Village Squire, 1978-12, Page 55McGILLICUDDY'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.
NOV. 1: What's this? The town's still in
one piece this morning. Hallowe'en's over
and everything's still the same. Nothing
was burned down. No one was kidnapped.
Even the cockroach is still parked in the
police station parking lot. What's this
generation coming to.
They practically burned down a town in
Alberta but here things were pretty quiet
except for a hold up owner on Hill Street.
Seems one of the tougher kids over there
decided he was too big to do the whole
"trick or treat" bit from door to door but he
still had a yen for the sweets the other kids
got. So he mugged three little girls when
they went through the school yard and
stole their candy. Now that's the good old
Hamhocks ingenuity.
But try to tell Ham Bovack that it was a
quiet Hallowe'en. He spent the whole day
trying to peel about a half an inch of wax
off his barbershop windows. I guess kids
are taking it out on him for all the times
their mothers have made them get haircuts
when they didn't want it.
NOV. 6:`I•he local election campaign is
going full blast these days. Councillor Sally
Hempel' has decided to run against Mayor
Lumpy. It's getting to be a lively race.
Councillor Hempel is running on her usual
tight -purse strings campaign. She says
Mayor Lumpy has been wasting the
taxpayers money something awful. What
about those conventions that he went to
last year in Toronto with the taxpayer's
money. She has it on good report, she says
that he actually skipped two sessions at one
of the conventions so that he could go out
to the Metro zoo. What a waste of
taxpayers money.
Harvey Malcolmson, the town drunk
agreed. If he wanted to see a monkey,
Harvey said, all the mayor had to do was
look across the council table at the next
meeting and look at councillor Hempel.
The Mayor is fighting back. however. He
found out that Councillor Hempel used the
copying machine in the town clerk's office
to run off some of the campaign literature
to pass out at a meeting. Campaign
expenses are supposed to come out of the
candidates own pocket he said. That money
just might be the straw that breaks the
taxpayer's back when it comes time to set
the mill rate for next year.
Councillor Hempel argued that the $2.95
was hardly going to break the budget but it
cast her a few votes I'm sure. Boy it's nice
to see those two batting each other's brains
out instead of mine.
NOV.11: Harvey Malcolmson loves today. I
mean Harvey's in the Legion hall most of
the time anyway and Remembrance Day's
one day when he's assured of plenty of
company. Everybody else tends to have a
few too many today too so he can have
plenty of company.
But Remembrance Day's more than a
big drunk in our town. For a lot of people
it's a serious occasion. There was a big
crowd this morning down at the cenotaph
for the ceremony even though it was cold
and miserable. It was a very touching
occasion as the flags were lowered and the.
Last Post played. Unfortunately a little of
the solemness of the situation was lost
from then on though. Whoever set things
up hadn't planned too precisely. There was
a little gun that the Legion kept for such
ceremonies and it was set off just before
the moment's of silence was to occur. It
was loaded with a blank of course but it
was right behind the back of Padre
McGregor of the Presbyterian church.
Nobody'd told him about the gun. When it
went off it scared the...well let just say he
was surprised enough that there was no
doubt about him being silent during the
next two minutes. He fainted and fell
forward knocking over his lectern and the
notes for his sermon which blew across the
lawn. So about half the colour party was
trying to revive him while the other half
was chasing his papers across the grotmd.
He recovered enough to carry on but his
sermon was a little shorter than normal and
a little disjointed. Two of the pages of notes
ended up in a maple tree halfway down the
block. Harvey Malcolmson, who hates.
sermons, suggested the same thing should
be done next year so that he could get back
to the bar quicker and have a couple of
slugs to get warmed up.
NOV. 13: Election day and one good thing,
1 know that by tonight I'll be rid of either
Mayor Lumpy or Sally Hempel. Things got
more interesting when Vanessa Talbot the
nevi reporter at the Hamhocks Herald
carne out in favour of Councillor Hempel
last week in an editorial. Of course Sally's
belt -tightening policy went right along with
Ms. Talbot's campaign in the paper but I
think the thing that really turned the tale
was that she felt it was time this town was
run by a woman. Harvey Malcomson said
he felt it was already run by women except
that they weren't in the mayor's chair. Aw
v.ell, it should be interesting. I think I'll
stick around tonight until I hear the final
results then go out and celebrate. Battling
one instead of two is reason to have a pint
or two down at the Lamplighter Hotel.
NOV. 14: So much for celebrating last
night. The vote ended up in a tie. Damn, 1
knew I should have gone out and voted
yesterday. The problem was I couldn't
make up my mind which I least wanted to
have around. Now they've got to have
another election and I've got to go through
all that campaigning again.
(')
Operation
ife4 qIQ
Lifestyle is having the ca-
pacity to react against the
cigarette habit, stimulants
and tranquilizers, pot and
alcohol. It's avoiding drug
abuse• and rejecting illegal
drugs.
Tt!sh 's
28 WATER ST.
ST. MARYS
Natural Foods
Natural Baking
Fresh Baking
every Wednesday.
CRAFTS & HOBBIES
BLIND CRAFT
From CNIB
HANDCRAFTED ARTICLES
Dunt miss the
ORIENTAL GIFTS
Open Mon. -Sat. 9-6
December 1978, Village Squire 53