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Village Squire, 1979-01, Page 35es • The Picleleville parable Greenhatters are stupid." And everytime a Greenhatter would get a parking ticket all the Brownhatters would say "See, all those Greenhatters are crooks. They're trying to cheat the parking meters." The Mayor of Pickle, Charlie Bick tried and tried to come up with a solution. "Why doesn't everybody buy both a brown and a green hat," he finally said, "and then we can all be one big happy family." But neither the Greenhatters or the BY KEITH ROULSTON Brownhatters liked this idea. The Once upon a time there was a little town Brownhatters accused the mayor of trying catled Pickleville. It wasn't like other little to ram green hats down their throats and totals. No this town was in a real pickle. In the Creenhatters said that if all of their other towns everybody got along. They people learned to wear Brown hats, they'd were happy and never complained except soon forget all about wearing green hats to blame the major for high taxes. But and their culture would be lost. things were different in this town. About this time a ringing spokesman A wide river ran through the middle of aroseon the Greenhatter side of the river. the town and people on the east side of the He was the brother-in-law of a cigar store river didn't get along with the people on corner and so got his cigarettes wholesale the west side of the river. The people on and smoked all the time, even when he the west side of the river had once long ago talked. "The answer," he said in elequent hadahat factory there that produced green tcnes that even a Brownhatter could hats so they all wore green hats. The understand, "is for the Greenhatters to people on the east side of the river had forman independent town. We'll of course once had a factory that made brown hats so co-operate with the Brownhatters after they all wore brown hats. we're independent but we should have our " `Mtat's the matter with those people on own town hall and our own police man the east side of the river," the people on (he'll wear a green hat of course)." the west side (often called the Brown- Well, that got all the Brownhatters hatter-Picklevilleans) would often say. upset. They all rallied around the major for "Don't they know that nobody wears green a while when he pledged to hold the town hats any mote. Why don't they wear brown together but then they began to feel that it hats like the rest of us." was all his fault that the town was in such a "Those damned Brownhatters are out to mess in the first place. force their culture on us," the Green Well, eventually the new Greenhatter hatter-Picklevilleans would charge. leader (called the Mad Hatter by the "We've been dominated for years by Brownhatters) organized a referendum on them Everytime you go across the river his side of the river and people, by a you have to put on a brown hat or people margin of 63 votes to 62 votes, agreed won't even talk to you" and since the there should be a separate town for the stores and factories and offices were all on Greenhatters and it was so. The new the Brown Hatter side of the river, that Greenhatter leader became the mayor and mutt the green hatters were brown hats the first thing he did was to say that all almost more than they wore green hats. people in his town must wear green hats. "Everybody knows there's more of us on But this did not sit well with everyone. For the Brown Hat side of the river than on the one thing, people still had to go across the great hat side so you should all learn to rivertothe brownhat side and if they wore wear brown hats," the brown hatters their greenhats there, they'd lose their v.ould say. "Besides, back in 1863 our jobs. Then there was the fact that down in famous brownhatter Jimmy Fox won the one corner of the new town was a house famous Battle of Abrahams in Abrahams where a hat salesman lived. He had all the bar on the green hat side of the river and latest styles of hats from the city and he claimed the whole west side of the river for sold them, at a discount to all his the Brownhatters." neigtbours. But they were all grey, and "Can't you ever forget that. Times have under the new law they couldn't wear their changed," the Greenhatters would say." A grey hats. So they began complaining and lot d water has passed under the bridge • pretty soon one of them said they should since then." have their own town just for grey hatters The grievances grew and grew. andthey held a referendum and they won Everytime a Brownhatter would insult a and a new town was set up with a Cl<•eenhatter, all the other Greenhatters population of 25 and all the people were would say: "See that just shows you. All supposed to wear grey hats. thoseBrownhatters hate us." Every time a But by this time the styles the hat Greenhatter would make a mistake at work salesman was selling had changed and all the Brownhatters would say "See, all those the people were wearing black hats and all 32'Village Squire, January 1979 the black hatters got angry with the new law and they set up a referendum and soon had a new town with 10 people and a law that said everybody had to wear black hats. hats. But the hat salesman wasn't very happy. He'd just gotten a nice new hat that was made of plaid. It was just the kind of hat he needed when he went out to sell the stores in other towns their fashionable new hats. But under the new law, he couldn't wear his hat. So he took a referendum of one and he on and he set up his own town. And in his town at least. there was peace, or there was until he married a nice young woman from the city who had an eldedy father who came to live with them. And the father hated hats of any color. Strickland AUTOMOBILES JEEP TOYOTA AMERICAN MOTORS STRICKLAND AUTOMOBILES Goderich (519) 524-8841 524-8411 524-9381