A5

By Robert LaFrance

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Who's getting really sick and tired of the metric system? Not me of course, because I am a modern, forward-thinking journalist thrilled with the idea of converting everything in sight to and from the Imperial and the metric systems because probably half the people in Victoria County use nothing but one OR the other. So when I try and find out if our new Toyota gets better gas mileage than the Hummer that we traded in, I have to hire a Philadelphia lawyer.

A recent trip to Moncton saw the car use 5.1 litres of gasoline per hundred kilometres. Is that good, or should we get back the Hummer?

When I was a kid everyone used Imperial measure of course - feet, inches, yards, and pounds - and any of the filthy poetry and sayings around then made use of that. Alas, it's all gone now. Those were the days. My father's generation used to recite the one that went: "Eel River - forty miles of dance hall and a (lady) on every rafter..." What could one do with that now? A dance hall forty miles long makes sense, but 64.37 kilometres?

This argument and this point of view is going to continue until the old poops of my generation are gone to their reward - the Senate - so there's really no point in discussing it further. I know the difference between a metre and a yard, I know that when the thermometer says it's forty below, it's cold, and I know that I can't solve a Rubik's Cube. Big deal. I just have to be happy with that, and with knowing about nature's bounteous beauty. I can't identify all the birds yet though; it was only last week that I learned a sa-loon wasn't a bird.

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In other news for this diary, we are so pleased to finally have a real road. Manse Hill Road is now a well-ditched thoroughfare with a first layer of chipseal. I took a few (2,177) photos when the D.O.T. boys were ditching, grading, and rolling what used to be the worst road east of Peterborough, and when I'm not out walking on the road and kissing it (How that tar gets in my beard!) I am looking at the photos. A job well done by all.

There is a downside though; some communities in the area are a bit jealous of us here on Manse Hill. Yesterday morning I happened to be scanning with binoculars some areas across the river and noticed that River de Chute residents had moved in a World War I artillery piece and aimed it over here. We could have a problem once they get it sighted in and find some ammunition on eBay. We could be back to phoning D.O.T. about potholes.

The recent massive gasoline price increases 'justified' by the possibility that a hurricane 'might' wreak havoc with Gulf of Mexico oil rigs was an interesting new concept in marketing and even consumerism. The lottery ticket I bought this morning COULD win, so, as we speak, I am holding my laptop in one hand and typing while I load the old van for a trip to Moncton. I phoned the lottery corporation and told a rather confused young man that I was on my way to collect a cash advance of $10,000. As I said, I COULD win the next draw.

My friend Flug's ne'er do well nephew William, whom I recently mentioned in these pages, is off to the Malagasy Republic on a cruise ship - just in time, because some officers of the law just arrived to talk with him over his effort to sell the Confederation Bridge to some business people in Minto. He boarded the S.S. Barney Baker as a sanitary engineer. He had applied for the position of navigator, but failed his test because of a technicality - he didn't get enough questions right on the test.

In an e-mail from the ship, which by that time was safely outside International Waters, he said the reason for his problems answering the questions about navigation was that the pencil lead had broken in his compass. Had he been hired for that job, he would have had the ship going around in circles somewhere west of the Azores. It all reminded me of the story told by the late and drunken Irish poet Brendan Behan: "We sailed with a mixed crew; some had been on a boat and some hadn't."

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Bob's website: http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/lafrance/index.htm.