{"id":5846,"date":"2023-05-21T23:12:45","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T03:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=5846"},"modified":"2023-05-21T23:12:45","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T03:12:45","slug":"do-you-believe-in-magic","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=5846","title":{"rendered":"“Do You Believe in Magic?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 \u201c<\/strong>Do You Believe in Magic?\u201d<\/h3>\n

by Barry S. Wolfe<\/p>\n

Bacon Scrapins<\/em><\/strong> are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a<\/em> bacon scrapin<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since we recently moved into our newest home, what with Covid restrictions and all, it had been a long time since we\u2019d visited the resort town along the lake. Being a mature, responsible, caring, and modest husband, who does not like to raise the anxiety levels of left-versus-right with my wife, I decided to use the car\u2019s GPS and let \u2018the voice\u2019 do the guiding.<\/p>\n

It’s a no-brainer. I entered our postal code and our destination postal code and pushed \u201cSet as Destination\u201d. Seat belts were fastened, dessert was safely on the floor in the back, and we were off.<\/p>\n

Petersburg, Wellesley, Crosshill, Millbank, Listowell. Listowell? \u2018The voice\u2019 said to go right through Listowell and keep on truckin\u2019 west. My inner voice said, \u201cNo! We turn at #9 and head to Teviotdale.\u201d I didn\u2019t want to upset my wife, who is always dozing 10 minutes after leaving anywhere, by arguing with \u2018the voice\u2019 because it doesn\u2019t listen anyway.<\/p>\n

OK, we\u2019re through Listowell, past Molesworth and \u2018the voice\u2019, who can draw maps on the screen for me, showed that I was looking for the #34 turn and heading toward Gorrie. I thought to myself, \u201cI can\u2019t remember the last time I was through Gorrie. It\u2019s a pleasant day, let\u2019s try her adventure.\u201d\u00a0 I made the turn.\u00a0 Proceeded north. And went around the curve.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when \u2018the voice\u2019 said, \u201cKeep slightly left.\u201d I did. And was on gravel. \u201cWoah! Hold your horses! This cowboy ain\u2019t drivin\u2019 long distances on gravel!\u201d Oops. I had said it out loud, as I toed the brakes to bring us to the side of a country road. Beautiful surroundings, but we\u2019re on gravel. Gravel! My wife is now alert and has an opinion about a couple of things regarding our situation, all of which relate to my skills, but it\u2019s best to let that ride.<\/p>\n

What does a man do when he seems to be in the wrong place, and thus \u201cLost!\u201d – in one person\u2019s opinion?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about all other men, but this one has been married for 45 years and wants to stay that way.\u00a0 I did the obvious. I said, \u201cWould you take out that folding map of yours from the door panel and let\u2019s take a look at our options.\u201d In reality, I didn\u2019t even have to ask, because she was pulling it out as I was talking.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m proud to say, I pushed \u2018Cancel Route\u2019, tuned to the Elvis channel for her, and we were able to see beautiful downtown Gorrie, Wroxeter and Belmore among others. I don\u2019t remember the last time I\u2019d been through any of them. All on paved roads. We eventually arrived at our lakeside destination, and were only 5 minutes behind what \u2018the voice\u2019 had predicted. Amazing what \u2018accepting a little guidance\u2019 can do!<\/p>\n

Now, I enjoy a comfortable ride in the country, on dry paved roads, the same as the next person, but this GPS \u2018voice\u2019 needed some fine-tuning. It seems that I had not \u201cprogrammed\u201d it completely. I had given it permission to find the shortest, fastest route. In this case, that included a gravel road. The GPS would have placed us at our destination, eventually, probably, maybe with some unfortunate events along the way that I didn\u2019t want to experience, so carefully programming the GPS, with restrictions, before heading out on a journey, is very important I concluded.<\/p>\n

Being a somewhat random thinker sometimes, it occurred to me that programming a GPS is less important than being able to program the political people we elect. It\u2019s similar. We have a destination we want our province to go. We elect someone (like our GPS) to guide us there, but along the way we might find they, whoever they are, are going off in unpromised directions. We decide that we don\u2019t want to go their fastest, shortest, cheapest route.<\/p>\n

I think we should be able to \u2018stop-the-car\u2019, reprogram the politicians, and get back on the right road.<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t that be magic?<\/p>\n

NOTE: Characters and names in this Bacon Scrapins tale are fictional. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You may email appropriate comments for the writer to thisiswilmot@gmail.com<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins \u2013 \u201cDo You Believe in Magic?\u201d by Barry S. Wolfe Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin. Since we recently moved into our newest home, what with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4072,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5846","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5846"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5847,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5846\/revisions\/5847"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}