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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2011-01-13, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2011. PAGE 5. Along time ago, when pterodactyls flew and I first entered the job market, I found myself, one payday, with some spare cash in my bank account. “Invest it!” whispered my Good Fairy. “In what?” I asked. “Gold!” whispered The Good Fairy. I had, that payday, enough money in my account to buy 20 ounces of the yellow stuff, but I took a pass. Other pleasures beckoned seductively – a down payment on a decent used car, a Caribbean vacation, a couple of scalped front row tickets to a Rolling Stones concert. Besides, the price of gold was ridiculously high. Thirty-five dollars an ounce. What’s that old German saying: “Too soon old; too late smart”? If I’d bought those 20 ounces of gold back then it would be worth close to twenty-eight grand right now. Maybe more – the price of gold is still streaking skyward as I type. That’s an awful lot of money for a cold, hard substance that you can’t eat, drink, wear or make love to, but gold has mesmerized humankind for as long as we’ve been winkling it out of the earth. And that’s a long time. Archaeologists have uncovered golden artifacts in the Balkans that date back to 4,000 BC. The earliest known map ever found includes plans for a gold mine in the Nubian Desert. The Egyptians literally worshipped the stuff. Romans commandeered legions of slaves to dig for it. The Aztecs called it (presumably with admiration) ‘teocuitlatl’, which means ‘God’s excrement’. So what’s the big attraction? Well, gold is beautiful and it doesn’t rust, and although it’s dense, gold is extremely workable. In fact, it’s the most malleable of all the metals. A single ounce of gold could be beaten into a sheet 300 feet square. Gold leaf can be beaten so thin you can read a newspaper through it. The other thing that makes gold attractive is, it’s hard to come by. Acquisitive humans have been prospecting, pick-axing, panning and smelting for gold for 6,000 years, and yet all the gold that’s ever been found would amount to 180,000 tons, give or take an earring. That would fit into a cube just 25 yards high, wide and deep. Gold fever runs like a recurrent plague through the pages of history. The Conquistadores slaughtered for it in Central and South America. Forty-niners and Klondikers gave up their jobs and families to chase traces of the stuff in streams from California to the Yukon. And the fever is upon us again – which is not necessarily a good sign. Henry Jarecki, a famous dealer in gold bullion says “the world is a pleasanter place when there are low gold prices. Low prices signify trust and friendship.” Both of which are in apparently short supply these days. The price of gold has never been higher. JP Morgan recently announced that it had reopened its gold vault beneath the streets of New York. The vault has been closed for years, but the investment bank obviously anticipates a bout of gold fever for some time to come. They are also building a brand new gold vault beneath the streets of Singapore. Canada’s in on the act too. Not far from JP Morgan headquarters in New York – at 26 Broadway to be precise – our own Bank of Nova Scotia maintains a massive gold vault. Here at home the folks at Scotiabank would be happy to sell you a gold bar or wafer – anything from one to 400 ounces worth, for just a slight extra charge over the going price. Good investment? Most financial advisors think not. They point out that gold prices are volatile and extremely sensitive to outside forces as unpredictable as hurricanes and threats of war (or peace). Yet history shows us that people of all times and cultures draw comfort from the hoarding of gold. All I know is, if I’d taken the plunge all those years ago and bought a few ounces of gold I’d be sitting pretty right now. Not that I’m hurting you understand. I’ve got all the money I’ll ever need. As long as I don’t buy anything. Come to think of it, back when I had that chance to buy gold at $35 an ounce, a cup of coffee was selling for a dime. This morning I bought a cup of Grandioso Machiavelli Frappalatte something-or-other at Starbucks. It’s lukewarm, smells like coffee and set me back four bucks and change. To hell with precious metals. If I’d been smart enough to invest in coffee bean futures I’d be drinking out of a golden goblet instead of a paper cup. Arthur Black Other Views Baby, it’s gold outside these days The saying goes, “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today”. It was Thomas Jefferson who said that and it really hit home with me when I returned from Christmas holidays. I came home from work that night to a big book of word search puzzles that had been sitting on my kitchen table for a while. The sight of it made me stop and hang my head. It was a Christmas present I would never get to give, as it was intended for local veteran Stewart Ament, who passed away on New Year’s Eve. Since first interviewing Stewart in May, 2010, I had visited him several times at Braemar Retirement Centre and became more and more interested in what he had to say every time I saw him. Serving as a bookmark in Stewart’s gift was a card, wishing him a Merry Christmas. It had a baseball theme and it said that the card came from a big fan of his. When I saw it, I felt it was perfect for how I saw our relationship, so I picked it up immediately. I was a fan. The hectic holiday season, both here at The Citizen and at home, wouldn’t allow me to make a holiday visit, and resulted in a vow to visit him in the new year. It was, however, that first day back to work when I was met with news of his passing. Stewart’s story was a fascinating one. He spent years overseas fighting for his country. He made his way through a handful of countries in the Second World War and, to be honest, he never thought he would make it back home. Stewart was a warm and kind-hearted man who, even at the age of 90, was committed to keeping himself sharp both mentally and physically. He read The Citizen every week, I’m proud to say he was an avid reader of this column, worked on his word searches all the time and he strolled around Braemar several times a day to keep in shape. In recent years, he had lost his beloved wife Mildred and his son Garry, but even after those losses, he knew he held a special place in the hearts of many, including mine. Interviewing Stewart for the first time, I found him to be curious to the point that he asked more questions about me than I did about him. My girlfriend Jess, whose grandfather also served in the Canadian Armed Forces, was of particular interest, as he hoped that one day he would meet her. The feeling was mutual, as Jess hoped to meet Stewart one day as well. She wanted to hear his story first hand, but she never got to. So as I returned home that Monday night, I was filled with regret that I wasn’t able to see Stewart one last time before he left us. Unfortunately, it’s a story that I’m sure many of us can relate to. We’ve all lost loved ones and we’ve all hoped for more time. We’ve all looked back on decisions we’ve made that could have resulted in more time with someone we’ve lost. We think of trips we could have made, parties we should have attended and phone calls that we wish we hadn’t missed. Our paths crossed due to unlikely circumstances, but in the end, I’m glad that they eventually did cross. Stewart will be missed by many who knew him and even more who wished they knew him better. He was a great man, a loving husband and father and someone who loved his country and he certainly deserves to be honoured. Don’t put off... I hate to start any monologue, dialogue or writing piece with anything so cliché, but doors closing usually are accompanied by windows opening. During my youth, I was a Golden Bear. Some people may not know what that is, and that is because there are so few of us left. The Golden Bears hailed from the hallowed halls of Seaforth District High School (SDHS), which, since it closed in my Grade 11 year, has become Seaforth Public School and the Avon-Maitland District School Board office building. During my Grade 11 year, I wasn’t directly involved with trying to keep the school open. I really didn’t have my roots there. Despite a good portion of my life being spent in Seaforth and the surrounding area, I still felt like I was from Goderich, where I had done most of my growing up. That’s not to say I wasn’t disappointed when my school closed. For the last two years of my public school career, I had been bused to Huron Centennial Public School, and being able to walk to school was a definite plus. However, what I failed to realize then, and what I realize now looking back, is that the school closing had the potential to be devastating for the surrounding community. Fast forward to now, and I’m seeing this happening again, only in the communities that are facing school closures, there aren’t other schools to attract families. Seaforth had two elementary schools to fall back on, two centres that would bring young families in. Blyth, Brussels and Belgrave, just to name a few, don’t have that luxury. If (or when, if you’re of that mind) the schools close, it will have started a chain reaction that will most likely not be fully felt in the communities for several years. The long-term effects will become known, but what about the short-term effects? Well, as someone who has gone through this as a student, I have to say, the short term effects were exactly what the school board said they would be. When SDHS closed, I started taking a bus (or an occasional ride with a friend) to attend school in Clinton. The people I had associated with seemed to split, some went to St. Anne’s Catholic Secondary School, and the rest of us went to Central Huron Secondary School. What originally looked like a depressing way to spend my last year of secondary education actually became the year that drew me to my passion and the means through which I can achieve it. Through new teachers, innovative programs, concentrated finances and rekindled and new friendships, I found a fertile learning ground. Thanks to these friendships and these teachers, I found myself involved in things I would have never considered before. I was a stage director in a play (that I didn’t actually get to see, although that’s a topic for another day), I became a member of a dedicated team of students who put on a film festival and created a professionally-done film trailer, I found the desire to be a journalist through a class that taught me to ask questions and introduced me to international news and I learned the programs and computers that would eventually see me become vice- president of a privately-owned publishing company in university. I experienced these things due to the concentration of students, teachers and funds that was created through the closure of SDHS. The day that students from Blyth and Brussels and Belgrave and the surrounding area step on to those buses for the “super school,” or wherever they choose to go, the communities will face challenges. However, those students may find themselves in unique learning situations that they may not have found had the individual schools stayed open. Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense Open windows and other clichés Denny Scott Denny’s Den Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be signed and should include a daytime telephone number for the purpose of verification only. Letters that are not signed will not be printed. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity and content, using fair comment as our guideline. The Citizen reserves the right to refuse any letter on the basis of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise. I keep six honest serving-men. They taught me all I knew. Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who. – Rudyard Kipling Final Thought