How to figure out what's going on

One of the things we try to figure out here at Falling Downs is where the airplanes might be going.

Up here in the great white north, we don't have the random criss-crossing of vapor trails the way you might have further south. Most of the jet traffic in the sky over Falling Downs is either heading north-west or south-east.

That's boring and predictable stuff.

Everything crossing overhead from the north-west is heading to Toronto. It's coming from somewhere in western Canada.

The stuff flying south-east is coming from the airports in Edmonton and Calgary and Winnipeg or Alaska.

What stokes the imagination are those vapor trails going south-west to north-east. There are no Canadian airports north-east of Falling Downs, at least none that would be passenger jet destinations. So when we see vapor trails from the south-west we know the destination is somewhere in Europe.

When we see a vapor trail going north-east to south-west we know it's a flight that originated in Europe and is heading to somewhere west and south of here.

Chicago?

Los Angeles?

Las Vegas?

Who knows?

But that's just one of the things we try to figure out here at Falling Downs.

We're far more likely to be preoccupied with more mundane stuff, like trying to figure out why some creeper in an old Ford Taurus has been haunting the neighbourhood. The locals figure it's some jerk-off stealing wi-fi. That doesn't make a lot of sense. If he was after free wi-fi, wouldn't he just go to Timmies or Micky D's in town?

I figure he's with the CIA. Ya, I know you'd expect those guys to be piloting a new Suburban (black with tinted windows) instead of an old Taurus, but maybe they're trying to shake it up a bit?

And God only knows what the neighbours have been up to. I for one certainly welcome the scrutiny of the hood. (PS; I'm pretty sure McFarquar over on the fourth concession is running furnace oil in his farm tractor and thereby avoiding the diesel fuel tax.)

So God-speed to ya, Mr. Creepy in the Taurus.

And it's not just us hillbillies trying to figure out what's going on.

The national newspaper of record has sent its very last remaining foreign correspondent who is not an unpaid intern over to the Middle East to unearth the straight skinny on what really happened when one of our boys was shot down by our Kurdish allies.

The death of Andrew Doiron was a bit of a shocker, since we had been assured by no less an authority than Commander in Chief Big Steve that our brave men and women in uniform would be well out of harm's way.

So what do they figure out?

Access denied: the Globe barred from investigating friendly fire death.

Now doesn't that make you think that big fat fingers of power are trying to prevent us from figuring out what's going on?