“Harry Says,” by Harry Evans, published in the Picton Gazette, 10 August, 1973

Well, we got our rain just when the grain harvest started.

Right now in our Tropic Midsummer, nature is having one hell of a time. The grass, even with the rain, is reluctant to green up, but the weeds — how they flourish! — green, healthy, thrusting a jungle growth everywhere.

To Larry Matheson, the Ag. Rep. — you’ve been to Guelph and know the ins and outs of agriculture hey? — Well what is Ambrosia Artermistiaefolia?

So you give up? Leafing through a book, I find this is the name of the common ragweed — also called wild tansy, bitterweed, hayweed, and stammerwort — or, that durned weed.

This bleeder of a weed was responsible in this Evans household for my son, John, not following in his father’s footsteps–the holy profession of farming. He developed hay fever every time the ragweed happened when he was 12. Now he’s in Vancouver. Said once he’d rather live at the North Pole than take the misery this pest creates.

I figure a quarter of the people reading this column will be weeping, with running noses and h’itching larynxes over the next few months until the grateful first killing frost ends the menace. Now I know why Ontarians emmigrate to B.C. There ain’t no ragweed and hay fever — ain’t much fun whichever way you look at it.

Besides ragweed, burdocks, frig weeds and wild chicory flourish in all their glory, and last night, I was kept awake by my first cricket. After 75 chirps at three-second intervals he stopped. I rolled over and just falling over the precipice of sleep. He started — 68 more chirps then he stopped again. I rolled over again and snugged down thinking, you can’t win. That’s how many bites out of my new carpets!

I figure a cricket chirps every time he takes a bite. Twelve thousand bites later, I still hadn’t slept and it was chore time.

Besides rag weeds and crickets, I don’t think I ever see a crop of poison ivy looks so good since I come over here. It grows all over the fences, climbing juniper and cedar and out into the fields — and guess what! Cows love it. They chew it avidly. I made a discovery! Where cows is, poison ivy ain’t. So if you want to get rid of poison ivy, get yourselves a cow and stake her out in a clump of poison ivy. Maybe you could even build up a resistance drinking poison ivy inoculated milk from such cows. — There is an idea doc, hey?

August again is full of surprises. You see all the barn swallows gathered on the hydro wires. About every six or 10 miles you come across the hydro wires plastered with swallows by the hundreds. I reckon now they’ve staked out special wires. Where the hell they perched before hydro wires is your guess, not mine.

So the Missus hung a wash out, and two hours later, 500 swallows were perched on the wire that runs from the drivehouse to the house and the wire is exactly overhead the washin’??

Over in town today, I noticed while mentioning ragweed, every drug store is stocked up with anti-histamines and one lady in Inrig’s was complaining about golden rod. After I got out the door, I began to feel August was a month that should never of been invented. And when I got ’ome the Missus complained about the mice in her cupboards. That’s when I found out that mousetraps or micetraps, are still only 17 cents apiece at Fennell’s Grocery in spite of inflation.

When I handle mouse traps I’m filled with trepidation. I’m short-sighted and all thumbs when you set the ’air trigger! I’m wearing a band aid on my thumb and have reverted to mice seed and Warfarin. It took a while to wean ’em off the corn flakes and rice crispies. Now they are rotting in the studs. Ain’t August one sweet month!

The holidays are better than half way over after Civic Holiday period the VACANCY signs will be off, and in no time all the kids will be gone from underfoot.

I was thinking about the annual negotiations for raises for teachers, and figured the best time to bargain would be just a week before Labour Day. After 2 1/2 months of kids at home, parents would be prepared to meet just about any demands during negotiations.

Stores will take the “For Sale” signs down. Parents head for home, then the outfitting caper begins. So parents, hang on. It’s just four more weeks to Labour Day.

Got to mention my first flight in a jet on my trip to Wisconsin. Was in five different jets on this short return trip. All times I sat over the wing. The jet was about three times the length of a bus, but with seats five across, about 150 seats in all. I figured the wings didn’t seem to be much bigger than an old Lancaster bomber and wings being the lifting surface, figured we were just flyin’ on the burners.

When the pilot took off in a climbing turn, a baby in arms started howling. I looked down the wing tip at the deck and wished the guy would level off.

Then the pilot came in on the loudspeaker. He was Irish – (they were all Irish on North Central Air), so figured with their Rosaries tucked under their shirts we were in good hands.

The champagne flights are a myth. The bits of food we got were terrible — pancakes, syrup and three sausages. The tea was awful and the artificial milk powder worse. Signs told us we couldn’t drink the cheap custom-free good booze we bought for $4.25 a 32 oz. from the duty free shop. A shot of licker cost $1.50. Most of us had crocks we couldn’t open.

Using the “John” following the call, we hit turbulence and dropped 20 feet and I missed the hole. Finished up swabbing up with paper towels. Some champagne flight!

Pulled into Detroit. Found we had an electrical malfunction. The mechanic who looked the aircraft over shrugged his shoulder and held his hands out palms up — he didn’t know w’ot was up. I thought, Blimey!

Found if you run out of oxygen, you reached up and plugged a mask in while gaspin’ like a landed pickerel I reckoned. The cushions we sat on Were the life jackets and the exits were over the wings or maybe down the toilets. Who cared? We made the same climbing turn. I turned to Bob Carson and said, “I wish he would get off the end of the wing and straighten out. I’m nervous.”

Bob said, “You never know what could happen up here when things go wrong. You just blow up in a million pieces.”

Anyways, I made it home. I don’t go too much for jettin’.

Almost forgot, we had such a large itinerary on in Wisconsin going from farm to farm and factory to factory nobody had time to use their crocks and we brought them back to Canada. Then we all worried, would we pay duty after all? I figured if we broke the seal and took a slug all would be well, so we all broke the seal and took a slug before Toronto.

Then I thought, it would be worth a few bucks even if everybody had to pay duty.

I was the first to the barrier. The customs guy asked, “Anything to declare?”

I yelled, “Yeah! We all bought a bottle of whiskey before we left Toronto and we still got ’em.”

–Harry.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: In the 22 August issue of the Gazette, Harry responded to some readers’ comments on this column, as follows.]

A reader writes, “Harry, your letter about hay fever: Many people trace this allergy to psychiatric causes. With treatment, the patient responds.”

Dear Reader: So it’s all in your head when a person develops hay fever? I agree. Some people start to sneeze when they just look at ragweed—but there are some who sneeze when they catch a glimpse of goldenrod.

There are people who sneeze laying on chicken feathers. There are people who sneeze over a box of detergent. Maybe it’s all in their minds. One thing I do know, if I was allergic to hay, I wouldn’t have to handle 7,000 bales of hay three or four times over a year. Maybe it just could be all in their heads, but not in mine, yet. Harry.

Another reader writes: “Harry are you aware that crickets are ventriloquists and can throw their voices? Try it sometime?”

Dear Reader: When I read your note I investigated. After tuning in my hearing aid on the crickets’ chirp, I walked towards the sound and you were right. The sound now came from behind me—when I walked to the new location, the sound came from up a corner of the kitchen. Crickets do throw their voices!

Another reader writes: “Dear Harry: Crickets do not chirp. They make the sound with their fast-moving legs and wings which sounds like a chirp but isn’t. The voice of the cricket really is the cricket’s legs and wings whirring.”