Quebec nixed the Energy East pipeline (Oct. 18)

DIARY

Rowena now has a yellow line

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Talk about some mealy-mouthed explanations for the cancellation of the Energy East pipeline!

            One news organization said it was because the National Energy Board had tightened its environmental regulations and made it uneconomical for the Trans Canada Pipeline; another said it was because of two new pipelines, one going into the U.S. and one going to Burnaby, BC, so Energy East wasn’t needed.

            There was a third reason, carefully unmentioned. Quebec didn’t want it, and no federal political party will go to the washroom if Quebec says don’t do it. And Quebec is not going to do ANYTHING that benefits Canada east of Cabano and Matapedia.

            Moving on to a more cheerful subject, I have just had a report that the people of Rowena are giddy with joy at the recent change to their infrastructure and, I might add, that change once again illustrates the power of the press.

            Specifically, the recent work involves a change that I have mentioned in this column at least twice over the years: Rowena now has, according to what was reported to me, a brand new yellow line down the centre of Highway 390.

            It all goes to show that when I speak, government listens. It was only three years ago when I first suggested that Rowena’s fine citizens (wish I could say that about my crowd) need and deserve a yellow line on their road.

            It reminds me of the days when the estimable Bernard Lord was Premier of our Picture Province. We couldn’t get a pail full of chipseal put on our road no matter how often I whined. I thought all the time that it was because someone thought I and my neighbours were on the wrong side of politics (I am not a member of any political party), but it turned out that those who made the decisions merely wanted to use the money for more important things, like fact-finding trips to St. Lucia in February.

            St. Lucia does have a lot of facts, to be sure, especially when it’s –31ºC here.

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            Referring to the climate and weather in country of India, the year 2017 has produced a great ‘Indian Summer’. Of course by the time that this column appears in print, it will be –31º with two feet of snow on the ground, but right at the moment it is a great fall.

            Even the rain we received yesterday wasn’t the downpour with wind that usually arrives the minute the maple trees turn to their brightest colours. I realize that sometime in the next few weeks the leaves will all fall down, but I’ve been busy taking photos of the red ones we have now.

            I even picked a raspberry this week, but that’s not a record for here. Back about fifteen years ago I had a second crop of raspberries and have the photo to prove it. I took that day’s copy of the Telegraph-Journal out to the berry patch and got a passer-by to put down her rolling pin long enough to take a few ‘snapshots’ as they used to be called. She wanted me to also take a photo of her, but I said that my digital camera was out of film.

            Still talking about modern technology, I have sent several emails, without reply, to Toyota Canada with whom I have a severe bone to pick.

            Their first letter in return was from a Japanese guy named Sean O’Reilly who wrote, among other things, that if I wanted to place a formal complaint with the company I should “talk English you muttonhead!” which I felt was a little rough. He had no idea or inkling what the phrase “a bone to pick” meant.

            He had sent his toll-free number, so I immediately (after lunch) called him back. I told him that I had ‘an issue’ with the colours of his Corolla models, notably the red ones. “How *&^%$*&* many red Toyota Corollas did you let loose in Canada in 2014?” I queried. “Two days ago I came out of Clarks’ grocery store in Perth-Andover and, weighed down by whole wheat flour, pineapple juice and toothpicks, I opened the door of what I thought was my red Corolla and put in those staples.” (Yes, I had staples too.)

            “Lo and behold,” I continued, “THAT red Toyota belonged to a farmer from Four Falls, so I moved to the next one. An Anabaptist usher was actually sitting in that car when I put in my groceries. In despair, I searched for my own car, seeing 43 red Toyota Corollas, and then realized I had brought my grey Yaris to town instead of the Corolla. I beg of you, help!”

            He didn’t help, beyond offering to paint my Corolla for a mere $4000. Like Sampson when he first gazed on Delilah, I was tempted, but finally declined. My next vehicle will be a HumVee.

                                           -end-

An encounter with a bear (Oct. 11)

DIARY

Trump equals Hurricane Mouth

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Since I have an orchard of five or six dozen apple trees and three pear trees, I am very careful when I walk among those trees. Careful about what I step in (left by bears) and careful about what wants to chew on me (also bears).

            Yesterday about 7:00 pm – when the bears usually come out – I took a walk out that way. I was armed with my walking stick (a pool cue) and two cans of bear spray, just in case.

            During my 20-minute walk, I encountered no ‘animal of interest’ and my boots were still clean. Back at the house, I put the two cans of bear spray on my shed steps and leaned the pool cue up against the shed before going to my garden to get a couple of ripe tomatoes for munching purposes. After I picked them, I started walking back to the house and was taken aback by what was dead ahead, but not dead.

            A HUGE bear was walking on all fours and looking right at me as if I had been the one who had shot his grandmother in 2009. Then, getting ready to charge, he stood up. I moved over to my right until I stood behind the compost pile. At least Mister Bruno would have to get his feet dirty before he ripped me to shreds.

            Then, in a move that the ancient playwrights used to call a ‘deus ex machina’ (magic solution) out from the porch ran my killer corgi Klingon II, barking and snarling like mad. Confused at all that firepower coming at him, sort of, from two directions, Bruno ran toward Manse Hill Road. I looked at Klingon and she looked at me. I hollered after the bear: “And don’t come back!”

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

            As much as I want to avoid talking about Donald Trump, I am finding I have to anyway. He went to Puerto Rico two weeks after Hurricane Maria Flattened it – and I mean FLATTENED it – and told the people that they were sure using up a lot of the U.S.A. budget and, as if that weren’t insulting enough, compared their hurricane to Hurricane Katrina that devastated Louisiana and other places in 2005. “That was a real catashtrophe,” he told the people of Puerto Rico and the world, “because Katrina killed thousands.”

            Still in the U.S.A. (technically speaking, Puerto Rico isn’t part of it) as I write these words, the massacre in Las Vegas is only a day old, but I am willing to make a bet that the chap who did all that shooting will not be called ‘a terrorist’ because he’s white.

            Prediction: No gun control will come of this although the guy had a total of 47 weapons in three locations, killed 59, and wounded 527.

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            Folks around the Scotch Colony, Kilburn and Jawbone Mountain area will be missing Richard Elliott whom we would see walking just about every day. He carried one or two plastic bags to pick up returnable bottles and cans and wasn’t shy about also picking up recyclable things like beer cases and coffee cups that people threw out their vehicle windows. He kept the place clean.

            Although I had seen him many times along the road and knew his name, I had never met him until Garth Farquhar of Upper Kintore suggested I interview Richard about all the walking he was doing. So in July I ventured to his home to talk. I was astonished to hear that walking five to ten kilometres a day was about usual. Although suffering from terminal cancer, he got up every day about 5:00 am and started walking.

            I get tired walking from my fridge to my living room chair.

            On September 29 Richard died and I want him to know, wherever he is, that I think about him every time I drive to Muniac or Kintore. I was glad I had written that story in July when the Scotch Colony History Committee gave him a cheque for $150 and a certificate of thanks for all his clean-up activities over the years. I hope the picking is good where he is.

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

            People often ask me about my stay in the Northwest Territories when I was a weather man for my country. I often mention two stories, each involving Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Our staff joked that we had higher security clearances than the prime minister, since he’d travelled in so-called Red China and the USSR. And there was the time that one of my colleagues pointed a hunting rifle at Trudeau – and lived.

            This colleague, whom we’ll call Tom, had been stationed in Churchill, Manitoba, when a government jet landed on the runway and taxi-ed to the far end. Tom, working in the tower, wanted to find out who was on the plane and looked through the scope at the group on the runway.

            Shaken because he had just pointed a firearm at the prime minister, Tom quickly put down the rifle; ten seconds later two heavily armed Mounties came into the tower. No word on the amount of Delsey needed by Tom and the others.
                                   -end-

Watch it! A mischief of mice (Oct. 4)

DIARY

A miracle happened right in your home town

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Every year at this time I say goodnight to the folks of Alert, Nunavut, as they say goodnight to the sun that they will not see again until March 4^th.

            I was stationed there, 450 nautical miles from the North Pole, from May 1974 to May 1975 as one of Canada’s Fighting Men Not in Uniform. There were over a hundred Canadian Armed Forces personnel there, and just down the hill from the base was the weather station where I worked for 54 straight weeks.

            It was actually 53 straight weeks; my last week there was in a haze and a daze because I was scheduled to fly to Trenton, Ontario, on a Hercules C-130 but when I went to the runway the pilot told me I wasn’t on the passenger list of six. While I waited for the next Thursday’s flight I practised drinking.

            Thinking about seasons this morning, I walked outside in the summer weather – although it was late September – and looked up to see two Canada Geese winging their way south. Rats deserting a sinking ship. You’d think that with a name like Canada Geese they should be forced to stay here year-around.

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            Taking a big turn from Alert and geese, I am wondering why people send viruses to the Internet, to email and to Facebook. People hack all kinds of accounts and in that case I can see that they’re trying to steal money; they are modern day bank robbers, but why send viruses to individuals?

            One day about ten years ago I was in Caribou, Maine, where I stopped in to see a friend who ran a computer shop. He was saying that he was having fun avoiding a computer meltdown that one of his ‘customers’ was trying to give him.

            Ron, as we’ll call the store owner because that was his name, said that at least once a week a certain guy would come in and sit at one of Ron’s computers that he let the public use, and he would try to wipe out the hard drive by going into an internal file to change it.

            It was a battle of wits, but finally this guy succeeded in damaging the software of that computer so that it took Ron half an hour to repair it. Fed up with the foolishness, he sent the guy an email that, when opened, showed a photo of this vandal at Ron’s computer and contained this message: “Don’t come back!” He didn’t.

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            Thinking about the phrase ‘collective nouns’ means. Not to get too technical, it means a group of something alive, like a herd of cows. The word ‘herd’ is a collective noun.

            Imagine my surprise when, listening to a CBC Radio program about Canadian wildlife, I heard an ‘expert’ say that the proper term for a group of beavers is a ‘malocclusion’ because their teeth don’t meet. This chap was very convincing too and I didn’t know at the time that he was full of male cow manure. Unfortunately I didn’t get his name or I would have sent him an email, complete with virus.

            As I mentioned, little did I know, as I was admiring this man’s fountain of knowledge, that he was somewhat off the mark. Whether he just didn’t know, or was sending the listeners a verbal virus, I don’t know.

            Here are some other collective nouns and phrases: a COLONY of beavers, a murder of crows, a congregation of alligators, a bellowing of bullfinches, a gulp of cormorants, a confusion of Guinea fowl, a mischief of mice, a murmuration of starlings, an exultation of larks, a descent of woodpeckers and a gulp of swallows.

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            As one who often eats in restaurants (my wife won’t show me where the cookstove is) I continue to be amazed at those napkin dispensers that won’t dispense a napkin and those little teapots from which it is impossible to pour tea without spreading it all over the table.

            I fondly remember the day in 1997 when I got out ONE napkin, and only one. The waitress and three of the diners applauded me. Usually if one can get out as few as five serviettes he, she or it is doing well. Why do restaurants have those things?

            Then there are those little silver teapots designed by South American death squad alumni. (They have to do SOMETHING when they retire, right?) The chances of filling one’s cup with tea and not pouring the hot liquid on the table or one’s hands are about the same as one’s chances of winning a $40 million lottery.

            However, two weeks ago, at a restaurant in a certain mountain village, I did just that – pour the cup of tea I mean, not win that lottery. A short while later I received a phone call from the Vatican wanting details of the Miracle.
                                     -end-

All hail 'crowd-funding' (Sept. 27)

DIARY

A delicate operation on the brain

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Driving along Highway 109 near Arthurette, I saw that my old friend Trout (real name Angler) was brandishing a Husqvarna weed-eater along the ditch near his front lawn. I stopped to chat and heard an earful.

            “Would you come into my office (Trout is an accountant) and interrupt me when I was working on someone’s income tax return? No you would not,” he answered his own question before I had a chance to. “Would you interrupt a surgeon who was performing a delicate operation on your brain?”

            (Which I would have thought was redundant since – I would have thought – any operation on the brain, even mine, would be delicate.)

            He wasn’t finished. “Do you know how many people have stopped to talk and interrupt me while I am trying to get rid of this grass along the ditch, since the government doesn’t seem to want to?” Before I could answer that question, he was off again. “Nine people!” he said. “Nine people stopped just because they recognized me.”

            “But Trout,” I said, “I am sure that I and the other eight people who stopped did so because of our liking and admiration for you…” I went on for a while in this vein, lying like a cedar log in a brook. Then he scratched his chin and looked thoughtful.

            You are right, ” he said, and put down his weed-eater, just like he had been putting me down earlier. “Let’s go have a coffee.”

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            Last evening I was talking to someone at the club when he said he had to go home because his ‘better half’ had threatened she would not go through with their promised divorce if he stayed out after nine o’clock.

            It was unusual to hear that expression; people don’t often say ‘the better half’ much these days. The reason for, of course, is that it has been ‘clinically proven’ as they say, that husbands are the better half.

            Still on that subject, we all know the phrase “see how the other half lives”, meaning that we who are wealthy should take a look at how poorer people live – for example only being able to have an iPhone 4 instead of the latest model.

            That phrase “the other half” is obsolete now and has been for a decade or two, or three, because the poor(er) now make up about 99% of the population and that, if I remember my math, is a kilometre or two away from half. The average rich guy would have to say he wants to “see how the other 99% live” and he’s not going to do that, is he? People were trying to get government to notice them when they voted for the current (and possibly last) U.S. president.

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

            The Internet has brought us some great ideas for making money and one of the best for individuals is ‘crowd-funding’.

            That’s where you or I or my dog Fang go onto an alleged non-profit crowd-funding website and ask for money for our particular cause. We might want to raise money to build a statue honouring a certain dead hero so they ask other people to send them money for that purpose. Of course a certain amount may stick to their fingers, but with the humidity lately, that’s understandable.

            Listening yesterday to a radio program, I was astounded to hear that one enterprising young man from Manitoba had turned to crowd-funding to pay for his education. His goal was $100,000 for a four-year degree course, but I have news for him. According to my recollection, each of our children’s education cost us approximately one million dollars a month so that young man was rather optimistic.

            Crowd-funding is a simple concept. You find a crowd-funding site on the Internet and get accepted after you explain what you want the money for. What could possibly go wrong?

            I have been preparing my own application. I have to work on the wording, but this is the concept: “I want people to send me money until I have enough. I will let you know when that happens.”

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

            Watching the news coverage of the plethora of hurricanes now pummelling the Caribbean, I am impressed by the technology in use these days.

            One can look at computer models of Hurricane Maria – that’s today’s storm – and see that the eye is perfectly round, what they call symmetrical, and that’s supposed to be important. Then the TV weather people show the probable track of the storm – both the British and the American guesses – so they can have that on record for the next day when they say the exact opposite.

            One thing I have noticed: In spite of all the technology today, hurricanes cause just as much damage as before. The people on the ground in Puerto Rico are getting blown around just as much as they would have in 1955; it’s just that they are getting warned earlier. 
                                         -end-