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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1973-11-08, Page 44,-CLINTON NEWS-RECORD. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8. 11173 At last, after the longest wait Tuesday's hearing by the Ontario Municipal Board, which finally approved Clinton's official plan, proved to somewhat of shock in these quarters, 'After sitting on their decision to pass. the plan for over three years, the OMB in only one day, about four hours, gave their full approval of the plan which the Clinton Council had accepted in 1970 and which the Clinton Planning Board had been working on for several years prior to that. The plan, will, et long last, make for well ordered and compatible growth in Clinton, No longer will an industry be allowed to locate next to a housing development for example and no longer will residences be permitted in a green belt area. • The plan, which is very comprehen- sive, also provides for such things as lot 'size, minimum square footage requirements for houses, and the generous use of space around apart- ment buildings, for example. We applaud the town, the planning board and others too numerous to men- tion, who have stood firm on their ground to have the plan go through. As' ,little as two months ago it looked like 0M13 approval wouldn't come for at least another year. Clinton somehow cut through all that government red tape. Tuesday's hearing also allowed any taxpayer to object to the plan and although only one objection was overruled at the hearing, the Clinton council are still free to further consider these objections and suggestions. - Clinton's plan also tells the govern- ment indirectly, that the smaller centres are very capable of plotting Their own future, and indeed, they are perhaps more familiar with their surroundings and, hence, can better plan the town's future than government several hundred miles away in a looming metropolis. Snow and highwags With the first major snowfall of the winter now on the ground, it brings to mind the tragic formula that was the recipe for the 11 traffic deaths on High- way 400, near Barrie last March. The coroner's jury, after the inquest said that a number of factors, indepen- dently not very lethal, combined to cause one of the worst accidents in On- tario highway history. They found that blowing snow, com- bined with slippery pavement, mixed with cars following too close at too high a speed and a truck with faulty brakes were the formula that added up to tragedy. In the snowbelt, as we live in, all these ingredients exist at one time or another and it's a wonder that more serious ac- cidents similar to the Barrie accident, have not occurred here. There is much to learn from that tragic Sunday in Barrie and no one should have to be reminded of the caution needed during winter driving. The world needs a food bank Every week, almost 1,500,000 people are being added to the world's population — at a time when people even in affluent nations are experien- cing food shortages. The coutries that can afford to pay high prices for grain and other vital foods are adding to their stockpiles, while the poor nations are going hungry. It is one of the ironies of our age that the Soviet Union, not only by far the largest of the world's nations but one that hails internationalism in all its propaganda, helped push up the price of • global food. Last year's Soviet grain pur:,. chases of ,about„ ,infouirl have been enough to provide a sub- sistence diet for some 140 million people for an entire year. • But the Soviet Union, like most of the richer nations, was greedy, and thought not about the needs of the poor. This is a most short-sighted policy, of course. Unless the rich and powerful do a great deal more for the poor and the weak, there will never be genuine understan- ding among the nations. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United ,Nations (FAO) has emphasized the need for a world food bank that would lend or give grain to needy nations during times of scarcity, The idea has the backing of various UN agencies, and of other im- portant world organizations, including the International Bank for Reconstruc- tion and Development. Nothing would be more disastrous than' perpetuating the impression that people in some of the very poor coun- tries have, namely that the cltizegs, of richer nations are, inclifferent W &Id hiingan.:'Backing irioluding•Jininolal support, food gifts and technical advice — would dispel the notion that we in the have countries just don't care. The creation of a world food bank, and indeed the establishment of some form of international food policy, are vital needs at a time when global populations continue to grow at too rapid a rate. Canada, with its vast wheatlands, should give every assistance to the world food bank plan. (contributed) Sugar and Spice/By Bill Smiley My solution to raking leaves The Jack Scott Column RI all NI Ma b tiog,i4,cimo og, T11.4;140e7.1, eitC* -50 14AV 7 -04, Ar CAD 1 E, tcATE ogo 20 to op 2011 )9_tkz.012. Older breed Amalgamated 1524 THE CLINTON NEW ERA Established 1665 THE HURON NEWS-RECORD Established 1881 +CNA Pitinnbta, Canadian Community Now•aapor AliaciatiOn Member, °Made W•Way Nolvd0dpir Maaalation Ct. 14\ +4, 444S Published *Very Thursday at Olinton, Ontario Editor - James E. Fitzgerald General blinager, J. Howard Aitken Second Class Malt regietratiOn no. 0011 HUS OF HURON tOTY, 41011111111111 I UN 1 1 I A number of deep and troubling questions are puz- zling me this fall. Perhaps if I get them out in the open, those stabbing cramps in my stomach will ease off. Leaves. I have, six maples and two huge oaks on my front lawn. That produces leaves to the knees. My neighbour across the street has four maples around his property. Alma fair crop of leaves, but nothing like ours. My neighbour rakes up his leaves. At least his wife does. I contemplate mine with a judicious eye, waiting for the right moment to strike, "Might as well wait till they're all down." My neighbours are godly and righteous people. I am an acknowledged sinner, Yet every fall, about this time, we get one of those howling north winds that make you shiver in bed, glad you're there. I get up the next morning, and my front lawn is as clean as the cat's dish. • I look . out the other window in dismay, and sure enough, my neighbour's tidy lawn looks like the Maple Leaf Forever, My leaves. Why? I've thought this time of telling hire he should put up a snow fence, but I think I'd bet- ter give him a couple of weeks to cool off,,And get those leaves raked up. • There. I feel better already, getting that off my Chest, As good as the confesa ienal. Football: in My youth, I dearly loved the game. Played five years in high school, two in college before I went off to play another kind of game. Every night I'd draggle home in the dark, after practice, aching in every limb, drinking in the sharp fall air, completely satisfied. •During the games, there was the heady knowledge that every girl in the school was out there watching you. This, of course, was a two-edged sword, You might catch a pass for a touch- down. You might also drop it, for a red face. We had some great teams in high school, because our prin- cipal was a football nut. When• I think over the names, I have more than a sense of nostalgia. Half a dozen were killed in the war. We didn't have much going for us besides lots of spirit. There were about four helmets on the team. Our uniforms were ragged. We made our own pads of felt obtained at the local felt mill. some had cleated boots, others played in sneakers. One of my great thrills was when my big brother took me to Ottawa for the Grey Cup final. In those days the Grey Cup game wasn't the silly-ass spec- tacle it is now, with beauty con- test, marching bands, parades and such foofawraw. It was serious business. You were there to see a football game, not to get drunk and make an idiot of yourself. You could get good seats for seventy-five cents. I sat bet- ween two voluble French- Canadians who, quietly and, With dignity, passed a mickey of rye (850 back and forth, but only to 'keep off the Chill, Today they'd have a twenty-sixes each and he glassy-eyed by half time. It was a great game. Those Were the days of giants: Bunn- Met Stirling, who could boot a ball the length of the field; Bunny Wadsworth, who WaS like a tank in the line, This day, the centre of attention was Fritz Hanson, who was as hard to pin down as a dragon-fly. But for all his scampering, the bigger Ottawa team won 7-6 on the last play. At any rate, in those days I knew the game. From there it was all downhill. The Yanks took over, and, as usual, we adopted their terms. Outside wings became ends. Middle wings became tackles. Inner wings became guards. And the flying wing, my own favourite position, vanished into limbo. Today, I am as baffled by the terminology of football as an elderly librarian would have been by the terminology at the recent fighter pilots' reunion in Ottawa, What is a tight end, for example? Is that what we see when the players go into a hud- tile, and stick those extremely tight pants into our faces on TV? What is the opposite of a tight end? Is this someone who has the skitters? Is that why they are always running off the field? What is an offensive tackle? Is this someone whose language or behaviour you find offensive to your sensibilities? Is the familiar phrase, "I gave him a pretty good shot.", an indication that the players are now carrying concealed, not to Mention offensive, weapons? One of the universities is giving an extension coase at its night school. It's for girl friends and wives of football players, so that they can enjoy the game more. I think Pit sign up for the course. I'm dying to know what a middle linebacker does for a Another old-time newspaper. man, a contemporary of my father's, Went over the hill last week. He was of a vanishing breed. When some of us young squirts were organizing the first newspaper union in our parts he, like my father, was in op- position. "I don't know," I remember my father saying. "I hate the idea of being organized like tradesmen. If this business ever gets to be one that attracts young people merely because it pays good money or offers security it will suffer. We'll lose our identity with a guild." t1;• It hasn't happened that way, of course. A living wage and five-day 'week did not lower the standards of daily newspapering. But what has changed is the spirit and the at- mosphere of a long tradition and, because of that, it isn't the romantic business it once was. Those old-timers would be lost in any newsroom of today. For one thing, there's an em- phasis on youth and, outwar- dly, at any rate, the personnel of most big dailies looks very 10 YEARS AGO Nov. 14, 1963 Councillor Alice (Mrs. Fred) Thompson has signified her in- tention of seeking the mayor's post and will have her name presented at the Clinton nomination meeting. At the present time their is no definite opposition to Clinton's first female councillor, as Mayor. W. J. Miller reports he is still un- decided as is councillor Don Symons who has indicated he may seek the top post. Brucefield still has the best hay growers in the world. This year Russell Dallas RR 1 Brucefield who won the World Hay Championship at the Royal Winter Fair, now in progress in Toronto. Last year Robert P. Allan won the cham- pionship for the second time in four years. Mr. Allan is also from Brucefield area, Flight. Sergeant Russ Bush with a few vicious swipes of the hockey stick that would have made Eddie Shack proud, downed his small Chihauhua's enemy. Sandy, the dog, was to have been a very tasty meal ac- cording to Mr. Owl. He should have been smart enough to pick on something closer to his size, four and a half feet from wing tip to wing tip because F/S Bush tilled him with the stick. His remains are to be stuffed and will serve as a mascot for the brownie Pack in town. 25 YEARS AGO Nov. 18, 1946 One of the better-class, more recently-constructed hotrfes in Clinton has been bought by Miss Luella Johnston, of ton Public School staff. It is located on Ontario St, and was owned by Gordon Horner, Mr, and Mrs. Horner and tinnily have Moved to Hamilton much !Ike the personnel of a brokerage house or a business office, There is no longer a place for eccentrics or the rugged individualists of the past. There is no longer the camaraderie of men who felt they were a race apart, The old-timers were almost always men who were in jour- nalism because they loved it and they were proud and jealous of their craft. They had to be, I suppose. It offered no other reward. It was not a job, but a calling. They were not so much employed as dedicated. It attracted and held men who seemed to be born to it. My father was typical. He grew inches in height whenever he was on a big story He'd walk a hundred miles to see a fire. He went through life, on and off the job, interviewing the human race. A well- constructed story was to him, as it was to the others, what Shakespeare is to an actor. When the day was over and the presses were rolling he would hold informal classes for copyboys and cub reporters, teaching them the strength and where Mr. Horner is with the Steel Company of Canada. Mr. and Mrs. Milton Wiltse spent the weekend with friends at Thedford. Walter Westlake returned home on Saturday night with his hag - a fine buck. Missess Ina and Ellen Scott, London visited over the weekend with their brothers and sisters-in-law, Mr. and Mrs, Ross Scott and Mr. and Mrs. Bill Scott, Mr, and Mrs. Ben Rathwell, Goderich Township, recently moved to their home on Keith Crescent. Mr. and Mrs. James R Scott were in London for a couple of days last week. Mr, Scott is giving a special course of lec- tures in creative writing at Western University. Jim Robb, RE1-, Clinton was the swim champion at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto this week. He was one of three boys making up a Huron County Junior Farmers judging team. The other two members were Howard Pym, RR 1 Cen- tralia and Glen Wise of Clin- ton. The team placed eighth out of twenty-seven. It was coached by R, G. Bennett and J. C. Rennie, Howard Pym was top man of the eleventh out of eight-one. 50 YEARS AGO Nov.. 8, 1923 A London evening paper is collecting photos of beautiful children in Western Ontario and on Thursday evening published a photo of Benson, the little son of Mr, and Mrs, J. A, Sutter of Clinton, The pic- ture is easily recognizable but does not do justice to. the original who is a remarkably attractive young lad. Quite a number of people from Clinton, on Saturday, went to hear Prof. tlford's lec. delicacy of a "lead" and how to bring a fact alive. You don't find that any more. The warmth has gone from it as it has become specialized. It is rare nowadays for one daily newspaperman to pay another a compliment on a good job, yet I remember when I got my first byline, that un- forgettable day in every newspaperman's life, and the notes of encouragement from so many old-timers. It was, as it were, an acceptance into their charmed circle. It would not happen now, I'd like to tell a charac- teristic story about my father. From the time,I.was ,able ,to think about it I had decided I was going.to be -a newspaper- man. Visiting him at his office was to me like visiting a holy place. The smell of it and the sound of it always gave me a kick. Newspapermen seemed to me to have a wonderful time at what they were doing. Yet my father tried his best to discourage me. "You'd be a fool to get into this," he'd say. "If you want to write, write for somebody who ture on poultry. They were anxious to hear what he had to tell them and also to see him, he being an old Holmesville boy, ' Mr. and Mrs, Wiltse of Clin- ton and Mrs. Giffords of Wind- sor were visitors with Mr. and Mrs. Pearson last week. Mr. Gordon Cunningham and Rev. Mr. Holmes of town were out to the lakeside this morning and shot two wild geese. Their combined weight was 18 lbs. Dr. Nimmo's younger brother, representing the West End "Y" at Toronto, won in the 40 yards free style swim- ming contest on Wednesday night and was third in the 100 yards. The Dramatic Society of St. Paul's Church, met last week and are reorganizing and in- tend to prepare the play en- titled "The Adventures of Grandpa" for production. What might have been a most. disastrous fire was will pay you decently," Or he'd say, "This is just a business for bums who can't do anything else. It's just habit-forming. Take your time. Look around you, Don't rush in." I rushed in. It was a morning paper and I got home at 2 a.m., four hours before my father left for work on the afternoon paper. We hardly ever saw each other. At his breakfast he'd read the morning paper and scrawl com- ments about the stories I'd written, sometimes critically, but mostly, as was his way, with encouragement. But the note I remember best was the one he left the first morningel vyent, ;work„ 1-,My first story !was a 'two- paragraph item about a petty racket involving the stuffing of return slots on pay telephones. It had taken me hours to write it. It had been slashed and revised by the men on the desk. But it was mine and that is as close as a man can come to having a baby. "Fine story," my father wrote. "Now you are one of us, just as I wanted all along." discovered by Mrs, Vander- burgh when she went into the large shed under the barn and found the place filled with smoke. After a hurried search she found a small pile of manure had heated and set fire to a board partition. 75 YEARS AGO Nov. 10, 1898 W. H. Stone has received $850 from the Epworth Leagues of the Goderich District for every year he is working among the Indians at Nintenack, B.C. Miss Minnie Elcoat returned to her home in Tuckersmith on Tuesday after spending a week with her cousin Miss Bettie Stanley. Mr. Frank Weeks of the Par line has purchased the mill stones from Mr. Jas, Thompson of Hayfield and has them in good running order and is now prepared to grind all kind of grain for five cents a bag. The Empty Pew SY REV- W. ,141`14 MILLER The moat amazing thing about the struggle between President Richard Nixon and the American Senate over his "Watergate tapes" is the un- spoken defense he is using. The basic appeal of the President of the United States is to the problem of National Security. It is claimed that there is very sensitive material on the tapes which must not be allowed to fall into alien hands. The truth is that such sen- ' sitive data may very well be on the tapes, The problem is "Who is the enemy?" Since when is a judge or a jury of American citizens unable to deal with a matter of confidential data about their own country's survival? Is it assumed, as seems to be in- ferred, that only the President of the Unitied States is a loyal citizen. There is a very vivid historical record of a nation whose leader said, "I am the state." The underlying conflict, of course, is the enigma of all free countries; Just how much of their own government can really be entrusted to the people whose sons protect and whose dollars pay for that government? If a democracy is truly owned by all of its citizens, then how can one small clique decide that some Citizens are to be denied a right to know some material. In Mr, Nixon's case, there must be many who know everything on those tapes--even the security data, There are generals and privates, cabinet members and secretaries, in- fluential politicians and political flunkies. But a federal judge is not to be trusted with them? On the other hand, there are many enemies of democracy, citizens and aliens who would take any pretext to destroy the very protection under which they operate. The pain of leadership in a democracy is the awareness that in the last analysis, there is no protection from the rights of those who pay the bills. An early American Aevo14143,0ary, said4thest, "The Price 'Of • liberty is eternal vigilance." He should have added, and one thing a leader must be vigilant about is his integrity! News-Record readers are en- couraged to express their opinions in letters to the editor, however, such opinions do not necessarily represent the opinions of the News-Record, Pseudonyms may be used by letter writers, but no letter will be published unless it can be verified by phone. Miss Holmes and Miss Kate Taylor have returned home af- ter a visit of several weeks with friends in and around Whitechurch. Mr. Fred Mulholland leaves for Louisville, Kentucky on Friday morning. He will take a position of bookkeeper in his uncle's store. The plentiful rainfall has caused a vary rapid growth of fall wheat so that it is almost ready to cut even before the winter has started much less finished Dr. Thos. Gray, late of Lon- don, purposes opening an office here. He is a bright, clever young man and there is no reason why he should not do well. James McFarlane, the suc- cessful stock breeder of this township, has just purchased a lot of choice thoroughbred sheep from the other equally well-known breeder John Dunkin of Thorndale. From our early files