The Rural Voice, 1996-08, Page 14LESLIE
HAWKEN & SON
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Rural Route Three
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10 THE RURAL VOICE
The World from Mabel's Grill
Dave Winston was saying this
morning that he got tired of worrying
about the price of feed for his hogs,
and whether the fusarium was in his
wheat and if the com borer was
going to get his corn, and ruin the
yields with
prices what
they are, so he
sat down to
take his mind
off it all by
watching some
of the Olympic
coverage.
"Do you
realize," he
said in
wonder, "that
some people
paid $600 for a
seat at the
opening
The world's
problems are
solved daily
'round the table
at Mabel's
ceremonies? Even with $7 corn I
can't imagine doing that."
"Yeh, and the day after they went
to the opening they probably went
grocery shopping and complained
about the price of bread," said
George MacKenzie.
"Kind of sounds about right,"
Cliff Murray agreed. "After all, you
can slave all your life to buy your
farm and get it paid for while some
guy can run 100 metres in 10 seconds
and make enough from commercial
endorsements to retire on."
"Wouldn't it be great if farmers
could get paid for commercial
endorsements," Cliff Vanderplast
dreamed. "Say I had the highest herd
BCA average in the province and the
feed companies paid me to tell how
their protein supplement helped me
win the honour."
"And some shoe company could
pay you to tell how their safety toe
had saved you from injury when you
dropped a sledge hammer on your
foot," Wayne Bruce from the shoe
store put in.
"We could get shampoo com-
mercials from pig farmers with
shower -in/ shower -out facilities,"
said Dave. "I mean who could use
more shampoo?"
"Sure Dave, but before you'd
qualify you'd need some hair,"
George jabbed.
"As far as I can see the Olympics
are way out of date," said Cliff.
"Now take the high hurdles, who
jumps over fences anymore since we
started using AI and stopped keeping
bulls? What would be more up to
date is the high bureaucratic hurdles.
Give out gold medals for the
company that could bring a new
herbicide to market the fastest,
getting past all the regulatory
barriers."
"I can see they'd need to do dope
testing on that one," George said.
"They'd have to test the bureaucrats
to make sure they're dopey enough
to make it a challenge of truly
Olympic proportions."
"How about syncronized swim-
ming?", Hank wondered. "With the
government getting out of support
for farmers there could be an
agricultural Olympics event called
the sink -or -swim."
"And take the javelin," said Dave.
"when was the last time you saw
someone need the skill of throwing a
spear 200 feet through the air? Now a
modern skill would be how to pin
down a politician? How can you get
Ralph Goodale to give a straight
answer on whether we'll get rail cars
in the east? How can you get Noble
Villeneuve to admit he promised no
cuts to agriculture and lied?"
"We used to have a contest like
that in the old fall fair," George said.
"We greased a pig and everybody
tried to catch him. He was a slippery
little devil though and nobody ever
could get him."
"I can see the possibilities," Dave
said. "It would be sort of like the
decathlon. A contestant would have
to be fast on his or her feet to keep up
with the dodging but would also have
to think fast because a politician can
change the subject in the blink of an
eye."
"It might be good to train with the
cowboys out in Alberta, learning to
throw a lasso," George said. "I can
see a prize for something like calf
roping where you ride out, lasso the
politician, throw him off his feet and
tie him up so he can't get away."
"It'd never work," said Wayne.
"A politician is a lot faster than a
calf. You'd never pin him down."
"Maybe that's when you need the
javelin," Dave suggested.°