Where in the world is my GPS?

The days are getting longer now – good thing

                         by Robert LaFrance

            There is something in the human soul that makes that human look out the window and, the worse the weather is, the more he wants to get out there on the road.

            I say ‘he’ but that was only for the convenience of my rather tortured English, for the list of culprits is about evenly divided between X and Y chromosomes. One Medford woman was famous for driving in the worst possible weather, and practically refusing to get behind the wheel if the sun were shining. “Where’s the fun in that?” she would ask no one in particular. One day last week she said to me: “I hate it after December 21^st because the days start getting longer—more daylight and safer driving. As I said - where's the fun in that?”

            Indeed, back in the early 1960s, during the storm that included a tornado which struck Henry Baker’s place, also in Medford, she jumped in her 1957 Plymouth Belvedere (with the push-button transmission, remember those?) and headed immediately over there to see if she could drive through a tornado. Alas, there was only one, so she had to be satisfied with driving through a vicious wind and rainstorm during which trees were toppling left and right.

            But that’s going back quite a way. If you can see a road or a street from your living room window, look out there and count 25 cars. The drivers of at least three of those are crazy persons, willing to go out on icy roads on summer tires and daring the guardrail to mess with them.

            Probably it’s time to be specific. You know that I am talking about one person only and you know it is neither Flug nor I since both of us are wimps, woosses, and scaredy cats. No, it’s my neighbours on the other side and down the hill a ways, along Highway 105.

Both Elroy and Jeanatan Fitzgovus are crazy about driving in bad weather. Let there come a severe thunderstorm with embedded tornadoes and they’re away in their 2007 Nissan. Remember that wicked rain we had a year ago? The one that took out bridges and moved houses? They drove around in that. In Muniac where the road almost washed out they zoomed by there and almost went down the fifty feet into the raging stream. And they thought that was a lot of fun.

Flug and I were home playing crokinole and cribbage and sipping on some lemonade.

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Some people make life needlessly complicated, don’t you think?

Everybody knows by now that last Tuesday morning we had an earthquake in these parts. Its epicentre—and by that I mean its centre—was alleged to be somewhere in Tilley, near the late Hiram Kinney’s camp. Most of us thought it was indigestion, brought on by the Toronto Maple Leafs winning a game.

So there we all were at the club the next evening and watching the Channel 9 news which was telling us that the ‘quake had measured 4.8 on the Richter Scale, which at one time I thought was an instrument for measuring the weight of fish, so we were all discussing that and comparing it to the 5.9 ‘quake in 1982.

Bellison said he had heard about the ‘quake from an iTunes radio station, meaning he had to fire up his computer, open up iTunes, and so on; Handley said he had been listening to his satellite radio, and Myers found out from an Internet website and blog by a famous seismologist at UNB Fredericton.

“How did you find out?” I asked Gary Mawman Jr., who is about as high-tech as the average moosefly.

“Oh, I got up, looked at the wall, and saw that all my pictures were hanging crooked.” Gary is called a Luddite by some, he’s that low-tech, but I am starting to think the same way.

Who needs all this technological stuff (I hope that’s not too technical)? True, we all want to know what time it is, just so we’re not late for supper, but we really don’t need to know much more. Okay, it’s nice to be able to cook an omelet on an electric stove, that is, in a frying pan on an electric stove, but we don’t need anything more than a stove.

Maybe a fridge so stuff doesn’t spoil, but that’s it. Now and then I use the microwave to heat up some food, but really, let’s not get out of hand. Yes, I use a computer and word processor and email for this column and go to town in my 2011 car equiped with all kinds of bells and whistles, but that’s enough. No need to be high-tech.

Now where is my GPS? And by the way: Merry low-tech Christmas. Go X-Box!

                                            -end-

Reporters have to be truthful, sort of

Let’s get one thing straight – no Ford Edge

                         by Robert LaFrance

            Right off the bat in this column, I want to give my best wishes and salutations to our beloved editor—well, editor anyway—for many years, Mark Rickard, who is moving on to the Daily Gleaner. His contribution to the lottery pool will cause some financial repercussions, but we will just have to make do for the good of…well, us.

            Mark was officially done as editor of the Victoria Star as of December 6, and the obvious comment to make would be ‘now the mice can play’, but he is being replaced by an even harder rock. Enough said about that, before I get myself into even more trouble than usual. I’m hoping she has forgotten about that snide comment I made last March about her shoes.

            Although we all love and admire Mark, we Star slaves—er, workers—have to say ‘no’ to his request for a certain parting gift. I was thinking something along the lines of a new (or at least secondhand but in good shape) pair of slippers, but decided to ask him what he would like.

            “I think a Ford Edge would be appropriate,” he said, “considering how well I’ve treated you guys.”

            When I regained consciousness and had picked the phone up off the floor, I asked him if he meant one of those models you put up on your fireplace mantelpiece so you can gaze at it during long winter evenings. No, he said, you can go to the Ford dealer and get the Ford Edge I’m talking about. “I’m usually not much for hybrids (he wasn’t talking about roses) but the Ford Edge looks like something I wouldn’t mind having.”

            How much could it be? I asked myself this question the same way a carpenter shingling a roof in the rain says: “Am I gonna fall offa this thing?”

            ‘How much it could be’ was STARTING at $27,499, according to the Ford website. When, once more, Sydney Crosby-like, I came out of an unconscious state, I looked again, and Ford gave the realistic price range as somewhere between $35,000 and $50,000, depending on whether you want windshield and tires. After a quick consultation with other Star workers, I decided to break the news to him. “Sorry Mark, you know we all love you, but slippers it is.”

Best wishes to Mark in all his future urban endeavours, as they said under my school graduation photo. Only they said ‘Bob'. It would have been silly to say 'Mark' under my photo, since my name isn’t Mark. I hope he likes the slippers. We drove all the way to St. André - more than 5 kilometres - to pick them up from a retired gardener. He knew all about hybrids too, but after a while we realized he was talking about roses. Next time we buy a going-away present for a beloved editor, we shouldn’t stop at the club for lemonades.

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            You should know that I wrote the first part of this column directly after returning from the club where the lemonade was flowing freely. I will now remove that part about making the snide remark about the new editor’s shoes. If she is reminded that I said that, I will be reporting on garden parties and beauty contests until I dodder into retirement in 2021.

There, that’s done. Back to the subject of Mark’s going away present, I had arranged a conference call for later today with the Victoria Star staff. This arrangement was made while about ten of us were on the phone to discuss the slippers. It was then that Shelley (or was it Shirley? Gretchen?) from the advertising department said: “But, Bob, this is a conference call!”

            I never knew what a conference call was. Over the years I had assumed it meant that the boss would call all his or her workers in for a conference.

The bottom line is that the ‘conference call’ has already been made. Some thought that a pair of slippers wasn’t quite enough for a man who had worked so hard and accomplished so much over the years. I mean, he’s done a lot of work on his house and yard and has pretty much kept the Ford company afloat during the economic turndown, which I understand is like a recession.

            Printer’s devil Jock McAllenby, who hails from a country north of England, wanted to send him a card. “I dinna ken how we laddies and lassies can spend yon cash so free,” he said. “Or we cud get him ONE slipper and promise the other one once he gets settled in down there on the dirty city streets.”

            Here’s what we finally decided: We’re going to get him a pair of NEW slippers. It might not be a Ford Edge, but now he knows what we think of him. Truth is everything in journalism.

                                                            -END-

FREE HENK TEPPER!

Let’s get Henk Tepper out of that jail! 

                        by Robert LaFrance 

            What is wrong with this picture? Four or more answers will be accepted.

            As we all know by now, last spring a potato farmer from Drummond went to the Middle East to try and find more markets for his potatoes. While in Lebanon, he was “detained”. Isn’t that a wonderful word, detained? In fact he was not only detained, but imprisoned, jailed, locked up, incarcerated, put behind bars, held captive, caged, put away, confined, but, by gar, he wasn’t arrested. No he wasn’t arrested. Isn’t that interesting when police use every word in the language except the one that really fits? Henk Tepper was ARRESTED.

            Here’s the part where I ask what’s wrong with this picture. Number one, he has never been formally charged with anything, as far as I know, and yet he has been in a Lebanese jail since March. Good thing he wasn’t charged; they would have incarcerated (etc.) him and he would have spent those 245 or so days in a cell. Oh, wait a minute! He did.

            My second ‘what’s wrong’ question is this: Since it was Algeria that wanted Henk Tepper arrested, why is he in a jail in Lebanon? Oh, yes, I know all about that Interpol garbage, but Interpol didn’t ‘detain’ him; it was the Lebanese police. Interpol agents have no powers of arrest. They just ‘suggest’ to the local police that they arrest so-and-so. After that, it’s up to that country to do what’s right. Lebanon, that bastion of peace, tranquillity, and justice.

My third ‘what’s wrong’ question is: where is the Canadian government? Before this incident, I may have felt a bit safe going to a foreign country – although NEVER the Middle East – because the Canadian government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be there if I needed help. Now I am nervous about going to Fort Fairfield. Just think, the government of Algeria might call Interpol who would call the Fort Fairfield chief of police who would arrest – excuse me, detain – me for spitting on the sidewalk in Mars Hill in 1997. After I had spent half my financial assets (approx. $36) on legal fees, I would then settle down to a long winter’s night of detainment. I couldn’t count on the Government of Canada to give me a hand, that’s for sure.

Let’s go back and look once again at Interpol. If you go to their website you will be impressed by how fair and careful they are. “Action is taken within the limits of existing laws in different countries and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…Interpol differs from most law-enforcement agencies—agents do not make arrests themselves, and there is no single Interpol jail where criminals are taken. The agency functions as an administrative liaison between the law-enforcement agencies of the member countries, providing communications and database assistance. This is vital when fighting international crime because language, cultural and bureaucratic differences can make it difficult for officers of different nations to work together.”

How impressive when it’s down there in black and white, but I looked further to see if I could find any indication that those Interpol agents followed up on the arrests – let’s quit using that foolish word ‘detain’ – and could find nothing. Apparently these paper pushers and computer nerds of Interpol just finger somebody, tell a country to arrest him, and then go on to the next major crisis involving potatoes, turnips, or the illegal border crossings by Dervishes in Kazakhstan. One can appreciate that countries need to cooperate in order to fight drug smuggling, money laundering, and suchlike, but when a guy spends 70% of a year (so far) in a dingy cell in Lebanon for allegedly selling underpar potatoes in Algeria, doesn’t anyone in authority notice?

This is rocket science I know, but it seems to me that if I were prime minister of Canada and one of my citizens were nabbed, jailed, etc. in Lebanon, the first thing I would do is phone Algiers, the capital of Algeria. I would say: “Look, Ab, (the Algerian president is Abdelaziz Bouteflika) let’s talk this over. We’ll do lunch on Thursday. Let’s both fly over to Valencia, Spain – it’s just a short hop for you and I need some warm weather – and deal with this. I need all the farmers – and their votes - I can get, and this one is a hard worker. Okay babe? I’ll see you then.”

Back to reality, now that there have been a couple of rallies for Henk and lots of headlines in the dailies, radio and TV, surely someone in Ottawa has noticed. Come on, guys, get your fingers out and get going. Get Henk Tepper back to Canada!

                          -end-

The villain is television

Is there a GPS-laser surgery connection?

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Some people think it’s pretty funny to give a tourist incorrect directions. My friend Flug is not one of those, but his brother Wizlett is. Last week a nice couple who said they were travelling from North Bay, Ontario, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, stopped by his house to ask how they could again find the Trans Canada Highway. The had taken ‘the scenic route’ that included Lower Kintore and Mack Furman’s diamond-studded outhouse with the porch. Quite famous in parts of Ontario. Flug was out behind the house and pruning some prune bushes.

            “The Trans Canada Highway?” said Wizlett, as if repeating the name of an obscure animal from the jungles of Burkina Faso. “The Trans Canada Highway? Well, you can’t get there from here, but I think I can direct you to a road that will take you to a road that WILL get you there, in time.” He went on to send them on their way to Kedgwick, up by Campbellton. “Once you get there,” he concluded, “you can easily see how to get back onto the Trans Canada Highway.”

            Wizlett was having quite a chuckle as Flug arrived for a visit. The Ontario car was just pulling out of Wizlett’s driveway. Wizlett told his brother all about the hapless couple who were now on their way to north-eastern New Brunswick. “That’s pretty funny, Wiz,” he said. “By the way, the man looked as if he had red hair and a handlebar moustache. Remember we saw his photo on the Internet?”

            Memory and some light slowly dawned on Wizlett’s heavy features. Scheduled for laser eye surgery in Halifax in four days, he had Googled the website called http://www.eye-see-you.com. His surgeon was to be red-haired guy with a handlebar moustache. He would be back from his Ontario vacation on the 28^th, the website informed.

            “Well,” blustered Wizlett, “if he can’t find the Trans Canada Highway, I don’t want him working on my eyes.” Flug gave him the number of his, Flug’s, optometrist. Wizlett had been putting off his eye test because soon he wouldn’t need glasses. Now he would.

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            Still on the subject of talking to people, I was thinking yesterday – as I sipped a lemonade and watched a British football (soccer) game – it seems that every year we are getting further away from each other socially. Of course all that started in the 1950s when people began  buying televisions; up to that point people actually visited each other in their homes, went out to card parties, and saw each other in the post office and general store. After TV came along, they stayed home to watch Hockey Night in Canada and Milton Berle.

            In our case, living as we did in Tilley – north Tilley, on what is now called Churchland Road – we almost had the first TV in our neighbourhood. But no, it appeared across the road at Rose and Fraser’s place. Ours was to arrive a few months later when my brother, who was wealthy from his woods job at a dollar an hour, brought home a $525 Sylvania 21-inch TV. How he managed that I don’t know, but he did. It could be he has been making payments on it since 1961.

            Back to the TV across the road. Coincidentally, every Sunday evening our family would arrive at Rose and Fraser’s just before the Ed Sullivan show came on. Mum would bring some cookies and I would bring my cookie appetite. And those days, my friends, were the last days when people would routinely visit one another in their homes. Once every house acquired a television, there was very little visiting. Today some people refer to that nostalgically as ‘social interaction’.

            Which brings me to one of the latest devices apparently designed to curb ‘social interaction’. I refer back to the beginning of this column, when those two people stopped and asked Wizlett for directions. Rare as asking for directions has been, it’s now pretty much non-existent. The reason? The GPS, or Global Positioning System.

            Just think: if that couple had had one, Wizlett wouldn’t have had to cancel his laser eye surgery. Funny how things work. In this one case, a little less ‘social interaction’ would have been a good thing. Glasses aren’t so bad anyway. Without them, I’d have to drink lemonade out of the bottle.