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N=. OH YEAH 7 ACCORDING JO THE LATEST POLL, My OL' MAN CAN BEAT YOUR OL MAN I * ~Chatte rBox by John Mack It's the look that gets me, the look my daughter gives my wife when they think they have discovered me doing something fatherly and daft. It's a sort of wise, womanly look that says, "Humor him, he's harmless'. Have you ever tried to combat a look? I have tried; I have said things like, "Don't look like that!" and they both turn round at the same time and say, "Look like what? What look?" Forget it, you just have to get a look of your own, a sort of "Isn't that just like a woman!" sort of look, and an "I'll indulge them this time," sort of look. My problem is that I have no one to exchange this look with. T have tried running into the bathroom and giving the LOOK to the bathroom mirror. Somehow that doesn't work. I mean, I can hardly run back to the living room and say, "Hey! You should see the look you guys just got in the bathroom mirror." Recently I've been trying the LOOK on the dog, but he just jumps up and gets all excited. He thinks the LOOK has something to do with dog food. I tried my LOOK on my daughter's boyfriend, but after several LOOKS he took off for the West Coast, and we haven't heard from him since. They think his exodus has something to do with getting a job, but I know better. 1 LOOKED him out. . I'm constantly amazed at the power in the female LOOK. Sometimes I have my back to them and I still feel it. I try to ignore it but somehow I have to turn around to find out if this is a stepdaughter to stepmother look. Sometimes it is worse than a look, it is a smirk; and I can tell you there is no smirk like the superior female. "Isn't he dumb but lovable! kind of smirk. A smirk is just as hard to combaas a look because I turn around and ask, What are you laughing at?" "Me? Laughing? 1 wasn't laughing," the one replies. '""Was I laughing,' she asks. Of course the other denies the whole thing. 1 didn't see anyone laughing." I've lost. I might as well go back to my book, knowing full well that as soon as I do, there will be an immediate exchange of delighted smirks. Sometimes it gets too much for them and the smirks become out and out guffaws. Then I can say, "There I heard you this time! You laughed out loud, both of you!" They'll tell me they were laughing at "Herman" or "Doonesbury", but they are not fooling me. I know that kind of laugh when I hear it. The LOOK, the smirk and the GUFFAW are all of the one family, so to speak. While I'm at it, there is another female expression which bothers me and that is when you are arguing with one of them, you can feel the other silently agreeing with everything the other says. And that is even when your opponent is so wrong that you just can't believe the absolute bilge she is coming out with. I know what it's like when I have just finished one of my most telling blows, a real riposte, unanswerable in its perfect legic, and the female of the species says . something like, "And s0'§ your old man!" (ahd I can féel the silent applause from the other orle for this specimen of female rationalization. OH!! The frustration of it all, and the complete helplessness of a man faced with this silent language. I mentioned this to a friend of mine, and he spent the night checking every LOOK, SMIRK and GUF- FAW, and he reported back to me, "No, they're not laughing at you." "It's not the laugh, it's the LOOK and SMIRK that bothers me." Okay, I'll check them next." I eagerly awaited his report. "Naw! They're not smirking or gaffawing at you." 'Are you sure?" I asked. "And what about the LOOK? I know that's for me and that's the worst of \all." "Naw," he said. "I checked out the LOOK, and they're not looking at you or about you. It's nothing to do with you." I can't believe it! Do you mean all those looks and things are completely ignoring me?" Yeah, you've nothing to worry about, they're not even paying any attention to you." "What do you mean, 'nothing to worry about'?" I shouted. - "When I'm being completely ignored in my own house! What about the sneer? Is it mine?" "Yes, sometimes when you are being really ridiculous and punning a lot, the sneer is for you." "Well, that's not so bad. At least I'm not being completely ignored. A SNEER"s not much, but it's better than nothing." = "Sick Minds 'One cannot imagine anything lower than a person who, for the pure pleasure of destruction, willfully smashes and destroys the property of others: So we find it all the more difficult to understand the kind of vandalism that takes one'step further and ~ desecrates a grave. k erives some kind of amusement, thrill, or satisfact- It is incomprehensible to imagine the mind that d {on out of this kind of destruction. From all appearances, it doesnt look like. extremely young people were involved. Some of the huge toppled stones must have been very hard to push, perhaps impossible for the kind of child that could use immaturity for an excuse. Disrespect for the living is one thing, perhaps excuseable on the grounds that it might not be deserving. This kind of disrespect reveals sickness, s{épid- ity, and gross indecency. : Remembrance Day *» Like many Canadians, | suspect, this writer's ~ commemoration of Reme rice. Day used to be a ritual that meant little moré"than'an vague idea of democracy-vs. despotism, mixed in with a few John Wayne movies. It was keeping the kids quiet in the rear row of the Remembrance Day crowd while the bugle wailed, or feeling uncomfortable as the wind chilled the bones during the brief moment's silence. One never quite knows what to think about as the silence roars in the ears, except to wonder what the next guy is thinking about, or the fellow with the barret and the tear in his eye is thinking about. Perhaps it Is unreasonable to expect us to understand. Perhaps it is impossible for anyone but indescribable vileness that is war (which probably explains why those who speak of it so eloquently are the least experienced). Perhaps in its -explanation, description, and often glorification, it becomes less of a horror than it is in reality. Thankfully, | don't know its true meaning, and hope never to learn yet | count myself lucky for two personal experiences that for me has put the Fits ialiint its proper perspective. The firsh experience was over ten years ago, when the regular army outfit | was serving with put on a parade for the vets at National Defence Medical Centre in Ottawa. A tour followed the parade and we were all encouraged to mingle with the "'ol' vets'. What had been a game for us suddenly turned serious as we tried to not show the shock and stare at the limbless, burned, somber men*in a sterilized atmosphere that had been their home since the Second (and sometimes First) World War. If these men had been courageous during the war, their courage is compounded in their determination to continue in what we would consider a broken and impossible life or four walls and a hospital bed. The second experience was knowing my late father-in-law, one of those unfortunate few who served as a token sacrifice for the Canadian government at Hong Kong. If any man had more reason to hate, to condemn, and to be bitter, it is a man who spent four years as a prisoner of a cruel enemy. ' The insecurities, frustrations, mental and physi- cal pressures that were learned inside a cage are never forgotten, and he lived with it every day of his life, yet it never made him less human, less compassionate and less tolerance of the views of others. He carried no flags on Remembrance Day, blew no bugles, and did little reminiscing, yet the tear in his eyes was unmistakable when the 11 o'clock 'replayed the Remembrance Day services. , More than anything else, he objected to pre- judice, intolerance. He understood, first hand, the horrors it can bring. ' Perhaps it\is this sorrow that we should feel, not just gs Remembrance Day, but everytime we read, hear 'or see about the proliferation of hatred and intolerance that is the norm today. ' Perhaps, bowing our heads before the cenotaph, we should all be feeling a sense of shame. As members of the human race, we have failed td learn from the lessons these men have repeatedly pro- vided. We still rattle our swords, condemn what we don't understand, and are more tolerant than ever of our fellow man. It is with this sadness and shame that | view Remembrance Day. We have failed them. We have forgotten. We have dropped the torch. the experienced to understand the unspeakable, EY