Maritime Notebook - Miscellaneous Ramblings

Lemon returns to his land of birth to hopefully shed his cynicism. He is unsuccessful...

Driving toward Nova Scotia from Saint John Airport, I had the opportunity to listen to CBC Radio, with some difficulty because of a weak signal. Maybe the CBC signal is purposefully weak in the east to make sure that not many of those way sensible Maritimers can listen to the bafflegab commonly spouted thereon. They would have no part of it, by jeezus.

Did catch a typical arts program that asked two guests to review their favorite romance films. The female guest focussed on "Fried Green Tomatoes" which this commentator thankfully has been able to avoid. The wonderful thing about this film, according to the CBC guest was the lesbian relationship between the two principal actors, Jessica Tandy and Kathy Bates. (Now I'd love to see them too writhe and wrestle in cooking oil... ed.) Little did the maximum part of the thin audience for this picture know that this was the point of Fanny Flagg's story, 'cause of course it was smothered in the plot to avoid mass demonstrations by Lesbian Haters, I guess.
The male commentator waxed poetic on "Brokeback Mountain". Nuff said.
I guess "As Good as it Gets", "To Have and Have Not", "Adam's Rib", of anything featuring Gable/Lombard, Hepburn/Tracey, Bogart/Bacall, et al weren't worthy of consideration. I wonder why?

Evidently fraudsters are swooping in on unsuspecting Maritimers. They must be because the banks are on least an Amber if not orange alert.
I went into a Scotiabank this morning in a mid-sized town to do my basic by-weekly banking, and what takes two minutes with an absolute stranger in a never visited branch in Toronto took twenty in the Maritime version. They needed three signatures.
I was not alone in my waitful agony. One woman was buying US twenties with Canadian twenties, and the teller checked each bill for counterfeit-ness and again, needed two signatures. Brings to mind the old joke about the Toronto counterfeiter who mistakenly made $15 bills. Rather than waste them, he drove to the Maritimes to trade them in. He was successful, but his change was in $7 and $8 dollar bills.
Maybe he's back at work.

Everything and everybody down here works at glacier speed. People stop in middle of the road to talk about, well, nothing. Same stuff they talked about the day before and day before. Every day down here is Groundhog Day. Quick call Bill Murray. Maritimers are so distant in all ways from celebrities that its all they can talk about - Britney, Madonna, et al. Kids do manage to dress like rappers, tho.
A right hand turn is a major effort for drivers down here, they check all four ways, look out for pedestrians, check all mirrors. Never with a cell phone in hand. And these are the 16 year old boys driving their souped up Checy Cavaliers on deserted PEI red mud roads.

I'll probably need to add to this. Hope none of my family check my site...

Lemon off for now.