HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1975-08-07, Page 4The accolades given Agriculture
Minister William Stewart at last week's PC
nominating convention were obviously out
of the category of non-partisan, but
nevertheless there would be few people on
any side of the political fence who could
argue with them.
His resignation terminates a record 14
years in one of the most difficult portfolios,
an obvious indication of his ability and
durability, two attributes that go hand in
hand,
He's had his ups and downs, of course,
but he's come through many minor and
major skirmishes over policies with a
record that has been above reproach, and
there can be little doubt that Premier Bill
Davis will have a most difficult task in
naming a suitable replacement. Even if one
of the opposition parties has that task after
the upcoming election, they too will realize
that Bill Stewart's abilities are difficult to
duplicate.
While he has had one of the most ar-
duous tasks in the government over thepast
14 years, his efforts on the broader front
didn't deter his representation of his own
riding constituents. Somehow he managed
to find the energies required to do both jobs
well.
The loss of his respected voice at
Queen's Park will be missed by all whom
he served, but he has earned his retirement
and a debt of gratitude from all the
residents of the province.
The leisure years
Retirement. The word conjures up
visions of,endless hours of happy freedom.
Why, then, is it such a disillusioning ex-
perience for so many people?
The natural tendency is to look forward
to devoting unlimited time to travel, hob-
bies, grandchildren, sports and entertain-
ment. All of which are enjoyable. But when
one actually comes to fill day after day in
these ways, life can soon pall. Fulfilment is
not achieved so easily.
What's missing, according to psy-
chologists and human relations con-
sultants, is involvement in interests outside
one's self. Taking part in community af-
fairs, charities, church work or worthy
fund raising projects offers such oppor-
tunities. Can you teach English to a new
Canadian? Offer volunteer service to some
social agency or hospital? Take a part-time
job? There are many other ways by which
you can make a worthwhile contribution.
As for hobbies, they can be wonderfully
rewarding outlets for one's interests and
energies. They can even prove to be the
basis of a profitable second career. But to
get the most out of any hobby, start taking
it up in earlier years. Later, you'll have the
necessary skill to allow you to get infinitely
more fun and satisfaction out of your ef-
forts. Especially if it's the kind of hobby
you can share with others.
Above all, leisure years are brightened
by friendships, both old and new, and by
maintaining a lively interest in the
fascinating world around us. Given
reasonably good health, you may well find
that the November-December years are
the best of your life.
Make PLO welcome
The Palestine Liberation Organization
is the recognized organization of the
Palestinian people, and there should be no
question about making its representatives
welcome in Canada, The United Church
Observer says editorially in its current
issue.
Canadian judgment on the PLO has
been "distorted (by) the enormous
propg,gFidR, job done by pro-Israeli
OigarOtations,"'Tlie:Observer says.
"The vast majority of the Palestinian
people support the PLO. It has been given
status by the UN, and if it were to become a
government in exile as it may, it would be
recognized immediately by scores of coun-
tries," the editorial says.
While some Palestinians in
organizations under the PLO umbrella
have committed terrorists acts, The
Observer says, "we don't see much
difference in dead children killed by a
terrorist bomb in an Israeli kibbutz, and
dead children killed, by an Israeli bomb
'dropped by the Israeli Air Force on a
refugee camp in Lebanon."
VtetoteferZimes-Abuorafe
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AWARD
1974
Just waiting for election call
Our response to now
By ELMORE BOOMER
Counsellor for
Information South Huron
For appointment
phone: 235-0560
Circus life
A faithful! servant
I. THINK MY VA/5 ARE NUMBERED - THE VOCTOR T0LP ME I W115 P19. SOUND A5 A POLLAK
All are witnesses
soft chubby curves, bright eyes
and smiling faces.
In many countries like India
missionaries are no longer
allowed to 'Christianize' as they
have in the past. "Our witness to
Christ is just in our being there
serving and loving the unlovable,
the sick and the dying", said
Sister Ivana,
On leaving the church one
wondered what kind of witness
we were making, Everything we
do testifies to some extent to what
we are, even when we testify
falsely. Others may not `get' all
that we say, or discern what we
leave unsaid, what we cannot, or
will not, or do not know how to
spy. Nevertheless, what we say
and what we do adds to what is
good or what is bad in the world.
And what we do is more im-
portant than what we say.
Normally we can tell the
quality of a person's life by what
he is witnessing, that is, in how he
acts out his interpretation to life,
his sense of what is important to
him in this world, and his belief
in God.
The true Christian is the person
who has caught the vision of
Christ's glory and who is freed by
God's Spirit to openly witness for
Him. In fact he just can't help
doing so. Some of us, however,
would deaden our sensitivity to
God and spoil our witness. We are
the losers, for it is a fact of life
that when we help or witness to
others we also help ourselves.
(Read Romans 12)
Would that when others look at
us they would say what two well-
to-do Indian ladies said of Sister
Ivana when, one day, they came
upon her caring for the sick on
the city streets. One asked the
other, "Why is she doing that?"
Her friend replied, "She does it
because she is a Christian . . no
one else would act that way."
Sister Ivana's witness has no
need for words, How about your's
and mine?
Summer in the country
Sitting here writing a column in
Grandad's office, a pair of shorts,
and nothing else, I would have to
work very hard at it to be
anything but peaceful, and I'm
not about to.
Back home, my lawn is burning
to a crisp, my roses are dying for
lack of water, my cat, with any
luck, has left for good, and some
junkie has probably broken into
the house and stolen the color TV,
I don't care.
Out there somewhere, people
are hurtling along hot asphalt in
'the heat, cursing the ob-
streperous kids in the back seat,
and wishing they'd never started
this stupid trip.
Elsewhere, guys and dolls all
over the world are hustling and
sweating and trying to impress
each other, and pursuing the
ever -dwindling buck with
maniacal intensity of purpose.
Everywhere, politicians are
cooking up new clouts for the next
session, or thinking up new ways
of saying: "Maybe yes, and
maybe no, and maybe maybe."
Somewhere, Atabs are killing
Jews, and Jews•are killing Arabs,
and Christians, in time-honored
custom, are killing other
Christians.
Somebody is winning $30,000 in
the Something-Or-Other-Open
with a 24 foot putt, and somebody
else is losing it by missing a four
foot putt. •
People are earnestly taking
virtually useless summer courses
which will fit them for practically
nothing.
Unexpected and unwelcome
visitors are piling in on "old
friends." The visitors unload two
surly kids, one ill-mannered dog,
and announce heartily: "Can't
stay morena coupla days.
Thought about gettin' a motel
room, but knew you'd be hurt 'f
we didden stay 'thyou." (Sound of
old friends' eyes rolling.)
My son is in Paraguay, South
America, swimming a piranha-
infested river, or slouching
through the jungle, kicking
poisonous snakes out of the way,
or lying in a native hut, wracked
with by malaria.
My only daughter is trapped in
a box on the ninth floor of an
apartment building, in the heat,
with an 18-month hell-on-wheels
boy clutching her sawed-off
jeans, and a little sister in the
oven, ready to join him just about
on his second birthday and oh,
dear, isn't it awful. Imagine
having two babies in two years in
these times, (Sound of Gran,
gnashing teeth.)
And about all of these things,
all the hurly and the burly, all the
muss and the fuss, all the higgle
and piggle, all of the ever-lasting
human struggle to prove that
God's in His heaven and all's
wrong with the world, or the
opposite, I don't care,
I just don't give a diddley-
dam'. Why not? Because, at this
time and in this place, I have
irrefutable proof that He is in His
heaven, and there ain't nobody
who could improve on the world
just as it is, right now.
It's a cool-hot perfect Canadian
day. Hot sun, cool breeze.
Whatever your thermometer
says, it's about 83 Fahrenheit
here. I raise my head from the
typewriter, and roses lean
toward me, a big, matronly
maple ruffles her bustles in the
breeze, like a lady caught in a
body-rub parlor.
On the top rail of the fence, 10
feet away, two retarded robins
are singing, and making, over-
tures. A denuded lilac bush is
whispering : "Yes, but wait 'til
next year."
Along the back fence, the
hollyhocks stand, not row on row,
but in little groups, muttering
together, tossing their heads in
the breeze, and looking down
their long, cool shoulders at the
upstart blue delphiniums, which
bear a gleam of miscegenation in
their eyes.
Just beyond them is a field of
uncut, late, late hay, bowing and
tossing and rippling like a
blonde teenager who has just
discovered she just might be a
beautiful woman.
Raise the eyes but one more
degree, and there, framed in
green foliage, is the deep-blue
-'.':AW:WgEMEZMZSSEs
Amalgamated 1924
The battle lines have been
drawn for the upcoming
provincial election in the new
riding of Huron-Middlesex and it
promises to be a most interesting
affair,
The turn-out at last week's PC
nominating convention indicates
quite clearly that the party
hopeful have not lost any en-
thusiasm after their defeat in the
by-election.
No doubt a large number had
been attracted to the meeting
through the persuasive powers of
the three candidates who had
been out seeking votes.
It was a keenly contested
battle, which was to be expected
with the calibre and popularity of
the three men. Jim Hayter's
appeal as a candidate who could
be expected to do well in his
present home area of Goderich as
well as his former stomping
grounds in the Stephen Township
area was perhaps the clinching
basis for his narrow margin over
Bill Amos.
The latter was certainly the
most impressive speaker of the
three and had some concrete
platforms to present which, to
this writer, indicated he was
perhaps the most capable of the
three.
However, nominations are
generally won by the person
whom the party backers feel will
garner the most votes in an
election and not necessarily by
the person who would make the
best representative for the riding
should he win that election.
That is not intended to cast
aspersions on any candidate or
party, but rather indicates only
that the electorate are too often
fickle in their choices at the poll.
They tend to consider a per- •
sonality to a great extent and
overlook the more desired
qualities of clear-thinking and
conscientiousness.
As that astute Goderich lawyer
Jim Donnelly noted at the con-
vention, the idea is to present a
candidate who will get the most
votes. Our political system
dictates that choice, because
even if a party attracts the best
brains in the country to contest
an election, it all goes for nought
if they can't get elected.
+ + +
While readers have been
sweltering through one of the
hottest summers in recent years,
neauty of the two-mile-wide bay,
with the high, rolling shoreline on
the other side, and the cottages so
tiny that you can't see the
squalling, grunting, sweaty
humans in and around them.
Ah, but it's lovely. And
peaceful. And lonely. Not
lonesome, but the good kind of
lonely, when you don't want
another human being, even a
loved one, to spoil the mood.
Maybe that's it. My Loved One
is away down the gravel road,
exchanging hysterical tales
about their children with an old
school friend.
Grandad, an incorrigible 83-
year-old, is out belting around his
40-mile mail route.
This morning, I saw a hawk.
When I was little, the chickens,
who were all psyched up, would
scuttle, the kids would all scream
with delight: "A hawk! A hawk!"
and the farmer would run in for
his shotgun.
Nobody even noticed this guy.
He looked like a skinny, ancient
kite, peering down for the dead
body of a Roman legionnaire,
perhaps. No chickens. No
legionnaires (I haven't paid my
dues). It was kind of sad.
Down in the Bay, there is a big
rainbow trout just waiting to
show me some tricks. Yesterday,
I saw two partridge flush just
outside Grandad's "office"
window. Tomorrow I'll see three
deer standing up by the fence,
looking curious,
Tomorrow I'll care about the
world again, and all the had
things and good things hap-
pening in' it.
But right now, at this time, in
this place, I don't care. God may
be out to lunch, as I frequently
suspect, But whoever it filling in
for Him at this moment is doing
One helluva job, if you'll pardon
the expression.
they may have escaped the fact
that scientists have found that
northern sections of our nation
are losing their agricultural
productivity because of a steady
long-term trend towards cooler
weather.
The Science Council of Canada
notes that this adds more impetus
to the need to block all future
industrial expansion into the strip
of rich farmland in the south.
It has been indicated that
unless Canada changes its way
regarding growth, it could
become a net importer of food by
the end of the century.
That is, if there is enough food
elsewhere to import.
As an example of how in-
dustrial growth affects us,
scientists have explained that the
area allocated for the new
Toronto airport at Pickering is in
the best five percent of Canada's
farmland, and the acreage in-
volved could provide annual food
supplies for 40,000 people.
Obviously we can no longer
afford the loss of such land!
+ + +
The Exeter Agricultural
Society tractor pull. takes place
I am very fond of corn on the cob,
While writing to a close friend
who had urged me to lose weight,
I mentioned a, little guilty about
having eatin so much of it lately.
But I excused myself with: "I
don't put any butter on it. By
return mail, I received a three
word answer from my 'friend:
"Neither do pigs."
During a debate over how to
expand the sewage-treatment
plant in one mid-western city,
the sewage superintendent
apprarently felt that his
department was being insulted.
"The only trouble with sewage,"
he protested "is that it's got a bad
image."
50 Years Ago
Hydro has been extended to the
village of Bayfield.
A business place on Main St.
was raided on Thursday last and
several empty cases and a part
bottle of booze was found on the
premises,
Mr. C. B. Snell has made ex-
cavation and put in the foun-
dation for a new home on Anne St.
Dr. Moir, of Hensall, has
purchased the farm of Mr. John
Bell, a mile south of the village of
Hensall.
Mr, Frank W, Tom has been
nominated to the General
Assembly of Ohio State.
A $7,000 by-law to provide for
an addition to the High School
was passed by the council.
25 Years Ago
• Mrs. E. J. Miners of Exeter will
on Thursday celebrate her 91st
birthday,
A five-ton truck loaded with
loose grain overturned in a ditch
and adjoining field. The wheat
owned by Sam Hendrick of the
Bluewater Highway was being
trucked to Hensall for
processing.
Mr. Oscar Anderson of Sarnia,
a former employee of the Times-
Advocate (who now owns his own
printing plant) called on friends
in Exeter this week.
Veterans Land Act settlement
officers swarmed over the farm
of Alex MaCIntosh about two
miles west of Lucan in a practical
training demonstration of
balanced farming,
Mail carrier Norman Long of
Kippen apprehensive that mail
had not been taken from the box
of Thomas N, Forsythe notified
relatives who found he had
suffered a heart attack,
W. A. Balkwill with his wife and
daughter is visiting with his
mother, Mrs. 5, A, Balkwill, Bill
Is personnel manager and pur-
chasing agent for two con-
struction units of the 11.C.A.F,
this weekend, and there are
suggestions that you should at-
tend if you want an opportunity to
see this type of action.
With our declining fuel sup-
plies, such exhibitions may be
terminated due to the vast
amount of fuel consumed by the
machines in a non-productive
manner.
The same goes for car races,
air shows and a hundred and one
other attractions that just can't
be termed reasonable at a time
when some industries face slow-
downs due to a decline in fuel
availability.
However, that situation
won't affect the show this week,
so get out and see the event
before it becomes extinct.
+ + +
Over the past week, con-
struction crews have been busy
digging up the roadway in front of
the writer's house, and while the
mess hasn't been too great at
time of writing, no doubt some
heavy rain can be expected in the
next few days to turn the road-
way into a quagmire.
Ideal weather conditions
throughout most of the con-
struction project have made it
easier to live with for most local
residents and it's been a great
boon to many mothers, if the
experience at the Batten
residence is any indication.
Our lads have been just as busy
as the construction crew and the
front lawn (all three blades of it)
has been filled with toy diggers,
trucks and bulldozers as the kids
mimic the actions of the big jobs.
It provided two full days' en-
tertainment and never once did
they have to ask mom what they
could do,
We notice that a few of our
senior neighbors have also found
the work activity one way to pass
some time as they assume the
role of sidewalk superintendents.
10 Years Ago
The Exeter municipal council
were hosts at a banquet Wed-
nesday, July 28, at the Dufferin
Hotel, Centralia, to honor Mr. C.
V. Pickard whose retirement as
clerk of the town took place
August 1.
In a sobering moment at
the meeting of Exeter Town
Council last week, members duly
moved, seconded and passed a
motion that smoking will no
longer be allowed at the sessions
held in the rather stuffy council
chambers.
Don Taylor, formerly of Exeter
and now working out of Hamilton
has been tranferred to Nigeria.
Mr. Taylor has been with the
I.B.M. company for the past
three years and will take over
new duties with that company in
Nigeria effective September 14,
15 Years Ago
No interest has been shown
here yet in construction of the
basement fallout shelters ad-
vocated by the Diefenbaker
gov't, a T-A survey this week
reveals,
Jane Horton, Hensall topped
the graduating class from South
Huron District High School with
an average of 86 percent,
It is reliably reported that the
Ontario Liquor Control Board is
purchasing the site of the old
cidar mill, formerly operated by
Sylvanus Cann, for its store here.
One London man has been
arrested and charged with fraud
and a warranthas been issued for
the arrest of the second in con-
nection with repair work done to
private residences in this area,
Three patrols of Exeter Boy
Scouts are enjoying a camp on
Georgian Bay, In charge is S. M.
Douglas Harrison, assisted by
Hal Hooke and Jim Sweitzer.
Patrol leaders are John Mac-
Naughton, Fred Learn and Ted
Wilson.
Last Sunday, I listened to a
Sister who has spent over 40
years working and living with the
hopeless and the desolate in
India, She told of bet—work with
lepers and with children who
have been abandoned either
because their parents are both
dead or are sick and unable to
care for them.
She showed us pictures of some
of the people she helps whose
hands, feet and faces have been
partially eaten away by leprosy.
Though terrible disfigured they
were clean, and in their eyes
there glowed a certain peace, a
quiet acceptance and even a
trace of humor.
These are the outcasts of
society and the good Sister told us
of finding one young leper sick
and dying on the platform of a
railway station. Because of his
despised condition many people
spat on him as they passed by.
Transporting him to her little'
hospital she cleaned him up, gave
him some nourishment and made
him as comfortable as possible.
He told her he was a high school
graduate who had contacted
leprosy just before he was to
enter college, His family were so
terrified the dread disease might
infect the rest of them they thrust
him out of their home, For a long
time he travelled from pillar to
post, from city to city seeking help
but finding none. When it finally
came in the form of Sister Ivana
it was too late for his physical
body but when he died he did so
with someone at his side who
loved him and showed com-
passion.
We also saw slides of babies,
brought to the home so full of
worms and so emaciated from
malnutrition they looked like
ugly, scraggly, scared little
animals. Yet, pictures taken a
few months later revealed what
love, care and food could tran-
sform . . . bodies rounded out in
Circus life is sharper than
ordinary life.
The kids are smarter. Five
year old Latika replies im-
mediately, "Three times 50? -
that's 150." He can say his ABC's
too. His mother teaches him at
home by correspondence courses
until he is ready to go to. high
school.
Latika and his brother are
already training at five and four
years respectively to be part of
the circus. "Latika will be in an
act as soon as he perfects his
back flip." His uncle is training
him. "The sooner the better for
his confidence," he adds.
Romance is intensified, Circus
life is characterized by the short
liaison, or if permanent, a very
permanent marriage.
Acts move from show to show.
People ape not with the same
circus for two seasons in a row.
This is true especially for the
younger performers who are not
yet established.
To marry is to break up an act,
A troupe is dispersed. Marriage
then is not just the joiming of two
persons. A new team is formed
and a new act becomes a reality.
Any new friendship is reported
along the efficient grapevine.
Everyone is a contact in the
small, closely knit circus com-
munity. Everyone knows each
other and their doings.
And there is a compulsion to it,
Babi Young had to elope to marry
prop handler Eddie Belle. Prop
handlers are below the
prestigious performers. So Babi
left the circus for three months.
She had never been as free
before,
But when her father called
desperately, the act could not go
on without her, She went back.
Her husband is now part of the
act. Days off are now few,
Christian DeGraff takes on a
new identity in the ring. He is
then Santani Demon. He walks
He is the happiest, be he king or
peasant, who finds peace in his
home.
As rain gets into an ill-thatched
house, so craving gets into an ill-
trained mind.
down stair steps of swords
(they're supposed to be sharp)
and leaves through a revolving
ring of fire and sharp daggers
(Are they on hinges?) His very
presence commands silence.
He used to be an acrobat but
that doesn't turn him on any
more. Nobody watches. What he
has now makes people look and in
this is the sparkle of life.
Who cares as to the truth of the
acts.. The people are there to be
entertained, hoax or no.
Cynicism is all around. People
watch and people put on their
acts. And the world goes around.
Compulsion again is to be noted
in Sam Garden, president of the
Garden Bros, Three Ring Circus.
He's gripped by the circus and
evangelizes for it.
"My hope is that when we're
through the 110 towns we have
contracted, we'll just keep going
past Vancouver and down the
west coast of the United States,
and not have the season end,"
Our Mr. Garden hopes that in a
couple of years they'll have two
troupes, They look forward to
achieving at least number two
spot, No one can compete with
Ringling Bros., Circus. But who
knows when number two level is
attained what ambitions will
spring up!
Suffice it to say,' to be in the
circus you must promote, It is a
most competitive business in the
world. Free tickets are sent to
institutions for the deaf and
retarded, Then if possible,
sponsors are found to pay for the
tickets.
It seems fair, as Mr. Garden
terms it; the charities get half of
the net profit which is often five
percent. of the gross receipts.
Another gateway to the dollar is
found.
Last year was the best year for
the Garden Bros. The recession
helped. Families couldn't spend
money so freely so had to choose
something the whole family could
enjoy without too much money
being spent. The entertainment
value seems to be here.
Dan Proudfoot wrote a lively
sketch of circus life in the
Weekend Magazine recently. He
commented, "I joined Garden
Bros Three Ring Circus for a
week, which was long enough to
step inside some secrets, and
long enough to ache for the an-
swers to more."
Imagine the wheels turning in
my mind as I heard of a cartoon
in a French Newspaper depicting
a Russian and an American
shaking hands in space over the
caption: The Biggest Circus of
Them All!
Answers! Answers all over the
place! But questions,? Also
questions!
Times Established 1873
Advocate Established 1881