Sometimes a man in sober black attire walks in my dreams. He has a shiny dome above his hairy ears, a bristly mustachio on an unsmiling face and a Roman collar around his neck. He is a Presbyterian pastor of the old rock-ribbed Scottish variety, full of disapprovals and admonitions. He says, "You were not placed on earth, laddie, to be a pleasure-seeker. You are here to do the work your station requires of you and to please the Lord by giving succour to the poor and downtrodden, wherever they may be."
These are the same words I heard a real man say long ago. I was only a lad then, but I remember I damn well wasn't going to give a sucker to anybody else when my weekly allowance was only a nickel and suckers were one cent each. Besides, I intended to seek as many permissible and affordable pleasures as I could. Since the long ago, I have a better understanding of what the doleful dominie said then and what he repeats in my dreams. I approve of him, sort of.
There were always affordable pleasures available on the unsupervised playing fields of the village. Unhappily, they were not available to me. Long before the term was coined, I was a nerd. Incapable of participating in the strenuous physical activities, I decided to avoid even watching others at play. I defied the old pastor, however, by wasting precious hours in reading, listening to music, painting amateurish pictures and building inventions which wouldn't work. Some of his words nevertheless, must have lodged themselves in my mind.
I have never played a video game. I waste little time watching puerile pap on TV screens. I have never followed any of the teams in professional sports - with one exception. The Saskatchewan Roughriders are my heroes. I would deny them nothing
Except any portion of my tax bill, wherever paid, to buy them a domed stadium.
The words of the ghostly Scot are ringing in my head. "An'outlandish idea. What stalwart Scot ever needed a big umbrella over his playing and what true supporter would not brave the elements to cheer him on to victory? And, oh, laddie, the cost of it all. How many cottages would it build and how many hungry souls would it feed? Amen to that.
The cost of a domed stadium, if were spread across the province, would be a greater good than spending all the money in one place. In Saskatchewan, there are places with empty coffers and their own desperate needs, whether these be doctors, water supply, roads or bridges. And the hungry and homeless are always with us.
The message of the domed stadium seems to be that we can put all the money in Regina because Regina will survive, even if all the smaller communities in Saskatchewan perish.
