4 ~ Wednesday, September 29, 1993 — North Shore News

Gritting teeth to make a

‘STRICTLY PERSONAL

K¥ WAS with horror and
disbelief that 1 saw the Vote
Liberal sign going inte the
front lawn.

A pickup truck had driven up
and three gentlemen had climbed

out, sliding this huge sign off the
back of the truck.

We are talking a poster fit for
Big Brother. There’s this can-
didate’s face in black and white,
and red stripes on the side.

It was the biggest political sign
on anybody’s yard in the entire
neighborhood, if not the entire
nation.

Our litte two-storey house
seemed dwarfed behind this titanic
flaming-red billboard. (I'm exag-
gerating only slightly, you under-
stand.)

“What the hell,’ 1 half-snarl-
ed, half-choked to my beloved |
life-companion, ‘‘is going on?
Who are these men? What're they
doing with that sign?’’

“We've been talking about it
for months!’’ my wife exclaimed.

1

lawn
Oct. 1.
Since May 29;

p.m.

sprinkling irestrictions on
residents have
been limited to sprinkling twice a
weck from 4 to 3 4.m. and 7 to 10

i
Despite a relatively coo!, rainy-

“About a billboard in our front
yard?**

“About the Liberals! We agreed
the Tories have got to go, and the
best bet for getting rid of them is
to vate Liberal! Don’t try to
weasel out of it!’

“But I was going to do that in
the privacy of the voting booth.”*

She sneered.

“I’m a journalist," | pleaded.
“*] keep my opinions to myself.’*

She laughed harshly.

So now I’m staring at the giant
Vote Liberal sign in my front
yard, dwarfing everybody else's
minuscule Vote Conservative and
Vote Reform signs. (if Nancy
Morrison could see this, | ponder
sadly.)

It doesn’t actually say as much,
but the subtext to the billboard in
my front yard, in the midst of this
very conservative suburban
Canuck enclave where | currently
live, is:

VOTE LIBERAL, PURGE:
THE TORY BEAST! DRIVE IT
BACK INTO ITS CAVE! HAIL
JEAN, THE REDEEMER! —

Something to that effect. Scary.

My teenage son is proud. At 74,
he is fascinated with politics. He
says he would never fight a war
unless somebody like the Ameri-
cans tried to invade Canada, in
which case he would fight them to
the death.

His parents, he notes with
grudging respect, even though
renowned as last-minute wafflers,
have come out in the open early in
the game, offering their strategic
corner lot as 2 billboard location
for a candidate for the Liberal
Party of Canada.

He'd heard us yapping about
how the Tories had to go. Now
the time has come, he agrees with
his mother, to raise up a flay, any
flag, make a statement, stand

Lawn sprinkling ban lifted
“THE GREATER Vancouver :
Regionat District (GVRD) is lifting

summer and water reservoirs at
unusually high levels, the GVRD
has continued to implement
sprinkling restrictions.

GVRD staff members are
recommending that two-day lawn
sprinkling restrictions be in effect
each year from May to September.

at our office, next door to the White
Won in Park: Royal South,

est Vancouver.

Thursed

On Oct. 254

y, Sep. 3Oth
ai 73:30 AM

Make Your Vote Coeszt !

Put up a lawn sign for
Reform—-call 926-6659

Constituency Office: 768 Marine Dr.

West Vancouver Y7T 1A6

somewhere, have a bloody opi-
nion...

Little did the lad know how
much this smarted, to be backing
the long-loathed Grit scumbags.
How could he know? | have only
voted Liberal once before, and
that was the year of
Trudeaumania, long before the
boy was invented,

ft even happened to be living at
the time in the Burnaby ciding
where NDP leader Tommy
Douglas was running.

He got defeated by Ray Per-
rault, the Liberal, who went on to
become a fairly major federal
backroom wihceeler-dealer.

{ don’t think anyone would call
Senator Perrault a secular saint, as
Tommy arguably was.

Maybe you had to be there at
the time.

Anyway, that was my first
adult-level entry into ‘‘pro-
gressive’’ federal politics, iust this
side of going Naming Coramic,
which was still how socialists were
mainly viewed on the Prairies in
the late ‘50s. You were cither with
them or against them.

Having read Orwell, I voted

‘Follow John the first time. That,

some will recall, was the Diefen-
baker slogan.

{1 fled abroad. When I came
back, it was to discover that my
left-wing British bride could
cancel my vote, having
automatically, by marrying me
and moving to Canada, acquired
the right to vote both here and in
the U.K., which tweaked my little
cowboy nationalist nose no end.

Came Trudeau, | admit I got
caught up in it. Bellbottoms. Love
brads. Long hair. An cra.

Since then, I've waffled between
Left and Right, although mainly
having backed the NDP except
once, when it was time to turn
Mulroney, fraud that he was,
loose on the corrupt and decadent
Liberals.

John Turner, on bended knee,
had accepted the tainted sword
from Trudeau, and had to be
slaughtered at the polls.

It was punishment. | think
that’s all that. really happens ina
democratic election.

You hear the expression ‘‘gov-
ernments defeat themselves."’ But
I think there’s something more.
It’s as emotional as it can be, one
of the basic drives, you might say.

CONDOS Si

SPARWOOD

in 8.C.'s Rocky Mountains

% 1&2 bedroom units
& Golf & skiing
& Hunting

Revenge.

Yep. Sweet. Simple. As pure as
slugging someone in the chops.

So here we sit, with a huge
cardboard Vote Libera! sail un-
furled above our front lawn...

i note that down the street, the
husband and the wife cannot
agree. There is both a Vote Liber-
al and a Vote Conservative sign
out front. One has been pulled
down once, and put back up.

The gentlemen who put up the
sign warned us before they left:
“Some signs have been torn
down, a couple were buried.”

i

The ‘war zone: e: suburbia, 1993.

$15, 900

. "FULL. PRICE»
Fee simpie. Not time
share nor lease.

4% Appliances included
& Fishing
& Snowmobiiing

& Nearby stores & services 4 Excellent rental income

Crosby, Galbraith & Associates Lid.
Phone:604-669-5822 Fax: 604- '669- 5823
Toll Free t- 800-663- 1428