It was a great day for MALARKEY

It was a great day for MALARKEY
by Dr. Precloud Jónsson

When I started this column, I was worried that I might run out of MALARKEY to write about, but, for better or for worse, that hasn’t been the case. In fact it’s been the reverse! Ever since I started it up, it seems like the malarkey I have to wade through on a daily basis has only grown deeper. It’s at the point where I’m wondering if my writing about malarkey is attracting more of it to me. I read recently that when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back, so perhaps it is so.

I’ve read a lot of interesting things lately, in fact. My cousin, who knows I’m interested in my Icelandic heritage, recently sent me two books she had found in a thrift store somewhere in Manitoba. One was called Modern Sagas: The Story of the Icelanders in North America, by a lady named Thorstina Walters. I didn’t even know Thorstina was a real name! Anyway, it turns out that she was born in North Dakota to a guy named Thorleifur Joakimson Jackson (that’s a mouthful!) and a lady called Gudrun Jonsdottir. They had some odd names in North Dakota! She went to school in Winnipeg and then was a social worker for a while, and during World War II she worked with the censorship office of the U.S. Government. But then she had to quit because she was afflicted with multiple sclerosis, a terrible disease. Her book was published in 1953, and I think it must have been one of the first books about the experience of the early North American Icelanders.

The other book I got from my cousin was called Gimli Saga, and it seems to be the whole history of Gimli, Manitoba, at least up until around 1974. There are lots of great stories in this book, but lots of boring ones too, mostly about funny-named people I’ve never heard of. But there were some startling facts, like that Gimli didn’t get its first skating rink until 1920, or the time the town held a referendum on whether or not to get indoor plumbing, and almost 80% were in favour of it. This was in 1957!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Icelanders are a crazy bunch. Who wouldn’t want indoor plumbing? And in Gimli in the dead of winter you’re as likely as not to get frozen stuck to the seat! But in the book it says that the ones who resisted the change were afraid it would lead to higher taxes. And of course it did. Here in B.C. we have high taxes, that’s for sure, and sometimes it makes me wonder what we pay all those comptrollers for! A lot of red tape? I think they manage to waste more money than all the Bernie Madoffs and Conrad Blacks in the world!

That’s enough about comptrollers, though – but in my mind they are the biggest MALARKEY producers this side of your average jersey cow! It’s all about being the master of your own little fiefdom. Well, I say who elected you? I don’t remember seeing the position of comptroller – a sinecure if I ever saw one – on the last election ballot I filled out! No, these guys are in there for life, just like Mussolini thought he was.

But Mussolini – well, we all know what happened to him. Hung up to dry from a lamppost with his pants around his ankles. I’m not saying I want that to happen to any comptrollers – I’m just saying we have different value systems, the comptrollers and I. Do they even have comptrollers in Iceland? I don’t think so. I may have to move there just to get away from them, but the trouble is I love the weather in B.C. so much! People say it rains too much here, but I say what are you made of, sugar? You won’t melt.

I see that I have neglected once again to include the household hints I was hoping to fit in to this week’s column – these columns are just too short, and I think you’ll agree! (Perhaps you should all write to the editor and ask him to give me more room!) But I’ll get to one next week, and it has to do with cleaning out the ashtray in your car by the simple application of a poultice made from cotton batting, some Robatussin and just a few drops of Dr. Scholl’s Clear-Away Fast-Acting Liquid Wart Remover.