Being Overqualified Is Not One Of My Problems
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
Well I guess you know by now, I didn’t get the Pope’s job. I was quite disappointed really. The money isn’t good (nothing) but the benefits include a rent-controlled apartment, free laundry service and a cottage on Strawberry Island in Lake Simcoe.
The Conclave listed a few reasons why I didn’t qualify to be a Pontiff in their ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’ letter they sent postage due. Not being a Roman Catholic was one of them. The fact that I once bit a Catholic girl on Good Friday was another. But I suspect the real reason was I’m not tall enough although they didn’t come right out and say it, I expect on legal advice. But I heard from an inside source the Cardinals felt if I stood on the balcony overlooking St. Peters Square, all the pilgrims would be able to see would be the top foot and a half of my hat.
It wouldn’t be the first time being vertically challenged has disqualified me from a lucrative position. Back in 1958 I tried to get on at Bell Canada but they said my legs were too short to climb a telephone pole. The hooky things were too far apart.
I got the same flimsy excuse when I applied to be a pantyhose model for Secrets. Wouldn’t you know it? The job went to a six-foot tall woman. The hair on my legs never did grow back.
(I never did grow all that tall. One of my son’s, Paul, friends is 6’5” and we walked into Zehr’s together. Apparently he wanted to pat me on the back but hit the back of my head instead. I have no idea if he did or not, I was lying face down on the parking lot.)
Of course we shorter people had zero protection back in the 50s because there were no anti-discrimination laws. Granted there were some advantages to being petite. I could ride a streetcar for children’s rates until I was 42 and once at Disney World I was mistaken for one of the seven dwarfs and got in for nothing.
I know I’m not alone. Not just short-assed people have been treated badly by society; for years women have suffered the humiliation of discrimination. Fortunately for all of us alive today, a number of dedicated citizens were willing to put their jobs, their marriages, and even their lives on the line for the rights of women. We owe a debt of gratitude to the many self-sacrificing citizens who took on the antiquated policies of narrow-minded government officials to advance the cause.
Emmeline Pankhurst, a renowned English suffragist, chained herself to a lamppost outside the British House of Commons demanding that women be given the right to vote. Not only did the poor lady nearly freeze to death when a storm blew in off the North Atlantic; a passing bulldog ruined a perfectly good pair of button shoes she bought from General Booth at the Salvation Army Thrift Store.
In spite of the jeers and catcalls Emmy endured, she won a great victory and today women too have the right to vote for the baboons that act like ill-mannered children when someone is speaking in the House of Commons.
Strange as it may seem, most of the dedicated souls who battled against oppression were women. Whether it was the sheer courage of the gentler sex or the fact women can sentence a man to a lifetime of sleeping on the couch if he doesn’t smarten up, I don’t know. But in most cases, it was the gals who carried the balls — or maybe not.
It was Gloria Steinem who said, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle” and “women are becoming the men we wanted to marry” To this day no one can figure out what in hell she was talking about.
Gloria finally married when she was in her 60s. If her hubby is as old as she is, she’d get more action by chaining herself to Emmeline’s lamppost.
It was a woman who first got the urge to burn her bra on the streets of San Francisco*. Had it been a man, he would have thought far enough ahead to take it off first.
Men too have sacrificed themselves for a cause, but not as often. The great American patriot, Nathan Hale, said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Of course Canadian men aren’t quite that brave. One of our patriots said, “Give me liberty or give me death. Or if that’s too much trouble, I’ll settle for a case of beer and a grilled cheese sandwich.”
* I was surprised to learn there were no bras burned in San Francisco or anywhere else. Leave it to our friends, the Media, to start a good rumour.
(Image Supplied)
