He asked to see Bella's backside (Sept 6)

DIARY

To err is human, to forgive divine

                        by Robert LaFrance

            If you drive by our house, you will see a new stovewood pile, or I should say three piles or tiers of beech, birch and maple, but you will not marvel at their neatness.

            I don’t know whether it is non-conformism, contrariness, or myopia, but I am not capable of piling wood – or ‘stacking logs’ as some people say – in a nice neat row. Most people do. I drive by their homes and see that their woodpiles are neat as two pins and a canary, then I wonder how they can be so neat.

            Two days ago I stopped at such a home because the husband was standing there, apparently admiring the pile. “Hi ho, old boy,” I said. “Tell me this: how can you get your woodpiles so neat? I know you will tell me the truth because if you don’t I will have to make public some of your activities when we lived in Hamilton.”

            “You don’t have to threaten me, Bob,” he remonstrated. “Here, I will show you.” We walked out behind the woodpile and what a mess it was on that side! Jagged piling or what? “There’s the secret,” he smirked. “You make sure the front side – that the public sees – is smooth as a baby’s butt and never mind the side nobody looks at.”

            So the next time you see a really nice ‘stack of logs’ stop and ask to see the part away from the road. However, learn this lesson from my friend Flug: ask the husband,  not the wife.

            He stopped at George and Bella LeFond’s place on Tuesday and, George being away, asked if he could see her backside. When he regained consciousness…

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

            More information gleaned from my travels around Victoria County and even the far-flung places of Carleton and Madawaska counties.

            Gregoire Allamand, who lives just outside St. Andre – about 40 kilometres outside, in Four Falls – is always railing about rich people and whining because he isn’t rich. The last time he dropped a hint about his ‘net worth’ (as people say when they’re talking about money) he had almost $450,000 in RRSPs and $325,000 in Microsoft preferred stock. Yet he watches for sales on no-name tomato soup and buys 2-day-old bread at half price. Complaining about some rich guy, he said: “You can tell what God thinks of money,” he said. “Look at the people he gives it to.” Looking at the box of old bread in the back seat of his car, I thought: “How very, very true.”

            The Dollar Store phenomenon has been one of the major merchandising stories of the past two decades, but here’s a question: isn’t EVERY store a dollar store?

            We’ve all been so amused at Donald Trump’s antics that most of us have forgotten about Mike Duffy. Now he has decided to sue the federal government and us taxpayers for $7.8 million for, among other things, ‘loss of reputation’. At last, Canadian journalists (that’s me) will have something ridiculous to write about other than that tank full of buffoons on the other side of the border.

            Around this time every year I remember the birthday of Dave Nasagalawak, an Inuit trapper whom I knew when I worked at the Sachs Harbour, NWT, weather station. He was probably the only Sachs Harbour (Banks Island) resident ever featured on the front page of Time Magazine, the U.S. edition. This was in 1976 when his photo appeared with the information that he had trapped white foxes whose skins were worth $100,000, a vast amount of money for anyone, but especially for a guy who lived in a little house looking out at the Beaufort Sea. I asked him one day how he felt, being famous. He said: “They didn’t even get the amount right. It was only $95,000.”

            I don’t exactly live in a small town, but in what might be called a ‘hamlet’. There’s no town council, no mayor, no department of transportation and no municipal building. However, the family and I do our shopping in the village of Perth-Andover and more-or-less identify with that village. My friend Zeke, who does live in Perth-Andover, refers to the situation as “the cachet of small town living”. People in vast metropolitan areas like Woodstock can go to a takeout and the employee announces over a loudspeaker “large fries and onion rings” whereas at takeouts in Perth-Andover they holler out the side door: “Zeke, come and get your grub before I feed it to the dogs!”

            Some signs I would like to see:

At a music concert in India: “This evening - Haydn Sikh”...At the door of a legislative committee meeting about mining policies: "Pit bull in progress"…At the entrance of a fitness camp owned by a very rich family named Getty: “Come and enjoy a week at Spa Getty”…In front of a bike repair shop: “Recycling our specialty”…In front of a cow stable that has just installed a new air circulation system to alleviate the stink: “To air is human, to forgive bovine".
                                  -end-

I'm happy to beer (Aug. 30)

DIARY

Larry needs a lift after his operation

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Looking at the calendar, I am truly staggered and it is not because of alcohol or drugs.

            It’s the end of August, for crying out loud! And crying out loud is what I did all last winter as I waited (im)patiently for Spring to arrive. Now here we are, on the cusp of September. As Beatrix Potter wrote in all those kids’ books, I think I shall go distracted.

            In spite of that horrific news, we must move on with our careers. Donald Trump aside (what a pleasant thought!), there are other things going on in the world. School is about to start on its fall season and I can see and hear the sassy smirks, grinning guffaws and giggles, the chortling and chuckling of long-suffering parents who have been at their wits’ ends trying to entertain the little darlings.

            “In loco parentis” is a Latin phrase meaning ‘in place of the parents’ which is what teachers are expected to be, and after school starts THEIR teeth will be getting ground down to match those of the parents who took their little gangsters to everything from the Grafton Marble Championships to the Lerwick Canoe Races – anything to keep the little brutes quiet.

            NOTE: Since I brought up three little brats, I am qualified to comment.

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

            Other comments on things that have already happened this short summer:

            About ten days ago I was driving along Kintore Road in Lower Kintore when I met a tractor-trailer – almost met it, because I pulled WAY off the road. The driver apparently thought he was on the Indiannapolis Speedway. The logging trailer was empty and actually bouncing when he passed me. Not sure what the hurry was, but the rocks were flying.

            Listening to an MPBN radio program called ‘Living on Earth’, I heard an interviewer welcoming a chap from the midwestern U.S.A. The chap answered “Happy to beer”. I am always interested in accents and this was a dandy. “Happy to be here,” was what he said, but it had the effect of making me pay attention and walk to the fridge. By the way, they were talking about elephant tusks. That may be important.

            Electronic devices are everywhere. Smartphones here and there; and people keep saying: “There’s an app for that.” What they mean of course is that there is an application for a certain action. Just download from the Internet a little icon for The Weather Channel and when you want to know the forecast for Saskatoon, just tap it. However some people, especially in restaurants, keep talking to their smartphones and pressing their apps. Usually what comes to my mind is the sentence: “There’s a slap for that.”

            Speaking of The Weather Channel, quite a few people (men) I know have suggested that the women on that network had been chosen for their appearance (they all look like models) but as a former weather service guy, I can tell you that they really do a good job of presenting the weather to an ignorant public. I was a TV weather forecaster – filling in for someone competent – in Inuvik for one week back in the 1970s and it’s a hard job.

            My friend Flug’s cousin Larry just emerged the hospital yesterday and we’re all glad to see him back. He had had a hernia operation. What caused this condition was his carrying around so many keys. Now he keeps them in a ‘man-purse’ around his waist. Down at the club last evening he showed us all the keys he used to carry around in his pocket. Two GMC pickup keys, two freezer keys, his Toyota car keys, seven unidentified keys, probably from previously owned vehicles but he doesn’t dare throw them away, a key to the church, to his dog’s kennel fence, to various chests, etc. etc. We asked why he didn’t leave some keys home under an ashtray or something; he said that if he did that he’d need it immediately. Just then a TV show on the club’s big screen announced that singer Alicia Keys was about to perform. Larry turned pale and dashed out, shouting over his shoulder: “No more!”

            Last evening when I was driving home from town a vehicle was following me very closely all the way, with the added bonus that the driver kept on his high beams. When we met a vehicle, he dimmed his headlights, but as soon as that vehicle was by he put the high beams back on so they filled my rear-view mirrors. I slowed down several times so he would pass, but he wouldn’t until I put on my left signal light to turn into my road. Then he zoomed by. Is there a button on some drivers’ seats that turn drivers  stupid? By the way, the pickup looked a lot like Larry’s. I hope he picks up an anvil.
                              -end-

Fixing Route 105 - finally (Aug. 23)

DIARY

How to get rid of an unwanted guitar

                        by Robert LaFrance

            We all know about the 2008 debacle when a dude named Dave Carroll had his guitar broken during a United airlines flight. His song “United Breaks Guitars” was a big hit, mainly because the airlines wouldn’t do anything to replace his guitar. Public relations geniuses.

            Then in April of this year, United Airlines dragged a passenger off an overbooked flight to the delight of YouTube viewers. The man had a black eye and of course sued the airline. You’d wonder if UA even has a public relations department.

            But that’s neither here nor there. My point is (or are) guitars, not airlines. A Fredericton performer named Mike Bravener had his Epiphone AJ-200 guitar stolen several years ago and, against all odds, had it returned to him after an unidentified man saw it in a pawn shop and recognized it from social media posts.

            You might say that, in each of those cases, it was a happy ending, but now we come to my case.

            For years I have had an old guitar I have been trying to get rid of. I don’t know anything about guitars, but inside is the name Martin D-28 and somebody named Roy or Ray Acuff has autographed it.

            I left that guitar in a public washroom in Cabano, Quebec, but an guy came rushing out to my car with the guitar; I laid it behind a bulldozer’s laig on a construction site, but an old lady returned it and insisted on a reward, then said she used to play with the Tommy Dorsey Band; I left it in a car in the hot sun and assumed the guitar would be melted when I came out from the grocery store. It sounded even better than it had.

            For months I tried to get rid of that old guitar and then my friend Flug suggested: “Why not take a United Airlines flight?” And so I did. I took the noon flight in an Airbus A320 from Minto to Moncton and when I got to Moncton my guitar and case resembled, more than anything else, a giant pancake. Would I ever get compensation for my grievous loss?

            Why, yes I did. Before the plane’s wheels stopping smoking from the rough landing, a United Airlines rep was racing over to the baggage carousel. “Here, take this and go buy yourself another guitar. He handed me $19,000 in small bills. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I had bought the guitar in 1967 at Expo in Montreal and paid $25 for it. United is not so bad after all. Now the problem is, how are they going to get that Airbus off that short runway in Moncton? The pilot had read his flight plan wrong; we were supposed to be in Montreal.

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

            A Wisconsin company, Three Square Market, has brought us closer to a time when we won’t need to use our brains any more.

            Many reading that sentence will not be surprised and will be saying to themselves: “Bob, you’ve functioned without a brain for decades!” Insults aside, this is a true news story. This company has implanted microchips under the skin of many of their employees so these people will no longer have to carry around credit cards, bank machine cards, identification cards of many kinds. They will just have to give the finger to all these electronic gadgets. Just think, they can go to Burger King or Wendy’s takeout lines and have their orders presented like after-shave lotion – unscented of course.

            The program is a voluntary one, but you know how that goes. When a company wants an employee to do something, they ‘ask’ and if you say no, say hello to your new job as washroom janitor.

            I am looking forward to more information as time goes by. Just think of the possibilities. You get the implant that is the size of a grain of rice, and immediately have your finger hacked. Of course this is not the same as ‘hacked off’. Washroom janitoring isn’t so bad anyway.

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

            Things are getting a little scary along Highway 105, just at the Victoria-Carleton county line. It looks as if the government, or technically the contractor Acott Construction, is about to tear up the old ‘pavement’ and replace it will a new road. After driving over that ‘road’ for years, I don’t think I will know how to react when it’s smooth. Even so, there will be still be a 5-km stretch not done, but it is not as bad a piece of road. That part will be replaced next year that, coincidentally, will be an election year.

            It is a nice stretch of New Brunswick along there, and I always enjoy the scenery in the Beechwood area. What has baffled me over the years is the fact that this road, barely driveable at times, is part of the River Valley Scenic Route.
                                            -end-

Flug disturbed a bear (Aug. 16)

DIARY

Thoughts on a summer day

                        by Robert LaFrance

            A certain individual in this house has a clock radio that she uses as an alarm. One recent morning I awoke to the ‘music’ of an acid rock punk heavy metal grunge band and almost went through the ceiling. Accordingly, I have now spoken to various members of Parliament and the mayor of Kincardine in an attempt to have a new law struck. No more of that in the morning! On the other hand, it did get me out of bed.

            Some things in life are inevitable, like the pronunciation of the word ‘inevitable’ when I was a young feller, I was a great reader, but many of the words I had never heard pronounced, correctly or otherwise. The teacher got me to read a passage from a textbook and I pronounced the word ‘in-eVET-able’. She laughed and embarrassed me, because it’s supposed to be pronounced ‘in-EVitable’. Oh, the pain of growing up.

            Speaking of inevitable, some things in life are just that, like Murphy’s Law. In this case though, I refer to someone, anyone, who goes by the initials C.D. They have to be called ‘Seedy’, no matter how many people they beat up for doing just that. Also, if one’s name is Stanley, he WILL be called ‘Stan the Man’. The nicknames of many Winstons is ‘Wink’.

            Some things in life are not to be believed. Everywhere we look, there is astronaut Chris Hadfield playing his guitar and singing, or appearing in a garden show in Ernfold, Saskatchewan. He’s has had quite a career in space and I hope it’s made him a billion dollars afterward. It must have been quite something to look out the window (porthole?) of his spacecraft and down at the earth. That’s why it surprised me (who am rarely surprised) when I found out last week that Chris Hadfield, who received his pilot’s licence at age fifteen, is afraid of heights.

            In last week’s column I mentioned that ordinary tap water is every bit as good as bottled water, and while this is true in almost all cases (except northeastern Gambia) there are cases when tap water is less than alluring. On the day I sent that column in to this newspaper, I went uptown and heard two stories in ten minutes from people whose tap water wasn’t fit for Joseph Stalin. In both cases their tap water was a reddish brown colour. So, okay, in those two cases bottled water is better, but not in everyone else’s homes. No wait, I had better check that out.

            NEWS FLASH! Another possible error. Excuse me for reporting earlier in this column that astronaut Chris Hadfield was afraid of heights. I had some incorrect information there. It appears that it came from Russia and the U.S. White House, who wouldn’t know the truth if it landed Splat! on their tailfeathers. I do apologize to the readers and to Chris who has friends in high places and visits them often.

            Watching a CNN commentary show last evening, I heard one guest refer to a Donald Trump statement as “a bald-faced assertion that runs contrary to the facts”. Erin Burnett, a wonderful interviewer, asked if that wouldn’t be better “characterized” as a lie; the guest, a Washington Post reporter whose name I can’t remember, said: “You got that right, Erin.” Ironically, the thing about Donald Trump is not that he’s a liar, but that he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Ever.

            My friend Flug’s nephew Grover was visiting the big guy last week and the two spent the whole week fishing up around Trout Brook in the Birch Ridge area where I used to live. They also spent some time trying to drag huge trout – at least that was the story – out of Odellac Stream, and yes I know the name has about five official spellings. Maggie’s Falls was also called Robinson Falls among other thing, especially the day I slipped and slid about a hundred feet downstream on some mighty hard rocks.

            The point I’m getting to is that Flug and Grover have some bear spray to thank for their arriving back home in one piece. Flug always carries two cans of anti-bear spray when he goes into the woods (while at the same time NOT carrying an EpiPen for his hornet allergy). As they stepped over a log they disturbed a large bear who must have been watching Coronation Street and you know what those viewers are like. The bear spray slowed down the bear that Grover swore was a brown bear even though only black bears are found in New Brunswick. Good thing I didn’t call him a liar, because the next day a ranger told me that some black bears are brown in colour. Go figure.
                                  -end-