Village Squire, 1979-09, Page 31McGILLICUDDY'S DIARY
Village Squire presents the exclusive
feature: the diary of Ezekial McGillicuddy,
police chief of the vWage 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.
AUGUST 1: Boy is it dull around here. I
mean things are always dull but right now
they're even worse than usual. Even
Howard Hillman and Mary Filmore aren't
fighting these days. Howard and his six
Dobermans are off on vacation in his big
Winnebago. The Hill Street Gang has been
quiet. Maybe their parents sent them off to
camp at Millhaven or something. I feel like
I'm on vacation right now although it's not
supposed to start for a another week yet.
One thing that's still the same though.
Councillors Sally Hemple and Councillor
Barbara Harris are still keeping tabs on
me. If I go into the restaurant for even a
minute they seem to just happen to be
standing outside by the time I get back.
AUGUST 6: Civic Holiday. or it is at least
until they name it something else. Down in
Toronto they named it Simcoe day after
somebody in history that everybody's
forgotten about. They discussed changing
the name here too at a council meeting last
month. The problem was what to change it
to. We don't have many famous pioneers,
even forgotten ones. Everybody's been
trying to forget one of our forefathers, a
bootlegger who started up the first hotel in
40 miles. That's why the town grew so fast.
Half the pioneers left their farms to come
into town and never found there way back.
Anyway, someone. probably the May-
or's wife, suggested it should be named
after him; but Lumpy Day didn't exactly
turn many people on, particularly
Councillor Hemple. Of course the Mayor
didn't think much of Hemple Day either.
So they left it the way it was. After the
discussion it may still be Civic holiday but
it's not very civil.
AUGUST 10: My holidays start tomorrow
but of course I couldn't just slip away in
peace. Sam Frayne and his wife Hildy were
out at the Lamplighter last night.
celebrating their anniversary. They've
been unhappily married for 15 years now.
They go.out quite frequently to drown their
sorrows together. It would all be fine if
they just didn't crawl home together. Last
night they did and because of it I didn't
have much peace. Seems Sam spilled one
of Hildy's beers on her new dress at the
bar. It wasn't the dress Hildy was worried
about, it was the beer. Hildy brings home
the pay cheques in the Frayne household
and the thought of her good money being
spilled on her good dress was too much.
I think Hildy was a frustrated discus
thrower. When she gets mad it's usually
things like plates and platters that get
thrown. Luckily she's great on distance but
not much on accuracy. She missed Sam
with the first half-dozen plates and he
managed to get out the door onto the porch
by then. They continued to yell nasty words
at each other and the neighbour across the
street called me in. It wasn't the noise that
bothered them so much as the fact that
some of Hildy's plates were ending up on
their newly planted lawn, digging little
holes as they landed.
1 got there just in time to be nearly
decapitated by a flying punch bowl (I think
she'd run out of plates by then). I kept it for
evidence. I might make it part of my hope
chest after the trial.
AUGUST 4: Didn't mean to write a thing
while 1 was on vacation but here 1 am
anyway. I rented this old boat at Bayfield
and decided to do some sailing. The wind
wasn't up too much on Monday; too bad I
hadn't brought along some of the town
councillors. But then I'm not an
experienced sailor and I'm not sure I could
handle a boat in a hurricane.
Wind got up pretty well today though.
Now I know how the boat people felt.
Might actually help to go without food for a
while because all I'm doing is adding to the
profit of supermarkets. As soon as I get the
food in my stomach it makes a return trip.
I've spent so much time over the rail I've
got a sore back. I hope the Coast Guard
doesn't see me or I could be charged with
pollution. Things could be worse though, I
could actually have gotten outside the
harbour this morning instead of being
docked.
AUGUST 18: Well the last day of my
vacation and thank goodness the weather's
nice. Been able to get quite a ways out the
last couple of days. It's been so nice to be
out here in the quiet. No Cindy Lou
Quagmire. No Mayor Lumpy. No Sally
Hemple. No speeding tourists, if you don't
count that big American cabin cruiser that
sent such a big wake at me a few minutes
ago that 1 thought I was in the same storm
as those yachters over in England hit. I
don't need that kind of weather this boat
has more leaks than a cabinet meeting. The
most important equipment on board is the
bailing bucket.
AUGUST 23: I heard on the news that
Chrysler Corporation is in big trouble so I
dropped by the local dealer. I wondered if
the company was desperate for business if
they might consider a trade for the
cockroach at a rather reasonable rate. He
said he wasn't that desperate.
Damn it. I am.
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CPO
September 1979, Village Squire 29