Village Squire, 1979-03, Page 31MGILLICUDDY'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.
FEB. 2: There's a lot of election
speculation going around again. I don't
think there's going to be one for a few
weeks yet though. Today's Ground Hog
Dav and the Prince Minister is a little like
the ground hog: he came out and saw his
shadow and ducked back in quick. Yup, I
think he's afraid of his own shadow unless
Senator Davey says its all right. Of course
at that he's better than Joe Clark. Clark
would probably stand there in the cold for a
long time practicing his French talking to
his shadow.
FEB. 8: There was a big meeting last night
up at the hospital. The government's
trying to cutback on expenses again and
they want to chop off 10 beds. Strange, it
was the government that was putting the
pressure on people here abouts to increase
the size of their hospitals a few years back.
Suddenly it's our fault for getting too
expensive.
Anyway. since there only are 60 beds in
the hospital. it means a lot of people are
going to lose their jobs. And since
every bed is full. what are they going to do
with the rest of the people who need in?
Somebody suggested that maybe the
government should just pass a law that
says people can't get sick. Somebody else
said the people are already sick. sick of the
government.
FEB. 10: Over in England they're in a real
mess. Everybody and his brother has gone
on strike. Seems the government has put a
limit on the increase in civil service salaries
and the unions are out to make the
government eat the garbage that's piling
up in streets.
Those guys don't know how lucky they
are. Why if they were in Hamhocks they'd
likely be striking just to limit the amount
the government was trying to "decrease"
their salaries. There've been some hints
coming out of recent town council meetings
that the cutbacks are not just going to be in
budgets this year but in salaries too...and
Mayor Lumpy always looks at me
significantly when he says that.
Well 1 mean if they're going to cut back
the police budget any more they're going
to have to cut my salary. either that or give
me a golf -cart to patrol the streets instead
of the mini -car. The only other
alternatives would be to raise taxes. or
(heaven forbid) to forego the annual salary
increase tor town councillors.
The boys from the public works
department were over for coffee
yesterday and casually approached me
about the idea of going on strike against
the town to get a decent wage increase this
year. I warned them against it. Much as I'd
like more money. The council isn't likely to
budge so we'd have to go out on strike.
And with the way those boys keep the
streets plowed, I told them, people might
find out they could do quite nicely without
them. The boys mustn't have liked my little
joke. The cruiser was buried with snow to
the windshield this morning.
FEB. 14: With all the talk about lotteries
these days, Cindy Lou has decided to hold
one of her own. She told me about it
yesterday.
But. I told her, not just anyone can hold a
raffle. It has to be for a good cause. It is,
she assured me: her. But a private
individual can't make money off a raffle, I
said. Oh she assured me she wouldn't be
making any money. There was only one
ticket to be sold. Only one ticket? I asked.
Yes, she said, she'd buy that ticket herself.
It was the strangest lottery I had ever
heard of but I should have left well enough
alone. I had to ask just one more question.
What's the prize in this lottery, I asked.
Then 1 saw the gleam in her eye and knew
darned well what, or who, was the prize. I
would have left town right then and there if
the coachroach wasn't still buried in the
snowbank.
FEB. 19: It's Heritage Day or at least it is
in some places. I think it's rather apt that it
falls on the same day as Washington's or
Lincoln's or one of the other American
patron saint's holidays.
We're not having much of a celebration
around here. The Mayor only goes in for
big celebrations when somebody else is
dishing out money, like the federal
government. But they're getting about as
cheap as Mayor Lumpy these days so the
celebrations will be pretty spartan.
It befits our heritage around here
anyway. They say ,there were some Irish
and 'English settled around here but they
must have intermarried with the Scots
pretty quickly because everybody develops
a severe case of arthritis when it comes to
lossening the purse strings.
Besides, what a time of the year to
celebrate a holiday about our heritage. The
town's nearly aghost town. About the only
place you could get enough of the. citizens
of Hamhocks together for a celebration of
Heritage Day is if you went to Miami Beach
or Acapulco.
FEB. 26: It was the eclipse today. Frankly,
1 was glad to hear that there won't be
another one around before 2024 because 1
got awfully .tired of hearing people talk
about it. There were so many warnings
about not looking at the sun and bflrning
the retina of your eyes that I decided to
take precautions. I figured on sleeping
through the whole thing.
They say that when the sun goes behind
the moon, animals behave strangely.
Some people do too. Cindy Lou came over
on her lunch hour. We didn't see much of
the eclipse because of the clouds but it did
start getting dark.
As the darkness came in she started to
yawn. "I feel like going to bed, don't
you?" she said. I took one look in her eyes
which weren't sleepy at all and decided it
was time to go out and write some parking
tickets.
Snowmobiles are heavy! Keep
them on land surfaces!
Full line of
Watches
Diamond Rings
Stone Rings
Gold Jewellery
Silver -Plate
Crystal
hXPERT REPAIRS
TO WATCHES, CLOCKS
& JEWELLERY.
ssaat
We service what we sell.
STANFORD
JEWELLERS
187 MAIN ST. . LISTOWEL
PHONE 291.4561
March 1979, Village Squire 29