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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2016-11-16, Page 5Wednesday, November 16, 2016 • Huron Expositor 5 opinion www.seaforthhuronexpositor.com Seaforth Lions Club Brings Santa to Town on Nov. 25 The Seaforth Lions Club has been welcoming Santa Claus to Seaforth since 1934. In the early years, the Lions Club heralded Santa's arrival with free movies, skating and stockings containing fruit, candy, and a toy. These were distributed at a large Christmas tree that was set up on Main Street. Lion Ross Ribey began the tra- dition of an illuminated night time parade in 1985. This year's Seaforth Lions Santa Claus Parade marks the 32nd night parade to welcome Santa Claus to town. This year's parade theme is "Christmas Traditions!' Chil- dren are invited to meet with Santa Claus at the legion after the parade. Parents are reminded to bring their cameras to capture those special moments. For 46 years, the Seaforth Lions Club's main fundraiser has been our elimination draw. Tickets for the first draw were $25 and the first prize was a compact car. The 2017 elimina- tion draw tickets are in the hands of our club members, ready for purchase. The cost is still only $60 for dinner and dance for two adults and $8190 in cash prizes. Since 1925, the Seaforth Lions Club has owned and operated the Seaforth Lions Park. The summer of 2016 saw this beautiful and well -used facility booked every weekend for picnics and events. The month of October saw Seaforth Lions Club members in local schools providing vision and hearing screening for JK and SK students. The club has helped to finance the purchase and maintenance of the screening equipment as well as providing the man- power to conduct the screen- ing. We are proud to continue our service work as "Knights of the Blind." Since 1924, the Seaforth Lions Club has been serving the needs of Seaforth and area. We welcome like-minded people to join us in keeping Seaforth a vibrant, active community. Huron County and World War One We wanted to give Joe Wooden the respect he deserves for writ- ing this amazing article. In last week's paper, it stated that David Yates was the writer of this historical piece, however it was Wooden, sorry for the misunderstanding. This year is the one hundredth anniversary of the formation and deployment overseas of the 161st (Huron) Battalion. Canada's participation in the Great War 1914-1918 is a remarkable story. Our contribution to the allied effort was stellar for a country that had fewer than 8 million people in 1914. 630,000 Canadi- ans enlisted and 424,000 went overseas including the Huron Battalion plus others from Huron County serving in other units. The context in which we place Canada's involvement in the "War to end all wars" may be summarized numerically:65 mil- lion in the military services Scoreboard Local shuffleboard scores Nov. 9 Men's high: Harvey Nor- ton 4 wins, Red Van- tyghem, Huge Men- heere and Ken Preszcator 3 wins. Women's high: Charlotte Norton and Doris Muir 3 wins, Joyce Matzold, Gail Hen- drickson, Grace Dawe 2 wins. • 20 million killed (including civilians) • 21 million wounded The war saw the end of three empires, German, Turkish, and Austria-Hungary. The war was a horror and gave rise to more hor- rors in the 20th century. We still live with the geopolitical and military ramifications which are a direct result of the Great War. It is difficult for us to grasp the carnage of this war. We see the numbers and need to translate these numbers to what they would be like in our time. For example if we take the 65 million people serving and then realize that the same proportion of the global population today, we would have 270 million in mili- tary units today. The combined killed and wounded number would then be 170 million. Such losses and wounded numbers would paral- lel how much the impact would have seemed to the various countries, for example France alone had millions of casualties which in today's terms might be 6 million or more. The United Kingdom's losses were also very large and might translate to 2 million today. In both England and France the active young male population of some entire villages was lost. In Canada our population was around 8 million then and is 35 million now. Our losses were about 65,000 and today's num- bers would be about 270,000 killed. The 173,000 wounded would be well over 700,000 today. Imagine the impact that would have on us now. It was profound in the 1914-1918 war. People did not easily get over the effect of the losses in the Great War, in fact, many never got over the losses and the dam- aged men who never recovered. In Huron County such comparisons in population terms is not useful because there has not been a large population change. It is difficult to be abso- lutely clear on the numbers killed from Huron County because the enlistments occurred in various places over the years of the war but the number is around 550, or somewhat higher. Nonetheless, the impact of casualties in a rural area like Huron was felt by the whole community because every- one knows everyone else. So, we remember these losses this year especially. The fact remains that we have been living in the shadow of the Great War ever since it ended. Some suggest that we live in a time now that "invites compari- son with Europe of 1914': We live again in a time when a "complex array of forces, including declin- ing empires and rising forces" that invites the comparison. (Christoper Clark) seaforthhuronexpositor.com Canada has one of the highest rates of multiple sclerosis in the world. h4ultpi sirri 11111 fanida 3a€ile dr 1 L..k • dwla.rkfmr 1-300-268-7582 www_mssociety. oa MAKE ISE ConaJQ Because some 'ashes. can't wait for someday. wwwirnakeawishica 141118-R2.2-947-1 HAVE AN OPINION? The Huron Expositor welcomes letters to the editor. They must be signed and accompanied by a phone number for information clarification. It is important to note, letters will not be printed without the author's name attached. All letters are subject to editing due to possible space restriction. Letters can be dropped off at the office, mailed or emailed: The Huron Expositor 8 Main St. P.O. Box 69 Seaforth, ON NOK 1WO Shaun.Gregory@sunmedia.ca www.seaforthhu ro nexpositor. co m