The absurdity of it all...

I recently had a reunion with an old union brother from way back in my General Electric days. That's where I learned to weld, in their heavy transformer plant on Woodlawn Road in Guelph.

That was back in the day when Guelph still knew GE as "Generous Electric." We had the distinction of belonging to one of the last overtly "communist" unions, the UEW, led at the time by CS Jackson. Whatever one may think of commies, the union made us one of the preferred places to work in town.

I left GE after a couple of years, heading out to Alberta to make my fortune, har-dee-har, but Buddy stayed with the ship. Eventually GE sold off its heavy transformer business to Westinghouse. Then the Swiss multi-national ABB took it over. Finally, the plant was closed and heavy transformers are now built in Mexico, because why pay Gringo 30 bucks an hour to run that bead when Pedro is living in Fat City at 30 bucks a day.

Along the way, the commie union was eventually absorbed by the CAW. Stuff we had was gradually lost. The definite benefit pension plan became a defined contribution plan. Two tier contracts came in. The threat of moving to Mexico was always the company's ace-up-the-sleeve in any contract negotiation.

So Buddy finds himself unemployed in his early fifties, and at the same time, his marriage goes down the toilet, and long story short, he finds himself living in public housing in his golden years.

Since I had that bumper crop of herb, and I knew the dude was a toker from way back, I thought I'd drop him off a few ounces. He was quite appreciative. I wouldn't say he's living high off the hog in his smallish single-bed flat, but he's got the basics. A kitchen, a shitter, a bedroom, and a TV that gets every sports channel in the universe. He's a happy camper.

Given the nature of my visit, he gets to talking about the smoking regs in public housing. Apparently there's no smoking in public housing anymore, but get this; the smokers who already live there are grandfathered in!

Same rules for the pot smokers. He's in a small ground-level complex with maybe twelve units total, and everybody knows who's who. Buddy tells me the new guy who moved in two months ago has to step outside to smoke a cigarette or a joint, while the old-timers are blithely blowing smoke rings out their blunts in the comfort of the indoors.

The absurdity of it all...