Tag: writing

TERRORISM WITH A WHITE FACE

They were young, male, and unforgivably stupid, which works both ways, one way against us and the other for.

The downside is that every man-jack of these idiots were acting service members of the Canadian Armed Forces, all of them infantry soldiers.  These are the boneheads who fight for our country, at least when the time comes, and as long as it doesn’t offend their ideological beliefs.  They are professional soldiers, although the use of the term professional is entirely undeserved.

The upside is the fact that every one of these losers is a card-carrying idiot-stick, and so extremely easy to discover, reveal, and as of yesterday, arrest.

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A NIGHT WITH DEF LEPPARD

I’ve listened to all kinds of music in my time, and my interest crosses multiple boundaries of multiple genres.  But for whatever reason, the head-banging screamer-rock of the late eighties and early nineties sort of escaped me.

I was once a head-banger, in the late seventies, but I had obviously mellowed out a decade later, and preferred to stick to my Phil Collins, Genesis, and Stevie Nicks, among many others.

And then, suddenly, 2019 was upon me, and my music interests were unexpectedly added to with the emergence of one of those same long-haired screamer bands onto my music radar, in the form of a live concert.

You see, Def Leppard was making a cross-Canada tour, and one of the stops was at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa.  Normally, something like this would come and go without catching my attention.  I mean, I had heard of Def Leppard and everything, but they’d never been a band that grabbed too much of my entertainment attention or dollars.

This is where my daughter, Avery, enters the story.

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STAMP OF APPROVAL

It’s by no means a strange thing for a nation to commemorate influential inspirational people on their currency and their postage products like stamps.

Every time you touch money, or every time you post a letter, you’ve been hands-on with this idea.  Honestly, if your picture makes  a currency denomination or a postage stamp, then you’re a big deal, and almost always in a good way.

That’s why I’m absolutely convinced that Donald Trump will be commemorated on a national postage stamp.

I just happen to believe that the postage stamp in question will be Canadian.

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FORMER CAO A MYSTERY MAN

Who is Rob Tremblay?

Over the past several months, I’ve had plenty of conversations with numerous locals regarding local government, local governance, the administration of local governance, and the general way in which things are done or not done when it comes to this sleepy little town along the banks of the mighty Bonnechere.

It’s amazing, though, how often that name pops into the conversation on its own.  I don’t know Rob Tremblay from a head of lettuce, and similar to a head of lettuce, information on him seems hard to come by.

I know he was the CAO —Chief Administrative Officer — of Renfrew.  And then he wasn’t.

Just like that, poof, a lingering puff of smoke, and there he was, gone.  Surely not enough time in that office to leave a footprint.  And yet, from the conversations I’m having, you would think that he not only left a footprint, but a bootprint with a bruise.

I didn’t meet anyone who really pumped his tires, I can tell you that.  And as I said, I don’t know the fellow, or know of the fellow, other than he kept coming up unbidden in conversations.  Not that I’m an elite investigator or anything, but it surely means something.

It means there’s either something more out there to be known or there’s an individual in desperate need of a reputational reboot, at least as it pertains to a sleepy little town along the banks of the mighty Bonnechere.

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SATURDAY AFTERNOON AT THE LIBRARY

A Saturday afternoon at the library is something special.

I once pulled that trick quite a bit back in the day, back when I was in university, and quite frankly the boys in residence were starting to get on my nerves.

Off to the campus library I would go, and I’d usually park myself at one of the big tables which, on the weekend, were usually there for the taking.  During the week, you’d either share one of these with several others, often in groups, or you would go for the semi-privacy of a study carrel, where you could sort of slice yourself off from the rest of the world inside your own little demi-cubicle.

I will say that I managed to get a ton of work done on these occasions, since you’re at the library, and, well, why not?  But it was also an exercise in people watching, something I’ve always been keen to do, the student of humanity that I like to think that I am.

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DOGS CRAPPING WHERE JAGUARS ROAM

There’s a bit of a problem over at St. Joseph’s High School.

Nothing as dramatic as protestors and counter-protestors separated by police because some kid had his way with school staff over gender-specific washrooms.

No, this is bigger shit than that.

This is about dogs going toidy all over the soccer pitch because people are letting their pets run wild in there, that enclosed space the school has recently created as part of its major overhaul and new construction project.

Principal Pamela Dickerson said in a community letter that people were using the field “as a dog park” without bothering to stop and pick up any of the little treasures that Sparky leaves behind when he plays with his pals or is out for his regular sniff and squat routine.  

Those people I described in my Christmas messages?  The ones who are caring and decent  and thoughtful at their core?  Well, it’s tough for them to walk around like that all the time without reverting to their other selves, the careless, lazy and thoughtless ones, perhaps the ones they show by default most every day.

So much for Christmas spirit.

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“DELIVERED.” WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

“0-3 to base, 10-4.”

As a courier driver, it meant that I, the driver, had received the message.  And it didn’t matter if I wanted to make that inconvenient pick-up 5 minutes before the end of my shift, I still had the responsibility to do it, convenient or not.

It meant that I had received the message, and accepted the fact that it was now my responsibility to take that action for that customer.  You know, the people who pay my wages.

Often, as I said, it would be inconvenient.  Reichhold Chemicals was like that.  They were in a kind of out-of-the way spot on my route, on Wallace Road, and because of that, I’d plan my run accordingly to try and maximize my efficiency.  So when I made my stop at Reichhold at a little after 4 PM, I could quickly get back into shape to respond to things coming from the city core.

But if they called in for an “Oops, we forgot,” pickup after I’d already been there, it would mean scrambling to get back to them before they closed at 5 PM and bending me out of shape location and time-wise for other customers also closing at 5.

More often than not, that message of “0-3 to base, 10-4” would be followed by a stream of rich, creative profanity that would probably last until I got out of my truck at Reichhold, to be replaced by my corporate sunshine and roses demeanour for the secretary in the office, who happened to be cute.  Pretty shallow shit, but there it is.

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X MARKS THE SPOT

Doesn’t it just figure that, when I go to expand into social media platforms, I end up on Elon Musk’s.

Life does have its odd way of expressing its version of humour, given how I feel about the man and how I take just about any opportunity to ridicule him. Yet here I am again, humbled by the dude who looks like a B-List villain from the old Batman series I once watched on television when I was a kid.

Facebook wouldn’t have me. Instagram neither. Seems I’m a slice of Canadian media to them, and they don’t like me because they’re still having their temper tantrum over the government making them pay for stolen Canadian journalism. You should have seen the notifications I got from them, telling me my accounts were suspended because I had violated their rules of service by, well, breathing. I was actually frightened for a minute, momentarily considering the implications of Facebook cops in dark vehicles outside my home. I got banned from Instagram before I was even on Instagram, it was that bad.

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SMALL TOWN ELITES

Honestly, they’re just people, no different from you and I.

If all goes right, they wake up in the morning blessed with a new day.  Some get the kids ready before hustling them off to wherever it is the kids go for the day.  Some take out the trash before heading to work, because it’s, well, Tuesday.  Some get up earlier because that new hair straightener from Amazon was on the step yesterday when they got home.  A few wake up crusty, regretting those last few drinks that had them crawling into bed mere hours before and now crawling out of bed looking for the Tylenol.

It’s all pretty normal stuff, the kind of life tapestry that’s unfolding all around as others do the same things more or less, except for the night shift folks, who I won’t talk about because they wreck my narrative.

People, getting a start to their day, one foot after the next, inexorably leading to wherever it is they themselves go for the day.  Almost an old-school Norman Rockwell feel to it.

Some work for others, some work for themselves.  Some are part of the workforce, some provide jobs for that workforce.  Some have their own businesses, some own their own businesses with storefronts along the downtown corridor.  Some work for the public sector, most for the private.  And every single one of them, a lot of them anyway, are salt of the earth types, the people you see at Walmart or No Frills or Timmies, or the rink on a Saturday morning.  Their kids mix with yours, they mix with you, and it’s all a beautiful tableau of everyday life here in The Valley.

What could possibly upset all this, and transform these very same people into something less than a beautiful slice of everyday life?

Giving them a faint sniff of something they mistake for power.  That’ll do it almost every time.

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NAMING AND SPONSORHIP RIGHTS AT MA-TE-WAY: WHO GETS WHAT, HOW, WHEN, AND FOR HOW MUCH?

The bonanza is on.

The Town of Renfrew is in the business now of selling naming rights to anything that doesn’t move, and really, if you count the ice-resurfacer at Ma-Te-Way, things that do move as well.  Just don’t get your eyes on that ice-resurfacer just yet, because I think somebody might have scooped you on that.

But fear not, perhaps in the future, rolling stock like snowplows and public works trucks may be up for sponsorship, along with park benches, various un-spoken-for rooms at Ma-Te-Way, perhaps even the waste receptacle at the Dog Park.  For pennies on the dollar, you could adorn such a receptacle with the name, perhaps even the image, of your worst enemy.

But before you start coming up with a short-list of enemies, you’d do well to understand that these naming/sponsorship rights are to be awarded on a first-come-first serve basis, yet the Town attempts to cover itself by claiming it has the right to reject any applicant for any number of vaguely defined reasons.

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