Janie Canuck, Hallowe'en Crime Fighter

The above picture is the only known photo of Janie Canuck, Hallowe'en Crime Fighter.

Her fearsome costume strikes, well ..., 'fear' into the hearts of would-be candy thieves.

 

Thousands of letters pour in each year from all regions of Canada, thanking her and asking for more information about her super powers.

 

So for what it is worth, boys and girls, here is the little I have been able to learn about this well known but elusive heroine:

 

Her chapeau:  Janie Canuck really, really, really wants one of those big, red, rubber maple leaf hats but for now she is stuck with  wears this three pronged toque.

Her cape: The rumour that her cape of invincibility flies on a flag pole somewhere in Southern Ontario the rest of the year, it totally false.

Her breast plate:  Janie Canuck still believes in the blue and white.

The pants that gird her powerful loins:  red flannel pjs cunningly adorned with pictures of little white moose.

Magic mukluks:  These enable her to fight Hallowe'en crime wherever it occurs.

They can transport her in the twinkling of an eye from Tuktoyaktuk to Moose Jaw  to the Gaspé to St. John's.

 

What a gal!

 

So on behalf of all Canadians I I'd like to take this opportunity to say,

Thanks Janie Canuck!


(And to wish everyone a Happy Hallowe'en!)


***

Do Banshees Have Big Feet?

Normally I like to flaunt my Scottish heritage around Halloween.

Especially my great grandmother MacPherson who had the second sight. 

 

MacPherson!  What a great name!

My mother used to tell me that no matter where they live in the world, whenever a MacPherson dies the banshees wail.

Unfortunately, because of what I learned this week I'm afraid the banshees won't wail for me. 

If I'm lucky they might hum a few bars of "My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean".

 

You see yesterday I read that there is a difference between Celtic feet and Saxon feet.

You can read the article here.

 

Saxon feet are narrow and pointed with the toes descending neatly in size from big toe to smallest toe while Celtic feet are wider, square-ish and often have  the second toe longer than the big toe.

 

 

After I read that article I whipped off my shoes and socks and gazed in horror at my skinny, pointed feet.

I don't want to be a Saxon!

 

Oh  sure they looked good in chain mail, but those metal buckets they wore on their heads!

Jeesh.

Anyway, I have decided that even though I have the feet of a Saxon I surely must have the soul of a Celt.
 

Especially on Hallowe'en.

I hope the Banshees are good with that.

Zombies Among Us?

Image via Wikipedia

Up until last year I didn't know much about Zombies. 

I knew they were dead people who chased live people but I didn't know why.

So when the movie 'Zombieland' came out and it was billed as a comedy, I talked anther retired teacher into going to see it with me. 

I figured that I would become knowledgeable about the zombie phenomena and have a good laugh at the same time.

Right.

 "I Love Lucy" reruns are funny.

Zombieland is not.

However I did learn why zombies chase humans, (they eat people), so on one weird and sick  level, it could have been classified as a learning experience.

 Not one I intended to repeat.

 However while browsing through Tumblr the other day I happened to see an article that asked whether zombies could ever really exist.

This is where you may want to stop reading.

Still here?

Okay, don't say I didn't warn you.

The science guy whose blog I follow, replied to the question as to whether zombies could ever really exist by saying that while dead bodies cannot be reanimated

it is theoretically possible that one day the rabies virus might jump to a flu virus.

Rabies!

That's the same evil virus that killed Ol' Yeller, my baby boomer friends.

Science Guy went on to explain that if that happened, rabies would start being passed from person to person by coughing, sneezing, etc., just like the regular flu.

Which would lead to many dying, contagious,  violent, brain-inflamed, zombie-like people lurching among us tearing us limb from limb and spreading the new plague.

Jeesh.

Another reason to get the flu shot and avoid raccoons.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Related articles

• Rabies Symptoms In Humans (mademan.com)
• Can the Dead Walk? (aphilosopher.wordpress.com)

Headless in Seattle

 

Image via Wikipedia

The murder of Thomas a Becket

   


Over the next week or so, In honour of Hallowe'en I'm going to look back at a few of the things that have scared me at some point in my life.   Here is a story that I heard at a sleep over when I was in grade eight.  

It might be familiar to you, too.



 "A murderer was terrorizing a town. 

But a girl and her boyfriend didn't care.  They went parking in a dark lane one night anyway.  

After awhile they heard something so the boy  told the girl to get under a blanket and hide on the floor of the car while he  went out to investigate. Before he left  he told her that he would knock three times when he wanted to get back in the car. 

She waited a long time.  

Finally she heard tap...tap...tap...  She crawled out from under the blanket and saw her boyfriend's head stuck on the car's aerial. The wind was knocking it against the car window."

Yikes!

I don't think I slept for weeks after I heard that one.

And more than four decades later I still find it a disturbing story - as much for what it leaves out as for what it tells us.

I mean, I'd like to know what happened next.  Did the girl actually jump into the driver's seat and speed off with her boyfriend's head still impaled or did she spend the night huddled under the blanket listening to the killer rattle the door handles?

Yikes again!

As a cautionary tale for young teenage girls this one works. 


My inner fourteen year old girl will never go parking with a boy again!

*

Confessions of a Witch in the Public School System

I was once accused of promoting witchcraft within the public school system.

It happened the year I volunteered to represent the teachers at the PTA meetings.

The PTA was looking for ways to raise more money during the annual fun fair and they wanted something different. I mentioned that in my last school the fun fair had always included a fortune teller. I explained that it had been a tradition for the grade six students to write funny fortunes and then a few of them would dress up in gypsy costumes, sit in a tent and sell the fortunes to little kids for 25¢.

It was a lot of fun for everyone.

The PTA was enthusiastic and as I was teaching grade six that year I went ahead and explained the plan to my class.

But I had forgotten about Becky.

Becky enjoyed reporting my every transgression to her fundamentalist parents. She must have thought she'd hit the mother lode that day.

The letter to the principal arrived later that week.

It said, (more or less), that:

Ms M. was promoting witchcraft and if she went ahead with her evil plan of fortune telling at the funfair, a group of 'concerned fathers' would be going to the Board of Education, the newspaper, the RCMP, Interpol and whatever court governs the galaxy.

Later, after the fortune tellerless funfair was over I asked Becky why, if they were so afraid of witches, she was allowed to read books like 'The Wizard of Oz".

"Oh," she said haughtily, "We know those witches aren't real."

Which meant they really thought that I...













Jeesh.

















Oh well, it made a great story down at the coven.