It was one of those early morning days that I chose to do my triple ‘S’ in the porcelain parlour.
It was one of those days that I had time to think, scratch a last night mosquito bite, swat a pesky fly, and rub some non-perfumed salve on a general itch or two.
It was one of those days that I scribbled down notes to keep track of the oncoming whirlwind of thoughts. Here, in a nutshell, now sorted, are some of the scramble of thinking, which they describe, down under in Australia, as thoughts having been well thunk.
I have come to the wholehearted conclusion that you don’t need an education higher than that of Kindergarten to apply, with a completely fulfilled job resume, for the leadership of a province. It is just a matter of grabbing a pencil, left hand or right, and by number, connecting the dots.
I remember my first picture of a bunny rabbit, by connection of dots, one to ten with a soft-leaded pencil. My teacher remarked, as her hand lightly touched my shoulder, “Oh! That’s beautiful!” By this time, it was neatly cut out by a small pair of scissors. In my eyes, I pictured it flat, having fatally failed to cross the road, pancaked by the dual wheels of a fast-moving truck. My thoughts then, at that young age, were fighting back the welling up tears. These are now, my feelings, the way Ontario’s government is being run today. You grab a firm lumberjack’s pencil, use it, sharp or blunt, to scratch your head, and I’ll use mine, as it was used in my childhood, simply to connect the dots.
Picture a large hydro truck parked, idling, while spewing gas fumes, at the road, perhaps in the end of a lane. Picture within it two highly paid electricians ordered to sit there, holding the clientele hostage. Though not at the point of a gun, it is exactly just the same.
The hobby farm, in real estate lingo, is what they refer to as a “small holding,” usually in acreage well below 50. Here, quite often, one finds small, fast-growing chickens later to be butchered, laying hens for eggs, and pigs or goats being raised.
It is where the brain of a scientist is not needed to know that animals on a farm need water, and water comes by a hydro-driven deep-well pump. Can you imagine seeing the ear-to-ear spreading grin on a certain high upper’s chin, on awakening to the fact that there are dozens and dozens of so like people in cattle/cottage country, many with a partial hydro bill unpaid? The hydro workers are instructed to cut the hydro off if not paid that day, while they wait, usually on a Friday, with reconnection not possible until Monday. The total bill, if collected, is probably half, or much less than, the wages paid to the electricians, and also for the idling truck’s gas as they wait and wait, bored stiff. Should a perk to them not be in order, paid by the taxpayer’s dollars, for a deck of large-faced playing cards and a shellac-smelling pressed cardboard cribbage board?
There should be reaction to power-tripping action, and right here I’d add another dot. I’d be calling the Ontario Humane Society. They have been gifted, thank God, by their numbers, the power to override bureaucratic stupidity, and depriving animals of water, no matter how sneakily nontransparent it is done, it is just that: stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
Is it not time that Ontario’s voters wake to reality and realize that the other provinces of Canada are no longer laughing with them – but at them?
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105