The Village Squire, 1981-09, Page 33Last Word �
S1R.i .
Strike while it's hot!
Summer is supposed to be an easy,
quiet, relaxed time. Everyone is expected
to unwind with potato salad, beaches and
cold beer. Sandals and halter tops, shorts
and sunburn are the dress code for the
season. After a hectic fall, winter and
spring of shrewd, strainful exertion at
school or work our only frustrations are
supposed to be crab grass, slow lighting
charcoal and mosquitoes. Right!
Well, that might be the way the TV
commercials still insist it is for the
ever -simple floss -brained characters
hawking lemonade and laxatives but some
of us have become aware of a few maladies
more sinister than the heartbreak of
psoriasis during this summer of '81.
Not that we, the great unwashed
masses, can do anything to cure them
mind you. No, I'm afraid the best we can
hope to do is anaethsetize the irritations
they cause and ease the symptoms.
From Krakow to Kamloops, Munich to
Mobile, it's the summer for the STRIKE.
The issues are as varied and significant as
the cockeyed world that provokes and
must endure them. The polarity of
interests is certainly struck in the macabre
extremes when you consider the hunger
strikers of Belfast and the baseball
players of America; or maybe the
solidarity coalition of Poland and the air
traffic controllers of the USA. Just look at
the issues involved and judge for
yourself if it doesn't take all kinds. The
deadly standoff of longstanding sectarian
tragedy involving the slow, painful death
and destruction of a tortured nation
contrasted with the howlings of well-
heeled entrepreneurs ranting over the
tantrums of over -paid jocks whose enter-
tainment value has now fallen as far as
their sportsmanship. In the other pairing
we note the struggles of a long suffering
people to democratize a totalitarian
political system and win for itself enough
to eat versus the truancy of thirteen
thousand oath -bound civil servants
seeking an average ten thousand dollar
pay raise to fifty-one thousand per annum.
This from a government that has just
revoked a $122 monthly minimum
payment to its Social Security recipients.
The other night in Munich the opera
company, in the middle of it performance
stopped singing but continued to mouth
the words of "Der Fledermaus" as a
protest to stalled contract talks. Now if
that doesn't sag your soprano or wither
your Wagner you don't have a soul! a
But these are the international, jet -set
disruptions. What of our own all -
Canadian, true to the Maple Leaf, and I
might add, since 1976, world record -
bolding work stoppages? Well we have
TV, radio technicians, the perennial
posties, the stalwart steelers. laidback
lumberjacks just to mention the current
heavyweights. Waiting in the wings,
notice the rumbling railroaders, tense
transit types. The only overtime in our
debt -riddled, underemployed, inflation -
ravaged economy is being thrust upon
placard makers, courier services and
arbitrators. Those fields would seem to be
the ones into which thoughtful parents are
directing their children. Guidance
counsellors please take note and take
suitable steps - that is before your
contracts expire and the patchwork quilt
of our education system shreds into its
annual disarray.
Through it all I think I perceive an
emerging reality that can be synthesized
into a philosophy or way of life. Ready.
and remember, you read it here first. Let it
be called "Passive Entitlement". By that
is meant, "Let it be done for me. at the
least expenditure of my effort or risk,
according to someone else's responsibility
to take the blame and consequences if
anything goes wrong". I'm sure that the
rampant spread of this greenback panacea
for all our social and personal
bankruptcies has certainly led us to its
ultimate form. Couple that with the
transfer of athletics, in the minds of our
children from the forum in which personal
excellence through training can be re-
warded by recognition as heroism and
achievement by effort, to a childhood
struggle for a big bonus and open-ended
million dollar contract paving easy street.
Not to mention the lucrative en-
dorsements for everything from Rat -Kick -
Kola to Soggy-Sox'n Jeans, which
invariably stalk the dollar -dazzled youth-
ful hunk and his string of agents and
lawyers. Keep slugging kid and make your
papa proud (not to mention financially
flush).
Together, these two phenomena of the
seventies exemplify the pop -finances and
career ambitions of millions of our
children into the eighties. And I can
remember that short-sighted sage who
PG. 32 VILLAGE SQUIRE/SEPTEMBER 1981
by J.P. Nelligan
urged Benjamin of The Graduate fame to
go into "Plastics". But that was 1967 and
who could have predicted the ravages of
the oil crisis or the advent of free -agency
or "I like Fridays".
Is it just the rose -hued memory of a
middle-aged romantic or was it true that
the only real promise made to a young,
energetic citizen was that imagination
combined with training, hard work and an
unpredictable but necessary decent break
could lead to fame, fortune, love, and the
fulfillment of the Ameri-Canadian dream?
Now they didn't mention the ulcers,
alimony and indexed tax escalation but
there should be a surprise in every
package.
Summer was a well-earned golden
treasure of leisure. Time off was a valid
oasis of relaxed expression of one's
hidden talents and interests. Gardens,
gambling, cooking, boating, snake racing
jigsaws, football or that ultimate atavism,
camping, all or none filled and validated
vacation. Genius or sloth -whatever you
please.
Mr. Hobbs stole to the sea while Irving
and Gladys Goldblatt hauled five
Samsonites and a Kodak through eighteen
European capitals in fifteen days for
5549.00 (.U.S. double occupancy, ). But for
each it was a break from labour, paid for
by a year's callous sweat not a windfall
hype from a daytime game show. July and
August at least seemed gentler then.
But come on now Bucky it has, withal,
been a good summer; quiet anyway. Mild
weather with just the moisture/sunshine
mix needed to satisty beach -bum and
farmer has soothed many a frazzled nerve
end or frustrated mail order impluse. The
Prime Minister and Parliament are out on
recess obviously believing that everything
is going to be OK if we can just leave it
alone. So why are you and I so hot and
bothered? Why not let's go down to the
beach, lay back in the warm sand, let the
cool surt purge and soothe our fevered
bodies and sip an ice-cold COLA. . . .
OOPS! Remember when that meant just
a drink?
Father Joe Nelligan is a London native
who now serves his church in the Mount
Carmel and Exeter area. Always keenly
interested in sports, he has also spent time
[coaching and teaching] in Windsor and
San Diego.