Village Squire, 1979-07, Page 31McGILLKUDDY'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.
JUNE 1: Well my new assistant Lotta
Lumpy started work today. When Mayor
Lumpy suggested my getting an assistant
for the summer 1 didn't think I was going to
get such a big help. I mean Lotta can't
hardly spell and I can type faster myself
but she certainly is big.
I'm sure the Mayor thought he was
saving money having his daughter work for
the department (his, not the town's
because now he doesn't have to fork out all
the money she'll need to go back to college
in the fall for her nuclear physics course).
I'm afraid he might have added to the town
council's budget though. With the size of
his office, and the size of Lotta,
something's got to give. Maybe there's
some hidden motive behind all this. When
Lotta's in the office there's no room for me
so I have to be out on patrol a lot more. I'll
fool them though. I think I'll be doing a lot
more patrolling out around Bea's West
End Coffee Bar in the next few weeks.
JUNE 3: Well it's moving day for Hal
Meachum. He beat out Marty Smith back
on the 22nd in the big election and so he's
off to Ottawa. Hal's wife isn't so happy
about the move though. She's being left
behind to help keep Hal's law practice
going just in case he needs to come back to
it after the next election.
Maggie isn't too happy about it all
though. While everybody else was
laughing and celebrating on election night,
Maggie was crying and not from
happiness. She found it hard enough to
keep track of Hal when he was around town
but the thought of hint being up in Ottawa
with all those young secretaries around has
her pretty jumpy. Ah well, with her being
around the law office so much in the next
few months she should be able to get a
cheap divorce if she needs it.
JUNE 6: They're celebrating the 25th
anniversary of D-day today. There's a big
celebration over at the Legion that should
keep me busy all night long. Funny, most
of the guys from this town were down in
Italy when the soldiers landed on
Normandy but that doesn't stop them from
celebrating.
JUNE 10: I see down in St. Thomas they're
into an experiment where they're
collecting methane gas from an old dump
site to heat greenhouses. The govern-
ment's giving them a big donation to try
out this experiment. I told the mayor,
who's always after any government
goodies he can lay his hands on, that he
should go after some grant money for an
experiment here. For the dump, he asked.
No, 1 said, but we should build a big green
house right outside the windows of the
town council chambers. With all the gas
produced in there we should be able to
grow enough oranges to keep the town
supplied year round.
The Mayor's sense of humour is not
good. I've got to work the next three
weekends in a row.
JUNE 13: Cindy Lou is not too happy about
me having a female companion while at
work. She told me last night that I'd better
not get too close to that girl. I told her her
warning came too late. Every time I'm in
the office I'm too close to Lotta. With the
size of that office, I haven't got any choice.
JUNE 15: I see they've got real problems
with gas shortages down in the States.
Lucky I'm not down there with The
Cockroach.
I mean that little mini car cruiser of mine
gets great mileage and all that but they've
got a $5.00 minimum order down there and
the town council won't allow me to get
more than $2.50 worth of gas at any one
time.
I know what those guys feel like with
their rationing though. If I run out of my
$2.50 worth of gas for the week I've either
got to walk the rest of the week or put in my
own money for gas.
JUNE 22: Poor Joe Clark. He's only been
prime minister for a couple of weeks and
already he's got all the Arab countries
practically declaring war on him. And he
thought Pierre Trudeau was tough
opposition.
Diplomacy is always a fun game, though.
I remember two or three years ago when
we had a bit of a set-to around here. You
see both Baileyville and Maitland have
their fall fair on the same day. Actually
Maitland used to always have their fair a
week after Baileyville but for about 10
years it always snowed on Maitland's fair
day and it always was sunny and warm on
Baileyville's so Maitland decided to have
their fair a week earlier. Needless to gay
there was almost a war over that and
Hamhocks was in a pretty precarious
position being directly between Baileyville
and Maitland on Highway 32A.
Things really got sticky though when it
came time to make a decision as to which
of the two fall fairs Hamhocks should send
its marching drum, bugle and glocken-
spiel band too. Each of the towns was
putting the pressure on the town council
pretty strongly about it. Baileyville
reminded us that if our fire truck was
broken down and we needed help, it was
their fire department that was closest and
they just might not come if there was a
sudden emergency (I think there were even
hints that their might be such an
emergency such as a mysterious fire at the
town hall unless our band showed up for
their parade.) Maitland council reminded
our councillors that a lot of our councillors
happened to have cottages over at the lake
by Maitland and if our band didn't show up
at their parade the taxes might suddenly
rise on some of those cottages. What's
more. the council over there might find it
just too much to maintain the roads that
lead to those cottages.
Well the councillors didn't know which
way to turn until somebody suggested
that there might be a solution. It seemed
like a brilliant compromise. They sent the
bugles and half the drums to Baileyville
and the glockenspiels, the tubas and the
rest of the drums to Maitland.
As you can imagine though, this decision
didn't bring much harmony. Now both
towns are mad at us. Oh yes, and it snowed
on both parades.
STRATFORD'S
21st
ANNUAL
WESTERN ONTARIO
7-71 7
and
SALE
AUGUST 6
TO AUGUST 11
STRATFORD ARENA - LAKESIDE DRIVE
29 EXHIBITORS
Monday to Friday 11 am to 10 pm
Saturday 11 a m to 6 p m.
ADMISSION $1.75
. pornored by the Stratford
Kinsmen & Krnetre Clubs
July 1979, Village Squire 29