Homespun wisdom is Kerley's specialty

It’s always a delight to run into Kerley Lake on the sidewalks of Wolfville. Kerley was the endlessly obliging janitor at Wolfville Schools until he retired a few years ago. When we caught up recently, he surprised me with information that he had become a poetry publisher. I was so intrigued, he loaned me a copy of the poems of Nora Sanford Pinch, Kerley's late mother-in-law.

Born in England in 1905, Nora's family immigrated five years later. She married Frank Pinch and they raised their family during the hard times of the 1930s. Frank worked 10 hours a day and he walked three miles each way to work.

Nora must have lived an isolated life. She had no means of getting to town for shopping or socializing. Her hobby was poetry. When she died, her children - seven daughters and one son - found scraps of her writing tucked away in a drawer.

Nora's poems follow several themes. She appreciated her lot in life. "I have no worldly riches it's very plain to see, but I am rich beyond compare. I wouldn't changes places with a loveless millionaire. Money cannot buy what I have right at home."

Nora loved her children and later wished she had spent more time playing with them instead of doing chores. Clearly, she adored her grandbabes, but worried about their future on planet earth. "I wonder what the world will be like a hundred years from now. Will there be any trails to hike, any hands to hold the plow?"

A busy homemaker, she stole quiet moments to record her wonder at the world around her. "Our world is made up of everyday things, of plain things, honestly grey. Woodpiles, fence stiles and plain brown clay. Take a closer look, don't let your world seem sour. At the morning sunrise, on the glistening dewdrops, on the swaying treetops. Truly, this is a wondrous hour."

Nora's faith occupied a large portion of her writing. "Please God don't let me live so long that I can't appreciate a song or take delight in a new born day."

She and Frank lived to a great old age. They both died at age 91, within six weeks of each other. Her sweet, simple poems remind her descendants and us to obey the Golden Rule. "Try each day to do a kindly act because this road has a sign marked there's no way back."

Kerley's plain, coil-bound tribute to his mother-in-law records her feelings for posterity. How easy it might’ve been to pitch all those scribbles on odd pieces of paper and what a good thing he didn't.

Some raise, eh?

Standing on the sidewalk that sunny day, Kerley also told me he thinks it must be great to be a Member of the Legislative Assembly. "Their salary raise this year was 21 per cent or $13,944 additional dollars. "My old age pension went up $36 this year. Therefore, their raise is 38,700 per cent more than my old age pension increase. Ho, ho, ho and a bottle of rum," he said, recalling the old days of buying votes with a bottle.

Kerley thinks MLAs should get minimum wage, basic expenses and work for the love of the job. I'm beginning to think after reading the poverty report yet again that the only fair method of payment is a guaranteed annual wage.

An MLA's salary is about $79,500, but there are others within government circles who are even more amply compensated. For example, Heather Foley Melvin, premier Rodney MacDonald's former chief of staff, was quietly set to become head of Conserve Nova Scotia for $131,613.82 a year until the opposition caught word. Kerley also reminded me that former Cape Breton MP David Dingwall received more payments in 2005 than he earned in 52 years of steady labour. "Hopefully some day, he will have to have home care 24 hours a day at a rate of $1,000 per hour," he quipped.

The federal government paid Dingwall $417,780 in compensation after an independent arbitrator concluded he was forced out of his job as head of the Royal Canadian Mint. A heated debate stemmed from Dingwall's severance package after he left the $277,000-a-year job. Then he defended his right to severance with the words, "I'm entitled to my entitlements."

Dingwall departed the Mint in September 2005 amid allegations of overspending after an Access to Information request found that he and his top aides had expenses of more than $740,000 the previous year.

Kerley says, "if our honorable member would like to look me up and prove that my first quote was incorrect, I'll make him a cup of coffee and find him a cookie. However, if my figures are right, he should buy me a coffee at Tim Horton's."

I'm curious if Environment Minister Mark Parent is still wondering, as he was in 2001, whether Nova Scotia doesn't have too many MLAs. When he was a backbencher, Parent was quoted by CBC news saying the province could easily cut 52 MLAs down to 40. "We could do with less and we could save the province some money," he said. "I think it at least needs to be looked at."

After watching the Liberal party shenanigans in Montreal on the weekend, I think, if nothing else, Canadian politics give taxpayers plenty of entertainment.