TubaOrNotTuba

Two word, printed in black on a yellow background. Insignificant in most contexts, but for those who have to travel the Island byways, they are a phrase that actually means relief: Construction ends. This year
we’ve been roving to and fro between Eastern Kings and Charlottetown, so there’s been ample
opportunity to experience the sites near Mount Stewart and St. Peter’s. As vacation ends, I can bid them
farewell, adieu.

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The rain has arrived. From yesterday onward we’ve been treading water, figuratively. Helping to push some young lad who had a broken heart and a broken car off the road just before getting to camp was an exercise in blinking, to keep the vision clear. No tears on our part, just victims of the incipient precipitation. In fact, my plan to liberate trees from the ditches might be sidetracked, as I am unwilling to water-test my sandals to the degree required.

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It rained earlier this evening. Not a little shower but one of those “who turned on the firehost” deluges, accompanied with some wonderful lightning. I assume there was also thunder, but the rain was coming down too hard for me to hear anything inside the van. We now know that there aren’t any leaking windows or doorseals, which is a good thing to have under control.

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Non-linear thinking. My response to a world with too much information and too little time. This evening hockey has given way to GTA (the new one) and there’s a radio soundtrack that will need careful investigation if I can get past the gunfire and squealing tires. I’ve taken shelter with some Jelly Bellies and the weekly American Idol showdown. Even if the voting doesn’t follow the talent…

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Well produced television programs take on a life of their own. The syndicated world transcends the boundaries of politics and language, and if you were to suddenly find yourself in a different city, a world away, the set in your hotel room just might offer up a slice of your earlier life. After all, not being renewed isn’t the end of the road for certain programs. There’s a whole world out there, and they just might be watching.

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Let’s assume for a minute that you have a very successful store, where there is never a shortage of clients, but you decide to close the store because you couldn’t find someone to run the cash register. Or how about a mass transit system, where people are lined up at the stops but you decide to cancel the “run” because there’s a shortage of drivers. Consider the musical group that decides to give up public concerts because the drummer is absent. In any of these models, the correct solution is to find the missing parties needed to complete your equation.

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Finally. The people who work at the Canadian Hurricane Centre have something to do. Imagine being the Maytag Man in your department. A nice sign over your desk, some appropriate letterhead in the printer and a website, but nothing ever happens. Hard to keep the respect of the others in the office.

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In spite of my birth in the city, in spite of my education at the university, I didn’t get called to supper. There, now you know that I’m feeling snubbed. No apology is necessary; I couldn’t accept one after the fact. You see, they served pork and apple pies. For a menu like that, I would have tolerated the uppity guest list.

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I’m not well travelled. As I tell my kids, it’s a big world out there, and I haven’t seen much of it. Unless, of course, we count knowledge gained from a lifetime of reading maps. It started early; the timetables that CNR provided for passengers had maps. Big dots for each town that had a station, and for someone that had only seen what lay along the road to Charlottetown, they were all about the same size. Seen one, seen them all.

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I now know how to replace a can. Useful knowledge, in case I ever own my own electrical utility. I even approached this impromptu learning situation properly, with a camera, questions and all the time I needed. I’m not so sure the two fellows with the spurs and really cool truck had come prepared to be the “show and tell” of the morning, but sometimes things happen. Now, for the curious, a can is an electrical transformer that sits on a pole, and in the real world they don’t turn off the power first. Things to know before you climb to see what the small print says.

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