PAUL:	The new year is approaching, 
        and it is not without a 
        certain amount of dread that I 
        look forward into my 50th 
        year.

        If I think about it, and 
        believe me, I have been 
        thinking about it ...

        But how ridiculous - I have 
        even considered ... what ... 
        evasion: running, dekeing, 
        zigzagging, blocking out, 
        refusing to acknowledge, 
        ignoring, whatever.  

        Fruitless.  Tick-tock ... tick 
        ... tock.  

        Nonetheless, everybody tries 
        it. Fess up.  

        Blaine Hart, our soi-disant 
        techno-geek, was complaining 
        about turning thirty the other 
        day.  I felt like ringing his 
        scrawny little neck !  Just 
        looking at him, I know that 
        dork is going to waste the 
        twenty years he has on me, 
        mark my words.

        Sorry.

        Sometimes it seems my whole 
        life is on a runaway train, 
        past the sleeping switchman, 
        roaring down the wrong track 
        and barreling through all the 
        stations.  I look up at the 
        engineer, and whoever it is 
        that’s driving is dressed in a 
        black cape with a peaked hood 
        and a scythe.

        In a way, I’m not sure what it 
        is I’m so worried about.  I 
        come from good genes.  Mom and 
        her sisters have all lived 
        into their nineties - Aunt 
        Betty made it to a hundred - 
        and people say I do take after 
        my mother.  So ...

        The whole province, it seems 
        to me, shares this mid-life 
        crisis.  It too, the province, 
        turns 50 next year.

        I have observed my peers go 
        through the same harrowing 
        “change in life,” and it’s not 
        a pretty sight.  Trading in 
        the dependable Volvo for a 
        sports car; leaving the wife 
        for a young secretary; holding 
        their head in their hands in 
        despair and deciding “That’s 
        it, that’s it.  I’m going to 
        get the weave.”

        I make this commitment to you 
        - I won’t do it.  I won’t 
        embarrass myself, this program 
        or this station.

        Unfortunately, I cannot make 
        the same commitment for this 
        province.

Page 3 of 1	PAULITORIAL - SHOW # 14