The Brussels Post, 1978-07-12, Page 7Sugar and Spice
by Bill Smiley
J.E. LONGSTAFF
•OPTOMETRIST-
SEAFORTH 527-1240
Monday to Friday 9-5:30
Saturday 942:00
Closed Wednesdays
AppoIntmeit
Thank You
We would like to thank all our
customers and friends for their
patronage over the last 7 yrs.
It has been a pleasure to meet
and serve you.
We will miss you all.
Walter and Erma Hackbart
Buckeye
Shirts, r Pants' & CoVeralts
All available now
J & K SHOESIN JEANS
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WEEKLY SALE
BRUSSELS STOCKYARDS LTD.
EVERY FRIDAY
At 12 Noon if
I N
Phone 887-6461 — Brussels, On t.
BONNIE'S
Men's & Ladies'
HAIR STYLING
OPEN
Wednesday to Saturday Noon
and Wednesday Evenings
Salon will also be closed on Tuesday
for month of August.
Turnberry Street next to Texan Grill
Phone 887-9237
1
BorTsAV McLean Bros, Publishers Ltg
Classified Ads 887.6641
WHAT TO KEEP
...WHAT TO SELL
Don't Keep What
You Do Not Need
That WASHER You Didn't Trade. In
Those FANS Your Air Conditioner Replaced
The BICYCLE The Boy Out Grew
Those STORM WINDOWS You Replaced With New Ones
The BASSINET You Won't Need Anymore
Look Around! List Any In-The-Way
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Into Cash •-•low•\. ...to
. ;02
g Brussels Post
THE BRUSSELS POST JULY 12 1078 7
Canadians, on the whole, are probably the
most, boring conversationalists in the entire
world.. I don't say that idly. merely to put
backs up. I say it from agonizing personal
experience.
It's not because- we are a dull people.
though we are.
It's not because we're stupid, because we
aren't. It seems to be based rather on a sort of
philistinism that labels interesting conver-
sation as a "sissy" pastime, fit only for
dilettantes, idealists, Englishmen of a certain
background, educated. Europeans and other
such intellectual trash.
Next time you're at a dinner party or any
similar gathering, lend an eat. The dialogue
will depress you deeply.
Perhaps the real fault lies in the fact that we
are basically a nation of materialists, and that
we have become more and more so, with the
withering of the churches and the increasing
affluence of our society.
• Our topics of conversation change with the
decades, but remain awesomely inane in their
content.
A few decades ago, men could talk for hours
about cars and hockey, while women
chattered incessantly about children and
recipes.
Nowadays, the men talk about real estate
and boats, and women go on and on about
Women's Lib and the trip abroad they have
just taken or are just about to take. And they
all say the same thing, or near enough.
All of them, especially the men, are
absorbed by their vocations, the sadistic
cruelty of the revenue department, and their
latest acquisition, whether it's a power cruiser
or a swimming pool in the back yard.
Get a gaggle of editors together and they
talk shop, golf, and how much advertising
linage they carried last year. Seldom a word
about a powerful editorial campaign they are
going to launch to halt an evil or promote a
good.
Dig up a deliveration of doctors, put a glass
in each hand and listen to the drivel about the
iniquities of medicare,. the ingratitude of
patients, the penal taxes they pay, and the
condominium they just bought, down south.
Not a Best nor a Banting in the bunch.
Lawyers are just as bad. They may be a bit
more sophisticated than the doctors, but
they're just as dull. Dropping hints of inside
dope on politics. Obsessed by the possibility
of getting a judgeship or at the very least, a
Q.C. Criers of the blues about the taxes they
pay.
A party of politicians is even worse. Jostling
for attention, back-slapping everything that is
warm and breathing, needling the enemy,
seeing everything in black and white,
"They're black; we're white." Joe Clark likes
westerns on TV. It figures. The big shoot-out,
and let the bodies of bystanders fall where
they may.
Behind. the- politicians, but not far. are the
civil. servants. Empire builders, defenders of
the status quo, Everything iii quadruplicate,
Everything secret, The public is the enemy.
Always go through channels. Keep your nose.
clean. Don't get a black mark on your record..
Dull, dull.
Ah. ha! The farmers have been sitting back
enjoying this. They're every bit as bad as the
rest, it 's the government's fault. It's, the chain
stores' greed. It's the fickle public. It's the
weather: too hot. too cold, too dry, too wet; or,
if the weather is perfect and the crops are
superb. it's taking too much out of the land.
Business men arc just as culpable of
devastating dullness in their conversation.
Too many forms to fill out. Lazy clerks.
Second-rate workmen. Those dam' shopping
plazas on the edge of town.
Manufacturers are in the same boat. Wages
arc too high. Can't get parts, what's the
matter with those people? Too much
absenteeism on Monday morning. Profit
down..03 per cent last year. Can't compete
with those lousy foreigners who work for
peanuts. Too much governme•it interference.
Dentists ditto. They are ju ,t as dull as the
others, but they commit the crime of asking a
particularly dull question when your mouth is
so full of junk that all you can do is grunt, and
then think you are interested and agreeing
with their platitudes, when what you are
trying to say is, "Shut up, turkey."
As you know, I always save the best to the
last. When it comes to dullness supremo in
conversation, I have to hand it to the teachers.
They go on and on and on about some kid who
just won't do his homework,- or some
meaningless memo from the office, or some
student who decided to spend a nice June day
in God's great out-of-doors instead of in a dull
classroom with a dull teacher.
Maybe I've been harsh in this somewhat
blanket condemnation. Certainly none of my
friends are dull conversationalists. Maybe
that's why I have so few friends.
Or perhaps my remarks are based on pure
envy. I haven't got a condominium in Florida.
I haven't even a row-boat, let alone a cruiser. I
haven't a two-car garage, though I have two
cars, eighteen years old between them.
That's it. Jealousy. I don't have a
swimming pool or a little place—just forty
acres, mind you—in the country. My wife is as
near to nuts as can b e. One kid is a missionary
in Paraguay, the other can't get a job.
That's why I can't stand around with the
doctors and lawyers, etc., and commiserate
with them on the fact that the price of steak is
going absolutely out of reach of the ordinary
professional man making only forty-five thou a
year.
Wingham Memorial Shop
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