Village Squire, 1980-02, Page 27McGILLICUDDY'S DIARY
So far 1980's enough
to drive me to drink
JANUARY1: What a horrible night 1 had
last night. I've got a horrible hangover, not
from drinking myself but from everybody
else drinking.
It's been the worst New Year's eve here
in Hamhocks in years. Don't know why
exactly. I don't know if they were
celebrating the passing of the old decade or
worrying about the coming of a new one.
There was a lot to celebrate leaving behind
in the 1970's. I mean there was the
Vietnam war and the student protests and
Nixon and the FLQ crisis and the Olympic
games mess in Montreal and inflation and
unemployment and the Quebec situation
and fuel oil shortages and the hostages in
Iran.
But then looking ahead there's inflation
and unemployment and the Quebec
situation and the hostages in Iran and the
election. And that's just the stuff we
already know about. I wonder if the bar's
open today. Thinking about the 1980's is
enough to drive me to drink.
JANUARYS: My lord here it is into
January and I don't even have one of my
old standbys to complain about: the
weather. It's unheard of, a snowbelt winter
without the snow.
Marty Smith is tnaking good use of the
weather. He's been out knocking on doors
for the upcoming election. He's the local
Conservative candidate and he's got a new
argument for electing his party. He says
that this great weather is due to the fact we
had a Conservative government in the
country. Matter of fact, he says if the
Liberals and N.D.P. hadn't turfed out the
government before it really got things
going, we'd be enjoying even better
weather. The government would have
solved the Canadian balance of payments
problem he says by making the weather so
warm here that the Americans would have
been coming north for their winter
vacations, not us going south.
JANUARY 10: I see they have that Great
Detective on television again. Lord, I wish I
could solve cases as easy as he can. He just
looks around on the ground for a couple of
seconds and invariably finds a clue that
sets him on the right track. Me I could
crawl around on my hands and knees for
half an hour and all I'd get would be dirty
knees.
JANUARY 15: 1 see they're talking about
an Olympic boycott what with the Russians
getting into Afghanistan and all that. The
athletes and the Olympic officials aren't
too happy about it of course. They say that
sports should be used to bridge gaps
between people not make the gaps bigger.
We had an example of how sports can
improve international relations the other
night. We had one of those touring hockey
teams from Europe over here for a hockey
game. I thought it was a little dangerous
myself. It's bad enough when the
Hamhocks Hackers midget hockey team try
to decapitate players trom one of the
neighbouring towns but when they start
taking on foreigners it can have repercus-
sions far beyond the borders of Hamhocks.
I was in for a surprise though. The boys
played it as clean as if they were playing a
girls team and they wanted to ask all the
girls for a date after the game. It was truly
heartwarming to see them stick to the
game and shake hands afterwards and give
each other presents.
Afterwards the spirit of friendliness just
kept on flowing. Our coaches and players
took the visiting coaches and players down
to one of the local restaurants for a treat.
Then the visitors all went off to play their
next game down in the city. I was really
proud of our town.
But I turned on the radio this morning
and got a shock. It seems about 3 a.m. the
whole team came down with a severe case
of food poisoning and they all had to go to
hospital to have their stomach s pumped
and they ended up missing their next
game. Their embassy is saying that it's
part of an international plot and threaten-
ing to take diplomatic actions against
Canada.
If it wasn't a plot, they say, how come
none of our players got sick. How do you
explain to them that our guys are just so
used to eating that horrible food that
they're immune.
Anyway. I'm keeping the name of the
restaurant secret for fear of international
retaliation. Actually we might all be better
off if some terrorists sneaked into the town
and blew the place up.
JANUARY 21: Still no snow. I can't
believe it.
The town council's getting upset be-
cause it has to pay all this money for snow
removal equipment and its just sitting
there depreciating. What makes them
madder is paying the Public Works
Department workers for not moving snow.
The boys are so used to working 24 hours a
day to keep the streets open that they don't
have the slightest idea what to do with all
their time.
It's a great mystery to most people how
we haven't had a winter like this in living
memory. I don't think it's such a surprise.
It seems too much of a coincidence that this
is also the first time in living memory that
we've had a winter election. In fact I've
had a brainwave. If we organized it so that
we had our federal, provincial, and
municipal elections all at the same time in
February we'd have so much excess heat
that we could all go to the beach without
going south. On the other hand we might
want to go south just to get away from all
the politicians.
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