A5

By Robert LaFrance

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Speak Up

"Bob, I think your head needs a software upgrade," said a old friend of mine, one I now refer to as ‘a former friend'. The truth I can do without. This insult came about because I had made a few innocent comments about his lifestyle, girth, mental capacity, and breath (which would knock a Komodo Dragon to its knees).

People just aren't as mannerly as they used to be. I remember that when I was young and I had insulted somebody - always by accident - they didn't snarl back at me, they merely tried to match their foot speed to mine. I'm still here because fear tends to give one wings.

But enough about my former friend's lack of class, let's go on to talk about the things that are going on around us. A federal election is in the offing (as they say), or, in the words of Sophia Kleberson: "There is an offing federal election on the way." People ask ME - as if I would know - who will win. No idea, but I know who will lose - we will.

Closer to home, D.O.T. is doing the final groundwork (no pun intended) on our road out here which should spend the winter of 2008-9 under a warm coat of asphalt and chipseal. Last week they dug a deep ditch along the road in front of our house and leading into that is a smaller channel (a son of a ditch?) so that the water will run nicely away and not make a skating rink of Manse Hill Road.

Quite a coincidence, our getting a new vehicle late in the summer and having the road paved less than two months later. It would almost seem as if I or someone on our road has a lot of influence. At first I thought it was Flug. Having been barber to the Members of Parliament for many years, he had the ear (so to speak, since sometimes he had pieces of their ears) of powerful people like B.C. member Sven Robinson. Then I realized that roads are part of the provincial and not the federal purview, so it must be someone closer to home.

That someone is Dr. Larry Kennedy, our MLA, who in 1999 or so first put our road on the list to be paved. Then came the dark years of Bernard Lord, whose government would sooner have walked into a volcano than pave a road that a Liberal wanted paved, especially a Liberal who had first been elected in Frank ("Let's be frank, Bob") McKenna's 1987 landslide. Over those years when his government was out of office, Larry often mentioned my ‘road' and how it would be paved as soon as certain (unnamed) governments were voted out of office by a Waterville Hospital hating electorate.

It should be mentioned right away that, no matter which government was in power, the snowplough drivers who have served this area have got to rank among the best in New Brunswick, and possibly Eastern Canada. Even while it took a nuclear holocaust to get the government out here to as much as cut the bushes in the summer, those snowplough drivers have always been the best. If any or all of them ever came into the club, I would gladly buy them at least two lemonades each.

Another guy I want to mention is the late Dennis Campbell, fellow SV graduate in 1965 and old friend. Even during the dark years, he tried his best to persuade his government to pave our road. He would just shake his head in exasperation at their refusal to at least put down a dozen loads of gravel which would have shut up me and Kenneth Clark for at least a week.

Today the trucks are rolling and hauling gravel, a recycled asphalt called milling, and Manse Hill Road is about to finally be chipsealed. When it is, I am going out there and have a photo taken of myself having tea on the new road, but I had better wait until the trucks are done their work. I will probably invite all those who have worked hard over the years to get pavement on one of the last ‘twitching trails' (as in yarding logs) in Victoria County. On the other hand, those years in the wilderness put the rest of the roads in such bad shape that many of them ARE close to twitching trails.

NOW what the (heck) am I going to complain about, other than the way my wife picks on me? There was one day last week..... well, we'll leave that to another column.

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