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Clinton News-Record, 1974-06-27, Page 4The Jack Scott Column - - IN "Quick, before he stamps a price increase on if The blind spot Sugar and Spice/By Bill Smiley The year end always moves me Amalgamated 1924 'rsic CLINTON NEW ERA Established 1865 THE HURON NEWS-RECORD Established 1881 MOMber, Canadian Conanunnv Minnow Aalachdlon Published every Thursday at Clinton, Ontario Editor • James E. Flisgeraid Gomel Manager, J. Howard Aitken Second Class Mall Hua OF HURON COUNTY registration no. 000 Member, Ontade Weak* papal Ampadadon ..rpot NOME O RADAi 54 CANADA" smooching, and in those days no girl was allowed to have a boy into her house, unless her mother was sitting there looking suspicious and her father sitting there with a gun. We couldn't afford ski equip- ment. We were lucky if we 'could scratch up the' price of a hockey game or a night's skating at the rink.. We couldn't afford to smoke or drink or party or tear around, so, on the whole, we were a fairly moral lot. Believe it'or not, I was president of a ' Young Man's Bible Class for three years. My high school principal was the leader, and he forced me into it. I figured I had to stay on the good side of him, or I'd be in high school until I was fifty. There was only one thing I really learned in those long winters at school. With no money to do anything else, my gang tended to spend most of our time in the pool room, despite constant abjurations and threats from our mothers. There are quite a few things you can pick up in a poolroom: psychology; a colorful vocabulary; a smell of spit- toons. I got all of these, but I also became a pretty darn good pOol player, and I've never regretted it. You have to become good when.you are "playing on your nerve." This quaint old ex- pression means you haven't the money to pay the proprietor for your table time, if you lose. Winner plays free. So you either won, or you sweet-talked the boss 'of the poolroom into 'adding what you owed to your bill. This was about as easy as President Nixon standing before Congress, hand on heart, saying, "I cannot tell a lie." It usually meant expulsion from the potilr(x)m i whiCh was like being thrown out of the garden of Eden. The following presentation was made by a member of the University of Michigan Department of Journalism, Although .for American consumption, it is' most cer-, tainly pertinent to the Canadian publisher. "I'm going to give 20 cents to the newspaper staff. Divide it up any way you. wish. Nok for that 20 cents I am giving you tonight I want you to deliver tomorrow to my house a newspaper that will contain more reading matter than the 'current best-selling novel. "I want ad the news. And I want every bit of it to be fresh. I want pictures and stories of all local accidents, fires, meetings and events' that I'm interested, in;'and I don't want to see any of that of- fend me, either. •expect you to tell me who dies,' who was born, who was divor- ced and who was married in the last week including the last 24 hours. "I want .to know what those guys in Government are doing with my tax money. I want to understand all the im- portant events, plans and results but I don't want to have to waste more than a couple of minutes on your story. "I want to read just as much about Liberals as about the Conservatives and NDP, and just as much about Protestants as Catholics and Jews, and as much about blacks and chicanos as about whites. Don't tell me you can't do it. That's what I invested my 20 cents for. Booze and the kids Canada's youth is drowning in a flood of booze. Warns the Addiction Research Foun- dation "the endless regurgitation of beer commercials featuring modish kids in forests, boat and balloon indicates how vital a market the young have become". Warns Gerald Le Damn, head of the commission on non-medical use of drugs --."alcohol is the worst curse af- fecting society today". A nation-wide survey shows dramatic escalation in alcohol problems among youth—since the legal drinking age was dropped from 21 to 18 in April 1971: Manitoba teenagers, have moved from hiird and soft drugs to alcohol, and Nova Scotia reported only two persons under Both teachers and students look forward eagerly to the end of the school year, for different reasons. For the students, especially the younger ones, it's like a rebirth to get out into that beautiful .June, out of that hot,. classroom, away from that cranky teacher. They go belting out that door on the last day like bees coming out of a disturbed bees'-nest. A few of the more sensitive ones, especially the girls, will trill, "See you next year", or "Have a good summer, Mr. Smiley." The boys leave in a slap-dash, jostling mob, with never a look behind. " And who can blame them? It's been a long ten months. They want to get out and do some real living, to break the routines that even in these per-, missive days, make school a drag, and for some, unfor- tunately, a simple bore. When I was in high school I took off in May or early June • for a job on the lake boats, with a tremendous sense of release. I' didn't care whether they passed me or failed me. After the first summer, I knew it was going to be four Months of drudgery, at coolies' wages, but I didn't care. I was living, seeing new places and new people, and delighting in it. Yet, strangely, by September, I had a great nostalgia for school, school friends, football and track and field, and could scarcely wait to start the • long hitch-hike home. Each fall was a joy, Football everyday, A new girl, or the old faithful one; to hold hands with on crisp fall evenings, Some money in.. the •wicket, of-.' ter the summer. This euphoria lasted until about the end of NoveMbee. By the middle of January, life and school were deadly dull. The money was pretty well gone, It was too cold for outdoor Then there was the drowsing through long, spring days, waiting for school to end. I remember a poor man called Dr. Wheatly, saying to me one June day, head wagging sadly, "Bill, you will never pass physics or chemistry, should you stay here until you are a grandfather. So I'm going to recommend you." I've never forgotten this wise remark, and have since, as a teacher, always tempered justice with mercy. But I drift. School was then, is now, and ever shall be, a place to get out of, come June, Yet there is a little sadness among the older students, who are graduating. They are finally mature enough to realize these were possibly the best years of their lives. They sign each other's yearbooks. Some weep. They promise to keep in touch, but knowing they probably will not, after the first year. They are scattering. Halcyon days are over. They are stepping off, sometimes fearfully, into a world of work and responsibility and striving for'success, and raising families (which alone, in these times, is enough to make one want to stay in school forever.) I deplore sentimentality. But sure enough, last class, last day of school, I turned around and there was a beautiful cake, in- scribed, "Best Wishes, Mr. Smiley, from 13B, '74." Even the punctuation right. I was touched, And astonished, I expressed my admiration and ap- preciation, and said, "Wait 'till my wife sees this." The response was, more or less, "Your wife, our foot. Look in the paper bag." Sure enough, it contained paper napkins and plastic forks. There was a knife in the cake box. So we had our cake and ate it, communally, and quietly listened to a funny record, Then we left, happily. And sadly, The newspapers and their by- products, such as this weekly pillar of type, chronicle the story of a town and its people, recording fact and anecdote and movement. We listen to the voices and write down the words. We watch the scene and describe it. We scent the tran- sient stuff called news and package it for delivery. We miss out on only one thing. No newspaper, daily or weekly, seems able to tell the story of the soul-deep aspirations and dreams of the ordinary people. The immense news of what goes on in the mind "or the' indiVichiaViettiaitis clearly the property of novelist and poet. As individuals we know that each of our friends and neigh- bors has a far bigger story than the cost of living or the latest political speech. Yet there is no place in the news columns for it, For many newspaper people this remains a life-long enigma. There is a sense of frustration for the lowliest obituary writer who types his daily list of the departed in the cryptic, stylized language of that department, 10 YEARS AGO June 25, 1964 Speed limits in the Town of Clinton soon will be enforced by radar. The Police Commit- tee plan first to try a set in Clinton to determine whether it is a worthwhile investment. John Visser, who worked at Ellwood Epps Sport Shop in Clinton until two weeks ago will be taking photographs and operating the News-Record dark room and photo engraving department. Mr. and Mrs. G.W. "Wes," Nott, Clinton, marked their 60th wedding anniversary Saturday with a reception for friends and relatives in the Board Rooms of Clinton Public Hospital. A new bridge across the Bayfield River about two miles north of Varna is rapidly taking shape and likely will be completed by the end of con- struction season this year. The Ausable River Conser- vation Authority has approved plans and designs for the Parkhill dams project. The dams near Hensall are slated for start by August 31st, Problem water plagues residents of Huron and Perth counties. Private and municipal water supplies in the area con- tain traces of iron, sulphur and hardness elements says Russ Gemmill, Culligan Water Con- ditioning dealer, Goderich, 25 YEARS AGO June 23, 1949 A proposed site for a new public school was discussed briefly at the June meeting of Clinton Public School Board when Chairman Al% Cudmore presided and Trustee Percy Livermore was absent. Sunday', June 19, was a very special occasion in the life of SL Paul's Anglican Church, Clinton when at the morning knowing that each paragraph holds the raw material for a book. No good reporter writes the bald fact of any story without a deep, unspoken urge to probe deeply into the thoughts of the people in- volved. On the fiftieth anniversary of the wedding of an old couple, I was with a photographer who went to take a picture, a routine assignment. There was a saintliness and peace about these two unhampered by the fact that the husband was blind. I waited while the photographer took his pictures and got his facts. The story would be told in the 60-odd words beneath a two-column cut. When we got outside the photographer turned and shrugged. "There must be quite a story there," he mused, " and nobody will ever write it." My father was a newspaper- man for more than 40 years and a good one, but he never wrote the story that interested him most. He had a life-long curiosity about the places that people lived in. A lonely far- mhouse, seen from a passing train, an old mansion in the heart of a city or a shack in a service of the publications of the prayer book was celebrated and as a special feature the members of Clinton Lodge No. 84 A.F. and A.M. attended in a body. A new venture for some of the pupils of the upper grades of Clinton Public School was the bazaar which was held in Mr. McKee's room on Friday afternoon. Blacktop pavings of the con- necting links of Kings High- ways 4 and 8 through the town of Clinton is assured following the visit of a deputation to the Minister of Highways in Toronto Friday last. Mrs. Wilfred Jervis and Mrs. John Nediger, Jr., were co- hostesses at the latter's home Goderich, at a very lovely "bon voyage shower" in honour of Mrs. Fred Gatien and small daughter, Kathy who left Tuesday to spend the summer months with her family in England. 50 YEARS AGO July 3, 1924 Rev, A.A. Holmes officiated at the funeral of the late Ar- thur Cost. Misses Trewartha and Jago were the nurses who graduated from Clinton Public Hospital at the exercises held in Wesley Church. A.F. Johns is taking a sum- mer course in Physical Training at Toronto, The foundations of the Glebeview Greenhouses for W. Jenkins and son, Orange St,, have been completed'. The Kiltee Band played in Goderich on Dominion Day and will be returning to the County Town for the Glorious 12th, Stewart Paisley son of Mr, and Mrs. W. J. Paisley; has been successful in his civil set, vice exams and is now on the culvert would be enough to wet the blade of his curiosity. Where did the people come from? What did they do with their lives? What was the pur- pose behind their day-to-day living? He would gaze at an unusual home with the same interest and look of inquiry that less-imaginative men reserve for the bright jacket of a new novel. When you write for a living it's impossible to avoid that kind of question. Going into your desk in the morning with the notes for a column -- say -- on the future of Robert Stan- field may have the frustrated feeling of being a million miles from the actual pulse of humanity. Watching the. swarms of people coming down to the city's main arteries, seeing them pour out of the honeycombs of the apartment blocks, the cliff dwellers of the day, the idea is inescapable that each of these people, like yourself, is a complictO, highly individualist personality whose stories will never be told. No comment on a Stanfield will have the highly emotional impact or the humanity that might be found behind the Customs staff at the Toronto Union Station. D.A. Andrews was one of the judges at the Perth County Junior Farmers' Stock judging contest at Stratford. Rex A. Cluff has opened a law office in Goderich. There are many im- provements around the town of Clinton including W.D. Fair has had the Whitehead block painted; the store of Sutter- Perdue has been painted; a new fire protection system has been installed at the Doherty Piano Company. ' 75 YEARS AGO Juno 29, 1899 Mr. D.B. Kennedy has been using new potatoes for the past week. He makes a practice of having garden truck early. Mr. Routled ge,. who owns a market garden in the suburbs has a large number of currant and berry bushes of various blank, newly-shaven and newly-powdered faces of the mass of commuters. But that story is doomed to be locked there forever. None of these average people will ever be in the newspaper unless they fall from a high building or grow a 15-foot hollyhock or get run down by a '75 Mustang on Main Street or live to be 100 years of age. Yet they, and not the recor- ded voices and the pictured scene, are the heart-beat of society. The story of any one of these people, told in its naked truth, would give historians of a hundred years from now a picture.of the mood and tempo anti philosophy of today that will be found in no newspaper. So tomorrow I will step up td someone in the street, some plain fellow with that faintly worried, restless look in his eye, perhaps needing a hair-cut or on his way to the dentist, and say, "I want the news story of your aspirations and dreams and the daily life you lead and why you are doing what you are and what you want out of it." But I know that I won't. I'll wait for him to grow the hollyhock. kinds, all of which are well laden. Contractors Beacom and Bingham have completed their job and now the peaceful waters glide along unshadowed where our old bridge stood. Mr. George Crabb is spen- ding this week at his home. Elgin Street. He was engaged on the Song at the Ducks to carry the mails to the different stations. Mrs. Wilder McGregor of Detroit and daughter returned to that city from their very pleasant visit to relatives in town. Miss Gibbons of Detroit has elected to stay another week at her father's old home. Mr. Robert McCartney of Clinton has hired with Mr. Henry Oakes for the summer months, presumably to get his hand in before he moves onto the far'm he bought some time ago from Mrs. Snarling. we get letters Dear Editor: I feel that the 1974 Provin- cial 4-H Leadership Conference was certainly a success. It was an experience worth remem- bering.—one of the highlights of my life. Each days program was based on a 'theme which was; leadership, fellowship, friend- ship, sportsmanship and co- operation, citizenship and ser- vice, worship and peace. I have no doubt in my mind that everyone attending the conference, if they didn't know the real meaning of these words before, know now. Enthusiasm and participation ran high during the whole program. My appreciation to everyone who had a part in my going to the Conference. I feel only two regrets....that everyone cannot have the opportunity to attend and that it has come to an end. We were told though, to con- sider it a beginning and not an ending. Cathy Malcolm, Seaforth. Middleton Mr. and Mrs. D.A. White of Ottawa visited Middleton relatives last weekend and at-, tended the Carrothers-Tufts wedding in London, Saturday. Also attending this wedding were Mrs. Fred Middleton, Mr. and Mrs. Ross Middleton and family, the Keith Tyndall family, Mr. and Mrs. Frances Powell of Clinton; also Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Middleton. The wedding of Miss Joan Tufts and David Carrothers took place in Centennial United Church London and the recep- tion was held at the Ivanhoe Motel, Brookside. The bride's mother was the former Ruth Middleton. Following the Service of Morning Prayer on Sunday June 23, the congregation of St. James Church, Middleton, en- joyed a "pot luck" lunch in the church basement, A Board of Management meeting was 11,Ic!. irripecliately, after to,1c91i- solidate plans for the summer projects. These include the "garage sale" to be held August third at the Church. Added attractions at this sale include a Baking Sale and a treasure-table, also a children's table. Our congregation is small and donations to these efforts would be most acceptable. Please contact Mrs. Edward Deeves, phone 482-3383. Sunday August 18 at 11 a.m. is the date for the annual out- door "Galilean" service to be held again at Stewart Mid- dleton's Park. Everyone is welcome, who wishes to attend. The Rector, the Rev. George Ynumatoff will preach from a boat in the little lake in the highest tradition. There will be special music (announced later) and the usual mammoth smorgasbord or pot-luck din- ner. The Church fathers hope this service will be even bigger and better than last year's very successful one. Do plan to at- tend. Mrs. Fred Middleton read a letter from the former Rector, the Rev. E.J.B. Harrison in his own hand. Those present were happy to hear that Mr. Harrison is recuperating at the Trillium Lodge, 1221 Michigan Ave., Sarnia, Ont., following a broken hip and a stroke. Present at the St. James Church Sunday doings was Major George Bruce, the Rec- tors son-in-law on leave from England. Mr. and Mrs. John Gould of Toronto and Mr. and Mrs. Ron Kayser of Lambeth visited recently with Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Middleton. 4,QI4INTON NEWS-RECORD, THURSDAY, JUNE 2,7, 1974 Editorial Comment Gimme a gaper The only reason you won't do it is because you don't have any competition. "I want all the supermarket prices, 'a list of people with used cars for sale, the movie and TV times and the closing stock market prices. "If I get drunk and have a wreck, I don't want you to print my name in the paper, and I have a friend who is getting a divorce, and you can leave that out, too. "Another thing, I'm sick and tired of misspelled words in your paper. For 20 cents you ought to do better. "By the way, I eat promptly at 5 p.m., and my paper better be at my front door before that. Not on the steps, not in the rain, not in the front yard. "When I meet you on the street, I ex- pect you to tell me all the inside dope. I expect you to serve as publicity chair- man for every committee in town, too. If I call the paper and ask you how many kids Al Capone had or what round Dem- psey knocked out Tunney (or was it the other way?) I expect you to know and to tell me. Right then. "Next week I'm going to start my own business, and I want a news item about it. A picture would even be better. Adver- tising? No, if you run the story and pic- ture, I won't need any advertising. "But if you straighten up, I will give you another 20 cents for the paper next week." 20 treated for alcohol problems in provincial hospitals during 1970, while 20 patients were admitted in 1971. In Quebec, 14-year-olds sneak into pubs and taverns and in Toronto drinking among high school students doubled since 1970 --while marijuana and hashish usage climbed 10 percent and LSD usage dropped. The public must find out the inter- relationships between drug usage and alcohol. A royal commission should be set up to determine if raising the drinking age back to 21,,will cause kids to just sink deeper into drugs. Mean- while, those seductive, youth-oriented beer and liquor ads should be banned from the media. (from the United Church From our early files .