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Somebody's gotta do it

History and Commentary from a Prairie Perspective


This is the sixth day of April. Yesterday morning we were insulted again by a brief scattering of fluffy snow. Memory takes me back to spring days of long ago. In May, the village rejoiced in a peaceful cobalt blue sky and the shimmering green of grass and trees. It was a time of hope. Even the farmers dared to think the thirsty land would be blessed by more than snow melt, that summer would bring no dust-laden winds to obscure the blazing sun.


This was the blessed interval when the pupils from country schools came to the village to participate in what was called a field day. In those years, country school boards scrambled to find 10 pupils, which was the number needed to obtain a provincial grant. The country schools were all multi-grade with only one teacher. Pupils ranged in age from beginners to older teenagers. Most of them were transported to the village in the boxes of farm trucks. Every school had a banner and a yell.


The only high school in the area was in the village. I looked forward to the time when I could make legitimate use of its yell, which went like this:


Themistocles, Themistocles, the Peloponnesian War ,


X squared, Y squared, H2SO4,


A French verb, a Latin verb, Archimedes Law


Eatonia High School. Rah! Rah! Rah!


This was all very academic and so was I. I was never given control of puppet strings when a creative teacher staged a puppet show, but I built the sets, painted puppet faces and sang Pinocchio's songs. I was proud of myself until other young males told me all I could do was "sissy stuff." Field day arrived and I was the kid who couldn't run fast, jump high or hit or catch a ball. I was ashamed.


I know now that I was an essential element in those long-ago athletic contests. For a happy young student to earn a red, blue or white ribbon, others had to lose. I was very good at losing. I am still a loser. So are most of the people in the world. When I was in school somebody had to fill the ceramic water cooler that stood in the entryway of the school below the long-vanished school district plaque. Presumably, the same person looked after the coal furnace, brushed dustbane over wooden floors, cleaned windows, cultivated the shelterbelt trees and pumped out the foul-smelling cesspool. He did it because somebody had to it. He did it in order to survive.


In 2014, the disparity between rich and poor is still growing. Most human beings do what they must do in order to have even the simplest necessities of life - even if it means turning to unsophisticated crime. A very small proportion of the world's population are sophisticated criminals with offshore bank accounts. They are screened by well-paid liars and conniving politicians. They are the people who can do whatever they please unless restrained by the rare governments that have the courage to do it.


At the end of this column, my exhortations are again an expression of my perennial hope for the triumph of justice in a ravaged planet. Somebody's gotta do it.