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Clinton News-Record, 1971-02-04, Page 4Editorial comment This is progress? We think we're so modern today. It takes a major emergency like last week's to show us that we really haven't advanced far from pioneer days. Back in the "old days" a major storm such as last week's probably wouldn't have had as much effect on people as this one did, For one thing, people would have had the sense to sit it out rather than trying to travel on the highways. Then the matter of food wouldn't have been so clrastkc. Butter, eggs, meat and milk were all produced and processed in each locality so there wasn't much worry about running out as long as the storm didn't go on for too long a period, But today, although we live in an agricultural area, we have to worry about running out of eggs and bgtter. Luckily Clinton has its own bakery and dairy so we didn't have to worry about bread or milk, but many towns in the county were not so lucky. A job well done Monsieur Bombardier, praised be thy name. A lot of people had their opinion of the snowmobile reshaped this past week. Remember how you used to use that awful language when they used to run across your front lawn or buzz by at 3 a.m.? But the excellent work performed by the snowmobile clubs all over Western Ontario during the storm renews our faith in the value of the machine itself and the values of many of the persons who run them. It is often easy to whitewash all snowmobilers with the same brush when a few idiots misuse their machines and the privilege they have to drive them. It is too easy to think that snowmobiles should be Those staples had to be trucked in to them and with the roads blocked the situation wasn't good. In the old days farmers kept a full stock of food on hand on their farms, Today they are almost as dependent on the supermarket as the urban dweller. In the old days there was no worry about heat as long as the wood box could be kept full. Now most people have to worry that the oil truck can get through and that the hydro doesn't go off making their furnace useless, In the old days the cook stove provided both heat and cooking facilities from the wood. Now if the hydro goes off it's cold beans or nothing. Yes, we've come a long way and have a lot of comforts and conveniences that the pioneers didn't have but 'although many would call it conquering nature, last week's storm showed us we're even more a slave of nature than ever. banned altogether. But if we had banned the machines from all roads we wouldn't have had them around last week to speed food and drugs when they were needed in emergencies such as we faced last week when nothing else could move. Perhaps the events of the past week will make critics of the machines take another look at their arguments. However, the problem is that the few who abuse the rights of others will probably undo all the good the rescue squads have done by going right back to their old ways. Obviously the problem of the snowmobile is not over but in the meantime we can say a hearty thank you to the members of the local snowmobile clubs and others who did such a wonderful job in the past week. Leadership in research Over the years, Canada has shown the way to the world in many aspects of medical research. It was here that insulin, the life-blood of the diabetic, was discovered; it was here that the Salk vaccine for poliomyelitis was developed. We should be proud that we have in Canada, doctors and medical scientists who can provide . the leadership, inspiration and imagination to the world of medicine. Today, many of these men and women are engaged in an all-out fight against heart disease. They are fortunate to have at their disposal The facilities of our medical schools which are among the finest in the world. Already much of their effort has been crowned with success. Research on heart disease in Canada need know no bounds, unless it is limited by the lack of funds. During this month, February, the Canadian Heart Fund is conducting a drive to ensure that the research may continue un-interrupted. Funds are needed to meet expenses incidental to the work and to maintain the doctors and medical scientists on fellowships. All of us have a vital stake in the fight against heart disease. Our support of the Canadian Heart Fund will help our medical scientists to conquer yet another enemy of mankind. Remember Give From The Heart — To Help Your Heart! FiliSakE -7 ./YAKE Anl o 2 • 6...)0Ao ir DE Az.. . you"m/e, ./y‘ Zoom' R/e//-4,20 SuRroAl CKE at yode4 SroRe pee,emic ejtAiret CARR/v.41 tidE4K. Take it easy THE CLINTON NEW ERA Amalgamated THE HURON NEWS-RECORD Established 1865 1924 Established 1881 ' Clinton News-Record aa member of the Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) second class mail registration number — 0817 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: (hi advance) Canada, $6.00 per year; U.S.A., $7.50 KEITH ROULSTON — Editor J. HOWACIO AITKEN — General Manager Published every Thursday at the heart of Huron County A tlintori, Ontario Population 1,475 VIE HOME OP RADAR IN CANADA 4 Clinton News-Record, Thursday,„February 4, 1971 Winters of memory all the colder There's nothing like a solid stretch of really cold weather to remind you that Nature still packs a mighty wallop, despite alt man's ingenuity in trying to keep his chin cover- ed. We've had a dandy around here day after day of be- low-zero temperatures. Even though they have been bright, the sun had about as much ef- fect on the atmosphere as a fried egg, sunny-side up. Everyone enjoys the first couple of days of such a spell. We all feel like hardy pioneers when we stomp in out of the cold, eyes and noses running, and exchange such inanities es, "That's a real snapper" and "told "nuff far ya?" B ut after a week or so, it begins to get to you. You begin to remember those stories about people who go mad in the rainy season, or when the sirocco is blowing. It doesn't affect the kids. They love it, bundled to the nose and full of warm, red blood. Most of the elderly hate it, and visibly shrink. It doesn't bother the outdoor enthusiasts, because they keep warm doing something. They can't lick it, so they join it. It's the ordinary, simple, every-day householder like me who begins to feel the pinch, and develops a deep gloom. When you turn the key in the car and it just groans like a wounded buf- falo, before expiring. When you look up at the ever- thickening ice on the roof and . remember you've just had your living-room redeco- rated, and know it's going to cost $30 to have it chopped off. And finally, when your downstairs facilities don't work, and you realize with horror that even in this day of oil furnaces, inside pipes can freeze. And the oilman eornetle And cometh and cometh. This is the time when you should stop and realize how lucky you are, instead of bending everybody's ear with your petty woes. You should remember how it used to be. Like most Canadians, I was brought up on cold win- ters. Earliest recollections are of midwinter Sunday morn- iegs. My mother would take my kid brother and me into bed with her where we'd help ourselves to the breakfast-in- bed she always got Sunday mornings, and 1,...en with fear and fascination to her tales of winter on Calumet Island, in the Ottawa River. The best was about the time Lady, the dainty little mare, went through the ice and the dreadful time they spent try- ing to rescue her. I think she died. There there was my bad, He hated winter and made no bones about it, It was Depres- sion times, and the coal bill was an albatross around his neck. lie was a mild, gentle man, never known to say any- thing stronger than "shoot". 13 ut inside him was some of the wild despair of his Irish forefathers. When he'd go down to fire up the furnace, I'd get my ear up against the furnace-pipe and listen with delight to late guage that should have given me curly hair, interspersed with the occasional clang, When he'd belt the furnace with his shovel out of sheer rage. I spent a winter in north- ern England, with archaic and often non-existing heating equipment, except in the pubs. Sheer, clammy misery, except iii the pubs. I spent another in Germany on the Baltic Sea, with very little food and almost no heat. Not much joy there. Then I got married. Our first place had two wood Stoves. I'd hop out of bed, plunk my freezing baby in with his warm mother,.and rustle up two fires. Then I'd take a roil of newspaper into the cellar, set fire to it, and unfreeze the water pipes which froze solid every night. Then off through the zero to the newspaper office, which boasted one of the last wood-burning furnaces on the continent. You could see your breath in the place until about 11 a.m. We graduated to a coal fur- nace, which did nothing but produce in me the same vio- lence and frustration my father had felt twenty years before. When I think of those days, and step out of bed into a pleasantly oil-heated house, I realize what a piddling little cold spell we're having now, and aintost feel like going out in the snow in my pyjamas and doing some push-ups. Al- most. The Argyle Syndicate So you've got your licence, Bill. You're 16 today and overnight you've been accepted into the Automobile Age. It's a fine feeling, isn't it? It's like growing up very suddenly. I guess it must be the kind of feeling that young men in my day (1812) experienced with their first long-pants suit. Your dad tells me you're a remarkably good driver, Bill. Most teenagers these days seem to show a kind of natural affinity to mechanical things. They seem at home almost from the first moment they slide behind the wheel. He thinks he can trust you on your own. You'll be given the car whenever he doesn't need it.• But one thing worries him, Bill. Like every parent he's seen those young people who transform a motor car into a misguided missile, It's usually when they've a load of pals aboard. They want to show off and so they speed; they lake those chances; they drive with a flair, a sort of expert recklessness that so often leads to highway homicide, So our dad asked me to write a few words about what we think good driving is all about, Bill. We hope you'll give us three or four minutes of your valuable time. Don't pose at the wheel, Bill. Mat looks silly to adults and I've a hunch it looks silly to younger people as well. You've seen those yo-yos who get staunched up in one corner with their elbow all stuck out the window arid a look on their 75 YEARS AGO The Huron News-Record February 5, 1896 On Monday evening the town Council decided to request the Ontario Government to appoint a Police Magistrate for the Thrill of Clinton. The News-Record fails t o see the necessity for such an officer. The law at present is administered efficiently. We have a Mayor mid several magistrates who should be qualified to sit on all rases that eome before them and no serious objection had been raised against their past decisions, Mr. H. F. Morgan, a practical and experienced tailor from Guelph, now has charge of the tailoring department of the Dry-Goods Palace. He is thoroughly qualified for the position, and comes to Clinton most highly recommended. 55 YEARS AGO The Clinton New Era February 3, 1916 Toronto is yet to have the opportunity of recruiting another overseas battalion. The latest ie to he known as the 186th Overseas Battalion, and Capt. John A, Cooper, an old Clinton boy, at present with the 114th Overseas Battalion. Haldiniond, has been officially 'gazetted as officer commanding. An ad in this issue read "Dorenwend's Display of Vine Hair Goods at the Rattenbury House, Clinton. Switches, Braids, Transformations, Pompadours, Waves, etc. "Thild faces as if they were Space Cadet taking off for the moon. They're the kind who like to hear that musical squeal of rubber around a corner. They like the surge of a lot of horsepower, as if they were personally generating it. They like the motor to go vroom-yroorn. They're bad drivers, Bill. They're always just a little bit out of control. If they played tennis or swam or boxed the way they drive a car they'd be ridiculed by their friends. I wish you could watch a test driver, the real professional, at the wheel of his own car. Ile sits square in behind the wheel in a comfortable, straight-backed position. Ile never speeds. He never needlessly revs his motor. He has full control over the car at all times. His passengers relax. Ile is in command, ready for the unexpected. And that's the measure of a good driver. 1 remember when I was covering police, Bill. I went to a lot of accidents. You know what they call the ambulance? They cell it "the meat wagon." You just wouldn't believe what a car can do to the human body. And 1 remember once a boy of 17 or 18 standing looking down at the torn, lifeless body of a child who had stepped out between two parked cars. The young driver's car had a fox-tail on the hood and a kewpie4loll hanging down by the driver's seat. You could fancy that the car was his toy mid you could guess the way he drove. Gentlemen" A Dorenwend Toupee is an Absolute necessity to the man who is bald". 40 YEARS AGO The Clinton News-Record February 5, 1931 Mr. IL 8. Miller, representative of the Veiled Paper Company happened with a rather peculiar accident while calling at The News-Record office receetly. He had carried in a large case of samples and on laying it down on the desk one edge dropped on the'tip of a pen handle, which flipped up and the point stuck into his forehead, just above the eye. Mr. Miller admitted that it was a logical thing to be stabbed with a'pen in a newspaper office. (Editor's Note; This just goes to prove that "the pen is mightier than the sword.") Citizens were shocked when it became generally known on Saturday that Mr. H. 0. Harper, president and general manager of the Clinton Knitting Company, had passed away at Kingston, Jamaica, where be and his wife had gone on a pleasure trip. 25 YEARS AGO The Clinton News-Record February 7, 1946 Two brothers from Kent County, Lester Eugene and Thomas Wilbur Martin, have purchased the old-established Clinton merchatidising business of A. T. Cooper, and took possession February 1. The business will be carried Wider the name of "Martins". "I never had a chance," he kept saying. But the skid-marks told the story. He'd been going too fast. He wasn't ready for the unexpected. One life was gone and another was ruined. So there's no such thing as a good fast driver, Bill, except on a speedway. What you have to remember, Bill, is that this licence puts a whole lot of responsibility on you. You're in sole charge now of what may be either a pleasure and convenience or a highly lethal weapon. The dead on North American highways now are measured in the hundreds of thousands and the injured are measured in the millions. No one can measure the heartbreak and the pain. A full three-quarters of that toll is caused by excessive speed, failure to grant right of way and driving on the wrong side of the road. In other words, bad driving. In the statistics they call it "driver attitude" and in every age group it's bad. Yours just happens to be the group in which the beginning can be right Or wrong. So take it easy, Bill. If you are driving, be admired as an expert. Don't let them talk you into "seeing what she'll do," That's a hangover from the earliest days of motoring. Don't let them encourage you to show off that power by passing on a hill or beating the stop light. Don't let the ear take command of you. Most of all, Bill, take it easy for the sake of your dad and the trust he's put in you. , ... From the "County News" — Many Seaforth residents are keenly feeling the coal shortage. Tuesday, at a local auction sale, two tons of good hard coal sold for $52, an almost unheard of price for two tons of coal. The School (R, and C.S.) has been acclaimed by visiting dignitaries to be the Model R.C.A.F. Station in Canada, in every .respect. In efficiency; the school has been compared by the experts to Harvard, Princeton and M.I.T. 15 NEARS AGO The Clinton News-Record February 2. 1956 Last week first installations of new dial telephone sets were made for McKillop Telephone System customers by John Kellar, lineman, and his Letters The Editor; May we request space in your newspaper to express appreciation and thanks to the residents of Clinton and District who offered their homes to the area students of Central Huron Secondary School during the recent storm. The fact that we were able to billet some six hundred students within two hours speaks for itself. People of Clinton deluged us with calls offering their homes, so that we could, if necessary, have billeted two or three hundred more. We thank them for their. expressions of warm hearted hospitality. May we also express our thanks,, to Major Golding, Captain Russel, and C.W.O. Ramsay of the Canadian Forces Base Clinton, who offered to feed and house at least fifty students. Their facilities were not used because the roads to the Base were closed by the storm, but the point is that the offer was made, and much preliminary work was done in the interests of our students. Yours sincerely, R. J. Homuth, Principal. The Editor; I wish to express thanks to the people who assisted us in so many ways during the recent storm. While it is understandable that the parents of snow bound children would co-operate in every respect to insure their well being, it amazed us how many other people risked themselves to bring us food and to help deliver the children home. A. Mathers, Principal Huron Centennial School. assistants. One of the first was that at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Willis Van Egmond, where one of the first of the earliest sets was installed 45 years ago. 10 YEARS AGO The Clinton News-Record February 2, 1961 The sewage disposal plant is suffering from a "foam" problem which according to PVC superintendent Jabez Rands is common to similar plants these days. The fcfam on the filtration beds is caused by the increasing amount of detergents being used. Ownership of the surplus funds in the sewerage section of the Clinton Public Utilities Commission was hotly discussed at the meeting of P.U.C. on Tuesday night. Letters to the Editor "Those snowmobiler certainly saved the day", or, "I it weren't for that snowmobil club I could have frozen t death". These are just a few o the kind words that w overheard during the recen snow storm which h midwestern and southwester Ontario. Prior to the storm I also hear remarks like, "Ban the dar things" or "They are just status symbol", and "A fe people are making money at o expense." I think you will agr these are a far cry from t remarks made during the stor We don't intend to take sid because we are involved enforcing the laws which t people have made. It is not police officer's right to deci whether a law is good or bad. is his job to protect the lives a property of the public, enforce the laws made by t people and to apprehend t alleged offenders and have th summonsed to Court, where Courts will decide, only after the evidence is heard, if alleged offender is guilty or n We of the Ontario Provin Police would like to take t opportunity to thank all persons who so ably assisted during the recent storm. numerous occasions, without help of snowmobilers, w could have been a trag turned out to be a case hardship only. I have been told, and I convinced before t emergency, that a police for only as good as the co-opera it receives from the public. co-operation we received were offered is just another to back up this belief. Could be that w everything is back to normal will hear criticism of somet we failed to do or the manne which it was handled, but letter was originally written a pencil which had an eraser the end of it, because people make mistakes. Granted, the mistakes made the better, bu we learn by our mista progress is being made. Yours tr Prov. Const. H. A. Tighe, No. Public Information Co-Ordina No, 6 Distr tol The editor: There will be many bouqu presented in the coming days the many, many kind pee who helped others in vari ways during the storm of 1 week. As one anxious mother that time I would like to pr an extra large bouquet to John Siertsema and his teachi staff at Holmesviile Cent School. They did their utmost to s our children were well cared fed and comforted. bl Siertsema even drove in Clinton on the Wednesda morning with two children wh needed medical attention and hope these parents realize ho vneerycessi riskyty. this was, but A special thank-you also Bruce Betties, Doug Yeo an Ken Harris who spelled off th very tired staff the second night Also to Norman's General Store the Carnation Milk Compan, and the very brave Goderie Snowmobile Club who were s kind to bring food and blankets There are likely many others don't know about so to yo many, many thanks. This was very trying time and as my so told me not one teacher los their patience which to me i remarkable. This is certainly somethin our children will never forge and we are certainly indebted t these good folks. Many thanks, A Grateful Mom. GIVE more will live HEART FUND