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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1969-11-27, Page 154 Clinton.iNeVWFleqordt Thursday,, November 27., 1999; iditidarrompont Time to nominate • Despite a recent town council directive which instructed clerk-treastifer ^ John Livermore to notify the news media, in advance of all council meetings, it Was learned this Week that council held a special meeting fast , Thursday evening without telling either The,News-ReCtOrd •Pr the local correspondent for the London Free Press. Mr, Livermore said yesterday that the meeting was held to pass a bylaw asking the Dept. of Highways for additional road maintenance grants. 'He said council learned last week that funds might be available despite earlier reports that no supplementary bylaws would he approved. Council met on short notice, he said, because it was anxious to get its request for aid to the provincial officials as soon as possible, The clerk said "we decided on it only the night before" and he notified the council members by telephone. He gave no reason for failing to notify the press. The purpose of the meeting may be commendable and the business transacted only routine, those factors do not cancel the public's right to be present at every council meeting or to be represented by reporters at those meetings. Clinton is only a small town, but the principles are no different from London where a candidate for board of control said recently: , "The citizen has a right to know what is happening at city hall. Closed meetings arouse a lot of suspicion and the people lose their trust in elected officials," No, Clinton's •council did not bar anyone from attending last week's session. But the gathering was just as secret as if the door had been locked.. There have been too many occasions in the last year when council has met in secret or held special meetings without notice to anyone but the councillors. In discussing the situation in London, a reporter wrote on Tuesday: "Very few members of the public attend meetings of public bodies when they are open. The public has become accustomed to relying • on the news media to report what goes on at city hall: "So the battles of the closed doors are Usually fought between council and reporters, but both sides know the doors are being closed to keep the Public from finding out what is happening. "A couple of candidates suggest they would be happy to Jetta PreSs in on all deliberations 'for background purposes,' Provided nothing is Published or provided newsmen report Only what the politicians wanted reported. ''Most newsmen regard . such an arrangement as worse than useless because then they would be bound to keep secret matters which they might find out about in other ways, as often happens." This newspaper shares that opinion and has refused council invitations to attend its monthly, secret,, committee of the whole meetings at which the script is written for the regular, public, meetings. Tomorrow is nomination night in town and it might be a good time for would-be 1970 council members to declare their. intent to spend public money and transact public business in the open. There have been repeated suggestions that council hold two regular public meetings each month instead of one open session and one closed. Let's hear the stands of those men or women who want to be chosen to serve the people. Other matters which might be topics tomorrow include proposals for merger of public works functions with the sewer and water departments of the Public' Utilities Commission; improvement in ambulance service — a matter about which little has been heard since the coroner's jury recommended improvements a year ago and increasing the number of policemen so the force is not overworked and so that auxiliary men need not be used in place of fully qualified constables. With two of the newer andyounger members of council likely to step down, it is imperative that they be replaced by men or women who bring new ideas to the body and who will gain the experience needed to advance in seniority and guide the government in the future. This handful of random thoughts is not enough. The best way to have your questions answered and to assure the selection of the best candidates is to turn out tomorrow for the meeting in town hall between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. when nominations will be accepted for mayor, reeve, councillors and public utilities commissioners for a one-year term. Clinton long proclaimed itself to be "The Hunting Ground of the Hurons," something it probably never w9s. The new signs greeting Clinton-bound highway travellers commemorate the establishment here of the first radar training school in North America and explain the significance of the radar antenna monument at the main corner. — Staff Photo. um rotrm i41„ltx There was never any need for boarding house blues THE CLINTON NEW ERA Amalgamated THE HURON NEWS-RECORD Established 146$ ' 1924 Established 1881 Clinton News-Record A Member of the Canadian Weekly Newspaper Assotiation i Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) second class rfrail registration ntimber ,— 0817 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: (in advance) Oarlsida, 56.00 per year; U.S.A., $7.50 I ERIC A. IVic4UINNESS — Editor J.• HOWARD AITKEN General Manager atio* 1.0 Published every Thursday at the heart of Huron County Clinton, Ontario Population 3,475 THE HOME OP RADAR flv C;4/V.4 DA A rewarding profession Most teachers become very fond of certain students. And, believe it or not, some stu- dents become .very fond of cer- tain teachers. This was made painfully clear to me over the weekend. I became involved with a veri- table spate of my former stu- dents. They're all at university now and each was going thr•ough some part of the par- ticular hell that that involves. It began on Friday after- noon. Gerry appeared at my classroom door, looking like a rabbit that has :;ust had a run- in with a wolf. While the class I was about to teach chattered about what they were going to do tonight, chewed their gum, waved their mini-skirted legs,, or dropped into a deep slum- ber, Gerry told me his trou- bles. He is one of the nicest boys, and one of the weakest English students, it has ever been my fate to encounter. He's the kid who rushed about last June and bought me a bottle of bur- gundy and six golf balls after receiving the incredible news that he'd passed in English. His only problem Friday 'was that he had three essays to write in six days. He was look- ing for a life belt. I was fresh out of them, but gave him some reference books, tome sympathy and ,some ideas on how to tackle his essays. I don't think he has a hope in heaven of passing his semen. ter, Under those conditions, but he's learned something: you don't wait 'until an essay is breathing down your neck be- fore you write it. That very night, another for- mer student called her mum, who lives across the street from us, She wanted to know if the Smileys were going to be home for the weekend. If so, she was coming home, because she had to see Mr. Smiley. She has graduated and is attending a college of educa- tion, purportedly learning to be a high school teacher. Her problem was a little different. She had to teach some poetry this week, as part of that 20th century form of the Spanish Inquisition known as "practice teaching." This involves facing a class of strange students, with an eagle-eyed professional teacher watching from the back of the room. Harrowing is the world. So I spent Saturday after- noon going over the poems with her and getting her all muddled up. But she left with a pile of notes and the feeling that she could survive the or- deal. Sunday afternoon I met two more former students, under different circumstances. I couldn't help them with their work. It was in a funeral home and their mother was dead, tragically, after a brief illness. I kissed the girls and hugged them. There wasn't anything else to do or say. Sunday night, one of them, Liz, closest friend of our daughter since Grade 7, came around and spent two hours talking with my wife and me. Not weeping, just talking in her sensible, sweet, 19-year- old way. And last of all, there was another former student, my own kid, Kim, staggering around in that horrible chaos of first-year university. Bell Telephone stock took another good shot in the arm when• her mother called her Sunday night. She had just discovered that she'd been missing two biology lectures a week, all fall, be- cause they weren't on her timetable. And maybe this was the reason she wasn't doing so well in biology. And she has an exam in it this week and she knows she'll fail and she'd like nothing better than to quit the whole silly business and get a job as a waitress. And that's the way it goes, if you're a teacher. I've been at it for only ten years, but in that time, I've found very few youngsters who are vile or des- picable. There are some. But most of them are funny, con- fused, lost, brash, shy, aggres- sive, kooky. It's only when they become adults that they seem to turn into pompous bores, nagging wives, stuffed shirts, shrews, gossips and all manner of un- pleasant creatures of both sex- es. Perhaps there's a great uni- versal truth in there some- where. But I can't find it. How- ever, it makes up for a lot of the frustration and nerve-rend- ing days of teaching when the blase, sophisticated teen-agers come back to see the old man when 'they're in trouble. Most everybody's got at least one subject about which they'd like to see a column written and — bless their hearts! — sometimes they pass the idea along to me. _ Fellow named Ian Menzies writes me, for example, about boarding houses. He says: "You should do a column about boarding houses. I'll bet there `are hundteds of thousands of people, like me, whose lives have been enriched by living under the same roof with a half dozen or more strangers. But perhaps you've never had that experience yourself ...." Never had it, indeed! Listen, Ian, where do you think I got these long, prehensile arms? Pitching horseshoes? Not on your life. Got 'em trying to outreach the other human tarantulas at boarding house tables. Oh, I know, you don't often hear jokes about "the boarding house reach" any more, but they were a genuine part of the mythology of that kind of communal living. I remember at one boarding house there was a young Anglican minister, a big, husky, rosy-checked fellow who used to say grace before dinner. He had a trick of ending his remarks when you least expected it and then he'd lunge for the choicest victuals. before the rest of us 75 YEARS AGO The Clinton New Era November 30, 1894 Wes. Moore of town is in Ingersoll, mastering the piano tuning business. Cooper's book store had a Small fire on Wednesday afternoon, the heat from a chimney burning some Wallpaper, in the second storey; had the fire happened at night time, it might have been serious. Numbers of small boys are evidently not aware that snow-balling is contrary to by-law; several persons have been hurt and if the practice is not discontinued, an example will have to' be made of some of them. 55 YEARS AGO The Clinton New Era December 3, 1914 Ernest Rozell was a visitor in Brussels over Sunday. Mrs. FL Plumsteel entertained a few of her lady friends last Thursday afternoon. Councillor C. J. Wallis returned last Thursday night front his Western trip. John Crooks, who Spent the past week in Clinton, left on Monday again for Toronto for a Week or so in his wholesale house. were ready for action. ".... for Christ's sake, amen," he'd say and the biggest lamb chop would be gone. The landladies of the boarding houses I knew all had two things in' common. They were (a) the world's worst cooks and (b) the world's most soft-hearted women. In every boarding house there ,was always one bum ,Tieing carried along by the landlady. 4 One who comes to my mind was a pale, under-nourished early vintage hippie who claimed to be a composer. He had long, lank hair and a kind of withdrawn, pained look and even at the table, where he was astonishingly adroit at knife-and-forksmanship, he managed to look romantically artistic. The landlady loved it. So he couldn't pay his board? So never mind. The poor dear was struggling with his art and would be carried until the world recognized his genius. I once asked Syd what sort of music he wrote and he took me up to his room. I expected to find heavy drapes and maybe a marble bust of Beethoven, but it turned' out that Syd wrote cowboy music. The walls of his room were covered with pictures of Hank Snow. Syd showed me all his compositions, but I can remember only two of the titles. 40 YEARS AGO November 28, 1929 Mr: and Mrs. Proctor Palmer and son Donald have returned from a visit with the former's mother in Detroit. Mr. G. A. McCague, District Agricultural Representative, and his assistant, Mr. I. McLeod, have been attending the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto. Mrs. Clegg of Brussels was a visitor with her mother, Mrs. Farquhar, over Sunday. Mrs. R. Scruton, Mrs. J. Fick, Miss Fern Fick and Mr. G. Hozell of Port Burwell spent the weekend as the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Ed. Scruton. 25 YEARS AGO November 30, 1944 A. B. Douglas Andrews arrived home on Monday after seven months service in the Far East. Mr. and Mrs. Les Jervis of Holmesville have been advised that their son, WO Ivan Jervis, is a prisoner of war in Germany: M. Geo. Murdoch of Hagersville is Spending the week With Mrs. W. T. Herman. Mr. and Mrs. T, E. Mason have received word that' their daughter, Mrs. G. W. Yeats, has arrived safely overseas. Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Houghton, Vancouver, are Visiting the latter's patents, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Bond, Huron Road. 1 , t ALL SERVICES QN STANDARD TIME • ‘,, ONTARIO STREET UNITED CHURCH ,r4='' , "THE FRIENDLY CHURCH" Pastor: REV. H. VC WQNFQR, U B.Sc., B,Conl-t.B.D, Organist: MISS LOIS GRASBY, Arli-C.T. ! s:- s. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30th . ".`' ' 9:45 a.m. -- Sunday School, 11:00 a.rn. — Morning Worship, Sermon Topic; "WHEN LOVE HEALS" , VVReEsvie.YVV. Ji.liMisow—ATHT°,1cm-Pesv-, Bil .,UBn.Dit.e, dc).0C„hmurinoihste: MR. LORNE DOTTERER, Organist and Choir Director WESLEY-WI LLIS SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30th . 9:45 a.m. — Sunday School.. 11:00 • a.m, '— Morning Worship- HOLMESVILLE , 1:00 p.m. 7 Sunday School. 2:00 p.m. — Special reception service and fellowship hour for Porter's Hill members and others, , '' --::- Ail Welcome'— . CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH ' SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30th 10:00 a.m. — 'Morning Service. 2:30 p.m. —Afternoon Service. Every Sunday, 12:30 noon, dial 680 CHLO, St. Thomas listen to "Back to God Hour" — EVERYONE WELCOME — ,.....„_24-.......m ' ; ST. ANDREW'S PRESBYTERIAN. CHURCH The Rev. R. U. MacLean, B.A., Minister Mrs. B. Boyes, Organist and Choir Director • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30th 9:45 a.m. — Sunday School. . 10:45 a.m. — Morning Worship — Wednesday, Dec. 3 — Madeleine Lane Auxiliary Christmas Pot Luck supper, 6:30 p.m. BAYFIELD BAPTIST. CHURCH Pastor: Leslie Clemens SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30th Sunday School: 10:00 a.m. Morning Worship: 11:00 a.m. Evening Gospel Service: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday,, 8:00 p.m. Prayer meeting and Bible study OPTOMETRY J. E. LONGSTAFF OPTOMETRIST Mondays and Wednesdays 20 ISAAC STREET For Appointment Phone 482-7010 SEAFORTH OFFICE 527-1240 R. W. BELL OPTOMETRIST The Square, GODER ICH 524-7661 For Air-Master Aluminum Doors and Windows and AWNINGS and RAILINGS JERVIS SALES R. L. Jervis — 68 Albert St. Clinton,— 482-9390 SEAFORTH insures. * TownDwellings * All Class of Farm Property * Stammer cottages * Churches, Schools, Halls ,Extended coverage (wind, smoke, water darnage, falling objects etc.), is also available, Agentw dimes Keit SofC)"-rtlf; V. J. Lane, •RR 6, Searotth; WM. Leiper, Londesboro;' Selwyn Baker, Brussels; Harold 'Squire, Clinton', George Coyne, bUblin; t)onald G. Baton, ,Sgaforth„ One, as I recall it, was called, "He's Tall in the Saddle, But Itty-Bitty on the Ground" and the other was, "Darlin' Don't Put Those Cold, Cold Hands on Me." I often think now, hearing the stuff my kids listen to, that he was born too soon. (I was, myself, busy at work on a romantic ballad to be called, "I'm a Little Bit Wanton Wantin' You," but that's another story.) Like most people I moved from one boarding house to another, hoping to find one where the beef wasn't like tanned buffalo hide. Because of this I was several times cast in the starring role of The New Man. That first dinner was always a strange experience, what with the rest of the company subtly cross-examining you and grading you for acceptability. Right away you could recognize the familiar, stock boarding house types — the femme fatale' of the establishment, the extrovert who would monopolize all conversation henceforth and whose monologue you would soon learn to hate, the man who was particularly friendly to you and who, predictably, would try to make a touch before you were familiar • with his perilous credit rating, the landlady, herself, sitting regally at the head of the table. 15 YEARS AGO November 25, 1954 Master Ken Cummings attended the Royal Winter Fair on• Saturday and took in a hockey game at the Maple Leaf Gardens. Bruce Suitor, who spoke in Wesley-Willis United Church on Sunday morning, and Mrs. Suitor, Woodstock, were the guests while in town of Mr. and Mrs. John A. Sutter. Mr. and Mrs. David Ormond, Lucy, Stephen and Brian, Plymouth, Mich., were with the former's parents, Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Ormond, Bayfield, over the weekend. 10 YEARS AGO November 26, 1959 • Mts. Betty Lou McLeed and Lea Anne visited her brother, Clarence Larson, and family, Bayfield. Mrs. R. J. Larson Was with her sister, Mrs. L. B. Smith, London, on Saturday and Sunday, Mrs, William B, Parker who accompanied them to the city returned home Saturday evening, Bud Yeo, RR 3, elintittn, showed the top place Hereford animal at the Royal Winter Fgt. Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Leppington and three sting, Scarborough, Ogled On Mr. and Mrs. Thottiat Leppington and family, Clinton. PETER J. KELLY your Mutual Life Assurance Company of Canada Representative Office: 17 Rattenbury St. E. Clinton 482.7914 INSURANCE K. W. COLQUH9UN INSURANCE & REAL ESTATE Phones: Office 482-9747 Res. 482-7804 HAL HARTLEY Phone 482-6693 LAWSON AND WISE INSURANCE — REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS' Clinton Office: 482-9644 J. T. Wise, Res.: 482-7265 ALUMINUM PRODUCTS 'THE McKILLOP MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY - toot