The Significance of the Pickle

[Rev Blair]

Ah, I like Bill, PhDP, except for the way he started pushing the religion thing after he decided to retire.

 

Toews, on the other hand, promotes ignorance even while he uses that ignorance to lie to us. He should have been run out of politics after having to plead no contest to breaking election finance laws, but it hardly even made the news because everybody is afraid of pointing out the dangerous backwardness so pervasive in Manitoba's bible belt.

 

I was in a field yesterday, with the little grey truck, because Blaikie is retiring and it looks like Toews is going to finally have to leave politics. Seems he fathered a child out of wedlock while in Ottawa and his wife is a little pissed off about it. Normally that would kind of disappear in modern Canadian politics, it wouldn't matter, but Toews built his political career on being what the opposition calls the Minister of Family Values.

 

Anyway, I've been trying to get a couple of young people to step up and try to take over the NDP nominations in these ridings. One would replace Blaikie and get a job, and the other would challenge whoever replaces Toews and lose.

 

I've been trying to do this without getting involved in the party, because the powers that be within the NDP have enough problems without having to deal with me. I frighten them, and they likely don't need to be photographed with some beer-swilling piece of white trash who forgets to put his smoke out before wandering into public places. It would be like having Jamie Heath back, but without the fashion sense.

 

So I dragged these two poor, unsuspecting people out into a field on the pretense of rescuing the remains of a 1969 International Harvester flatbed for a farm museum.

 

I knew it was going to be muddy and wet, so I brought the dogs. I thought there would be a working tractor available though, a smallish John Deere with a cab, so I left the beer at home. It was only supposed to take an hour or two.

 

So I never checked on the tractor. I met the kids in the yard and they clambered into my truck, fighting for seat space with the dogs, and we made it almost halfway down the little mud path that led back to the International before the truck...well...sunk.

 

We got out and appraised the situation and I kind of got them talking about running. Then I announced that I was going to get the tractor, called the dogs, and began the longish walk back to the yard. I thought that was pretty smooth...I'd let them convince each other to run.

 

It started pouring of course, and I was soaked to the bone by the time I got back to the shop. There was no tractor, just a note saying that it was getting new fuel injectors and I should try again some other time.

 

I grabbed a logging chain and a hand winch and headed back out in the rain. It took almost four hours to get the truck back to solid ground. Jack it up, drive and/or winch it off the jack, repeat as necessary. Even the dogs were giving me reproachful looks by the time we reached the yard.

 

I do think I convinced one of the kids to run though...in the riding that can't be won. If he can increase vote share by two or three percent it will be a miracle. If he can knock on doors without being assaulted, it will be surprising. That is not an NDP riding down there.

 

He asked me for advice before he got in his car and I got in my truck. "Tell them about today," I said, "Rednecks love stories like this."

 

The other kid, had decided to ride back to town with me since his car (a nice new Dodge) wouldn't start. He was seated unhappily under Max the dog, who was dripping mud and in the mood for hugs. He (the kid, not Max) looked at me as we pulled out onto the highway and said, "I'm going to that dig up north. Is Nikki running again?"

 

He's an archaeology grad student and somebody found a giant conch from the premian period in the mud or something...I wasn't paying attention because the mud was flying off the tires right about then and it was like driving on four flat tires.

 

I caught the part about Nikki though...she lost the last time out because of a weird vote split. I have no idea if she's running or not, but I promised to put in a good word for him if he wants to work for her. I left out the part where she likely doesn't remember me...didn't want to discourage the lad.

 

So that's the short version of the tale of the mud, PhDP. I see an opening for some real change, so I'm pushing people to run. As near as I can tell, there is an election coming at some point and now is a good time to play politics within the party...at least as long as I don't have to actually get too involved with the party.