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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1970-04-02, Page 4An old bridge abutment g bliat Movie stars who shine no longer ONTARIP HE .f STREET UNITS[ CHURCH t'T R CHURCH" Pastor; RkY, H. W, WONFOR, _O5c.,B,Cprn„, Organist: MISS LOIS GRASSY, ,A.R,C,T„ 9;44 a.m.0 SUNDAY,s AnciPaRyll..sc70, 11:00 Morning Worship, Sacrament of the Lard's Supper FmcgPrioN. OF NEW Mailf311$ 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, GODERICH 524-7661 INSURANCE K. W. COLQUHOUN 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 For Air-Master Aluminum Doors and Windows and AWNINGS and RAILINGS JERVIS SALES R. L. Jervis — 68 Albert St. Clinton — 482-9390 \.\\‘‘‘‘•••••••• %%%%% \\.\\••••••••••••••••••• \\55\55\\%1 • • • • • • • • N\• ••• S. • • S. \\\\\\.\\\.\\\.\\\\.\\\\ Business and Professional ry Directo \ • • ••• \NN• \ • \ • ,..\\ • • • • \ \ THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR YOUR AD THE CLINTON NEW ERA Amalgamated THE HURON NEWS-RECORD Established 1865 1924 Established 1881 Clinton News-Record A member of the Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) second elass registration number — 0817 SueSettirktumt RACES: (in advance) Canada, $6,00 per year; U.S.A., $7.50 KEITH W, FlOtliATON editor J. liOWAllf, AITKEN General IVIanager ttgAniah strUkt•r••A,416.,.* Published every Thursday at the heart of Huron County if Clinton, Ontario Population JOS THE HOME OF RADAR IN CANADA iRE INSURNICt COMPANY SEAFORTH Insures: * Town Dwellings * All Clast Of Farm Property * Summer cottages * Churches, Schools, Halls extended coverage (Wind, smoke, water damage, falling objects etc.) is also available. • 4 Clinton• News-Record, Thursday, April Z 1970 Editorial comment Who's driving this bus' the Ousps had eOrle home at night and they had no way to get home. They found, many of them but not all, the kind Of alienation that erowS whenever people are dealt with in large numbers. • That's just one story, but you can hear it in other places and, nine chances out of 10, if you go tO Milverton two years from now, you can hear it there, It's -a tale that has been told so far mainly in education but one which is going to be heard more of in other areas too. Most municipal leaders in Huron County realize the fact they are in a losing battle fighting for local autonomy and are striving now just to keep Huron County as the local level rather than having it bunched together with• Perth as the smallest level of government. Area government seems inevitable. The only question left seems to be how big the area will be.. - It raises the question again: who is in control? Do we have any control over our own future and how our own taxes are spent? The people of Milverton know they don't. A group of outsiders just decided that, like it or not, they weren't to have their own school. A number of smaller towns around have recently found out that, like it or not, their police force is being taken over by the Ontario Provincial Police. Like it or not, your taxes are now being assessed by a provincial assessor, not a local one. And, like it or not, we're 'about to lose control of many of the functions of our town council. Some already have been lost. For instance, if the town decided to do some work on its streets, it probably would look for grants from that province to do it. The province could, by withholding grants, stop work all together or it could influence, by offering larger grants in some areas than'others, influence just what was, and wasn't done. This seems fair enough, since the province is paying part, in many cases the biggest part, of the shot. But look at the other alternative. Say the town wanted to go on its own, without help from the province. This would likely require debentures to be issued, and there again, it runs smack right into the provincial government. -Alt projects requi6mlnig the issuing of-1 debentures, must be approved -by the Ontario Municipal Board, a government agency, • before they can proceed. This board has been called the most powerful single unit of government in the province. Without its approval, nothing in the municipal field moves whether in the town of Clinton or in mighty, Metropolitan Toronto, Not all the moves of the government have been bad. Several have been improvements. But the problem is that the units are so big they no longer serve the people. They rule them. Ifs time that we started to fight to keep our rights to govern ourselves. Much has been said and written lately about the arrogance of Prime Minister Trudeau and his government, how they are extending their control ever wider and paying no attention to the common man. But the same thing has been happening here in Ontario for years and you hear hardly a whisper. It's time to ask: who's driving this bus? A decision reached by Perth County School Board Monday night isn't likely to have any direct effect on people in our area, but it is cal-ISO for us to Stop, and take a long look where we are headed, The Perth board decided to close the high school in Milverton because they claimed it was uneconomical to operate. Students will be bussed .to Stratford; Mitchell and Listowel. The decision was made despite the strenuous efforts of the citizens of Milverton to keep their school and a fight by the only member of the board from Milverton to have the school stay open. The question arises, just who is running the show anymore? Recent years have seen, especially in provincially controlled area, a trend toward larger and larger units. In education there was the move away from one-room schools and toward larger consolidated schools. At first these took the form of three or four-room schools. Then whole townships were grouped into one school. Now often two or more townships are herded into one building, and the trend is to make them even bigger. These days, if a high school has fewer than 1000 students it is considered small. If a town isn't big enough to have that sort of school, then its students are bussed to another school several miles away. The Milverton path has been followed by many other towns in recent years and the story of what happens next is seldom happy. The most recent example that comes to mind is the case in Lucknow. Two years ago, after years of encouragement and mild blackmail by the Department of Education, the local trustees decided to close the local high school and unite with the high school in Wingham. They were assured this would save money since their small school of just over 200 students was "uneconomical". They were told that the students would have a much wider choice of subjects in the new school since there would be more teachers. They were informed their children would get a better education because a large school could afford better teachers. What happened? To accommodate the new students, a new addition " had to be built at the Wingham school, raising school taxes higher -than -they:-had -ever •been raised. before. The students found they did not really have more options than before because timetables can only be juggled so many ways. And, they found, the same mixture of good and bad teachers to be found in any school whether large or small. They also found that they were travelling a lot longer on buses every day. Some students, who already spent nearly an hour on buses just getting to the Lucknow school, faced the fact that they had to put in another 15-20 minutes each way travelling from Lucknow to Wingham. What the students didn't find was that undefinable sense of belonging which they had had in their own school in their own town. Instead of a compact group where everyone knew everyone else by first name, they found a large production line, churning out graduates. They found that they couldn't make use of many of the school facilities for extra curricular activities because they took place after 75 YEARS AGO Huron News-Record April 3, 1895 The butchering business so long conducted by Mr. John Scruton was purchased by Mr. Lack Kennedy who has taken possession. The Czar has ordered 500,000 rubles to be devoted to a fund for the relief of newspaper men and authors. The latest organized youth group are the Young tritons Cricket Club, with the following officers: captain, Harold Steep; president; Percy Couch; secretary, Geo. McLennan; treasurer, Walter Irwin; committee, Dean, Finley, Norman Fitzsimons, Harry Irwin and Will McMurray. 55 YEARS AGO The Clinton New Era April 1, 1915 This week a government representative was here installing the new clock in the post office tower and in a few days our citizens will know when to go home to their families at night. Mr. W. R. Counter' who has had the clock here for the past year, is assisting in the work. Miss Lily Adams is the guest of her sister, Mrs. Chas. Dexter of Constance. M r. Wi tm ore, General Manager of the Clinton Motor Car Works has rented the house 5t-zh, recently vacated by Mr. Taylor. 40 YEARS AGO April 3, 1930 The play presented by the young people of Holmesville United Church "Wrecking Robert's Budget" a three-act corrieey was a delightful success. Those taking part were Mr. and Mrs. Norman Mair, Misses Edith Herbert, Rita McDonald, Thelma Cudmore and Messrs. Gordon Stock, Harry Cudmore, Norman Trewartha and Eimer Potter. Music between the acts was provided by an electric radio, kindly loaned for the occasion by Mr. J. B. Langford of Clinton. Please turn to Page 8 One of the depressing aspects of looking at the ancient movies that unfurl during the long afternoons -- as I've been doing this week, home with Galloping Snuffles -- is the tendency to fall out of love with a lot of the sweethearts of yesteryear. Any red-blooded Canadian boy who once carried a small torch for Norma Shearer, Kay Francis, Claudette Colbert or any of the other queens of the silver ,screen in the dear, dead day slif4614,; is: fittoSeq injora rude'awakeriing the second time around. Take Sylvia Sidney, a thing I was dying to do about a quarter of a century ago. Time was when I kept a pretty regular tryst with Sylvia from a seat up in the peanut gallery of the Rex Theatre and, by jimminy, she brought the roses to my cheeks in those days. Imagine my dismay, then, when one of her old pictures turned up on the tiny screen yesterday afternoon and it came to me that we'd outgrown each other. Sylvia hadn't changed so it had to be me, I felt 'that sort of let-down that's said to inflict spinsters who come across an old treasury of love letters in the attic only to find that, in retrospect, they're pathetically hilarious. I suppose everybody hates to be separated from an illusion. That's really what was happening to me. My blood pressure remained distressingly A kitten for Easter Somebody ought to do some- thing about Easter. It's much too flexible. It's supposed to be a. time of rebirth and rejoicing. But you can't really be swept away by a feeling of rebirth and new life when there in still a foot of snow on the ground and the wind cuts to the mar- row. ' Sometimes Easter is in March, and the weather is beautiful. Sometimes it's in April and the weather is horri. ble. I don't know how the date is determined, any more than I know how to fix loose door knobs, how to/ get outboard motors going when they stop, what to d o when a woman weeps, or how to play midwife to a eat, I'M not knocking Easter. I like it. I love the sackcloth and aahet feeling, and the gloomy dirges of Good Friday, when even the ptibs are closed, And there it a joy and triumph in the Easthe Sunday hymns that Can't be surpassed, I think, even by the Christmas carols, Easter is also one of the days that keeps many of our chnrches from becoming ex- tin& Some primitive instinct brings out the wayward, the fallen, the sinners, and the Easter Sunday collection is the best of the year, You meet old church friends you haven't seen for a year. And won't for another. This yeAr, we- were sera a normal. My toes refused to curl as they once had. I wouldn't bother mentioning this except that a couple of items have come to my attention recently which bear on the subject. One of them is the report of the reaction that's attended the re-release of a picture called "A Fool There Was," starring Theda Bara. Now Theda was slightly before my time, you understand, but not so much that I couldn't hek the reverberating echoes of A sighs• of &'whole genelatiOn or males who took her as their dream girl, When Theda lowered the awnings of those immense eye-lids, so the story went, strong men were heard to cry out as if in pain. Now the picture is showing to modern, 1970 audiences and the response to Theda is just as positive as it ever was. The difference is that the cries of today are cries of heartless laughter. The great fascinator of the past, has become a comical figure. That brings me to an essay written by one Barry Bingham, one-time editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, a man who has taken a long look R at the changing standards of sex appeal and has decided that it is as subject to alteration as the design of automobiles or women's clothes. The passion flowers who have dripped their poison on helpless mankind since the invention of the motion picture, he' Manifestation. No, it wasn't from the Department of Na- tional Revenue, although it is pretty good at providing such things. We had a birth in the fami- ly, and were privileged to wit- ness the blessed event, an ex- perience which must convince the most hardened cynic that God does see the little sparrow fall. Our kitten had a baby. This may seem a contradiction in terms, but she is a bare- adoles' cent, yet she managed to pro- duce, with great yoWling labor pains, one tiny kitten. I didn't think cats had labor pains, but she did. NOW, I haven't any use for cats, but I was fascinated by the whole procedure. We knew she was progant, of Course, But lady cats, just like lady worn, en, are rather unpredictable 'about the exact day, br even Week, of the great moment. ' She had begun to act a trifle odd, it's trim, prowling the house looking for the most in= convenient possible Plate to lay her eggs. We caught her twice in the fireplace; casing the joint. But I thought it was at least a Week away, She was so spry. When' we put her out, she would leap nimbly onto a win- dew sill and sit there glaring malevolently at friendly torn, eats conic to Vigil, or, alter- nately, at us through the win- dow, I Of home for lunch, from a concludes, are forever in peril of being out-dated. Theda Bara is by no 'means the only siren of the past who doesn't stand too close a scrutiny by our modern standards. Bingham recalls the mass worship of the stage star, Ann Pennington, whose irresistible charm was that she had fat knees. They were known then as "dimpled knees" but a cold, analytical study of them today indicates that they werellimpled onlyi„pecause they *et overly plump. In a mini=skirt they would be a dreadful handicap. Similarly the once deadly charm of langour has gone by the boards. One of the great femme fatales of those earlier years was Nita Naldi who, like Theda, had eyelids so heavy that she could scarcely lift them and whose attraction to the male was a sort of torpor that went out with the bustle and the high-button shoe. The remarkable thing is that, apart from movie stars, women generally are constantly undergoing change to attract males. You need but glance through any old album of photographs to prove the point. The girls of a short 20 years ago appear strangely sexless. Even those identified as dazzling, beauties in their time are unmistakeably old-fashioned. Only the male remains physically durable over the years, though the male never was much to start with. Saturday bonspiel, and was chatting with my wife in the living room, boring her with the shots I had almost made, Pip was sitting on the best chair in the room. She was acting in a rather peculiar fashion, stretching her legs in all directions. I. remarked on it. My Wife agreed and went over to look at her. SLAM! Too late. The water sac, or whatever, had burst all over the brocad- ed upholstery. With one fell swoop, I snatched her up and deposited her on a blanket, and bingo, she popped a kitten — some- thing resembling a tiny, dead dinosaur. Child-bride though she was, Pip's instinct Worked and she licked and licked until the infant's heart began to beat. Isn't it remarkable how a cat will clean up the entire mess, leaving her offspring sleek and shining? And isn't, it amazing how a mere thick of a kitten, by the act of giving birth, turns into a complacent, mild-eyed, smug 'mother, nura- ing by the bour with her motor going on all cylinders? We Were as delighted as she was, and had a glimmer of that feeling grandparents must have when the first grandchild arrives. What really ,shook me, though, was My Wife'S reaction,- Normally, if anyone drops so Much as a crumb, a bit Of ashi, or a drop of Coffee on her precitniS fttrniture, all hell • breaks loose, And there's het Wesley-Willis — Holiriesville United Churches REV. A. J, MOWATT, C.D., B.A., B.D., D.D., Minister MR. LORNE DOTTEFER, Organist and Choir Director SUNDAY, APRIL 5th WESLEY-WILLIS 9:45 a.m. --- Sunday School. 11:06 a,m. — Christian Fellowship Hour. Discussion Topic: "Lateral Thinning in a Horizontal World" HOLMESVIL.LE 1:00 p.m. — Christian Fellowship Hour. 2:00 p.m. — Sunday School Sunday, 8 p.m. at Ontario Street Church Community Couple's Club CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH, Clinton 263 Princess Avenue Pastor: Alvin Beukema, B.A., S.D. Services: 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. (On 2nd and 4th Sunday, 9:30 a.m.) The Church of the Back to God Hour every Sunday 12:30 p.m., CHLO — Everyone Welcome — ST. ANDREW'S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH The Rev. R. U. MacLean, B.A„ Minister Mrs. B. Boyes, Organist and Choir Director SUNDAY, APRIL 5th 9:45 a.m. — Sunday School. 10:45 a.m. — Morning Worship. Madeleine Lane Auxiliary meets Tuesday, April 7, 8:15 p.m. at the home of Mrs. Rnbert Homuth. BAYFIELD BAPTIST CHURCH Pastor: Leslie Clemens SUNDAY, APRIL 5th 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 1111111111.1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111/11111.1111111.11MINIMONIMII ST. PAUL'S ANGLICAN CHURCH Clinton SUNDAY, APRIL 5th EASTER Service 11:30 a.m. MATINS, Holy Baptism and Sermon. Tuesday, April 7, 2:45 p.m. Ladies Guild at home of Mrs Mabel Counter. THE McKILLOP MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY Agents: James Keys, RR 1, Seaforth; V. J. Lane, RR 5, Seaforth; Wtn. Leipor, Jr., Londesboro; Selwyn Baker, 'Brussels; Harold ,Squire, Clinton; George Coyne, Dublin; Donald 0, Eaton, Seaferth, good chair, with a great stain On it, and She tosses it Off as nothing. She became all Sat and motherly and was heating inilk and tucking in the kitten and lifting it an her hand to iodic; with the inevitable accident: