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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1976-10-28, Page 1John OHC bvil PUMPKINS FOR SALE. — Some pretty smart entrepreneurs in Egmondvilie are taking advantage of a surplus of pumpkins in Robbie Smith's garden to sell the Halloween decorations to passersby. The kids were out recently after school, complete with a - pumpkin headed mannequin, on Egmondville's main street. The young` salespeople are, back, left; Lynn Nigh, David MacLean, Robbie Smith, seated and Rick MacLean in front-, (Expositor Photo) Ja ck .Thonips0n:rotfres.cifte 47 yooriTh7:0106 trade A FAMILIAR PAC LEAVES MAIN ST. — Jack Thompson Is retiring this fall after more than 40 years in the shoe repair business. Mr. Thompson and his wife, Esther, say they'lla Miss the shop but that They're looking forward 'to retirement. (Expositor Photo) SIGN RIGHT HERE — Neil McG,avin of Walton helps write names on the draw tickets being sold by some members of the executive 'of the 1978 International Plowing Match, which will'be held in Huron, near Wingham.• Behind Neil are McKillop Reeve, Allan Campbell, Roy Pattison of Wingham, '78 VatchAreasurer Earl Hildersley of Clinton and seated af left, Mrs. Florence McGavin of Seaforth. They all attended the Huron Plowmen's dinner and awards night in the Kirkton-Woodham Community Centre on Thursday night. (Expositor Photo) Huron Perth board agrees to rent athletic grounds Wh* No 5671 ' 117 th Yea; SEAFORTH, ONTARIO, THunspAY, OCTOBER WI, 1976 talked about starting construction Of the 14 unit apartnIPt until spring. But , she said ' understood that Mr.' and. Miss Montgomery plan to ,trariO .te an apartment before meter and that may make n difference tq ..ofie's -- plans,' The Montgomery's house and barn on the property 'will be .removed before construction starts. Purchase price for the 'property totalled $26,500. OHC paid $21,500 of that and the Town paid $5,000. Mayor Cardno said council • thought that was reasonable as the Town had paid $8,000 to lfave a vacant factory on the site of the .present,. aparments torn down. • It would have -cost' &midi $4,000 to provide services- to another site OHC was considering owned by Gordon. Nobel, she said, The Montgomery site is already serviced— • • "With . the' town adding orittle. 'to the-price we were able to ,get what we thought was: a More appropriate site," 'Mayor Cardno said. Education ruling no change They never had children and now feel they miss the joy of having young people visit them. Nevertheless they have kept busy. Mrs . Thompson has been involved until recently with helping at Kilbarchan but felt the job would be better for someone who really needed it. In Mr. Thompson's small shop, next to McKillop Insurance, he' has equipment for everything. There is a special clamp for holding womens' tapered wooden heels on the shoes so they can be nailed on more easily. Going back even further are the wooden pegs he displays in his front window. These are from the days when heels were put on by making small holes and inserting the pegs in snugly. Then a curved rasp was used to file off the peg that was left exposed to leave a smooth comfOrtable finish on the inside of the shoe. Another novelty is the machine Mr. Thompson made himself, from various parts. It is powered by two small engines and two belts to make a pair of steel poles go round. On each of the poles is mounted 'various soft brushes for putting finer finishes on shoes and grindstones for the soles, each' one for a different sole or heel. • . ...1; Although the Thompsons say m iss the store , they still have the responsibility of taking care fo their tenants. They rent The ghosts and gobliTiS can be forgiven if they are a little confused this weekend. According to the calendar, Hallowe'en, October 31, falls this Sunday. But, along with several other Huron County towns, Seaforth has decided to designate Satur day night, October 30 as the official haunting night. "That jets the kids get to bed and they can sleep in on Sunday morning," says police chief John Cairns„ The ch ief said he doesn't expect any problems with Seaforth's hallowe'en, • trauitionally a time for some not so good natured pranks. "It's been good/the past two years," The lak major Hallowe'en incident was three years ago when the town's water tower was painted with slogans. Exeter, Clinton and Goderich have all declared Saturday night as Hallowe'en. Brussels council decided to leave the choice of Saturday or Sunday 'night for residents there. And to really confuse trick or treaters who plan to visit more than one municipality; Dublin has decided to mark Hallowe'en on Friday night. Seaforth's town council and the 'Ontario Housing Corporation have finally chosen a site for the town's second senior citizen's apartment building. • Mayor Betty Car-dno sold the. The provincial education minister's announcement that high school students will have to take more core subjects won't make much of a change at Seaforth District High School, according to principal Bruce Shaw. He says SDHS has been handing out subject selection sheets to Grade 8 'students and telling them they must take six subjects but can choose two others. "The ministry said we can't do it, but we've been doing it anyway." `We're really protecting the ,kids against themselves:: He said the school attempts to talk to the students and say "Look, you want to take this but you really should have this core subject too." This system Of strongly advising kids who are making subject choices means that 100 per cent of the students at SDHS are taking English and' about 94 pet cent of them are math, says, 4r: 7 For 'a . few years after 1972; when the credit system was in full swing, 4t was possible for SDHS studenti to go all through high school, including Grade 13 and never take an English course. "It was 'wide open for two or three years," The SDHS principal admits. In 1974 the province' made English' and Canadian Studies courses compulsory ... but only' six courses, over four years at high school. The Huron County Board of Education had been 'getting a good response from a. resolution it's been' circtiltating to other boards, calling on the province to provide more guidance on curriculum. 'CNIB seeks $400 more Public response to the annual CNIB campaign is slow this year John Cardno told Lions Club members at a club meeting Monday night. For many years the club has sponsored the campaign on behalf of the CNIB working through its Sight Conservation Committee of which Mr. Cardno is chairman. Other member's are E.C.I3oswell and John Talbot. "Continued on Page 3) Town and OHC have signed an agreement to buy a John Street site from its, owners, Earl and Louella Montgomery. The site, 'which is less than a block from Main St., is a little small for the student receives a good grounding in essen tial communication skills, including the traditional concepts of English composition, grammar arid literature." The present gurdelines include two sentences on grammar. But is the province going to hire more education experts to The Huron Perth Separate School Board Made an agreement with the ' Dublin and District Athletic Association for the use of their land as an extension of the St. Patrick's School playground, at the board's meeting in Dublin Monday night. The agreement runs for one year. Stratford trustee David Teahen asked for a recorded vote on the agreement, after the board came out from committee Of the whole into open meeting about 9:30 on the grounds that it was setting a precedent, The board will pay $500 for the right to use the DDAA land. Voting for the agreement with the DDAA were trustees John O'Drowsky, Don Crowley, Greg Fleming, Francis Hicknell, Joe Looby, Mike Connolly, Bill Kina- han and Ted Geoffrey. Voting against the agreement were trustees Mickey Vere, Howard Shantz, Ron Marcy, Vince Young and Mr. Teahen. The board's' superintendent of business, Jack Lane, said the board will meet again with the parking which Seaforth's zoning bylaw requires• and the mayor said that a minor variance, allowing reduced parking, will have to be passed. Mayor Cardno said OFIC hasn't prepare these detailed guidelines, not only in English,i but in Canadian history and geography and 'in math and science as. well? The SDHS principal doesn'-t think ,so. They've got plenty of people he says and many of the experts have been very little use in the classroom up 'til now. DDAA and seek a perpetual agreement. Trustee Teahen called for a recorded vote on another matter which came out of coinmittee of the whole, a motion to accept, by "mutual consent", the resigna- tion of the Family Life Co-ordina- tor, Anthony Chater of Stratford. Voting to accept the resignation were trustees O'Drowsky, Crow- ley,Vere, Fleming, Hickneil, Looby, Connolly, Young, Kinahan and* Geoffrey. Voting against were trustees Shantz, Marcy and Teachen. After a general meeting of about an hour, the board went back into committee of the whole, where they agreed to advertise immediately in an attempt to find a replacement Family Life Co- ordinator, either full or part time. Named to a committee to interview applicants for the job were trustees O'Drowsky and Connolly, directoLef education, John Vintar and tri-e—iiieart_ of Huron Perth, or his designate: The aim of tlie HPRCSS board is to "provide, in co-operation with the Church and the -home, a Catholic• education that will develop the spiritual, intellectual, physical emotional and social well being of its students", board members decided, in adopting a written list of aims and objectives. Stratford trustee Howard Shantz wanted to know what the board is going to do with the statement it adopted. It is useless "unless we let others know these are our aims and objectives," he said, and suggested that they be circylated to every school. "How could it be otherwise. The teachers are doing this anyway", said trustee Kinahan. Director of Education Vintar replied that the aims are not new "they've aiw ays been implicit; this is an attempt to make them explicit." Board members agreed with trustee, Marcy. that the aims and objectives be sent to every teacher in the system, and to clergy, with the suggeStion that they reprint them in church bulletins. The board's superintendent of special services; Joe &Pis, (Continued on Page 3) The shoe repair man's trade is a sloW and quiet one and Jack Thompson, who's closing down his shop on Seaforth's main street, can testify to that. Mr. Thompson is 70 years old and ready to sit back and enjoy life with his - wife ••in their apartment ab ove their store. He's been in business for himself for 47 years come next April . Originally he bought a, tipsiness from his father in Blyth, . and moved the trade to Seaforth in 1944. His work now is mainly selling work boots and mens' shoes but back then it was mostly shoe repain• He rarely made a pair of shoes except for handicapped people who needed 'a special fit and couldn't be fitted at the regular shoe outlets. But he knew how. The last pair of shoes Jack Thompson made was back in the early forties. Mr.Thompson says the shoe repair trade is quietly disappearing becau se manufacturers are making shoes to fit every foot and not just the normal majority. He adds too that the materials which are used today to make shoes are not just leather anymore. Plastics are all the thing now and when .you go to mend a tear or separation, the plastic cuts right through the thread used making a new mend impossible unless one takes a strong thread and goes through the holes that the previous stitching came from. Some shoes are so cheaply put together that they are not worth fixing, Mr. Thompson says. After he had been in business in Seaforth for two years, Mr. Thompson married Esther Trout who was a nurse at Scott Memorial Hospital. And you, guessed it, they met over a shoe mending job,• hers, Jack Thompson claims he is an avid fisherman and says he got a gr eat catch in the "Little Fish" as he ` affectionately calls his wife. three apartments in their block above the store. They would like to travel more but there we drawbacks. One year. they went of Kansas for a few weeks and came home to cold tenants because the furnace had acted upwhile they were gone and the young man in charge was mystified by the antiquated heating system. Mr. Thompson put , in' a new heating system so he could leave for a vacation in the winter and not worry about his tenants but now, as he points out, the money went to the new furnace and they have to stay home anyway. Both are still healthy. Mr. Thompson had thought of getting a chair lift for the long flight of stairs to their apartment that they must navigate every day, but their doctor recommended using the stairs while they were able 'for the exercise. Mr. Thompson is still very active in the community, In the past he has been president of the Gideon Society and the District Grand Master of the Oddfellows, he is an elder 'of First Presbyterian Church in Seaforth. Their store Will be rented to Bill Clifford and without giving any details, Mr. Thompson says the new occupant will be running an office not a store of any sort. And so another familiar trade on Main Street, Seaforth, is disappearing into the colourful past. Goblins? Hallowe'en set And the education ministry's promise that it's subject guidelines to schools will become much more detailed, is a much more important change in the local principal's view. The current gnidefines English, which were last issued in 1964, consist of 15 pages including two covers, three blank sheets, two pages of poetry and four large photos. The SDHS principal, an . English teacher, says it's quite a job to design courses for all five grades, from its vague generalities. It says a bit about classrooms and time tables, but nothing at all about literature. It's a big change from earlier guidelilnes which ran to 200 pages and listed books that were to be read, and told how they were to be taught. Cur riculurn guideli nes in other subjects are pretty uninformative too but ':English is the worst," Mr. Shaw says. A Press release from education for minister Thomas Wells says "English guideli nes will be revised, to ensure that every SDHS already has compulsory subjects •