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The Citizen, 1993-01-06, Page 5Arthur Black I International Scene THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 1993. PAGE 5. Golf a dirty word I'm going to warn you right off the top. If you don't care for four-letter words, you'd better turn the page right now. This column is devoted to one of the dirtiest four-letter words ever to dog-paddle up to the surface of the semantic cesspool known as the English language. Still reading? Okay, you asked for it. This column is about golf. I know, I know ... it's not exactly ideal golfing weather, what with the greens being covered with a half a foot of white and kids playing pickup hockey on the water hazards. But the kind of golf I want to talk about goes on year-round, rain or shine, blizzard or drought, day or night. I'm talking about miniature golf. Has anyone ever come up with a dopier way to make us while away our excess leisure hours? Can you imagine Alexander the Great or Mary Queen of Scots creeping avidly along a swatch of indoor-outdoor carpeting? Chipping feeble shots off garden gnomes and plastic palm trees? Banking putts off plywood windmills? Driving their balls deep into sand traps the size of Letter to the president Dear Bill: First of all, let me congratulate you on becoming the first Democratic president of the U.S. in quite some time. Since only two years ago the chances of any Democrat becoming president were just about zilch, your accomplishment is all the more noteworthy. I need not tell you that running the affairs of the most powerful nation on this planet is no easy job; you will have discovered this many times over, I am sure. I presume you are getting advice from all quarters now, much of it from people who are a few croutons short of a salad when it comes to objectivity. I thought you might like to receive a few words of wisdom from a Canadian who really has no axe to grind but would just like to see your country put a few things in order. You remember Canada, don't you? We're the place to the north of you which sends you all those hockey players who win Stanley Cups for American teams just as you send us baseball players who win World Series for Toronto. This is called free trade and we both benefit which is how it should be. According to your T.V. commentators, we are also the people who send you cold weather but don't you believe that for one instant. It actually originates in Alaska and passes over us on its way to the rest of the in the same league. You probably have no illusions about such debt but, in case you do, come talk to our Premier Bob Rae; he has discovered talents nobody suspected he had bathmats? Well, perhaps Mary Queen of Scots. The lady was an avid golfer. In fact, legend has it that she was out swatting a few balls just a couple of days after her husband died. But that's not callous. That's what golfers are like. There is the story about the golfer who was out on the course with his wife and he came to his ball lying about 60 yards from the fourth hole. Trouble was, there was a huge barn between the ball and the hole. He was about to play around the barn when the caddy said "Hold on. I believe you could hit your ball through that barn window and clean through the open door on the other side. That should put you right on the green!" The sad old golfer dropped his iron, fell on his knees and began sobbing' uncontrollably. The caddy rushed over to comfort him. "What's the matter?" "Ten years ago my wife and I were right here" groaned the golfer between sobs, "I had the same shot ... and I triple-bogeyed the hole!" But hey, I digress. I wanted to talk about miniature golf. I especially wanted to try and figure out why it's so popular. The game was invented back during the First World War at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. A landowner by the name of in that respect. What we both have to do is get these debilitating deficits down to manageable proportions. First of all, the best thing you can do is gradually increase the price of your gasoline by 50 cents a gallon. Yes, I know there will be a lot of screaming, some of it by Canadians who have been surreptitiously slipping across the border to tank up. Don't listen to them; you've got roads to fix, not to mention that horrible deficit. Even at 50 cents it will not be as expensive as ours and not come close to what the Europeans have to pay. Let the motorists pay to keep up the roads and clean up the environment. I hope that by the time you get this the GATT impasse will have been settled but, if U.S. Sincerely Bill, we are the best friends the Americans have. You may recall that our Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, said that to George Bush (or was it to Ronnie Regan?) No matter. Now, I admit that our prime minister kisses the blarney stone a bit too frequently on occasion but he got that statement dead right and don't you forget it. Just think what it would have been like if you had the Russians all these years just north of you. The problems you have with us are miniscule compared with the headaches the European Common Market or the Japanese give you; we are still your biggest trading partner and we didn't gloat like Saddam Hussein did when George got beaten. We are actually quite patient people as well as friendly; we have to be to put up with all that abject ignorance most of your citizens show when the word Canada comes up. But now Bill, let's get down to business. Have we got something in common with you! It's called a deficit and we seem to be competing needlessly to see which country can run up the biggest per capita debt. Even the Italians, for all their peccadillos, are not not, why not jump right in and show everybody you mean business. Don't pay James Barber thought it was too hot to walk a full 18 holes, so he called in some workmen and had them lay out a shrunken course on his front lawn. The madness spread. By 1930, you could find 4 million North Americans on any given night, hunched over their putters on miniature courses around the country. The game's just celebrated its 75th birthday and it looks like it's more popular than ever. So what's the attraction? Well, it's easy to be good at Miniature Golf. You can play with your kids, your granny, a war amp — anybody. You don't have to be a youngster either. There's a guy in Myrtle Beach who regularly beats the cleats off all corners on one of the towns 50 miniature golf courses. He is 93-years-old. Old duffers need mini golf for the day when real golf gets too hard. You heard the story about the two oldsters, Eddie and Moe, who played as a team? Eddie, 76, could drive like a pro, but his eyesight was bad. Moe, 81, couldn't hit worth a darn, but his eyes were as keen as an eagles. So Eddie tees up and smacks a beauty. And Moe shades his eyes as he watches the ball soar. "Did you see it Moe?" asks Eddie. "Yeah" says Moe, "Real good". "Well," says Eddie, "Where did it go?" And Moe pauses for a moment and says "I forget." any attention to the French; they, like us, have to learn to live in the 1990's and cradle to grave protection just costs too much for what people are prepared to pay in taxes. Since we, you and just about every other industrialized nation are taking time at getting out of the recession, there is nothing like a shot of increased world trade to get things going. Don't forget to buy as much as possible from your best friends; we make a lot of great stuff and you can read our labels. Don't spend a lot of money you haven't got trying to create jobs. That doesn't work as well as it used to; just ask Bob Rae. The best thing you can do is to help the private sector in job creation; small and medium sized businesses do wonders in this regard. Forget General Motors; if they haven't learned their lesson yet, they deserve what's coming to them. • If you are going to be a politician, be a realistic one; don't try to be all things to all people. As I tell my disciples, (oops, my students) there is no such things as a perfectly positive economic measure. No matter what you do, somebody is going to be mad at you. Keep government intervention down to the minimum necessary to permit people to get on with making a living. If we ran our personal affairs the way the governments run theirs, we would all be in debtors' prison. Finally, come and visit us some time. Bring Hillary and the kid. You might like to see the things we do better than you (yes, that's right.) Don't worry about all that separatist talk. Most French Canadians are really nice people who want to make a living just as the rest of us do. Most of the rabble rousing you hear is made by people who are living in something of a dream world. In short, we have a great country here and you should see it at first hand. Please feel free to give me a call at any time if you need any additional objective advice. Best regards and good luck, eh! The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Resolving to improve It's not fair that someone who's brain dead should be expected to write a column! I have been wined and dined. I have visited and partied. I have stayed up late and travelled for miles. And now after two weeks, it is over, too quickly and not soon enough, and I am back at my desk trying to adjust to the working mode. Yes, the season is now no longer upon us, but rather behind us. As we look back at the days of excess, it is little wonder that Jan. 1 is traditionally the time to confront any negative influences on our lifestyles and voluntarily change them. We have overeaten, overdrank, and quite simply, overindulged to the point where doing without some of the good life almost seems a welcome respite. Unfortunately, while New Year's resolutions are habitually made with the best of intentions, they are the promises we make to break. I know. I've broken them all. Smoking was the first. (For those of you who know me, the most sanctimonious of the non-smokers, it will be hard to believe I once smoked two packs a day) Anyway, I believe that was my resolution for 1972 - which after making, I quickly resolved to try another time — in 1973, 1975 and 1976. (No, I didn't miss one, I was pregnant in 1974.) I did eventually conquer the nicotine in the fall of 1976, so I began to look at which of my foibles to fix next. New Year's Day 1987 was to be the beginning of an alcohol-free life. Well, that certainly didn't last long, so the next year I decided to try dieting. I tried it and I didn't like it! However, by 1990, when I discovered that getting out of a chair left me breathless, I decided I needed to maybe knock off a couple of pounds. The idea of giving up my beloved potato chips was nonetheless terrifying. I opted instead to change my lifestyle and for once in my life actually remained committed to my resolution and achieved success. The reason, I believe, was because I didn't limit myself to one singular challenge. By making such a broad resolution, I was able to accomplish what I had in mind without putting undue pressure on myself to succeed. I cut back on fatty foods, exercised daily and quit drinking beer, a favourite beverage. With so many alternatives, a slip-up in one area didn't mean I had failed, so I didn't sink with the ship. Humans don't like to fail and when we do we often throw in the towel. That's why it's better if we can look at what we need to change and give ourselves a little margin for error. Life is far too much fun for us to expect ourselves to always do the proper things or make the right choices. I guess if you only have one flaw then obviously you are limited in the improvements you can make to yourself and your life. Fortunatley for me, that is not a concern. My resolution for 1992 was to try tobecome a better person, which I believe I managed to do. I have tried to be more open- minded and tolerant. I have worked to improve my relationships with all of my family and have learned to enjoy simple pleasures, like sitting home for a quiet evening. I try to laugh more and holler less. If you don't believe me, you didn't know me before. The beauty of it is I can make the same resolution this year, because I've still got a lot of work cut out for me. There's really no reason to break your New Year's resolution. Just don't expect too much of yourself. We are, after all, only human.