Village Squire, 1977-03, Page 33McGillicuddy's Diary
The Village Squire presents the
exclusive feature: the eiary of Ezekial
McGillicuddy, police chief of the village of
Hamhocks. Ontario. Well known for his
courageous battle against the forces of evil,
Chief McGillicuddy has agreed to give
exclusive rights to his diary to the Village
Squire...for a princely sum of course. Each
month we publish a selection of entries
from the previous month.
Feb. 1: My lord, will this blizzard never
end? It's been going now since Jan. 26th
and I'm starting to wonder if it will ever
stop. Could it be a replay of Noah and the
Ark set in Canada in the winter? Should
we be building a giant snowmobile and
herding two of every living kind aboard?
You'd think with half the roads in
Ontario blocked, and all sensible thieves
inside keeping warm, my job would be easy
but it isn't. We have a few guys like
Harvey Daring who refuse to let a little
think like six foot snowdrifts stop them
from getting somewhere they think they
have to be. The provincials have the
highways blocked off to all but emergency
traffic. They stopped Harvey the other
day. He claimed it was an emergency and
just had to get through. After all, he
couldn't miss his regular Thursday night
euchre night over in Tinkerville. could he?
And those city salesman, wow. If it
stops snowing for 30 seconds they'll be on
the roads. I've had to rescue six of them in
the last two days with my snowmobile.
Little do they know that the storekeepers
are so depressed by the storm that they
couldn't sell them anything if they threw to
a snowshovel as a bonus with each order.
Feb. 5: Storm's over at last but the fun
isn't. Howard Hillman and Mary Filmore
are at it again with a real cold war. Howard
came home from work the night before last
to find his lane. which he had dug out for
an hour that morning. was piled high with
snow. Seems Mary had had a bulldozer
come in to clean out her lane that afternoon
and the only place they could find to put
the snow was on Howard's driveway.
Well, Howard wasn't going to take that
hying down. He hired a man with a
snowblower and told him to aim the snow
so it would all land up against Mary's front
door.
Mary called me to come down but I said
that I wasn't going to go near the place
unless she locked all her cats in the
basement. Then I called Howard and told
him to chain all his dogs. There's no way I
can afford to buy another new pair of
pants.
I couldn't get the two to listen at all
when I arrived so I suggested they do
things a nice sensible way and build two
snow forts and battle it out with snowballs
like the children they were. Mary didn't
like that much and demanded that if I
wasn't going to make Howard take the
snow away from her front door 1 could get a
shovel and shovel it myself. I said No Way.
She used some language on me
then that nearly melted the snow.
Feb. 10.: Well this year's council might be
even worst than last year's. What with
snowplowing eating up the budgets so
much they're out looking for ways to cut
expenses again and you know the first
place they look: at the police budget.
We're getting in need of a new cruiser
before this old buggy falls apart but what
do you think they're talking about getting:
one of those English mini cars. Think, one
of the councillors said, how much they'll
save on gas, let alone the fact it will cost a
lot less in the first place.
Sure, I told them, but think of the repair
costs when one of the Saturday night
drunks over at the Lamplight Hotel picks
the whole car up and heaves it against the
nearest tree. They laughed, but they don't
have to handle those drunks. Come to
think of it maybe they'd be so busy
throwing the car they wouldn't throw me
around for a while.
Feb. 14: Well no loving Valentine's today,
at least not from Captain Elwin T.
Bigshaw. He's that Provincial police
supervisor I stopped for speeding back in
Nov. His case just finally got to court
yesterday. I hear he tried a fair bit of
finagling to get out of it, I know I got some
subtle reminders about how much I needed
help from the Provincials and all that. But
really it turns out that most of the guys I
know hate the guy. Anyway, the judge
wasn't sympathetic at all and threw the
book at him to make an example of him.
Fined him 5200 and five demerit points. I
think I better make sure I don't do anything
wrong with a provincial cruiser around
because I hear they've got orders to get me
for something.
Feb. 23: Poor Harry Milligan. I was
talking to him last week and he was telling
me how bad business was since the
blizzard. Made it sound so bad I almost
went out and took up a collection for him.
Went down to see him about a new door
lock for the office this morning (another
break in last night) and he was gone
Acapulco, one of the salesgirls told to
me.
Feb.28: One of my favourite days. It's sort
of like a hound dog dreaming of the hunt.
Tomorrow will be a simply gorgeous day. I
walked downtown today and there were at
least a hundred cars that didn't have those
little stickers on their licence plates yet.
Betty over at the licence bureau has them
Tined up halfway around the block, but I'll
bet there are a lot of people who forget to
get them and tomorrow should be like
shooting fish in a barrel. THE
rte&.
a
sct
• Books
• Kitchen Utensils
•Wooden toys
•Soft toys
•New selection of soap
/Mfl/ ('lY
'1(77/1
TRUC -
Swiss soap of nature
ingredients. Finest
grade of talcon and
vegetable oils.
No synthetics used.
VILLAGE SQUIRE/MARCH, 1977. PG. 31.