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The Rural Voice, 1996-06, Page 14IT'S HERE .. . IT'S NOW .. . DBS DIGITAL BROADCAST SYSTEM Only 18" Wide Digital Broadcast System g Mounts almost anywhere if Superior picture and sound quality gOver 100 channels available f Over 1,000,000 units sold ifAsk about our easy payment plan Come in today for a free demonstration l APPLIANCE AND ELECTRONIC CENTRE LISTOWEL HANOVER 291-4670 364-1011 FOUR SEASONS PATIO ROOMS liar Round Leisure Living • Custom Built To Fit lour Existing Patio Or Deck • All Glass Is Insulated Tempered Safety Glass CaII for our free brochure INDEPENDENTLY OWNED AND OPERATED 1• © FOUR SEASONS OO© SUN R00MS SOLAR OREVOICOSES • 611.0.114006.411 • WTO ROOMS SOLARIUMS • WINDOWS • 00055 • SIC.LOR,S Outdoor Living...Indoors•' Owen Sound 1-800-339-1860 10 THE RURAL VOICE The World from Mabel's Grill "Where is everybody?" Wayne Bruce asked one fine morning in May when he came out to Mabel's from his downtown shoe store. The restaurant certainly was different than the usual busy scene with pick-ups in the parking lot and every table filled. There were a couple of truckers stopping in for a morning pick-me-up caffeine refill and Norm and Jack, two OPP officers who stop for coffee and toast (they wouldn't dare order a doughnut) because their patrols from two different detachments meet here but there wasn't a farmer in sight. "Warm, dry weather at last," said Mabel, pointing out the window. "Everybody's out seeding." "Must be tough on business," said Wayne, sitting down at the table where Mabel and Molly Whiteside were drinking coffee instead of serving it for a change. "My feet can use the rest," Molly said. "My ears can use the rest," Mabel said. "If the good weather had waited one more day to come, I think I would have needed psychiatric help. The bellyaching was getting past the point of funny with those guys all cooped up in here looking at the rain and seeing $7 a bushel corn going down the drain." "Well at least if they get the crop in now they'll stop worrying quite so much," said Wayne. Mabel looked at Molly. "It's been so long since there were good prices that he's never seen it," Mabel said with a knowing look. "I'm missing something." "I figure this is going to be the worst summer in here since '92, when there was no summer at all," Mabel said. "If there's one thing worse than bad prices it's good prices that people are afraid they're not going to get. Every time we go a week without rain this summer, every time it rains three days in a row, every time the temperature drops more than three degrees, these guys are going to get anxiety attacks worried they're going to lose a few bushels to the acre of corn or soybeans. They've dreamed about something like this for years and now they're worried it will tum into a nightmare. It's sort of like finally getting the winning numbers in the lottery after playing for years, then finding out you washed the ticket in your pants' pocket." "Not to mention," said Molly, "that every time a cash -cropper gloats a bit about the prices, some livestock farmer is secretly wanting to strangle him." "Or the guys who aren't talking to each other because they're arguing over land rent." • "It was almost easier when the prices were low." "Well I hope they all make a million dollars, but I might be the only one," Wayne said. "The funny thing about human nature is that people usually hate to see somebody else get ahead. If I get a new car, everybody figures the only reason I could afford it is if I gouged them on the price of their shoes. If I'm not starving, I must be charging too much and they'll be damned if they're going to make me rich. "So they all jump in the car and zip off to Wal-Mart or Zellers. They don't seem to mind making Sam Walton's heirs or Lord Ken Thomp- son richer but they don't want to let a guy back home buy a new car." "Well the day I see Ken Thompson drop by for a hamburger is the day I'll start giving him my business," Mabel said. "If he came, he might at least leave a tip," Molly said. "You think he got to be a billionaire by giving tips?" Mabel said. "The money gets into the hand of guys like that and it sticks." "If being tight with money is wh; it takes, this whole dam town shouk be made up of millionaires," Molly figured. "The way they handled loonies, you'd think they were afraid of getting a hernia."0