Village Squire, 1978-08, Page 32McGILLICUDDY'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.
JULY 1: Believe it or not, it's our national
holiday but most people don't seem to
believe it. I must say though Mayor Lumpy
made a valiant attempt to get in the mood
this year, of course I think the reason he
was in the mood himself was that the
federal government was giving the town a
grant to put on a little celebration.
What he wanted to do was put on a show
that would cost about $500. He was getting
a grant for about $1000 so he figured the
town would make a little on it. (There's
nothing so patriotic as making a good profit
on our national holiday.)
The Major was very leary about being
charged with not giving the government's
money's worth so he tried to convince
everybody else to do things for nothing.
The Legion for instance, was supposed to
look after the fireworks. They have plenty
of practice of course because there's plenty
of fireworks over there every Saturday
night about the time the bar closes for the
night.
Anyway the parade was being looked
after by the Lions dub and the chicken
barbecue by the Junior Farmers and the
Major was going to make his big
contribution on behalf of Ottawa by hiring
a giant steam caliope drawn by six horses,
to lead the parade. He figured it would be
cheaper than a band.
Things started off well enough. The
parade went through the west side of town
nicely enough. But the caliope player hit a
particularly high, hard note just as they
turned the corner onto main street and it
knocked the glass right out of the big front
window of Milton Mildew's supermarket.
That would have been bad enough but the
valve stuck on that high note and instead of
it ending, it just kept blaring out. It also
cracked the window in Clarence Vanderwy-
lie's law office across the way and scared
the heck out of the horses who took off
down the street hell for leather. The noise
kept cracking Windows all the way down
the street and people were screaming and
yelling and the horses just kept getting
scareder. They took off right through the
Horticultural Society's nice new flower bed
in front of the Bank and knocked over the
fountain. They didn't get stopped until
they upset the whole caliope on the front
steps of the town hall, narrowly missing
'the cockroach(police car for new readers)
along the way.
By the time the whole mess was cleaned
up and the town council had settled things
to everybody's financial acceptability the
whole affair had cost 82500. The major not
PG. 30 VILLAGE SQUIRE/AUGUST 1978.
only didn't make his $500 profit but lost
$1500 to boot. Oh well they say we must
make sacrifices to be good Canadians, ha,
ha say what am I laughing at. That little
escapade means they'll likely not only not
give me a raise next year, but cut my salary
to try to make up for this loss without
raising taxes.
JULY 10: I hear down in Memphis in the
U.S. the fire department's gone on strike
for more money and they're having a hot
time in the old. town. Seems they've had a
real outbreak of fires and the police think it
just might be the firemen who are starting
the fires, just so people will miss them I
guess.
I remember a few years back when
something like that happened here in
Hamhocks. It was a hot July weekend and
nearly the whole fire department took off
for the firemen's convention down in
Guelph. About the only guy left in town
from the fire department was Harvey
Malcolmson and he was none too happy
about it. The idea of all those guys getting
drunk in Guelph was just too much for
Harvey to bear. If anybody was going to
get drunk, it should be Harvey. After all.
hadn't he helped weather the Lamplight
Hotel during the worst of the recession in
the early 1960's almost singlehandedly.
But Harvey's wife had other ideas and
she told him he had to stay home. After all,
didn't somebody have to protect the town
in case there was a fire while the rest of the
firemen were away? Well that kind of
flattery was just what Harvey needed so he
decided that he had to be prepared and he
spent most of the weekend sitting in the
firehall just waiting for a fire calL
Of course the more he looked at the fire
engine and the firemen's garb hanging
there, the more Harvey started feeling
sorry for himself over all the fun he was
missing in Guelph. To drown his sorrows
he pulled out a bottle of Old Sailer wine
and took a sip, then lit up one of his big
cigars and sat down to read the Saturday
newspaper. But he read an item there
about the convention and started feeling
sorry for himself again so took another sip,
and then another because he remembered
how the year before he'd had such a good
time at the convention in St. Thomas that
he couldn't even remember what'd
happened. He kept on taking sips until the
bottle was nearly empty and he was so
tired he just dropped off to sleep.
Well first the paper fell on the floor and
then the bottle fell on the paper and soaked
it all but a little corner. Then finally the
cigar fell on the paper and smouldered for
a few minutes then off in a giant fireball.
Smoke was billowing out of the firehall
like mad when Mike O'Riley the street
foreman dropped by to get the lawn mower
out of the town garage next door. He
grabbed a fire extinguisher off the fire
truck and doused paper, bottle and Harvey
in foam. That woke Harvey up quick and
when he found out what happened it was a
very sobering experience. He gave up
drinking completely...for about a day and a
half.
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