Well readers, you should have known that it would only be a matter of time before things took a decidedly ‘Green’ turn here on the editorial page, and depending on what kind of ‘Green’ you’re into, it could be good news or bad news.
Either way, this week’s topic has something to do with you.
First: the good news…
All the environmentalists out there will be happy to know that after a quick trip to Red Deer recently and after parting with $240, I’ve picked up a sweet used portable dishwasher so you can all sleep better tonight knowing that there’ll be no more “to heck with the environment” talk coming out of me.
That’s right. I’ve officially decided that I will no longer be using any more Styrofoam plates and cups and no more plastic cutlery!
Nope, the days of letting the disposables pile up and pile up until I finally grabbed a big garbage bag and, “did the dishes”, are over for me. Now if we could just get all those new mothers out there to give up the disposable diapers and go back to the old cloth ones, we’d be laughing.
Speaking of the old cloth diapers, and seeing as how we’re smack-dab in the middle of the Land of Flat-Out Capitalism, here’s a great idea for a young go-getter who wants to get rich out of the whole, ‘Going Green’ movement: why not start a diaper service?
It’s really very simple. First, you get a bunch of cloth diapers and a bunch of big, plastic pail – just make sure the lids fit really tight. Then, while extolling the whole, “better for the environment” thing, you offer clean, folded diapers delivered to the home of the newborn. Two or three days later, you return to the home and collect the ‘pooped-up’ ones and replace them with new ones. In the meantime, you make a deal with a local laundry-mat and clean the dirty ones during the off-hours.
You can be sure that all those critters out there in the forest – and the new moms will love you for it. Plus with the cost of disposable diapers, you should be able to make a killing off it because let’s face it, the dirty diapers produced by just one newborn ‘poop machine’ per day would be a mountain compared to a month’s worth of Styrofoam plates and plastic cutlery used by the average, lazy bachelor. Oh, one other thing, you might want to insist that the new moms flush the ‘steamers’ out first. I’m sure both you and the laundry-mat guy will appreciate it.
That was the good news.
Mind you, depending on which side of the fence you’re standing on, there could be more good news in it for you, but chances are: NOT, especially if you don’t belong to that most exclusive of clubs: the Rider Nation.
Of course that means the throngs of fans of the Saskatchewan Roughriders who despite some staggering losses of personnel in the off-season and some staggering losses of personnel during the first five games of the 2008 Canadian Football League season, have remained the ‘cream of the crop’ and remain the only undefeated team so far this season – in fact, no other team is even close.
Since their Grey Cup championship win last fall in Toronto, the Roughriders have lost: 1) Head Coach Kent Austin who left the team to return to his alma mater Ole Miss as the offensive coordinator; 2) 2007 Most Outstanding Player Kerry Joseph who led the ‘Riders to the previously mentioned championship; 3) defensive standouts Reggie Hunt and Fred Perry who both left for richer contracts; and 4) kick-return specialist/running back Corey Holmes who was one of the most popular players in the history of the franchise.
Throughout the off-season and towards the beginning of this season, the so-called “experts” at TSN, and basically everyone else outside of the Rider Nation, had predicted the extensive losses would regulate the ‘Riders back to the shallow end of the talent pool.
Furthermore, through the first five games of this season, the Green and White have experienced more serious injuries to key personnel than pretty well all the other teams in the league combined, yet they continue to find ways to win.
Following their latest triumph over the Toronto Argonauts this past weekend, the Roughriders have lost: 1) star receiver D.J. Flick to a severely broken leg; 2) starting quarterback Marcus Crandell to a hamstring injury; 3) starting quarterback Darien Durant to three broken ribs; 4) star Canadian receiver Andy Fantuz to a broken leg; 5) star defensive lineman John Chick to a serious knee injury, and: 5) a whole bunch of other starters to a wide assortment of injuries, yet they continue to dominate the CFL and still have the league’s most productive running back in Wes Cates and both the top defense and top offense.
At the same time, the Roughriders have recorded 11 straight sellouts – when’s the last time that happened with any team in the CFL?, and since their remarkable playoff run of last fall, are selling more clothing, souvenirs and other mementos in a certain shade of ‘Green’ than all the other teams combined.
In reality, a lazy bachelor who goes ‘Green’ with the purchase of a dishwasher probably won’t amount to much more than a hill of beans in saving the environment, but you can rest assured that the Saskatchewan Roughriders and their ‘Green’ movement are causing all sorts of heads to turn at this early stage of the 2008 CFL season.
For the hordes of their fans, that ‘Green’ comes from Rider Pride.
As for the rest of the league and their fans, the ‘Green’ – at least in this case, most likely comes down to envy.