With everything from drifted hardpack snow mounted on blizzard conditions a couple of Saturdays back to the mud flurries packed in ice pellets just two days ago, what can you do?
The long, hungry month of March is moderated in the hope of a federal income tax return, even as current bilateral government programs look to hold benefits for job-stressed volunteers and veterans alike as the summer tourism season looms.
From joint financing for medical and educational programs, in addition to tri-governance sharing on social programs and local infrastructure demands, there is hope in the promise that all works out as it should, even intended.
It is budget time.
My budget has been stretched a while now. I am glad to be working and without the worries of death and taxes — I am like that — pressing on. I just don’t worry.
It is what it is. Life.
Unadulterated taxes and adulterated reality. Counting on the country, counting on grace, counting nickels and pennies are obsolete.
Provincially, even as powers that be made sure the lights were on at the Brier curling championship which lit the rest of the province with dignity at the Gushue rink’s exciting victory two weeks ago, the juice fell short in some other places, and in more ways than one.
It was good to see a social media message from Premier Dwight Ball advising folks online that power outages and emergency services were at the forefront of concern and personnel were at the call during the March 11 blizzard.
Among others in Bay of Islands, as elsewhere across the province, that weekend storm affected schoolboys’ basketball and men’s darts teams playing their respective provincial championship tournaments in Ferryland and Marystown.
The teams from western Newfoundland, including Templeton Academy’s AAA basketball Tigers, and dartsmen from Curling and McIvers, had their tourneys postponed by the wind and snow. Alternative playoffs stand in the making, and thousands of community dollars more are needed to get competitors to and from their future title venues.
Truthful or not, the taxman appeared to come knocking for reconciliation with T-1 matching telephone interviews organized relating to reported alleged tax filings from at least two years ago while all this was happening. Taxpayers still don’t know if it is real or a hoax.
It surely all bugs me. Not that that’s not bad enough, what the heck is fake news, anyway? There’s nothing new about fake. It’s a lie. The oldest sin. Fake. The who, what, when and where for the not too wise.
But surely it is the meek who shall inherit the Earth.
I rest my case.
I am a case.
A case and a half, sometimes.
MMA ends season
The changeful weather of springtime has all but brought an end to the season for hockey players and skating purists alike on the lower north shore.
And there is no ice on the bay.
Cox’s Cove Recreation, which manages the naturally iced dome that is Marshall Moores Arena in Cox’s Cove, will soon make it official with the announcement of its annual season-closing banquet, a celebration of volunteers and patrons who keep the rink going each year.
In the meantime, freezer plants at the Bay of Islands Civic Centre in Corner Brook were working fine at last check.
Besides the western senior league Royals, there is a Battle of the Badges coming up this month, a worthwhile cause in support of Muscular Dystrophy Canada and in memory of Sean Neary, an esteemed local athlete who died young last year.
Good stuff!
Kudos, all.
— Dave White welcomes your Bay of Islands news and events at 688-2003 or email at [email protected].