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The Exeter Times-Advocate, 1974-01-10, Page 4Motorists who store extra gasoline in their cars are courting a fiery accident. states the Ontario, Safety Leagne. It's like playing with dynamite! This summer, two safety experts in Winnipeg placed a safety can full of gas- oline in the trunk of a car. Leaving the engine running, they stood at a safe dis- tance and waited. Within 20 minutes the en- tire back end of the car exploded. The safety can is designed to breathe and as the trunk became warmer the gas generated enough pressure to force vapors out past the cap. These soon reached ex- plosive proportions which needed only some ignition source such as a short in the elec- .4 trical system or a defect in the tail light cir- cuit for detonation. Granted, with winter temperature, car trunks will not heat up at the rate of the Winnipeg experiment. Nor will there be such a rapid build-up of vapors. However, a ruptured gas contained in the trunk could turn even a minor collision into the most serious conflagration. With the current fuel crisis, don't try to "beat those hoarders" by stockpiling gas in your vehicle or at home. More frequent refueling is the solution. This added warning for Canadians travelling south of the border: it is against the law in a number of States to carry spare cans of gasoline in your car. Most absurd! One of the great absurdities of our time must surely be the fact that public utilities commissions across Ontario must ask per- mission from Ontario Hydro before those commissions can make hydro rate changes. The absurdity is created by the fact that in most instances the commissions are forced into making rate increases because they are charged more for the power which they purchase. From whom do they purchase that power? Why Ontario Hydra, of course. So, we haye a situation whereby On- tario Hydra increases the cost of power to the commissions they serve, but those same commissions must make a formal application to Ontario Hydro to pass the in- creases along to the local consumers. That's about as far as you can go in los- ing local autonomy! Wasted food resources Pressures on the world's food supplies because of its too rapidly increasing pop- ulation are intensified by certain demands, many of which are highly questionable. For example; our over-supply of pets. In North America 57.4q of urban families have one or more. Apartment living tends to reduce their number, but it is believed to be rising. They make inroads on both pro- tein and starch supply. Another example is deliberate food destruction in world liquor production. Beer takes 16 million pounds of barley malt annually, ( with a 5% yearly increase) of which total. Canada's breweries account for nearly 4c-c, 11970l. Canadian distilleries use over one billion pounds of grain, largely corn. If this also is 4 of world production (not in- cluding rice), it means 25.4 billion pounds, which with barley malt, comes to over 41 billion pounds, more than 40 pounds each for one billion hungry people. Besides this, wine production, highly acclaimed by some, destroys great quan- Ihe ereferZimesabuocafe SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND O.W.N,A., CLASS 'A' and ABC Editor — Bill Batten Advertising Manager Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Published Each Thursday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 Paid in Advance Circulation, March 31, 1972, 5,037 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canctde $9.00 Per Year; USA S1 1.i00 etfitOglEOM:r:,=311=VicfrOZ,,,...„ Phone 23s.1331 a.s TODAY'S CHILD BY HELEN ALLEN THE TORONTO i-j11)\] SYNDICATE Just to look at Terry you can tell he is a typical six-year-old, full of bounce and mischief. Terry is tall and slim, Indian in background, a good-looking lad with brown eyes, black hair and light brown skin. He is active and healthy. Since he has just started school, Terry has not had any academic reports but he is a bright, intelligent youngster who has already learned two languages — Cree and English. If he has any problems in school, it will be because life on a reserve has not given him the knowledge of some of the situations a child may meet in classes and textbooks, But since he is alert and inquisitive, new things are more a challenge than a frustration to him. Terry needs loving parents who will offer him stimulation, share his interest in outdoor activities and value his heritage. Terry is a friendly, outgoing youngster with an easy-going disposition. He loves the outdoors in any season, To inquire about adopting Terry, please write to Today's Child, Ministry of Community and Social Services, Box 888, Station K, Toronto M4P 2H2. For general adoption information, please contact your local Children's Aid Society. A Pittl.:NOLV BOY The hoader hazard "By the tray, I'm not buying all that — I'm just going around getting estimates." Available: four talented kids Padlock society The bathtub is my favorite Last week's column mentioned thpt i Auts.peakAle e the readohelie, Thai. reMindecl Me of • - -; a speech I made agat,:pood Reading 'Habits tot of honour students. So I dug up the speech and propose this week to pass along some of the more worthwhile points in it. It's not primarily for students, but if you're not interested, you can go and cry over your post- Christmas bills. I became a readoholic shortly after I learned to read. My :'other would moan, as she tore the flashlight out of 'my hot tittle hand about 2 a.m.. "Billy Smiley. you'll be blind by the time you're fifteen if you don't stop reading in dark-corners and cubby-hole`." Well, I've been reading in dark corners and bright ones. on planes and trains, in the bathroom and in bed. in revolving doors and on escalators, ever since. and I'm not blind yet. I don't even wear glasses. But I don't want you to think I just ignored my mom's ad- 11,!Itition. I have never since read in a cubby-hole. In fact. you can scarcely get your hands on a cubby-hole these days. They seem to have gone the way of spats and straw hats. I had trouble with that speech to the kids. The principal had suggested the topic. Good Reading Habits. and who was I to tell him it was a dull and stupid topic? When I sat down to write the speech. I could think of only one good reading habit. Many years ago, when I was in public school. they taught us in health classes that you should always read with the light coming over your left shoulder. I don't know why. They're still teaching it. This good reading habit is rather useless if your left shoulder is higher than your right one, as is sometimes the case. And of course. if you are reading Hebrew or Persian, and read from right to left, it seems more logical to have the light coming "ver your right shoulder. lead to admit to the students that this was the only good reading habit I could remember. That seemed to be the end of the speech. Then I thought, "Heck, this is no good," So I confessed that I could say, without pride, hut with little fear of con- tradiction, that I had the most atrocious reading habits of any male in Canada. I suggested that I talk instead about Bad Reading Habits. Then, if they listened carefully, and immediately afterward forgot everything I had said, they would be well on the way to acquiring Good Reading Habits. There was general agreement that this was a sensible approach_ I warned them of the depths of degradation to which a readoholic would descend to get his stuff. I told them that an alcoholic or a drug addict would stoop pretty low to get the wherewithal for his habit. And I told them this was kid stuff compared to what the readoholic would stoop to. I gave them an example: a friend of mine during the war. He had the habit very badly. I lost track of him, but heard from friends that he had managed to kick it. Theh one day, a couple of o-onths after the war, I met him in Alexandria, North Africa. He was a handsome Sikh, with a sky- blue turban and a curly, black beard. But right away. I knew fror,7 the red-rimmed eyes. the :lazed look that he was still hooked on reading, He was leading an old lady by the hand. I asked him who she was and where they were going. He had the decency to look ashamed as he answered am- biguously, "Old friend Smilee. I am knowing what you theenk, but I got to get a book", before hurrying off. - I heard later that the aged lady was his mother, and he was on his way to the slave market. I un- derstand he got 519 for her. Or, in readoholic terms. about twenty- two paper-backs. Oh. I put the fear into those honour students. But then I tried to soften the blow. Told them of some of the great discoveries for which readoholism had been responsible. Newton, reading under an apple tree. The old story is that he was sleeping. but the truth is that he had just picked up a copy of the recently published "Fanny Hill" and was definitely reading. Apple fell, hit him on the head. and we had the Law of, Gravity, without which we'd be in very grave shape. And there was the Greek. Archimedes. He climbed into the bath one day for a quiet read. Immediately he opened his book, he knew something was wrong. He leaped out of the tub, crying, "Paprika!" Somebody had put paprika instead of bath salts in his water. And thus was discovered Archimedes Prin- ciple. a very important law in the study of physics. I don't know much about the Principle, but I think it's something like, "Half a bath is better than one." This anecdote brought me toward my peroration, It reminded me that I knew of another Good Reading Habit, This made two. A good Reading Habit is to read in the bath-tub, Someone once said that the ideal learning situation was a boy sitting on one end of a log,-and Mark Van Doren, the great U.S. educator, sitting on the other. My notion of the ideal learning situation would be a classroom with thirty-five bath-tubs instead Amalgamated 1924 In case you haven't noticed, the advertising industry is now relying heavily on children to entice you into buying products. There they are on TV, slur-r- rping vegetable soup or writing letters to cookie manufac- turers ... or they're on billboards munching chocolate bars or inside a catalogue wearing- the latest children's clothes. These are the smallest hawkers of all the child models whose perky smiles are supposed to pull at one's heartstrings, stimulating an irresistible urge to buy. The reason we mention this, primarily, is in the hope that one of our readers can advise us how to go about getting the four young members of the Batten clan in on the business. Judging from the wage rates recently cited by the Financial Post, yours truly could retire immediately if he could find some way to get an advertiser interested, in the Batten kids. Top child models earn as much as 510,000 a year and they're not even rushed off their feet at that. The basic television commercial fee, set by the industry, is $114.50 for eight hour's work. If your kid is lucky enough to get a speaking part, the pay is even higher than that. Now, when you start multiplying those figures by four, readers will quickly realize that the editor has an untapped gold mine sitting around the family table and the only problem is having them "discovered". Goodness knows they can eat peanut butter with .the best of them ... they can devour a box of cookies in near record time . . they can manage to have thedirtiest clothes (and faces) in town in a matter of seconds. They can be happy or downright ugly ... whichever is appropriate for the occasion, In short, the kids have talent, to say nothing of their "manager" who would be happy to split that $10.000 on a 50-50 basis with all four of them. - Agents line up at the right with your cheque books, please! 4- ± The reason some people don't recognize opportunity is because it usually comes disguised as hard work. Speaking about kids, we know a few who are disappointed that their lone tobogganing hill at the Morrison dam has been invaded by snowmobilers. A couple of weeks ago, mother took the lads out while father recuperated at home from New Year's eve and they returned shortly to report it was unsafe to toboggan because so many snowmobilers were whizzing around on the hills, Mother felt it just wasn't safe to let her small fry go down the hills with the machines around. Kids with sleighs, toboggans and crazy carpets don't have any more claim to the hills than snowmobilers, but because hills are solew and far between in this area it would seem only fair that snowmobilers search elsewhere for areas in which to enjoy their sport. The kids do have first claim too! Hills aren't a necessity for snowmobilers with their powerful motors, but kids can't have much of desks. And up at the front, a super-tub, preferably in pink mother-of-pearl. for Mr. Smiley. It might be a little expensive, but think of the special effects'e could get when teaching The Spanish Armada in history, or Old Man and the Sea, in English. Perhaps t should add that we'd be wearing swim-suits. 50 Years Ago The elections are over and W.D. Sanders will grace the Chief Magistrate's chair in Exeter for the coming year. Four can- didates were in the field for the reeveship. For councillors, Jos. Davis, Eli Coultis and C.F. Hooper polled large votes, Mr. S.M. Sanders has resigned his position as manager of the Exeter Canning factory and will devote his attention to his new factories at Exeter and Hensall. Mr. Luther J. Penhale is taking over the management of the Canning Factory. The Exeter Junior Hockey team motored to Seaforth on Thursday evening last and won the first game of the season for the district in the Junior O.H.A. by the score of 5-2. Exeter's lineup was : goal, Walper; defence, Hey, and L. Statham; centre, G. Hind; wings, Rau and Keller; sub. C. Acheson. At the annual meeting of the, Comrades class of James Street Sunday School a very interesting program was given including a debate on the subject "That the influence of women is greater than the influence of men". The affirmative was upheld by Rev. Donnelly, Mrs, T. Dinney and Mr. E. Shapton. The negative was defended by Mr, Wm. Welsh, Mrs. W. Cutbush and Dr, Rouls ton. The judges decided in favor of the negative. 25 Years Ago Jack Orchard of Byron who recently graduated as an op- tometrist, has purchased the practice of John Ward. Mr. and Mrs. Luther Penhale left Friday by plane for Australia to visit their daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Keith Colby, Telephone subscribers in Mt. Carmel, Shipka and Khiva areas were connected to Dashwood central recently, This brings the number of subscribers at Dash- wood to almost 650, Dr, W. Stuart Stanbury, a native of Exeter, one of the world's leading Medical authorities on blood, has been named national commissioner of the Canadian Red Cross Society. Robert J. Nicol has joined the Staff of The Times-Advocate, Some people may come up with some practical ideas on how to spend such a holiday, but there is every indication that it may turn out to be something the likes of which we've never had before — a day to merely sit around and lake a rest. How could we stand it? The concept of a holiday has brought a chuckle from one of the native of "over 'ome" who works in the back shop here at the T-A, For the past few weeks his Canadian cousins have been reminding him how lucky he is that he left merry old England before the new energy-saving regulations were put into effect. His retort now is that the Canadian government is cutting back the number of work days, but some how they've managed to do it by instituting more holidays. We'll have to agree, it sounds better than saying the govern- ment is reducing the amount of time we can work but it does have much the same effect. A rose by any other name . . .! 15 Years Ago H.L. Snider was re-elected chairman of the SHDHS board for 1959 and. E.L. Mickle, Hensall, is vice-chairman. E.D. Howey remains. secretary-treasurer at a salary of 51,250 per year. Chairman John Goman of the swimming pool committee said the campaign for funds will get underway the end of January. Pledges will be sought on a three- year basis covering 1959-61. Guenther-Tuckey Transports Ltd. Exeter, has established a new office and parking lot at Goderich. Shirley Wurm was elected president of Main St. Church Mission Circle at the meeting held on Monday night at the home of Marion Belling. Clare Paton was elected president of Lucan Junior Far- mers at their annual meeting at the home of Mr. and Mrs. P. Toohey. to Years Ago , Baby sitters in Hensall have taken collective action to raise their rates. Some 20 attended a meeting and agreed to charge their rates from 25 cents to 35 cents per hour before midnight and 50 cents after midnight. The SHDHS hoard agreed Tuesday to seek approvals from district councils to proceed with a $225,000 six-room addition, Ken Johns was elected chairman of the board. Ushorne Township School Area Boa rd has purchased its proposed site for the new $180,000 central school on the Hugh Rundle farm, about a mile and one half east of Exeter on Huron street. Biddulph council raised the slary of clerk Austin Hudgins from $1,000 to $1,300 per annum. The reeve was given a raise to $300 per year and councillors will receive $250, Payment of $10 will be made for each special meeting. At the meeting of the South Huron Hospital Auxiliary it was decided to take over the operation of the travelling cart from the Exeter Kinette.i. Years ago in the town of Let- chworth, England, a concerned doctor, Armstrong Smith, decided to start an organization called 'The League of Sealed Lips'. He felt the need for this league because many of the inhabitants indulged in idle prattle, some true, some untrue but all obnoxious, and from his vantage point he could assess the harmful effects of the malignancy of such gossip, So, one New Year's Day he called a meeting of the citizens and because of his eminence and the respect with which he was held, nearly everyone attended. They listened carefully to what he had to say, agreeing almost unanimously to take the pledge and become installed into what came to be known as The Padlock Society. The words of the pledge were simple: 'I promise to try my utmost never to say an unkind word about anyone, whether true or untrue'. And the method of installation was equally simple: 1. Get a padlock and open it. 2. Repeat the pledge before three witnesses. 3. File a membership with the founder. 4, Lock the padlock, and repeat the pledge every New Year's Day. Most of us could do worse than join such an organization. We used to believe our mothers were pretty corny when they ad- monished us with, 'If you can't say anything nice about a person don't say anything at all'. But regardless of how trite we may think it sounds, it's still good advice. James, in his epistle, likens the damage done by an unbridled tongue to that caused by a forest fire which usually starts from a spark or tiny flame. The old adage that 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me' isn't really true. A blow from the hand can hurt or kill but it can only be struck at close quarters, but a malicious story can be dropped at one end of the town or country and finish up by bringing damage, grief and heartbreak at the other. Someone has said, 'Three things come not back , . the spent arrow, the spoken word, and the lost opportunity'. Once a word is spoken there's no getting it hack; it's gone from our con- trol. It's almost impossible to kill a rumour or obliterate malignant gossip. For some reason or other many people relish repeating an unkind story or ripping someone up the back. They seem to like to believe the worst about everyone. Pyschologists tell us these people are unhappy and dissatisfied with themselves, and when they malign others they are really putting the finger on their own weaknesses. Because they feel insecure or inferior they must constantly try to tear someone down to their own level. So, perhaps the next time we're tempted to say something mean about someone we should think about that. It was Bolton Hall who said, 'I looked upon my brother with the microscope of criticism, and said, "How course my brother is!" I looked at him with the telescope of scorn, and said, "How small my brother is!" Then I looked in the mirror of • truth, and I said, "How like me my brother is!'" James goes on in his letter to point out that our tongues are agents of blessing or cursing. We all know the man who can speak with piety one day, and curse and repeat the most questionable story the next. And there's many a woman who will mouth love and gentleness at a women's church meeting and then go outside and murder someone's reputation with a malicious tongue. Like strychnine, which is a poison but which can also be used as a benefit to mankind when wisely controlled by a doctor, so our tongues can soothe or wound; speak the loveliest thing or the foulest. It's one of our plainest duties to try to speak only good words about our brothers, the kind we would wish God to hear. Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 fun with a toboggan or sleigh unless they have the required inclines. The Morrison dam hills are ideal for family fun because they are varied enough that all ages can have fun depending on how fast they want to go. There's an appropriate hill for all age levels. Surely snowmobilers must realize that they are creating undue hazards by using the hills at the same time as carefree youngsters who have little control over their slithering modes of travel. So. we're to have a national holiday in February to give a welcome break to that long winter stretch from Christmas to Easter that has been devoid of any holiday for the majority of people — teachers excluded as usual of course as they get a spring break at present. It remains to be seen what practical use will be made of such - a holiday by area residents. It's too early to undertake the spring chores the better half has planned when Easter holidays roll around, and the weather is much too precarious to plan a long weekend away from home.