HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1970-12-03, Page 124, clintdn News-Record, Thursday, Pecenritter 1Q, 19.70
Editorial conwont
Democracy in action
In the past week several incidents have
proved again that democracy is alive and
well;
Of most local interest of course was the
election of a new town council that will
lead Clinton through the next two
difficult years, It was one of the most
spirited elections in the area and the
results were very close, proving the
importance of each individual's ballot in
the outcome.
In our elections for council, Public
Utilities Commission and school board the
only problem that many good men had to
lose. Still they did their community a
great service by making sure there was an
election to generate interest in the
government of the community.
And in parliament last vveek the power
of clemoerady was illustrated by the
victory of the opposition parties in having
the government withdraw its controversial
bill to limit the powers of the auditor
general.
There is no doubt that the auditor must
be a pain in the neck to government and
probably many of the opposition
members would be apt to sponsor such a
bill themselves if they were to form the
next government and had the office of the
auditor-general uncovering the waste that
always results in big governments.
But the fact is that strong opposition
caused the bill to be killed without it ever
coming to a vote and in the end everyone
won,
End of a tragedy-
With the rescue of James Cross last
week the terrible events of the past two
months and the FLQ kidnappings have
almost come to an end. Now, once the
killers of Pierre Laporte are brought to
justice, the nation can turn its back on the
horror of the events and concentrate on
solution of the problems that caused the
turmoil.
The tragic news from Brazil this week
on the kidnapping of a Swiss diplomat
shows just how sound the action of our
governments was in the circumstances, no
matter how some might like to twist
things to their own benefit.
In April the first kidnapping took place
in South America when the West German
ambassador to Guatemala was taken by
leftist guerrillas. When the government
failed to yield to demands for the release
of 17 jailed guerrillas the ambassador was
murdered.
In June, when the West German
ambassador to Brazil was kidnapped the
Brazilian government gave in to demands
and released 40 prisoners. They gave in
and now they are faced with another
kidnapping. Somewheret along the line,
they too 'are 6Oilig to: have •to draw the
line even at the risk of someone's life or
the jails will be empty and maniacs will be
running the country.
How well in comparison our officials
handled the situation. It is too early to
say for sure that there won't be any more
kidnapping, but the cool action of the
governments involved seems to have left
little hope for terrorists that they will gain
much by such actions.
They did not succeed in any of their
major demands and yet they were not
given the victory of being martyrs to their
cause. They were dealt with by firm and
just governments. They have little room
to protest that they were mistreated.
Throughout it all the action of the
press has been the weirdest aspect. Many
of the members of the press seemed to be
out to prove that the FLQ had reason to
hate every aspect of the establishment.
They cast aspertions on every act by every
government official in both Quebec and
Ottawa hinting they had alterior motives
for the moves. They gave wide coverage to
those who protested against the War
Measures Act but very little was said
about the millions who supported the
action. They seemed to see a boogey man
of oppression behind every tree.
And now they are scowering the
countryside in Cuba to find the FLQ
deportees and give them more publicity.
tre:, •"„actio'n— of our governments,
including the support of John Robarts in
Ontario, has done much to save our
country. It's a pity that they didn't have ,a
little help instead of hindrance from the
media.
End of an era
An ere has ended.
The announcement of the. retirement of
John Robarts as Premier of Ontario on
Tuesday morning was no surprise but it
marked the finale of an important period
in the history of our province and our
country.
Ontario under Robarts has probably
never been more prosperous. Even his
severist critics cannot deny he has done
much for the province and the country.
Probably the thing he will be most
remembered for was his emergence in the
past few years as the cool voice of reason
in English Canada who tried to help hold
his country together. Even this past
weekend, just before he announced his
retirement, he was in Quebec with a group
of Ontario businessmen offering a helping
hand when the province needs it most.
The paper has not agreed with Robarts
on many things, particularly his policy of
ever centralizing all aspects of local
government, but we do hail him and wish
him well in retirement.
Saga of the scratched coffee table
Clinton News-Record
A member of the Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association,
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and the Audit Bureau
of Circulation (ABC)
Published every Thursday at
second clots mail the heart of Huron County
registration number 0617
6U8SCRIPTION RATES: (lit advance)
(*oda, $6.00 per year; U,S.A., 0.60
KEITH W, ROULgtON — Editor
.L HOWARD AITKEN —. General Manager
Clinton, Ontario
Population 3,476
ME HOME
OF 1ADAR
IN CANADA
THE CLINTON NEW ERA Amalgamated
1924
`THE HURON NEWS-RECORD
Establithed 1881 Established 1886
REME)18kk LiV4
4• A iR WAS 64444 A.A
S4 WAS 1)/R 7y
FR 47E
No MWE IIU S C urging them to institute
Letters
80000 0 00000 everyone
THM0pDlpTQfi,
saw the Aim
On 'EV. (Take Thirty) on
November 5 ^ which illustrated 1- a Most barbaric and atrocious
00 00000 000
programme that will bring about
0 OC the elimination of the le bold ' \ N t, traps as soon as pos4ible, as this
situation on our trap lines is
socially unacceptable in an
enlightened country.
There is absolutely no valid
reason for such unnecessary
cruelty, as there are humane
traps available to trappers now,
and more research is in progress
to develop others.
There is no reason for Canada
to be so far behind other
countries which have abolished
leg-hold traps many years ago.
Anyone wishing further
information about humane
traps, write to the Canadian
Association for Humane
Trapping, Box 934, Station F,
Toronto 5, Ontario,
J. Bicks,
Finch,
Ontario.
to their Members of Parliament
yr
way in which QaPacii4h
fur-bearing animals are trapped, 14 ..,..........,,..... , I urge people to please write
It's one of those days. A wild,
white yonder outside the win-
dow, snowing and blowing as
though we'd never seen the stuff
before and someone was trying
to impress us. And just two days
after some nit of a cab driver
told me sagely, "Sure looks like
We're gonna have a green Christ-
mas."
We're redecorating the living-
room. It's 30 x 18 x 10. Move all
the junk out of that crypt to
paint and there's no place else-
where in the house in which you
can draw a deep breath without
carving in some ribs against an
upturned chair or a book-case
with its feet sticking out.
Everything's gone fairly
smoothly, but my wife is slightly
hysterical about one slip, For
two : years she's been bellowing
at the kids to keep their rotten
bare feet Off her new mahogany
toffee table. (Nobody, of
eourse, adults included, is allow-
ed to put a cup of coffee on the
data table.)
This morning she found that
the painters had put a gouge
about a fOot long and a quarter-
inch deep in that virgin territory,
Shea suffering as Much pain as
though someone had taken a
can-opener and put a ,gOtige of
similar dimensions in her own
skin.
rorfer all sorts Of Cdnfo,
like, 'Veil, tow we cat put our
feet on it," or "Nobody'll notice
that, when it's covered with
coffee cups," but the result is
more like throwing oil on fire
than on troubled Waters.
The phone hasn't been work-
ing for two days. For me, this is
unmitigated bliss. But the old
lady is utterly convinced that all
sorts of people have been calling
us about a death M the
Lord forbid, or a birth in the
family, Lord doubly forbid.
That's the in-calls. I never call
anybody. But without the out-
calls, she feels as helpless as a fe-
male with both arms in a sling,
and a back zipper to be zipped.
I've got a knee like an
elephant. One of my old foot-
ball-war knees has decided to
start me off on a merry ,winter,
and is swollen right down to an
ankle like a piano leg,
It began With curling too
vigorously. But it didn't help
that I went to. the local ball-of,
the-year on Friday night with a
game leg, and dented a lot
gamier than I should hare.
With an elastic bandage and
pain pills, I manage to get about,
just lame enough so that I can't
possibly help with moving ftirrii-
ture, Yeti should see that wife of
franc manhandling a grand piano
all by herself, with Me helping
by grunting, I doubt if she's lost
ten pounds in the last two days,
ns% to make it a truly joyous
day, I'm marking exam 'papers,
This is something like the
Chinese water torture. Drop by
drop, it pierces your skull that
you never were, are not, and
never will be able to teach any-
body anything more than to tie
his shoelaces.
All I have learned today is
that "prostitute" is now spelled
"prosecute", that "savagery" has
become "savagism" and that a
fellow who flies an aircraft is a
"piolit".
However, I am not complain,
ing, The painting it finished. My
knee feels much better new that
the furniture is all moved back,
It has stopped allowing as I've
Written, The phone company has
been able to break through. The
old girl has forgotten her despair
Over the gouge by spotting a
bump in the plaster., And I just
Marked an exam paper worth 90
per cent.
Because of the dance, I have a
new suit, first in six years, new
shoes, new gloves. Quite smash-
ing, really.
I don't have to go baelc to the
dentist for two days. The tat is
spayed. The snow tires are on,
MY wife, who predicted her own
death by noon, Is tdive and well
and snarling eornitientIS.
Not a bad old life, fealty, Bet,
ter here than the graveyard,
though I could use some of that
rest. If only it weren't eternal,
The Arriyle Syndicati
_AMC
Forgotten man,
Maybe one of the reasons a
virus knocks me out so
completely is that I waste an
incredible amount of raw energy
hating science and the medical
profession. Any vitality that's
left to me in this twice-yearly
collapse of my upper respiratory
tract is consumed in pure,
distilled anger.
The news, for example, that
my regular doctor is at the
moment toasting himself on the
sands of Waikiki sends my
temperature up another full
notch. I lie here thinking bitterly
of all the world's medicine men
as well-heeled playboys
frolicking in the sun while
humanity (me) is abandoned like
an old banana peel
Any item concerning the
latest miracles of science delays
parilifer4OierY leAst a
full day and sets me to
muttering thickly about the
madmen of the laboratories
tinkering with insane
improbables at the expense of
the millions of us doomed to a
lifetime of this recurring agony
known so inadequately as The
Common Cold.
Come back from Waikiki,
back from outer space, you
fools, I croak through my
Kleenex, and make your little
boy well again.
It may be true, as my wife
says, that I qualify as the world's
niost spectacular sufferer from
this sort of infection, but this, as
I see it, only confirms my right
as a spokesman in the case
against medicine and science.
It is surely the inost
AV,
10 YEARS AGO
DECEMBER 8, 1960
Third prize among marching
bands at Seaforth Santa Claus
parade on Saturday, brought the
Clinton Citizens Band $25, and
boosted their uniform funds
over the top.
With excellent weather for
most of the day on Monday,
candidates for council and reeve
in Clinton brought out a small
percentage of voters in their
behalf. Only 856 of the possible
1977 made the trip to the polls.
Jack Norman, Who is now in
his fourth year of Geology at
Toronto University has been
awarded the $500 Edith Tyrrill
Memorial Bursary. This is
awarded by the Women.'s
Association of the Mining
Industry of Canada. Jack the son
of Mr, and Mrs. William Norman,
R.R.3 Clinton, Was a graduate of
Clinton District Collegiate
Institute in 1957.
15 YEARS AGO
DECEMBER 8, 1955
Three trophy winners in
Huron county who were
honoured with presentations at
4—H Club Achievement Night in
Win gliarn Were, Robert
Broadfoot, 13rucerield, winner of
the Harold Jackson Trophy for
champion Oats in the Gaudy;
Murray Gaunt, Lucknow, winner
of the Senator Golding Trophy
for grand champion beef shown
Tom White, A.R.2 Scaforth, the
Savauge Trophy for Champion
County 4-41 gilt,
*46
under-estimated of all the ills
that strike mankind. The
symptoms — and it is all
symptoms — leave the sufferer
with a galaxy of weird
sensations. The eyes burn like
coals in a tub of wet macaroni.
The delicate piping of the chest
and throat feels as if it had been
freshly sand-blasted. The nose
becomes distended, hose-like
and inflamed. The entire body is
so langorous and weighted with
insipid aches that the patient
feels constantly as if he were
being sat upon by an elephant.
Yet all of this has a curiously
comic effect and explains why a
man who has been drained of
the will to live may be viewed by
his loved ones with ill-concealed
amusement.
There is, too, a mental
syndrome beyond calculation, a
'nagging guilt complex
dVinpoon;:ied: by' the'utter ''lack
of sympathy from people who
don't happen to have cold,
themselves, at the time, and
frankly suspect you of
malingering.
The doctor may tell you that
the cure, the only cure is to lie
flat on the withers and wait for
Mother Nature to get around to
your case, but it is up to you to
decide when this is effected. It is
thus left to the individual to
determine if he should get back
to the office and risk the
complication of double
pneumonia or whether to keep
to his couch and risk being
dropped six places in the
promotion list.
He is thus aware at all times
that, even if he survives, he is a
sure loser, Since he will spend,
25 YEARS AGO
DECEMBER, 13, 1945
Two boys—Jim Lobb and
Keith Tyndall—and two
girls—Phyllis Middleton and
Marianne Merrill, were chosen at
meetings in the Agricultural
Office, Clinton, to represent
Clinton Junior Farmers and
Junior Institute respectively at a
short course at University of
Western Ontario, London, oil
co-operation and rural
leadership.
Under the direction of B. J.
Gibbings; Ontario Street United
Church choir will present a
cantata for Christmas on
unday at 7 p.m,
40 YEARS AGO
DECEMBER 11, 1930
In commenting last week on
the election of C. M. Begeau as
mayor of Kitchener, we omitted
to state that another old Clinton
boy, G. W. Gordon, was also
elected as alderman, We
sometimes wonder what other
towns would do if Clinton
Weren't here to rear good
citizens t6 go out and manage
their affairs for them, ,
55 YEARS AGO
DECEMBER 9, 1.915
Conductor Thomas Hill Who
runs into Clinton on the train
from London dropped dead on
Sunday while attending divine
service in the Presbyterian
Church,
Mr. i . Marks, formerly of the
plant department at Goderich,
takes Mrs It, Rtnball's place at
Clinton, and Was the recipient of
a IVIatonie tie phi from the Staff
of The tl ell CO. at Godetich.
on the average, a full two years
of :a normal lifetime in this
wretched condition he may be
forgiven for quietly
contemplating self-destruction.
The low point in my own
prolonged bout with the thing
came when the substitute doctor
airily suggested I might steam
my meaty proboscis over an
inhalator containing benzoin.
Something stirred in my
merhory and when he'd gone,
perhaps to sail on his yacht to
Bermuda, I looked up an essay
written nearly 40 years ago by
St. 1Clair McKelway who, as a
twice-a-year cold man, had
desperately entered a hospital to
see what might be done for him. 4 turned out to be almost
nothing. The specialists
themselves seemed to take it as
their own private little joke that
they didn't know what caused a
cold or what to do about it.
When he asked about the the
benZoin the doctor owned that
its main effect was psychological
because "it smells medical."
Here I was, 40 years later,
supposedly in an enlightened age
of imedical onslaught against
disease, still being conned by the
same old routine and, weak as I .
was, I managed the energy to be
wanly infuriated. This age-old
curse, localized in an area not
much more than a foot square,
persists and is treated as
effidiently by the Hopi
witch-doctors or my own
great-great-grandmaw and her
croup kettle as it is by the
modern "miracle makers."
It isn't that I mind being sick
so much, but being sick and mad
at tile same time takes it out of a
man
Cad
75 YEARS AGO
DECEMBER 11, 1895
Ai, Huron County Council
meeting Thursday ,last a petition
was read from residents of
Hensall asking that a by-law be
passed erecting the village of
Hensall into a Police Village.
Advertisement from Allen and
Wilson's Drug Store: "The
pretty dolls in our window this
week are for your children. Next
week December 16-21 we will
give one. With every pound of
Out Baking. Powder. We want
evebione to use this powder
because we think and those who
have used it also think, that it is
the best powder on earth.
Few towns the size of Clinton
poSsess as wide awake
businessmen. Here they realize
that a well dressed window 18
important and just now are
displaying excellent taste and
judgement. Our readers will be
well repaid in viewing the well
dressed store windows of
Clinton businessmen.
Letters
to the Editor
The following letter was
received last week but was not
printed then because the author
was a candidate in Monday's
election. However, many of the
ideas are interesting and we feel
it is worth public airing this
week.
The editor,
The county school board has
had a unique opportunity to lay
the foundations of an excellent
school system in Huron. It had a
fresh start two years ago, with
no dead hands of the past to
inhibit necessary changes. It had
the advantages of a decreasing
student population, and' an
increase, in. the availability: .of
teachers:, All , the schools were
new, with the exception of a few
one-room buildings in one
township.
Unlike a business, the board
did not have to worry about the
quality of their product, because
there were no more
departmental examinations, and
they employed their own
inspectors. There were no
worries about costs, because the
province increased its support
from our taxes, and the local
municipalities were given a bill
they could not question.
I believe that the sitting
members have failed to carry out
the tasks for which they were
elected.
I believe that they have failed
because they have not studied
and produced a satisfactory aim
for education in the county.
They do not appreciate that the
quality of the teacher
determines the quality of the
teaching. They have spent their
time on petty administrative
details, because they have not
insisted on the production of a
board policy that will carry the
routines efficiently. As a result
they have left insufficient time
for their proper functions of
direction, leadership, and
supervision.
I believe we need an overall
plan that takes into
consideration the empty
classrooms we have in first class,
buildings, and the
underutilization of expensive
equipment. We need a
rationalization of our bug system
to save expense, and
inconvenience to the pupil.
If the board continues to fail
the student and foil the
taxpayer, it Should be abolished,
and its duties taken over by
County Council.
Should you share my beliefs,
please do come out and cast
your vote.
DR. MORGAN SMITH,
THE EDITOR,
On reading the section in
December 3 News-Record, on
Dress Rules discussed by
Andrew Amsing, one is given the
opinion that only the farm.
students wear the sloppy apparel
and create a poor image.
This is not true. Perhaps Mr.
Amsing will be good enough to
answer these questions.
How many of the students
creating this poor image are farm
students?
Would a stranger be able to
tell which of the sloppily dressed
students have chores to do in a
barn when they go home?
What gives one the opinion
that some of the clothes worn to
school are worn in the barn?
We are farmers with a
daughter and a son attending
CHSS. They do not wear faded
blue jeans or clothes that are
worn around the farm to school.
Several times we have heard
them comment in disgust on the
faded, messy, patched clothes
some of the town students wear,
One town boy even wore a pair
of jeans which he knew were
torn up the back seam.
Many town people will
quickly tell one they feel the
country students take more
.pride in their appearance 'than
'those " students living 1 in ' the Itaize
I agree there needs to be a
change in the apparel worn by
some students but lets not make
the tidy dressed country
students take the blame when
they are dressed as well as even
you Mr. Amsing.
Yours truly,
M. Lobb.
THE EDITOR,
Through the medium of your
newspaper I would like to
extend Christmas Greetings to
the many people from the local
area who have been associated
with our Base these many years.
Since this will be the last
Christmas for Canadian Forces
Base Clinton, I feel it fitting at
this time to thank each and
everyone of you for the
kindness, courtesy and
co-operation that you have
extended to this military
formation over the years.
My "thank-you list" is
endless; individuals such as your
doctors, lawyers, merchants,
ministers, group organizations,
Service Clubs and so on have all
helped to create a close-knit
community. While it is unfair to
single out any group of
individuals, I feel that I would
be remiss if I did not mention
the outstanding co-operation
that I have received from your
Mayor, His Worship, Mayor Don
Symons, the Reeve of
Tuckersmith, Mr. Elgin
Thompson, and the Reeve of
Hullett Township, Mr. Hugh
Flynn. Each of these gentlemen
have contributed immeasurably
to the community spirit and the
bond of friendship that exists
between the Base and the local
area.
To One and all, a Merry
Christmas and a Happy New
Year.
P. A. Golding
Major
Base Commander