Non-elevator music driving me around the bend
By Robert LaFrance
It’s been several decades since somebody coined the phrase ‘elevator music’ for that senseless melody-less sound that appeared in (where else?) elevators. It was bland and was just about the quintessential definition of boring.
These days I almost wish it would come back.
This morning I was grocery shopping and was assaulted by overhead speakers that spewed out the worst mixture of rap (not to be confused with real music), calypso, punk rock and sewerage that I have heard since the last time I was in a store. Then the entertainment paused and the American country music began. At least it wasn’t rap.
However…modern American country music is now “of a sameness” as somebody recently said on WWVA, the station where the Grand Old Opry used to appear (radio version) every Saturday evening on our old radio in Tilley.
Now that was country music, not to be confused with that drawling drivel we hear today. It used to be that country music songwriters made their songs all about truck driving, horses and hitch-hiking to Nashville but now it’s all about love which I am sure Donald Trump has made illegal by this time.
The point of the previous paragraphs is that those who run grocery stores, garages and other such enterprises should try a little harder to put on some decent music for customers. Failing that, there is the option of silence. It’s a little hard to concentrate on buying olive oil and cheddar when some southern hick is whining about his shattered heart and liver.
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Speaking of Donald Trump, as I unfortunately did two paragraphs back, it is less than a week now before he may possibly be defeated by his Democratic opponent Joe Biden. What happens then?
In that country with the weirdest political and electoral laws on earth, Donald Trump will still be president after November 3rd even if he gets defeated 50 states to zero. He will have the full powers of the presidency until January 20 and just think of all the evil pranks he can get up to in that nearly three months.
He can pardon every rapist, bank robber, sidewalk spitter-oner, political pal and general criminal in the U.S. and no one can do a thing about it. What a weird country! And I used to admire the U.S.A.
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Back home here, I have been wondering which hornets to believe. “The old fellers” used to say that if hornets built their nests high in the trees or high in one of the local structures, then it was going to be a Winter of the Deep Snow such as happened in the Riley Brook area in 1932, but if the nests were low there would only a bit of snow.
Around our estate, old Mother Nature is clearly bipolar this year. Just at the west edge of my orchard is one nest that must be close to eight metres off the ground in a Viking apple tree and a short distance away is a nest of the same kind of hornets and it is hidden in some bushes half a metre off the ground.
(For those who are sticking with the Imperial system of measure, a metre is the equivalent of the Imperial measure that corresponds to 100 centimetres, or something like that.)
Now that I have that explanation out of the way, I must continue to describe the locations of other hornets’ nests around our house. There is one nestled in behind a lilac bush, as high as my left knee, and there is another one nearly at the top of our closed-in porch.
So what is going to happen to the snow depth this coming winter? If I listened to “the old fellers#1” we would be in for a mighty snow-filled winter, but on the other hand, if I were to listen to “The old fellers #2” there would be barely a skiff of snow all winter. It makes one cringe before looking out the window first thing in the morning.
NOTE: Just as I was writing this column, the weather report came on the radio. It’s supposed to snow tonight – 5 to 10 centimetres. That is code for 15 to 25 centimetres. Or it may rain. Or be sunny.
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I know I talk quite a bit about the weather and about the scandalous number of poor drivers on the roads, but here we go again:
I wonder how many people realize that their car’s headlights come on automatically when they start their cars? These are called ‘running lights’ and they aren’t technically called headlights because they’re not as bright as the real headlights and quite often the drivers aren’t anywhere nearly as bright as they should be.
You see, when those running lights come on, the car’s tail lights do not. Therefore when one is driving through fog cars they meet can see those running lights, but cars coming up behind them can’t see them until they are in their trunks.
Last week I was driving to Bath in the fog, a thick fog. I slowed down considerably but even so I almost ran into a grey Nissan car with no tail lights showing. In other words the driver didn’t have her regular headlights on. A grey car in a thick fog. I put on my 4-way flashers so any drivers behind me would at least have a chance to see me.
Long story short(er), I made it to Bath and back home in one piece, but with the resolution that I would tell people to put on their blasted headlights when driving in the fog! Quite a contradiction – put on your headlights so your tail lights will come on and save your life.
-end-
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