharpest axe in the shed but he fools people.
Speaking of someone on the opposite
end of the intelligence scale, I recently read a story about Albert Einstein.
In 1952, Hungarian poet named George Faludy and he were walking along a New
York City street when Faludy pulled out a notebook and wrote something in it.
Seeing the quizzical look on Einstein’s face, he explained that whenever he had
a good idea, he wrote it down, and asked if Einstein carried a notebook. “No,”
said probably the greatest physicist who ever lived, “I hardly ever have a good
idea.”
Although I have known about it for
some time, this morning was the first time I strode through the walking trail
located inside the River Valley Civic Centre. It took me about two and a
quarter minutes to make one circle and I felt that was enough exercise for one
day. Just kidding; I walked for 21 minutes and was very pleased to be able to
do that on level ground. Here in Kincardine there is a total of 76 metres of
level ground but I am as lazy as a cut cat, as the old saying goes. Kudos to
the Perth-Andover Recreation Department for setting this up.
Now to a different kind of exercise:
snowmobiling. All the skidooers (as people say, even though Skidoo is a
specific trade name) I know have been very pleased about this past (yes, past)
winter’s snow cover. Those who could afford to buy a $49,000 snow machine, who
could afford to hire a full-time mechanic to take along with them and who could
afford all the gasoline, permits and licences, had a great time going through
the woods. A former skidoo owner, I know the pleasure of the sport, but,
contrary to what I said earlier, there’s not much exercise involved. By the
way, a snowmobile doesn’t cost $49,000. The Yamaha 292 I bought in 1979 only
cost me $300 and I doubt if they’re much more expensive now.
I write this immortal prose on
Tuesday, March 20, the first day of Spring. Where did the winter go? It was
only about two weeks ago that I was putting away my gardening tools after
knocking the dust off them. I planted garlic and some winter rye to be tilled
under in May and just generally polished off the gardening summer of 2017. This
spring I have already received my interesting envelopes from Vesey’s Seeds and
am ready to plant. Looking out my living room window though, there seems to be
a problem (It’s ‘problematic’ as politicians and others say although it means
the same thing) with something covering my gardens – about one metre of crusty
snow with another 15-20 centimetres expected on Thursday. I suppose I will have
to wait; I was going to call my neighbour Ricky to plough all the snow off my
gardens and then we could pour on hot water; my wife dismissed that as impractical,
but not in those words. “You’re an idiot, Bob!”
In my shirt pocket I almost always,
except in the shower, carry around a notebook, and in that notebook, on the
back page, is a list of jobs I plan to do as soon as I get a chance. One is to
clean up and clean out my workshop located at the back of the garage and I have
been progressing well on that. I’ve almost started. Number two on my list is
‘clean my office’ which deserves a thorough going-over. If I could back a
tractor-trailer right up to the window (a little ‘problematic’ on the second
storey) and fill it with junk collected over the years, that might help, a bit.
That’s another job that I have almost begun, although I did empty the
wastebasket in February.
Some other jobs on the list: gather
up all income tax papers and take them to our accountant, to see him cry; clean
and vacuum both cars (we are wealthy) but don’t bother washing them because
they are filthy again before we even get home; delete some of the 2572 emails
in my inbox and some of the 2294 letters in my ‘sent items’ box, and finally,
make a new list. Two jobs I have actually started are “Make a list of jobs you
want to do” and the other is “Buy a new notebook to copy this list to the back
page of that”. I try to be neat at all times. Spring cleaning, I love it.-end-
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