Just days after the D. Ford government was tarred and feathered – metaphorically speaking – by provincial Liberals for trying to buy votes with Dougie Dollars ($200), the Trudeau Liberals announced that they were jumping on the bandwagon and upping the ante with a $250 gift. The howls from the same Lib sources that skewered the Ford giveaway are deafening. And there’s more from Santa Justin. A GST holiday will give Canadians a whopping break on all the things that give them a kick in the wallet at the cash register. You know. Things such as Christmas trees, jigsaw puzzles, rotisserie chickens, dollhouses, ice cream, gum and diapers. Trudeau hopes to get the legislation passed quickly so Canadians won’t miss out on the Christmas tree – real or artificial – tax break. (Just an aside here, but I don’t remember ever paying GST on a real Christmas tree purchased at a corner lot.) Meanwhile, the carbon tax — a tax on a tax on a tax — will be increased. But what the heck, that only affects the cost of heating a home, turning on the lights and putting gas in the family chariot.
THINGERS AND ZINGERS: Asked my doctor about the “five-second” rule and how safe it is to eat something after it has been dropped on the floor. He said it depends on how dirty the floor is…Turns out the abortion issue, the one that was expected to sink Trump, fizzled. More women voted for him this time around than four years ago. Ditto for Latinos and Black men. Go figure…It is years away, but the new “super” high school to replace CCVS and SLHS will make some valuable downtown property available. And, it will be interesting what the school will be named and what will happen to the million dollar bursary given to CCVS by a former student.
THIS MONTH IN 1938: With two failed attempts in as many nights to crack open safes in the city, it might have been time for the wanna-be safe breakers to find a new profession. An attempt to crack the safe at the Gamble Robinson wholesale office didn’t get any further than a damaged hinge before the attempt was abandoned. The next night an attempt to get into the Palace Theatre safe – which contained $300 – had the same results…In sentencing a 14-year-old city boy to an indefinite term in St. Joseph’s Training School in Alfred, Mag. P. C. Bergeron told the lad that if he followed the rules he would come out a better person. What the magistrate didn’t know was that he was putting the youth in the hands of a group of perverted Christian Brothers…A small one-room school seven miles east of Northfield Station was destroyed by fire which started in the attached woodshed during school hours…A barn at 434 Victoria Ave., used by owner Roy Hart as a garage, was destroyed by fire that started when children playing with matches set hay in the loft on fire…A man convicted in the armed robbery at the W. C. Burns Drug Store on Pitt Street was given a six-year prison term by Judge Francis Costello. The sentence included a second charge of breaking into Judge Costello’s home. Court was told the man confessed to the offences after a “stiff grilling” by Police Chief Fred Seymour. The accused told the judge that if he had known it was his house, he wouldn’t have broken into it…Talk about hitting the jackpot: A Detroit judge awarded the 21-year-old widow of Daniel Dodge, son of the Dodge Motor Co. founder, $33,000 a month ($714,000 in today’s dollars) for the rest of her life. She had contested the will which left her a lump sum of $250,000. The rest of his $10 million estate went to his mother. The couple had been married just 23 days when he drowned while on their honeymoon. The family had opposed his marriage to a lower class telephone operator. The judge said widow Dodge was entitled to a “a lifestyle in keeping with the Dodge family tradition”…The ruling Nazi party was rebuilding Germany’s navy. It had 150 warships and 68 submarines. All to protect the motherland, of course…The federal government said it expected construction of Cornwall Armoury to be completed by February, if not sooner. Sod-turning for the $225,000 building took place in May 1937. The department of defence called it one of the finest armouries in the country.
ONCE UPON A TIME: When Baby Boomers went to school they had fire drills, now they have lockdown drill…Remember when your parents were 50 and you thought it seemed so old?… Amazing how the older we got, the smarter our parents became…Even if you are not a country music fan, give a listen to Alan Jackson’s hit “Remember When”…A thing called penmanship…Spelling contests and being the last one picked and first one out…Having to stand in the corner..Writing out, “I will not talk in class” 100 times and missing recess.
TRIVIA ANSWER: Paul Lynd always had the centre square in the TV show ‘Hollywood Squares’.
TRIVIA: In the CBS show ‘Cannon’ – which ran from 1971-76 – this actor played Frank Cannon, the retired Los Angeles detective who became a private detective.
