PADDIN' THE 'OOF

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 196, 22 December 1941, Page 5

PADDIN' THE 'OOF

REDISCOVERY OF A LOST ART

"THERE'S A LONG, LONG, TRAIL" . . .

" 'Taint slippin 'oer the edges, . That 'urts the 'orses 'oofs, ' i* Its the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer,, On the 'ard 'igh road." Spokeshave. Shoeshops are doing well in Wba— katane, in spite of* the blistered heels and the aching corns resulting from the daily pad, pad of the local businessmen to and from Kopeopeo, or Valley Road, or Landing Road, or the tail end of James Street. The regular liigh-heelers of course live now, either in the Pah or Apanui, where by virtue of the shortness of distance from their homes to the town they don't develop the 'blackout peer' or the 'anti-petrol flop.'

But the new regulations have their humorous side. We have heard fee tnstance of the office girl who double banks the manager to work. Yes, and it didn't happen in Monteray, ■but in lil' ole Wliaka. Also there is the man who nose-dived over the handle-bars of his push-bike after years of stately car riding, and decided to buy skates. But have you heard this one—One local business light after scrounging a lift from a rattletrap aristocrat from the wide open spaces, had the mortification of enduring a breakdown and the enlistment "of his services to push the chariot half a mile while the whiskery owner sat in lordly fashion 'tryin' ter start 'er by throwin' 'er In gear.' A certain cure for hitchhikers Ave think. There are quite a few who have developed the 'Sullivan limp', (not Bill, but DAN) which will inevitably, on medical evidence develop Into the 'pedestrian arch' which, as our readers know cannot defy pigs in passages. Nevertheless, we are all slimming. Not by the pleasant and less arduous pill method, or R.U.R., or How are you? or There you arel but by the good old Adam patent when he hoofed it from the Garden of Eden. Yes, it is a fact that those fair round waistlines, such a prominent feature of our businessworld, are declining steadily, which means less material for clothes, and less strain on the carrying muscles. Thus we will shortly have no need for patent slimming medicines and alf the little etceteras which inform us through the Beacon that 'Auntie lost f ,14 pounds of fat in five days' or that 'Cousin Alfle won his bride after swallowing fifty consecutive reduco pills to overcome her horror of human pork.' But they tell us that the Government is not satisfied with depriving us all of our beloved cars. They've grabbed tha bicycles as well, and now stand with their tongue in their official cheeks—saying, 'What are you going to do now.' And all we can do is to jump up and down oil our sore corns and heel blisters and j threaten to demand a refund on our car licenses. Well!

Even the BEACON is cut down. Hot' can we do without the BEACON 1 ? I ask you. Its monstrous. In camera with the Ed., strictly sub rosa, incog, in deep, and all the rest oif it r I understand that the day of a Town Crier is slowly but surely dawning. From the Monument he will strut, bell in hand yodelling, or odelling, or about the Women's Institutes, the lost and founds, the Matrimonials and the Police Court news. So you'll have to come to town in future to hear the news, and if you haven't got any petrol, you'll! miss the news, and if you do that you're a poor citizen, and Avhen j-ou've got it all worked up like a sydlytz powder you can blame Hitler. Mussolini or the Mikado and join the Home Guard. -So its an ill wind that Blows no-one any good. v

Crossings at Taneatua At last week's meeting of the County Council H. C. McCreadv stated that following the failure of the Council's experiment with a new type of right-of-way crossing atTaneatua Mr Mead had tried another method with success. * The speaker stated that he had given Mr Mead the authority to instal Such a crossing and asked if the Council would do a small amount of bitumen work to bring the roadway to the proper level. There would prob-* ably be other applications for. such, crossings and these he understood would be done by the Council if the material was provided by interest?*! parties.