“I think I’ll have pancakes and maple syrup,” Cliff Murray told  Molly Whiteside at Mabel’s Grill at breakfast the other morning. “I want to think about spring and making maple syrup.”
“I’ll have that too,” Dave Winston decided. George MacKenzie agreed.
“You guys can use a little sweetening up.” chuckled Molly.
“It’s been a long hard winter,” George replied.
“Yeah, my garage was so cold I gave up getting the equipment ready for spring seeding until it warms up a little more,” Dave sighed.
“Back in a minute,” Molly said as she hurried off to Mabel in the kitchen with their orders.
“Did you ever actually make maple syrup yourselves?” George wondered.
“We had a neighbour who made maple syrup a couple of years,” Dave said, “and he hung buckets on trees in front of our place, then brought us maple syrup in thanks.”
“When I was a kid Dad found some old maple sap buckets in our shed and decided to make maple syrup.,” Cliff said. He boiled the syrup on the wood stove in the kitchen and my mother was so upset with the sticky sugar all over the kitchen that it was the last time we ever made maple syrup. She had to repaper the kitchen so that sure wasn’t cheap maple syrup.”
“Yeah, I like the idea of making maple syrup but I’m not up to the hassle,” Dave said.
George looked out the front window and an O.P.P. cruiser pulled into the parking lot. Shortly thereafter a second cruiser pulled in and both officers got out and came in the front door.
“You better be careful what you say now, boys,” he mumbled.
Molly stopped by the two police officers who ordered coffee and doughnuts.
“With St. Patrick’s Day coming up on the 17th I wish I had more Irish blood than just having a distant cousin who was Irish,” Dave said.
“When I was a kid all these ethnic holidays were a big thing, but over the years all that kind of thing sort of died out,” George said.
“Yeah, I remember my Dad saying that way back when he was a boy there was a community celebration and one old Scotsman actually could still speak Gaelic,” Cliff said.
“All that ethnicity dies out over time,” Molly said as she brought their breakfasts. “You listen to TV from Toronto and there are Pakistanis and Jamaicans and all these other accents. The first generation people probably think it will stay that way but eventually they’ll just be unhyphenated Canadians.”
The police officers finished their coffee break and stood up to pay their bills. Molly went to serve them.
“I wonder if they’re honest cops or if they’re taking bribes like those cops in Toronto?” George wondered after they left.
“That’s what those crooked cops did,” sighed Cliff. “There are thousands of honest, dedicated cops throughout the province but a few bad cops can make us wonder if all cops might be on the take.”
“Did you see that both those officers paid their bills,” Molly said as she came back to the table. “They left me tips, too.”
“Hint, hint,” Cliff smirked.
“Remember all the movies that used to show police officers eating but never having to pay?” Molly wondered. “I’ve never had officers like that here at Mabel’s.”
“I guess having the O.P.P. take over all these small police forces probably helped solve that. It certainly makes it simpler for that inquiry Ontario’s inspector general of policing announced.”
“With these honest cops who pay their bills it kind of puts the onus on people like me,” Molly laughed. “If I get stopped for speeding I can’t just wink at an officer who paid his bill and tipped me.”
“What? Our little Molly might cheat on a driving ticket?” George smirked.◊