Trump=Machiavelli+Bozo the Clown

For Blackfly Gazette September 5/18

NOTES FROM THE SCOTCH COLONY

There is no Niagara in Perth-Andover or Victoria County

                                    by Robert LaFrance

            The legend is that Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity in 1687 when he was sitting under a tree (one presumes an apple tree) when an apple fell down and bonked him on the noggin. “What made that apple fall?” he asked himself.

            I would have asked that myself, especially since the date was June 3^rd and no apple is ripe that early, certainly not in England. However, that’s the legend.

            I tell you that to tell you this: yesterday afternoon I was lying on my hammock with the top end of me under an Alexander apple tree, and anyone who knows anything about apple varieties knows that the Alexander apple is one of the biggest in the orchard. The only one bigger (that I know of) is Wolf River, but I wasn’t lying on my hammock under a Wolf River tree.

            I was reading a novel about a fellow named Raskolnikov who killed an old lady for her stash of money when one of those huge apples worked loose and dropped right onto my forehead, sending to another place – unconscious.

            When I regained consciousness, I could see Donald Trump standing on my garage and behind him I could see a tour bus filled with lawyers and prosecutors all bundling out and arguing about who got to prosecute him first and for what – there was such a choice.

            I passed out again and when I awoke it was after dark. No Donald Trump (a combination of Machiavelli and Bozo the Clown) and no tour bus. The lesson from all this? If you sit or lie under an apple tree in September, make sure it’s a crabapple tree.

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

            One day in early August, when British Columbia and California were being incinerated by forest fires and southern Ontario (where I lived for half a decade back in the 1970s) was frying under Humidex readings of 40+ Celsius and our own New Brunswick was not far behind, the Perfessor stopped by to say hello and cadge a cold beer.

            “You won’t hear me complain about the New Brunswick weather,” he began, although I hadn’t mentioned the weather. “Nosiree,” he continued, “whenever I feel like cursing the hot weather I just think of the ‘F Word.’ Then he leaned back in the Adirondack chair that wasn’t really an Adirondack chair but more like a Upper Kintore creation (very comfortable) and took a healthy sip of his Railcar ale. “Don’t you want to know what the F-word is?” he asked.

            “I thought I already knew,” I answered. “It’s fuddle-duddle as Pierre Trudeau might say.”

            “Not at all young feller,” the Perfessor said and I appreciated that word ‘young’. “The “F” word is February. If I start complaining about the hot weather and humidity I think of the word ‘February’ and I quit complaining. Say, this is good ale. Got another?”

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

            Another thing the old gent told me was a bit of humour from the club where he had been sitting and guzzling someone else’s ale the night before, at $3.50 a glass.

            The butt of this joke, so to speak, was Eldin Malloy, who, at age 53, is the father of three boys, the youngest being twelve and who hasn’t quite learned the ways of the world of things that worry middle-aged folks like his dad. The Perfessor and a couple of other denizens were sitting on the porch and sipping away when the boy, whose name is Eldin Junior, came bicycling by.

            He carried a note in the basket of the bicycle and held it up. “Hi dad! Some mail came for you.” Eldin Junior, who was getting to know more and more about geography – if not about pharmacy and spelling – went on to say: “Dad, do we get water from Ontario?”

            “Why, son, why do you ask that?”

            “Well, I just learned about Ontario rivers and Mum just told me to come down here QUICKLY and tell you that your order of Niagara was in. That’s what’s on the note anyway. She wants you to go home and she’d be waiting.” With that the young man cycled away toward his friend Beamer’s house.

            Eldin’s face was, by this time, the colour of a Redfree apple. Of course the Perfessor had to make a comment to make it turn a little more crimson. “Hey, Eldin. You don’t suppose that your son mistook the letter ‘V’ for the letter ‘N’ do you? Better head on home.”

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

            One day last week I was sitting on one of those benches along the Cultural Walkway of Perth-Andover, on the Perth side, and decided to count the number of people who put on their seatbelts before they actually pulled out into traffic. The answer was three out of 28.

            So twenty-five of 28 drivers backed out into traffic before they had their seatbelts fastened. I tried to figure out why they did this, or didn’t do this. I never did come up with an answer. Perhaps they had their minds on a box of Niagara they were about to pick up at the pharmacy. Who knows?
                                      END-