“I can’t figure out these people who work at the post office,” Dave Winston said the other morning as the guys sat down at Mabel’s Grill. “It’s got so I hate to waste energy walking down the lane to the mail box every day because, if there’s anything there at all, it’s usually just flyers. And yet the postal workers want more money.”
“Even more money isn’t enough,” George MacKenzie grumbled. “The union told workers they should turn down the raises the post office was offering – and this from a company that the government had to bail out with a billion dollars just a few months ago!”
“I think the union thinks the government will just continue to cough up money to keep the mail going so they can ask for more,” said Cliff Murray.
“Even our government isn’t that stupid,” George grouched.
“What are you guys grumbling about this morning?” wondered Molly Whiteside as she delivered their menus. “I heard George say something about the government, as usual.”
“We just wondered if they were stupid enough to give in to the union and give postal workers more money,” Cliff explained.
“I have to go all the way downtown for the mail so I don’t even go down every day,” Molly sighed. “The last time all I got was a flyer for a special offer for a pizza at a shop in the town 10 miles away.”
“Just the same, I look forward to getting The Rural Voice once a month,” said Dave. “What would happen to that if they shut down mail delivery completely?”
“Anyway,” Molly said in a low voice as she peeked at the kitchen to see if Mabel was listening, “I know we’re not supposed to talk politics but I’ve been wondering what you guys thought of Donald Trump saying Canada should be the 51st state of the U.S.?”
“Well I agree with the guy on a lot of things, but he’s nuts on that subject” grumbled George. “I mean Canada is bigger than the entire United States and he’s going to make us one state?”.
“I think he might regret it if we did join them,” chuckled Cliff. “I mean the provincial premiers already fight with the federal government all the time. What would they say if they found out they were going to lose their jobs completely.”
“There’s no sense wasting our breath on such a useless subject,” Dave said. “Are you ready to take our orders? I’ll have bacon and eggs – and coffee, of course.”
Molly took the rest of their orders and headed back to the kitchen.
“Well, I hate to complain but I’m almost glad to see the end of summer,” George said. “I mean it was so hot so many days. Luckily we had enough rain early on, so we got a decent hay crop and the wheat straw was good, but I just got so exhausted from the heat.”
“I hope we get a decent yield on the corn,” Dave worried.
“I was seeing they’re having a terrible drought in some places in the prairies,” George said.
“Yeah, and I was reading this book The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah – a sort of modern, female take on John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath — and they were dealing with the years-long drought in Texas, and the conflict that came when a lot of people answered flyers they saw from big California landowners who told them to go there. But then regular Californians felt threatened by the strangers who flooded in wearing old clothes. It seemed so long ago but when I was checking on the internet, I saw they had a drought in western Canada in the 1970s I didn’t even remember.”
“There’s always something to worry about,” sighed George.
“I wonder if Donald Trump would be so happy to have us as the 51st state if we had another Great Depression?” Dave wondered.
“As long as the rich people prospered, I doubt if he’d worry about the people in old clothes,” Cliff answered. ◊