Column: Joe Morinville

Did you miss me?

It’s been over a year since I did my last column for this rag when the owner took his last holiday. Now he’s on holidays again and begged me to churn out a column of my wisdom and opinion.

So here’s a few of my thoughts this summer.

A celebration worth noting

I read in this rag that Jim and Colleen Turner are celebrating 20 years in business this week. That’s a heck of a milestone. I can think of a lot of business what came and went in a year or two. I remember when they were in a little shop next to the Chinese restaurant and Jim fixed the missus’ wedding ring right after he opened. She said the reason the stone fell out is ’cause I bought her a cheap ring set. So from then on we was customers of Turner.

Business is a tough deal. When a company lasts two decades in a row, and can still be a giving part of a town, you ought to tip your hat and thank them for giving good service and not forgetting where they came from.

The bike shop guy

We used to have a bike guy downtown. I’m getting old, so I don’t remember his name, but he was set up where the coffee shop is now. Of course some days I don’t remember my own name. Might be because my wife never calls me by it. For a while she called me by a name pretty regular that they won’t let me write in this article.

Anyways, now we got a new bike guy I read in this rag and see on the Rant and Rave page. Seems he’s takin’ old bikes and making new ones out of old bikes and parts.

I’ve not met him, but I got to tip my hat to him too because I see he’s giving as much as he’s receiving.

Makes me proud to live here knowing people are using their skills to help others.

Junk out of my trunk

To all you people I am reading about dumping your garbage at the Midstream and other places taking donations, you ought to stop.

When you move to this town they give you a little tag you can use to drive a mile down the road and dump yer junk at the landfill. Hell, I hear the Landfill even set up a shack now where you can take stuff and leave stuff. Just like they do in town twice a year, except it is year round.

These charities like midstream sell cups and saucers for a dime or a quarter, and use that money to feed kids, get presents for folks with no money to give to their kids at Christmas, and do all kinds of stuff you garbage dumpers would probably not get off your backsides to do. You wheelin’ up in a fancy truck, dumping cast offs ain’t helping them. You’re costing them money.

So you ought to just stop it.

Election’s are coming

Going to be a provincial and federal election next year, so you ought to watch for the NDP MLAs and Liberal MPs making the rounds to show what a good job they have done with your tax money.

You’ll not likely see much of our current MLA, who I might add, never did open an office here like he said he would. Of course with a boundary change next election, he’ll be running in a different race.

I can’t be too upset though because I’ve seen Glen around at a lot of stuff in this town and others they still let me visit for coffee.

And the other guy. Whether you are a blue conservative or not, at least young Mr. Dane Lloyd, our federal MP, has an office at Putnam the lawyer’s place for people to go make their complaints and get help.

Politics sucks and here’s why

And speaking of politics and politicians.

The purpose of an opposition party is to hold the government’s feet to the fire. And that’s OK. They ought to do that, especially on stupid stuff.

But it seems to me that Mr. Kenney and Mr. Scheer, one of whom I like and one of whom I don’t (you guess which) seem focused on just making Facebook posts criticizing whatever the guys in power is doing.

How about – with elections so damned close – telling us what you’d do differently.

Those of us who have voted since bellbottoms were worn the first time have seen it all and done three-quarters of it. And some of it we did without the chemicals that some of us took in the ’60s.

Spending your efforts making posts on the Facebook about immigrants are not appealing to us who remembered our parents spoke negativity talking about how DPs (Displaced Persons) after World War II would ruin the country and how those “Boat People” after the Vietnam War would ruin the country. Both of those immigrant groups seemed to fit in and make Canada home just fine.

These opposition politicians need to remember that a good majority of those 40% voting in elections are seniors that have not forgotten the BS fear tactics of the past.

Surely – immigration needs to be dealt with correctly. But it is time to start telling us voters what you’d do different and less of what Mr. Trudeau and Ms. Notley are doing wrong.

We’re not stupid. We already know that.

Well, that’s about all I got. Probably see youse all in another year.

P.S. The only reason I did this column to help out at holiday time is because the publisher told me he’d had a beer with Joe Jacob, and Joe was saying he missed my wisdom. Joe always poured me a good beer at the Legion, so this one’s for you. Happy retirement.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

3 Comments

  1. Good to see you back Joe… And – as usual – you’re bang-on with your comments.

    Please don’t wait another whole year to give us some of your gems of wisdom!

Comments are closed.