Small-town mainstreet vignette

Dateline Walkerton; up-market sedan pulls into parking space on main drag. Well-dressed up-market female person disembarks driver's door and opens back door to reveal rather roly-poly boy-child who appears to be playing a game on his device. She waits. She waits some more. She is a very patient mom. She stands on the sidewalk with the back door open while the future video game world champion tries to beat the ending boss. Eventually he must have reached some sort of conclusion, because after a good five minutes of mom standing on the sidewalk, he gathered up his gear, and a set of headphones hitherto not a factor, and exited the car. He couldn't have been older than seven or eight. Whatever happened to parents acting like parents?

A country drive

Had occassion to take a tour the other day down Walkerton way. Don't see those roads much anymore. For a couple years around the turn of the century I saw them every day, because me and my old pal Jimmy used to carpool from Walkerton to our teaching jobs in Owen Sound. County roads and Townlines and Concession roads all the way through an hour's worth of rolling hills and pastoral vistas. If you absolutely must have a job that requires commuting, a commute that calms your nerves and soothes your senses is the one you want. I was on my way to lunch with another old friend, a guy who makes his living ferrying ultra-lethal military-related goodies back and forth across the border. That obviously requires the absolutely highest levels of security clearances. I've known this dude since we were teens, and how he got that is a complete mystery to me. Suffice it to say if he makes a habit of lunching with the pot-addled anti-semitic hillbilly communist, he might not get the next one! Back in the day there was a lot of local excitement about a new furniture plant going in at Chesley, roughly the half-way point in that commute. Durham Furniture, a high-quality manufacturer that's been around since the 1800s, was investing $38 millions in a brand-new state-of-the-art factory. Many of our students were hired. Within two years they went tits-up. I've heard China's entry into the WTO destroyed our fine-furniture industry, but that could just be Yellow Peril propaganda for all I know. Unfortunately Jimmy didn't last all that long after our commuting days. He succumbed to cancer just a few years later. Oddly enough, his younger brother died of the same cancer just a few years after that. Both of them had apprenticed into the trades. A few years later there was a class action launched against 3M and Dupont on behalf of all the millwrights, machinists, tool & die guys and mechanics who died young because they'd spent years absorbing toxic chemicals through their skin as part of their jobs. Don't know if they ever got any compensation. So I spend a two hour+ lunch with Buddy, and holy moly, does this guy have some insights into the trucking biz. He's been around it for over 50 years and has seen the changes. The main change is the composition of the workforce. Used to be mostly whites and a few blacks in Canada, and closer to a black-white-Latino mix once you crossed the border. In fact, JB Hunt, a major American trucking concern, had its HQ just around the corner from the Arkansas State Penetentiary and was famous for providing employment opportunities to ex-cons who had paid their debt to society. Now it's 90% guys with turbans on both sides of the border! But that's not always a bad thing. Carrying guns and ammo across the border requires literally binders worth of paperwork. It involves an absolutely incognito truck stripped, for obvious reasons, of all comm tech, and scanned for tracking devices every time it's loaded. The company that employs Buddy tried to dump him back when he balked at the covid shot. Turns out it really helps to know your way around those binders if you hope to get through customs in a timely manner. He gradually got most of his job back as the clamour over covid died down. He claims it's routine to be waiting with a dozen or two dozen drivers in the US Customs holding area to clear their paperwork, and being the only white guy in the room. For some obscure reason, it's apparently quicker for a white guy to get through US Customs than for a brown dude with a turban. After lunch I mosied up what is generally known as the Elora Road, which terminates in Southampton, just west of Saugeen Indian Reservation #29. Gotta drop into my favorite pot shop and reload. I've only ever bought anything at a gov pot shop once, and across the board your gonna save probably 75% by shopping at the rez. Over the years, quite a few kids from Saugeen First Nation came through my classroom. In my 25 years of watching the education system circle the drain, one of the very few bright spots is we're now seeing Indigenous boys in high school much more. It was rare in 1995. By the time I retired, it was normal, and they were often my best students. And let me point out that had far more to do with culture change in their community than with anything the ed system did. So, I got home with a full belly and four full vapes, 2 indica and 2 hybrid. My final observation has to do with this regions fast-fading reputation as Ontario's cattle country. There are actually more cattle than ever, but you don't see nearly as many. That's because what you see a lot more of is feedlots. A guy up the road put one in a year ago. Six million bucks for a 600 head barn where they stand in front of a giant automated feed trough and do nothing but eat and shit 24/7 until they hit the abattoir. I drive by the place twice a day and have never seen a cow. I guess that's farming today. I'm pleased to rent my pastures to a old-school father-son team who believe in cattle roaming the meadows, eating grass, and providing me cow-views from every window! That's worth a lot in my world. Sadly, they and their herd are endangered species.

Celebrating the Idiot Savant, from Jimi Hendrix to Jason Arday

Turns out that some idiot savants are more savants than idiots. Take Hendrix. I mean, he may have been a druggie goofball who held his guitar upside down, but to this day knowledgable commentators peg him as one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time. Then there's the Idiot Savants who prove themselves idiots. In spite of a massive PR campaign intended to hide the obvious; that from the beginning of his meteoric rise Dr Arday proved himself on the idiot side of the ledger. I can assure you there are no knowledgable commentators anywhere who imagine... that Jason is the Jimi Hendrix of... sociology? Which in no way absolves the powers that be from responsibility for the Arday debacle. And it is abundantly clear that it's Cambridge admin pushing DEI policies that put this guy in peril to begin with.

Johnny Hirtle and the 500hp Super Bee

Johnny, may he rest in peace, bought a 1969 Dodge Super Bee at Weiland Motors in Kitchener. They were strictly used cars then, and it was a few years before they got the Ford franchise, so the Bee had a few miles on it already. She was a box-stock stripper with column shift Torqueflite, bench seats, and the 335hp 383. Didn't take long to grenade that motor, given the extravagant smoke shows that erupted all over town. Johnny had a conundrum; rebuild that motor or swap in something new. He found a '68 Road Runner for sale that had been heavily modified for drag racing, hence the 500hp. The problem was that motors built for drag racing are designed to absolutely peak out at a quarter mile, whereas a stock Bee geared for the street is just getting warmed up at the quarter mile mark. In addition to even more spectacular smoke shows, we now got stories about "burying the speedometer." Given that the Super Bee speedo goes to 150mph, I found that rather alarming. Fortunately, the lifespan of that race motor was even shorter than that of the original, which probably extended the lifespans for a few of us, including Joachim himself. Johnny/Joachim took a decidedly mellow turn after that. Couple of years later, he was tooling around in an Econoline van. By then a ride with Johnny was still an adventure, because you never knew if it was gonna be three hours or three days, but at least you were reasonably confident you'd eventually arrive alive!

American Empire awaits final curtain

Just watched a ten minute segment on Fox where General Keane was 'splainin' to Larry Kudlow how, in spite of appearances to the contrary, the USA is in fact in full control of Hormuz. For ten minutes they danced around the very obvious fly in the ointment, to wit, the fact that four months into a four day war, the mightiest military the world has ever seen has proven incapable of achieving any of the goals it proclaimed when they started this war. In normal parlance, that's known as "losing." But not at Fox News. No, the extended pause in US attacks is 100% due to Donald's humanitarian bent. He just wants to make sure he gave the terrorist thugs every last chance before he unleashes hell etc. The truly sad (and might I add dangerous) fact is more Americans get their news from Fox than anywhere else, and I can't imagine they're likely to change the chanel to CNN or Al Jazeera for a second opinion. What will it take before reality sets in?... I figure $12/gallon diesel should do it!

Winter's coming and I got nothing but fear and loathing

And that's a radical departure from my usual winter announcement, which typically comes late November or early December, to the effect that, by golly, looks like winter's back... who knew? Yup, the advent of winter reliably takes me by surprise every year. But here's why things have changed. Last winter was an unexpectedly stiff one, as in way cold and way too much snow. Turned out I was completely unprepared, and it was only the kind intervention of my neighbours John Deere and Massey Ferguson, together with their snowblowers, that got me through. Never again! So I've been keeping an eye out for reliable and affordable snow-clearing tech. I saw a nearly new Suzuki quad with a blade for a whisker under 10k. At least that would give me a 4-wheeler when I'm not clearing snow, but it's not what you need when you get an overnight dump of four feet or more, which is known to happen in these parts. So I've been thinking maybe it makes some sense to have the old Ford 4000 diesel refurbished. It's a 53hp unit from about 50 or 60 years ago, and I have a snowblower for it. But I haven't had a diesel since my VW died, what, 15 years ago? I therefore know nothing about diesels and besides, between my shaky hands and fat fingers I struggle to pick up a wrench, let alone turn one. So this job gotta be farmed out, but whereto? As fate would have it, a few of the kids who went through my shop class went on to become all sorts of trades, including diesel mechanics. I happened to run into one of them at a funeral last week. He works at an iron ore mine on Baffin Island, which is somewhere nearby Santa's place. The company flies him up and back for a three-week rotation, and when he's home he wants to spend time with his three teen boys, not with my derelict tractor. Fortunately, he was able to provide the name of a classmate, who had just left a prominent farm equipment dealership and opened his own biz. Perfect! He'll be looking for work! A few days later I drop by the kids place. The kid is now a middle aged man with a family. There's a float dropping off a hydraulic Skyjack unit as I pull up. There's two or three tractors lining either side of the drive to his shop, and there's a massive high-hoe in the middle of all this stretching out its arms to the sky! Ya... I'm pretty sure Jeff ain't looking for work! Anyway, I'm happy the kids are kicking ass. They seem to have survived my tutelage just fine! But winters coming...

Up a stump with Donald Trump

Remember when USA-Israel unleashed a surprise attack on Iran last year, in the midst of alleged peace talks, which utterly obliterated Iran's nuclear program and military? Remember when USA-Israel unleashed another surprise attack this past February, again against the background of more fake peace talks, murdering the Supreme Leader and much of his extended family, and once again totally obliterating Iran's military? Remember when Mafia Don told the world that he personally would appoint the next Supreme Leader? Well, all of that and oh-so-much-more is already down ye olde memory hole. In fact, USA-Israel has since February obliterated the entirety of Iran's military-industrial complex several more times, to the point they have exhausted their ammo and are now awaiting Iranian retaliation. How such a thing is even conceivable after their non-stop obliteration over many months should raise a few questions, the paramount one being just how brazenly over-the-top the Trump regime's nonstop cavalcade of bullshit would have to get before the American people realize it's time to change the channel.