DEW WORMS AND HEADHUNTERS
Last Laugh: Canadian air gives a lift to night crawlers and a weary job-hunter.
LAST LAUGH
RELATED CONTENT
Canadian air gives a lift to night crawlers and a
weary job-hunter.
By Joe Novara
In show business, they call it "being between engagements."
I've heard executives talk about "headhunters beating the
bushes" for them. Me, I was just plain looking for a
job-despite many months spent reading classifieds, scouring
the Internet, sending e-mail and snail mail.
It was about that time that I got a postcard from my Uncle
Charlie "Hap" Hazard. He has a cabin up above Sault Ste.
Marie, Canada, six miles east of the Agawa Canyon.
"Come on up," was all he wrote.
"Why not?" I thought. Maybe I could use a dose of living
close to nature.
It was during my first morning at Hap's that I learned
about his sense of time. After breakfast, we began working
on the roof of the cabin. Forty minutes later, we stopped
for coffee and a donut. Forty minutes later, we paused
again. When we had stopped for the fourth time before noon,
I finally confronted my, uncle. "Can't we just work for a
stretch? At this rate, we'll be at it all day."
"That's the point," Hap allowed. "We're not in a factory,
where work starts and stops by shifts. What good would it
do to work straight through till 4:30 and sit around for
seven hours till bedtime?"
Later that evening, after 12 cups of coffee and the same
number of snacks, I hardly had an appetite for Supper. "All
those breaks still feel like a waste of time to me," I
grumbled.
"Ha!" Hap practically barked. "You want to save time?" He
worked his lips. He felt a joke coming on, and from past
experience I knew that I could no more stop him than keep
him from sneezing.
"You remind me of the city slicker who saw a farmer lifting
a pig up to his shoulder so the pig could eat an apple off
the tree.
'Excuse me,' the city dweller said. 'Could I make a
suggestion?
The fanner just stared at him-the pig smacking his lips and
leaning toward the next apple.
'You know, if you shook the tree, the apples would fall and
the pig could just walk around and eat them off the
ground.' The farmer just stared.
The city slicker nervously continued. 'So, at the very
least, it would save time.'
The farmer spit and replied, 'Are you nuts or something?
Pigs don't care about time."'
Hap raised his eyebrows, waiting for a reaction. I calmly
asked for a second helping of apple sauce to go with my
pork chops.
