Flug puts in two cents worth (May 13)

DIARY

Periodontal (Per-idiot?) disease in dogs?

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            I usually write my column on Saturdays, but this time I would be away in Halifax to watch my son Kinley receive his Youth Minister diploma from the Atlantic School of Theology. (I’m rather proud of my boy, but don’t tell him that. I’ve told him for all these years that I would have preferred if we had acquired a puppy in 1992.)

Therefore, because I would be away I asked my friend Flug (Richard LaFrance, no relation) if he would mind writing it. No question of pay though. I knew it wouldn’t be worth much.

“Would I?” he spurted. “I’ve been wanting to replace you for years!”

“But Flug,” I said. “You’re not – ”

It was too late; he was on his way to his laptop. Brunswick News was in for a shock.

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Good day, former readers of Bob LaFrance’s alleged humour column. You finally caught a break. My name is Richard LaFrance, no relation thank God, former Parliament Hill barber and fork lift driver in Onion, Saskatchewan. I am here to put a little humour into your lives. You’ve waited long enough.

Let’s start out with telephone surveys, not to be confused with telemarketers. I lie to them, every time. Therefore I realize, as you do, that telephone polls aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Only an hour ago, someone from the Conservative Party of Canada called and asked me what I thought about the Tories’ phoney TV commercials referring to their so-called Action Plan.

Of course I could recognize Justin Trudeau’s voice and I quickly told him what I thought of him. “Your father would spin in his grave if he saw the way you lie every day,” I said. “Sure, he lied too, but in a different way. And, if you can’t out-lie Stephen Harper you don’t deserve to be prime minister.”

The caller persisted though, and wanted to know what I thought about the Tories spending $750 million on political advertising while denying it was political advertising. I stood pat, although I was sitting at the time and my name is not Pat.

Now let’s go on to where I got the name Flug. As I said, my Christian name is Richard, if that’s not too politically incorrect. Born in Tilley, NB, in 1948, I pretty well had to have a Christian name because there weren’t a lot of Buddhists living along Churchland Road. There I go again! Should I have said Synagogue-land or Mosque-land Road?

Back to the origin of the name, Bob LaFrance had something to do with it – what a surprise. About 1958 a bunch of us boys were playing baseball across the road from Murray and Minnie Paris’s house and I hit a ground ball to Mack Paris, who threw the ball to first baseman Clinton St. Peter. That ball, delivered with lots of speed, took me right in a sensitive area and I went down face-first to the ground, ploughing up enough topsoil to plant a bed of green peppers.

Ah, how I could use the language then! “*&^%$#@*&^%$!” I moaned at a high volume. One of the words I uttered started with the letter ‘F’, which brought Minnie out to find out who was ‘hors de combat’ as we used to say in France. “It’s okay, Minnie,” Bob said. “He’s just saying ‘Flug Flug Flug!’ He thought his face was a plough.”

After I recovered and Minnie had gone back to prepare a baked bean supper with rolls for all of us, I said to Bob: “Flug indeed.” Only I didn’t say ‘Flug’. From that day on, I was Flug and no longer Richard (no relation).

For my penultimate (let Bob top that word!) paragraph, and I am sure that by this time you agree that I would be a much better choice to write this column, I want to mention the Royal Bank of Canada profit in the last quarter of 2014. It was $1.3 BILLION, a record even for them. Instead of lowering bank fees and charges, they added more, like a $5 fee for paying your mortgage. There were dozens of them. You want a definition of the word ‘greed’? It’s spelled B-A-N-K-S. Then there’s Mike Duffy, who is in a league of his own.

Last, I read on an Internet website that your dog is in danger of getting gum disease, but you can steer that off by taking giving your vet $600-plus so he, she or it can clean the dog’s teeth and give it some free medicine for $200-$300 more. Funny, I’ve had more than a dozen dogs and not one had gum disease. I let them eat bones and hard dogfood to keep their teeth in good shape. People sure are sucked in.

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A decroded piece of zap (May 6)

DIARY

Rex Murphy was right for once

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            On Thursday, April 23, on the CBC-TV news program The National, Rex Murphy, who is a veteran common tater, made some comments clearly aimed at Senator (or not) Mike Duffy and I found myself agreeing with them.

            He implied that the Mike Duffy trial was irrelevant because it was merely about points of law not about character or conscience.

            “In the context of the Senate,” Murphy asked, “where is character?” Referring to Duffy, Wallin, Brazeau and other senators, who super-padded their already generous expense accounts, he said that anybody of conscience and character “would not maim his moral dignity to take advantage of (the loose rules).” Meaning: even though the cookie jar was wide open and no one was looking, good guys would walk by without grabbing one. These senators took a hundred cookies each because they could.

            If the Senate can’t legally be abolished, why can’t we merely chop their power to that of the Dogcatcher of Kenora and reduce their salaries and expense accounts to the level of a McDonald’s busboy’s paycheque? Problem solved.

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

            On a somewhat less edgy subject, but maybe not, once I think about it, I want to comment on a recent TV commercial for a product called Rogers Ignite.

            The opening scene of that commercial shows a father (one assumes, or possibly a pizza delivery guy with privileges) entering the living room where two or three kids are lying on the floor and playing with their iPads, iPods, iPhones, iChips and iCokes. He steps over them and comes across more people doing similar things with electronic miracles. He passes by all these people, none of whom greet him in any way.

            He goes upstairs where his wife (or not, see above) is lying in bed and watching an online show on her laptop. I refer to a small computer, not the actual top of her lap. He crawls into bed and, although she is by no means hard on the eyes, he settles down to exhibit great joy at being able to do watch TV in bed.

            So, to sum up, this working man comes home to his family, none of whom acknowledge his existence, and crawls into bed with a woman of no mean standard, and is happy as a clam to be watching a movie on a laptop computer. Rogers Ignite. Be sure to buy that. Great for family togetherness.

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

            I am not sure if you agree, but I write these words as part of a humour column. Some might say “attempted humour column” and other would say “a decroded piece of (a word that rhymes with ‘zap’)” but the point is, I try.

            Over the years I have not felt any particular pressure to maintain my high standards of humour (retch) in my private life, but I think some people feel I need to be funny all the time.

            A few weeks ago I made a joke in a store, in a town far, far away, and the person came back with: “You told that one last week,” or words to that effect. The same thing happened a day later in another town far, far away. I mentioned to someone that my wife would hit me with a rolling pin if I acted in a certain way. “You said that last week,” was the response.

            Is a dentist expected to pull teeth all day and all night? Does a truck driver get criticized if he isn’t behind the wheel 24/7? I am not quite sure why I have to be hilarious all day, merely because I write a humour column. I don’t write a script for every visit to a grocery store, although sometimes when I visit a dentist I need a laugh.

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

            One final notes about the odd jobs that we use words for. Last evening as I sipped on some lemonade and sat in my favourite chair in the living room, I read that nobody knows who ‘founded’ the community of Tilley (although I think it was my great-grandfather Olivier LaFrance dit Pinel). Then a friend from Ontario, on his way to PEI,  phoned me and said that he had ‘found’ Tilley and was actually at the house where I was born.

            Funny how the words ‘founded’ and ‘found’ are not identical in meaning. When my ancestors arrived in Tilley in the nineteenth century from the Bois Francs area of Quebec (near Drummondville today) they had to ‘find’ Tilley because their GPSes were a bit primitive and road signs on their Trans Canada Highway were rather obscure. “Terra incognita” it said on their maps. So when they ‘found’ Tilley and if they were the first settlers, that means they ‘founded’ Tilley. It’s too much for me.

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Ice studies upon studies (April 29 column)

DIARY

Let’s study the studies of the ice studies

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            The ice had hardly started to move when the road on the Abner Paul Flat (as I call it after my late friend) above Perth was flooded and closed, as it seems to have been every year since the Bats left the Mosul Valley Caves of Iraq in the year 1229 a.d.

            I have never been able to understand why the government cannot raise that four or five hundred foot stretch of Highway so that it does not flood every year, but I can only guess that it is because all the available money has been spent on studies, ‘monitoring’, and installing all kinds of electronic equipment to predict when that stretch of road is going to flood each year. I am baffled as to why that road hasn’t been raised to avoid inconveniencing the thousands of people who want and need to use it.

            Geez, all they have to do is ask me or anyone from Tobique First Nation, Tilley, Rowena, or Timbuktu and we would all say: “First thing!” and then demand our consulting fee.

            Another example of a section of road that badly needs raising is the Muniac Road where it meets Highway 105. When a short stretch of it was covered with water in March  2012, medical emergencies going from Perth to Waterville hospital had a long way to go. Even if they were driving one a them new Porch cars, that’s quite a drive.

            As to raising the level of Muniac Road, I suggested that to two cabinet ministers and two MLAs and they all looked at me blankly and then nodded wisely. Lights out, nobody home. The cabinet ministers (I could tell) were barely aware that Victoria County existed and the bureaucrats with them were fairly certain it did not.

            However, we who live in southern Victoria County would be glad to tell them where these roads are and even to take them there. The only way these people are going to understand is if they’re taken right to the scene. For example, if we had a vanload of cabinet ministers and bureaucrats and were sitting in the parking lot at Hotel Dieu of St. Joseph hospital in Perth-Andover and we said to them: “Okay, let’s pretend this is an emergency; we have to take patients by ambulance to Waterville hospital.

            “We can’t go south on highway 105 because the water is across the road just below Perth and we can’t cross the bridge because it’s been closed. Abner Paul Flat has been under water since 1981. Question: How do we get to Waterville hospital? Yes, Johnny, in the back? What’s your answer?”

            “We could go over Jawbone Mountain (as it’s called) and go south on Kintore Road, come out at Highway 105 in Muniac, then to Waterville.”

            “Johnny, that’s excellent! You are a rare bird in government. Have you actually travelled that road?” Johnny said he had travelled it. All around him were these puzzled faces. “Now,” the van driver (me) says, “let’s pretend we have a patient who needs to go to Waterville ASAP.”

            So we go the way Johnny has suggested. That is, until we get to the end of Muniac Road which is covered with a metre or two of water. The patient is still okay but his mind is now concentrated more than it was before. As the English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson once said: “Nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of being hanged”. Same with dying in an ambulance. It’s not that bad yet, but getting there. Even the cabinet ministers and bureaucrats are starting to understand. A miracle, but miracles happen.

(Remember, this is all play-acting.)

            “Now what?” I asked them. Getting no answer, I turned around the van and headed north. Fifteen minutes later we reached Highway 109 at Forest Glen and could  see the Tobique going by. A right-hand turn and then to Arthurette. Then do I go left to Peoples Road or right to the Anderson Road? I choose the first. We go through South Tilley, Lerwick and Tilley, and eventually we get to Medford.As we go up we see that Brooks Bridge is closed, so it’s on to Grand Falls, quite a way upriver. There we get onto the Trans Canada Highway and make our way south to Waterville hospital. “That didn’t take long did it?” I say to the late patient. “An hour and a half?” His life support system had conked out at Portage.

            Listen, government. All that driving from Muniac to Arthurette, etc. could have been avoided if only a 300-foot stretch of Muniac Road had been raised ten feet. Perhaps the government could do a few studies on this, monitor the situation, and put in some more electronic gadgets. Or they could dump some gravel.

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Shoulda been shot at the stake (April 22)

Flug got his ‘S’ frozen off

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            I like it when other writers do my work for me. I just finished reading a biography of our late Premier Richard Hatfield and have now started reading the David Halberstam book ‘The Best and the Brightest’, about all those brilliant men who got the U.S. into the Vietnam War.

            I say ‘men’ because they were almost 100% males and even included President John F. Kennedy, who was severely against the war but found himself being slowly dragged into it.

            How Richard Hatfield got dragged into this column was because of a description by Halberstam of Robert MacNamara, the U.S. Defence Minister in the mid-1960s. Here’s the description: “He was intelligent, forceful, courageous, decent – everything in fact, but wise.” Thinking of the Bricklin and the Diplomat Motel scandals, plus the marijuana in his suitcase, I’d say the description was spot on.

            Mike Duffy’s parents were also unwise. Next subject.

            There’s been a lot of water under the fridge since the Bricklin and all that stuff, but has anything really changed? As I write these immortal words, the ice still hasn’t gone out of the river at Perth-Andover and people are sweating profusely. Dave Eagan’s berm around Victoria Villa special care home represents, as far as I can see, the only constructive reply to the 2012 flood and request to future floods. The rest of the province seem to think that ‘monitoring’ the water levels is all that can be done.

            When I think of the word ‘flood’ in connection with Perth-Andover, I remember the April 11, 1993 flood. Doing spot news (as they say, but mine was more like spotty) for CJCJ Radio in Woodstock, I recorded a news report from Larlee Creek. I’m not sure if it was broadcaster Dave Rogers or station manager Rick McGuire, but whichever one it was, here’s what I said to him for broadcast in half an hour: “It looks as if this year Perth-Andover is going to be spared a repeat of the devastating 1987 flood. The river level below Perth here at Larlee Creek is quickly dropping and residents are breathing a sigh of relief…”

            Other than all those clichés, there was another item wrong with that radio report heard by thousands; it was totally wrong, dude. Half an hour after the news item went on the air, the village, the police, EMO, the fire department and others started evacuating people from their homes.

            I don’t remember if I included that news report on my freelance invoice, but if I did, I should have been shot at the stake, as my friend Betty used to say.

            Like many others, I say to myself several times a year: “Now I’ve heard everything!” It appears, as of Wednesday, April 15, that I was wrong. On The Current, Anna Maria Tremonti’s weekday morning radio show on CBC, she described the situation of a an Italian man whose body was diseased and pretty much finished and said that an Italian doctor planned to perform a head transplant on this guy, cutting off his head and transplanting it onto a donor’s healthy body. One assumes that the donor had been shot in the head by a South Carolina police officer on a normal shift.

            The operation would take 36 hours and involve 100 doctors; apparently the chief surgeon would carefully examine the recipient’s head, and might I suggest that his own might be able to use a look-see as well?

            Federal and provincial government bureaucrats and elected officials often make mistakes and we forgive them for that, but we don’t hear so much about the municipal people making what were called (in the Meech Lake era) ‘egregious errors’. However, whoever schedules ice time in the Moncton the Colliseum is in deep trouble to the tune of $125,000. He or she scheduled two important playoff games for the same evening, and one had to be moved to Fredericton – teams, players and even ticket holders.

            The QMJHL team Moncton Wildcats had to move their April 17 playoff game  because of this airline-type overbooking. The only reason I can think of is that the Moncton city bureaucrat thought that one of the two playoff series would be all over by that date.

            Speaking of ice, my friend Flug is just getting warm again after his February 3-week vacation in Novosibirsk, Siberia. He saw an ad on the Internet for a vacation package whose total cost was $900 – food, travel, and lodging. The trouble was, Flug thought the ad read ‘Iberian holiday!’ He had missed the ‘S’. As we well-read people know, the Iberian peninsula contains Spain and Portugal, and Siberia contains, well, cold.
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