“All Shook Up”

A friend sent a list of songs today, 337 of them. Many titles evoked emotions and moods laid on by the election call. Elvis’ All Shook Up, for example. A lot of people were there, although some, those who vote by rote, the way Great Grandma, and Grandma did, are still singing Frankie Lane’s Do Not Forsake Me.

Now the experts tell me turkeys gobble, tigers growl, monkeys gibber and travelling together with the Husting Hustlers we have our national chattering class, who I’d like to ask Jack Scott’s song title, What in the World’s Come Over You?

With two major elections on this continent, both of our countries at war, while a monstrous financial tornado swirls around us, Connie Francis’ voice in the background belts out Who’s Sorry Now? they’re on the candidate picky-picky routine.

And that’s just the beginning: debt loads are deepening, poverty escalating, including, shamefully, children, low-cost housing is still “under study;” there’s no room at the inn for street children because there’s no inn, especially here; health care is apparently in crisis, as is daycare; bureaucracy and its red tape are increasing every which way but Sunday, while new taxes are being proposed, imposed and disposed with abandon, while London bridges aren’t falling down, Canadian bridges are, and taxpayers dollars are flying out of government vaults like mosquitoes hassling the migrating Porcupine caribou, leaving us quietly singing Doris Day’s Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.

We ask again, with all that swirling around, what are some of our national chattering classes going on about?

Prime ministerial sweaters, that’s what, and our neighbours chattering classes are nit-picking Sarah Palin from her lipstick to her snowshoes, while ours are on about a candidate skinny dipping in his younger days. (By the way, didn’t I see Bob Rae’s backside on TV recently, leaping from a dock, his skin as free from hair as a frog from feathers, reminding me of the Stylistics’ song, Everybody Plays the Fool?)        

All this does is get many of us humming Wolfman Jack’s Hit the Road Jack while we empathize with the school teacher helping one of her kindergarten students put on his boots, and I haven’t found a song for her, though maybe the next 337 will have one.

Anyway even with her pulling and pushing, the young boy’s boots wouldn’t go on, but they were both stubborn. Like some campaigners they persevered and finally both boots were on.

She nearly wept when he said, “Teacher they’re on the wrong feet.”

They were as difficult to take off as get on, but she kept her cool and after another struggle they were on the right feet.

That’s when the boy said, “These aren’t my boots.”

‘Tis said she bit her tongue, but instead of screaming, and shouting, “Why didn’t you say so?” she went through the struggle again, and the boots were off again.

Then the boy said, “They’re my brother’s boots. Mom made me wear them.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but she set a fine example for our campaigners, mustered her patience and wrestled the boots onto his feet again.

With a sigh of relief she asked, “Where are your mittens?”

“I stuffed them into the toe of my boots . . . .”

Yes siree, Paul, that’s a classic example of how some of us feel about this election, though who among us can match her ability to stay cool?

Oh, there’s light at the end of the tunnel; it’s the Year of the Rat in the Chinese calendar, and, since China is where many jobs have gone, and where most of our stuff now comes from, why not add advice too, eh?

So Canadian voters, according to the Chinese Zodiac, electing people born in this  election Year of the Rat is a plan. They’re: “clever and bright, sociable and family-minded. They have broad interests and a strong ability in adapting to the environment and are able to react adequately to any changes.”

Not a bad job description for an MP, eh?

That wise Confucius fellow wraps up this advice with: “He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the North Polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.”

A tip of the hat to all candidates whose swan song may be Elvis’ Heartbreak Hotel, and when it’s over. From all of us, it could be Thanks for the Memories.