Village Squire, 1978-01, Page 33McGillicuddy's Diary
Village Squire presents the exclusive
feature: the diary of Ezekial McGillicuddy,
police chief of the village of Hamhocks,
Ontario. Well known for his courageous
battle against the forces of evil, Chief
McGillicuddy has agreed to give exclusive
rights to his diary to Village Squire...for a
princely sum of course. Each month we
publish a selection of entries from the
previous month.
DECEMBER 1: All this fuss about the
Mounties, really. The papers are all upset
about them even having a file on the Prime
Minister. The trouble with those guys is
that the country's just too big. In a town
like this we don't need to have a file on
anybody; I carry my file around up in my
head and boy what doozies I could pull out
if 1 had to. Some of our local politicians'
private lives would make. the Prime
Minister seem like a monk. Yes, Hamhocks
is quite a little Peyton Place.
Councillor Sally Hemple, for instance: I
heard from the provincial police that she
was once found swimming in Lake Huron
at midnight a couple of summers back. The
boys had been called in to investigate a
noisy beach party. Now I wouldn't say
ordinarily that was a scandal but Sally
hadn't bothered to take her bathing suit to
the party. I guess she figured her birthday
suit was as good as any in the dark. and it
was until the cruiser pulled up and put the
search light on her. The boys told me every
one of her goosepimples showed up.
Anyway, 1 know all about it and I'd love
to be able to unload on Sally someday when
she's giving me a rough time about taking
too many coffee breaks but I just don't
think I could do it. It's like the Mounties:
it's one thing to have the information but if
you never use it, then why all the fuss?
DECEMBER 5: Cindy Lou Quagmire wants
me to go with her to the Christmas party at
the Hamhocks building supply company
where she's a bookkeeper. I've run out of
excuses so 1 guess l'll have to go. I hate
these things. Cindy Lou clucks away like a
hen with her chicks and I get all the
attention. Lucky me. I have the feeling
Cindy Lou's heard of the Chinese water
torture: you know you drip water slowly
until the person finally can't take it any
more and gives in. I think she thinks if she
keeps taking me places and keeps drooling
over me long enough, I'll either get used to
it or give up and in my moment of
weakness she'll spirit me away to some
minister and have me hooked for life.
I'm either going to have to move, or
come up with some new excuses before she
really ropes me in. In the meantime,
maybe some lucky break will come up
before Friday night and I won't have to go.
Maybe the town will burn down or
something like that.
DECEMBER 9: Wow, what a blizzard.
When I got to work this—morning I had to
poke around in the snow with a
broomhandle for 15 minutes before I could
find the cruiser. Then it took another half
an hour of digging before 1 could get the
little cockroach uncovered. Not that it
mattered: no selfrespecting crook would be
out in weather like this and as for
speeding, the fastest thing I saw go down
main street all day was a toboggan carrying
a six-year-old pulled by a Saint Bernard.
DECEMBER 10: Well, I've survived last
night. Cindy Lou didn't trap me into any
marital corners. There are some people
who go to parties and can't remember
anything the next morning. I remember
every boring detail. No matter how much
the temptation to get drunk to forget
having to be around Cindy Lou for a whole
night, the knowledge that under the
influence I might say something incrimina-
ting was even stronger. One thing about
going to a party with Cindy Lou, there's no
hangover the next morning.
DECEMBER 12: The Main street looks like
a mountain pass and a pretty narrow one at
that. The snowbanks just keep getting
higher on both sides of the street. Normally
the town works department would be out
there trucking the big piles away but the
road budget is shot for the year because of
the horrible weather we had in January and
February. Things are so bad financially
that council voted today against putting
snow tires on the cockroach. I'm supposed
to just slip and slide around in the little bug
all winter. One thing, Councillor Harris
giggled. it won't be too hard to push the
little thing out of snowdrifts if I get stuck. I
wanted them to put skis on the front and a
track on the back and I could use it for a
snowmobile.
Maybe if I get lucky I'll slide into a
telephone pole some day and total the
thing then they'll have to get me a real car.
DECEMBER 17: Only a week left to
Christmas and I should be getting my
shopping done. Somehow I can't get in the
spirit of things. I mean how can you enjoy
shopping when you can't afford to pay
more than $3.98 for a present. I should
have had more .money to spend on
Christmas this year but that idiot dog of
Cindy Lou's stole my uniform pants when I
had them drying on the clothes line the
other day. By the time I've paid for new
ones. my month's pay cheque is blown.
And it's not the time of the year to be going
around bottomless.
DECEMBER 24: Well tomorrow's Christ-
mas. Cindy Lou wants me to come over to
her place for dinner but I don't want to ruin
the day. I said I had to work. I mean it
would take a pretty desperate crook to be
working on Christmas day but you never
can tell. They might steal somebody's
turkey or something. I don't think I fooled
her very well but I just couldn't spend
another day with her, and certainly not
with that dog. Oh 1 know that's not much of
a Christmas spirit but I don't really mind
Cindy Lou as a neighbour, it's just as a
possible future wife I can't stand her. She
keeps looking at me like she's asked Santa
to leave me under the Christmas tree...
and never mind the wrapping Santa.
It may be better to give than receive but I
just haven't got that much Christmas
spirit.
Operation
Lifestyle is being healthy
and doing our best to stay
that way. It's taking full
advantage of the pleasures
of life, but also learning
to repress abuses. It's mod-
eration.
Strickland )
JEEP
TOYOTA
American Motors
STRICKLAND
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Goderich
(519) 524-8841
524-8411
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VILLAGE SQUIRE/JANUARY 1978, 31.