Village Squire, 1977-11, Page 49McGiilicuddy's Diary
Village Squire presents the exclusive
feature: the diary 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 Village Squire...for a
princely sum of course. Each month we
publish a selection of entries from the
previous month.
Oct. 1:l'm aboutto requisition council for a
police boat. Lord if it doesn't stop raining
soon they might as well make it an ark,
though 1 suspect if council had its way
instead of having the animals enter two by
two, the councillors and their families
would get first call.
I'm awfully glad they built most of this
town high on the hill, not like some of those
towns like Maitland that were built in
valleys. It's nice to know that our water is
going to drown them out long before we
have to worry...they're sort of our distant
early warning system. When they start to
gurgle we start to worry.
Oct. 6: Cindy Lou Quagmire invited me
over for Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. I
told her I'd come if she'd serve up her dog
for supper. She laughed and thought I was
making a joke. I wasn't. That mutt just
chewed up my brand new, $5O pair of
shoes. I got some mud on them so I kicked
them off by the back door on my verandah.
The dog turned them into minced meat
(leather?) in no time. As if that wasn't
enough, he buried them...and dug up my
prize begonias to do it. 1 wonder if I could
get myself appointed dog catcher too?
Oct. 10: Thanksgiving Day. Well at least
there's something to be thankful for. The
sun shone today for the first time in
months. It would be a nice day to spend in
the back yard...if I could find it under all
that water. I always wanted a swimming
pool but this is a little ridiculous.
Oct. 15: Mayor Lumpsy phoned me at 5
a.m. very excited. He said we were having
our own October Crisis. His daughter
Cathy, he said had been kidnapped. Not
only that but Councillor Sally Hempel's son
Ned and Councillor Bud Sapling's
daughter Hilda were also missing. It must
be a giant kidnapping plot, he said and he
was waiting for a ransom call. He wanted
me to come right over.
I asked him how he knew it was a
kidnapping and he said that Cathy had
never been out that late before. He'd just
come home from a party a few minutes
earlier and found she was gone.
Well I went over and things got more
tense by the minute. Mayor Lumpsy
wondered if it might be some political
move because all the kids were offspring of
politicians. He thought maybe organized
crime was going to hold the kids until the
parents agreed to let them move into town.
I said that three pin ball machines in the
local pool room were hardly big enodgh to
interest mobsters.
Then Harriett Moneybank, wife of the
local banker came over and reported her
son Peter was also mising. With half the
rich families in town now involved it began
to look as if somebody was really after a big
ransom. The mayor asked me to get iq
touch with the provincial police. I did, and I
must say they moved fast to - solve the
problem. Turns out they'd had a complaint
from neighbours over at Mayor's cottage
on the lake. The four had been having a
real wingding over there. Apparently it
wasn't the first time either. It was a usual
occurence. The only problem was that the
parents beat the kids home for a change.
Oct. 21: The truce is over. The war is on.
Howard Hillman and Mary Filmore are at it
again. Both of them have been having
problems with wet basements...so who
hasn't? Mary bought a sump pump and put
the outflow hose so it would run into
Howard's back yard. Said she didn't want
to ruin her grass. They had a fight over that
then Howard. when he found out he wasn't
going to win, bought a sump pump of his
own and set the outflow so that it would run
in Mary's basement window. It ran right
across the old oak table she's been
refinishing down there.
As usual. I got called out to mediate the
war (I'm beginning to feel like the United
Nations). As usual 1 didn't do much good.
I'II probably have to take a few days off
though. Howard and Mary got so mad they
each picked up their hoses and started to
squirt them at each other. As usual, 1 was
in the middle. Ithink I can feel pneumonia
coming on right now.
Oct. 31: I dread this day. It's the day when
the little monsters can get back at me for
all the things they've been saving up all
summer, and most of their parents just
laugh and think what a good joke it is.
Somehow my sense of humour isn't so
good.
But we'll see in the morning how good
the sense of humour of the town council is.
Remember how in the old days the kids
used to take apart farm wagons and put
them together again on top of the barn
roof? Well modern kids are even more
ingenious. I came back from my coffee
break about 9:30 tonight and couldn't find
the cockroach, alias that miniature police
cruiser the council fobbed off on me. It took
a little looking before I spotted it. The kids
had used a fork-lift truck and set the little
bug up on top of Garfield's garage.
I wished they'd waited a little longer. I'd
gladly have helped them just to get a few
hours without having to drive that
pregnant skateboard.
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VILLAGE SQUIRE/NOVEMBER 1977,47.