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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1985-10-30, Page 4Let's get behind the pool The world view from Mabel's Grill Has Morris Township come up with new road-side garbage containers cleverly disguised as trees? Some beer drinker with plenty of ambition discovered a k not-hole high on a branch of a tree near Walton as a place to deposit an empty. Dear editor, Received the first issue of the Citizen today and wish the Citizen all success in the future. Regarding the headline, "Meeting airs swim- ming pool issue", as a senior citizen of the Township of Grey, who likes to see things done for our younger people, I am in favour of the swimming pool. The Brussels Lions Club have done a lot for Brussels and Community. We as citizens should thank them for the projects they have done in the past and will in the future, in helping to make this area a better place to live. The amount the taxpayers will be asked to pay is very small. I hope the taxpayers of Brussels, Morris and Grey will give this serious thought. The good it will do is large against the small amount of the cost to the taxpayer. We have to thank a lot of people in their work in make Brussels, Morris and Grey a better place to live. The Community Centre, sewers; main st.; painted stores; and the new dam, we all benefit from all these projects. So let's get behind the children's pool as a united community. ANDREW BREMNER ETHEL, ONT. There are people who will tell you that the important decisions in town are made down at the town hall. People in the know, however, know that the real debates, the real wisdom reside down at Mabel's Grill where the greatest minds in the town (if not in the country) gather for morning coffee break, otherwise known as the Round Table Debating and Filibustering Society. Here the most eloquent speeches since the closing of the Roman Senate are delivered. Here the wisest heads to gather since the last. braintrust meeting of the Toronto Maple Leafs put their minds to solving the problems of the world. Since not just everyone can partake of these deliberations, we will report the activities from time to time. MONDAY: Things were quiet for the first while this morning to the point where Mabel actually said something herself for a change. I think it was "Nice morning, ain't it." The thing is, people have spent so much time lately talking about the Blue Jays, they didn't know what to talk about anymore once the Blue Jays weren't playing. Nobody wanted to dignify the World Series as being important any more since obviously the best team wasn't there and they certainly didn't want to talk about the Maple Leafs or the Argos. Tim O'Grady, the town lawyer, did mention that the Jays lost because they didn't know how to execute the hit and run but since the only time Tim ever played ball was when his intermural team at Osgoode Hall lost to a team from the girls dorm, nobody paid much attention. Now people would have listened to a man of experience like Billy Bean (he once coached the tyke Probably saddest person about the Jay's demise however was Ward Black, the town councillor. Ward's been in trouble with some of his constituents for a few months ever since he made the motion that people had to pay a dog tax, and he figured if the Jays went to the World Series people would be so busy watching television they wouldn't realize it was election year and he'd sneak in by acclamation. WEDNESDAY: Tim O'Grady was talking this morning about his new telephone system he had installed yesterday. It's one of those phones that has all the buttons and you have to take a three-day operator's course before you know how to make a call. Tim, who knows he has the keenest mind in town, learned the whole thing in 20 minutes. He says it's great. He can code in to the memory bank all the key, often called numbers and then call them by just touching one button. He's got all the important numbers in there like the town hall and the land office and the pizza shop. Hank Stokes says he figures there must be one more magic button on those new fangled things. From the number of times he's been cut off in the middle of a conversation with somebody who owns one of these things and has had them explain that they got cut off by the machine he figures there must be a button they can use to purposely lose people they don't want to talk to. It's called the "Get Lost" button. FRIDAY: If you thing things were quiet after the Blue Jays lost, you should have heard it this morning. A woman tried to enter the conversation! Now there is no constitution for the Round Table Debating and Filibustering Society but every- body knows women aren't allowed. Mabel knows well enough. Mabel never says anything except "Would you like another coffee?" There were some of the memb- ers who wanted to excuse Julia Flint because she just didn't know any better, being a newcomer and all (she just bought Callaghan's Insurance Office). But here we were, right in the middle of a discussion of how the country was going to hell with the Liberals in Toronto upping the cost of beer again and she marched right in and sat down. Well, that quieted things for a while but Ward Black, whose family was battling Grits way back when the rest of his neighbours were fighting off the bears, couldn't keep quiet too long when he had a chance to say that it was all because people were stupid enough to vote Liberal last time. That's when Julia really did it. She opened her mouth. She actually said something. That nearly gave Archie Patrick a coronary by itself. When we heard what she said, we really worried for his health. "Well," she said, "I thought the budget was pretty good. I sure was glad to see them get rid of the tax on sanitary napkins." The Society set a new record early adjournment time. Reader says thanks for The Citizen THE EDITOR TO THE STAFF OF THE CITIZEN: I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreci- ation of the quality and presenta- tion of 'our' newspaper. I'm sure everyone enjoyed reading the news of their particular area. Good luck for the future. Barbara M. Brown, Brussels. CAA en [640523 Ontario Inc.] Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. P.O. Box 152, P.O. Box 429, Brussels, Ont. Blyth, Ont. NOG 1H0 NOM 1H0 523-4792 Subscription price: $15.00; $35.00 foreign. Advertising and news deadline: Monday 4p.m. Editor and Publisher: Keith Roulston Advertising Manager: Beverley A. Brown Production and Office Manager: Jill Roulston A price must be paid If there's one thing we've learned from the heady '70's and '60's it is that there is a price to be paid for everything. Nothing comes free. We have realized this mostly in our collective swing to the right politically; in our new knowledge that the government doesn't get the money to pay for new programs through magic, that it's impossible to have low taxes and attractive government handouts at the same time without it catching up to us in the long run in the form of huge government deficits. We've learned it too in looking at our environment where we've learned the immutable law that what goes up, must come down. We've finally realized that building a taller smokestack doesn't magically get rid of pollution, just spreads it around more. There is a price to be paid too, to having a community. Most of us live where we do because we like to live there. There is something about our community that suits our preferred lifestyle. But if we live in a smaller community ours is a precarious lifestyle. Individuals can sit back in large cities and "let George do it" because George is likely making a damned good profit by doing it. In smaller places the economics of any particular activity aren't nearly as attractive. You're not going to see the big guys like McDonalds or Eatons moving onto our main streets. Toyota isn't looking at our villages for its new assembly plant. It is both the weakness and the strength of our local economies that we are dependent on the initiative of individual entrepreneurs and businessment to provide the services and provide the jobs. We are shielded from the precipitous decisions of managers in far-off board rooms who may suddenly decide to close a plant providing hundred of jobs and move to South Carolina or Hong Kong but we also don't have the tremendous growth potential big corporations can bring. It means though that as residents of the community we carry a heavy responsibility to help keep the community healthy. It means we have to pay our share of the costs of keeping our community healthy. In the next two months consumers in Canada are going to go on the greatest spending binge this country has ever seen. Those of us who live in Brussels or Blyth or Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesboro and Walton have two choices: we can pay our share of our Christmas present budget into the coffers of huge corporations running Eatons or The Bay or Towers, (corporations that probably wouldn't even know how to find our small towns on a map,) or we canput the money into our local economy where it may eventually find its way back into our own pockets. Yes there are problems with limited selection in our smaller local stores but the more business our local stores do, the larger stock they can afford to keep on hand and the larger selection they'll have next year. The less money they get this year, the smaller the selection may be next year. The choice is up to you. No customer should have to feel he is being abused by local business but on the other hand, everyone should ask: is it worth a few dollars more this Christmas to keep my community healthy? Anybody notice a change? Reading the details on last week's provincial budget one would be hard pressed to know that there had been a change of government after 42 years. The Ontario Liberals may have made a slightly refreshing style of oppenness in their government but when it comes to actual legislation, one looks hard to see much difference. Taxes are up and there's talk of austerity again. But then the same phrases were mouthed by finance ministers from both federal Liberal and Conservative governments in recent years. Perhaps what is to be learned is that the maneuverability of politicians in government these days isn't all that much. They can talk all they want in election campaigns about the brave new worlds they will build, but when they get into power, they have to face the realities of massive deficits, an already-heavy tax burden and an entrenched civil service. Rene Lesveque found this out in Quebec and various New Democratic Party governments in the West found cherished dreams of a new society hampered by the difficulties of running a government. We can learn, perhaps, that we shouldn't expect revolutionary changes just because we vote a different government into office. On the other hand, we shouldn't be so afraid to take a chance on a different party now and then because they're really not likely to be able to foul things up too much either.