No preview available
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1976-02-05, Page 4• 4 4,, u MAW •re nv v Smiley's R. "d am, n memory II) Loss to our community God is the architect Even those who barely knew Gord Baynham will miss his bright presence and quick wit. In addition to being a founding father of Exeter's RAP committee and a past chair- man until he felt he had to resign that post for health reasons, Mr. Baynham was the one who provided cheerful inspiration in the greyest of circumstances. He was dedicated to the cause of recreation in Exeter, Just last week he represented RAP at the public official plan meeting. He asked numerous questions during that meeting, and one felt that he Since Ontario's new safety belt law came into effect, many people have been calling the Ontario Safety League for ad- vice, particularly parents of small children. Under the new legislation, drivers are responsible for making sure that any of their passengers under the age of 16 are properly restrained. Yet what do you do with a child who is too big for the child car-seats available on the market and too small to use the safety belt assembly in- stalled in your car? Because of their undeveloped pelvic structures, children under 40 or 50 pounds should be protected by special restraining devices capable of distributing collision forces over a large area of the body. There are few if any special restraining devices readily available for children just over that weight. They must wear standard safety belts. However, the standard lap and, shoulder assembly is not recommended for individuals under four feet seven inches in height. If the shoulder belt stretches across the child's face or neck, the child is too small. The back seat of a car is safer than the front and the centre of the back seat, away from the doors, is the best position. Parents may find a booster cushion helpful in positioning the lap belt at the correct We've been hearing a lot of four letter words around Exeter this week. Snow , , . snow . . . snow, that's all everybody has been talking about, and no wonder. Blizzard conditions Monday brought most activities in town to a complete halt. Stores, banks, schools and practically every place that depended on people to hold the fort were closed. Motorists couldn't go anywhere without being pushed, r towed and in most cases there was no place to leave the car People helping people Safety for children angle (45 degrees), low over the child's hips, especially in bench-type seats. It not only improves the belt angle, it improves the child's ability to see out the windows. It will also be of help in some earlier model cars containing lap belts that cannot be ad- justed snug enough to the the small frame of a young child. Newer model cars do not have this problem. A fairly light block of styrofoam would make a good booster cushion. For comfort's sake, it should not extend beyond the bend of the child's knee. Soft cushions should not be 'used for this purpose. They crush under the weight of the child and, in the event of a sudden stop, slide from under the child. Once the child is tall enough to see out of the car windows, the cushion may be omitted provided the lap belt in the car will snug down on his or her hips. When wearing safety belts, children should sit up straight with their backs against the back of the car seat. This way, the lap belt will stay low on the hips and not ride up over the vulnerable stomach area. The Ontario Safety League offers yet another reminder: safety belts are design- ed for individual protection. Never strap two children into one belt or hold a child on your lap and strap both it and yourself together. after reaching the destination. Nobody could argue that the weather conditions were anything less than dreadful but one bright fact came to life during the events of the last few days. No matter where you/ went you could see people helping other people. If your car was stuck and somebody else came along they would jump out and give you a hand. It's usually in situations like this that people show their true spirit and we're for- tunate to have so many of them residing right here in Exeter. was truly concerned that parks and recreational facilities be properly cared for in the town's new by-laws. When the answer did not suit the question, he would ask it again. At one point during that meeting, Mr. Baynham sighed and said that he wished Jim McKinlay were there to ask the questions froperly. Jim had other commitments and couldn't make it to the meeting that night, but he would be the first to agree that Gord Baynham knew not only how to ask the proper question, but how to obtain the proper answer as well. "Otis followed the Prime Minister's- advice on conserving energy by turning the off in the middle of his speech." A moving experience This morning, in a little book called "God Calling", I read these words: "You are the Builder, God is the Architect." This got me off on a tangent of thoughts. We are all familiar with the.idea of God being the Potter and us being the Clay. This conjures up an illustration of a lump of stuff sitting lifeless and useless until the Master Potter places it on the wheel, breaks it down, molds it and finally builds it into something beautiful and useful. The clay is completely under the control of the Potter, and of course, this is very valid thinking. But the Builder and the Architect. brings a completely different picture into focus. A builder must have the plans which have been carefully TV thought out and drawn up by the architect in infintisimal detail . . but even though he has the plan, perfect in every way, there is much the Builder himself must do before the construction can be erected and completed. First, he must figure out what material is needed; next He must count up the cost; then he must get up and get on with the job. For although he has the plan and the materials, and knows the cost . . nothing is going to happen to make the building take shape until he is prepared to put a lot of hard labour into it. This is the story of many a person's life. I firmly believe there is a God-given plan for everyotie. Most of us have some idea of what is required to carry it out. We've heard about the cost (most of which has already been paid by Christ.) But for some reason or other we just can't get down to the hard facts that we Holy Ole Moly, I must be getting on! Just walked in the door, picked up the mail, and there was an invitation to a retirement party for Pete Hvidsten, publisher of the Port Perry weekly newspaper. Say it isn't so, Pete! Per (Pete) Hvidsten is a friend of more than a quarter of a century, but it seems only yesterday that he and I were the life of the party, waltzing the girls off their feel, watching the dawn come up as we sat in the bow of one of the old passenger steamers sailing up the St. Lawrence while everybody else, including the very young, had gone to bed. This retirement gig is a trend that deeply alarms me. All my old buddies are putting them- selves out to pasture. They don't seem to spare a thought for me. I have to teach until I am eleventy- seven to get a pension. About a year ago, three old and close weekly newspaper friends phoned me from a convention in Times Established 1873 Phone 235-1331 STMEM.KgRe2WW,WaVtr.:.41...',. Toronto: Don McCuaig of Ren- frew, Gene Macdonald of Alexandria, and Pete Hvidsten. It was about midnight and they weren't even flying yet. I sensed something wrong. I thought they needed Smiley there to get some yeast into the dought. They sounded tired. McCuaig is semi-retired, a newspaper baron of the Ottawa Valley. Gene must be either dead or in tough shape, as he wasn't at the summer national weeklies' convention, which he never misses. And now Pete. Migawd, chaps, I'm just get- ting warmed up in the teaching profession. I reckon I have another 20 years to go, leering at the latest skirt-length, telling and re-telling my four jokes, trying to sort out the difference between a dangling participle and a split infinitive, How dare you "retire", when I have to go on working? Well, maybe I know, at that. You've quit because you've worked like a dog for 30-odd years in one of the toughest vocations in the world — weekly Advocate Established 1881 editor. I had 11 years of it, and if I'd continued, I'd probably be pushing up pansies right now. We were in it together when you worked 60.70 hours a week, when you had a big mortgage to pay off, when staff was tough to get and hard to keep, when the old press was always breaking down and you couldn't afford a new one, when you had to sweat over a four-dollar ad, when you were luckyto take home$60 or $80 a week. But it had its rewards, right? There was that sheer physical satisfaction of seeing the first copy run off and folded, smelling of ink, practically hot in your hands, like a fresh-baked loaf. There was another type of reward — knowing you had stuck to your principles, and written a strong and unpopular editorial, letting the chips fall where they might. There was the deep pleasure of seeing, after months of writing and urging, the reluctant town fathers adopt a policy that was — Please turn to Page 5 ..?a"M :11M.i2WAIsMe Amalgamated 1924 This was one weekend I've been looking forward to for a long time. It was moving day and we were finally going to be getting into our home on Sherwood Crescent after two months of living in a large one-room apartment above the Times-Advocate. We'd been telling each other how great things would be once we had a house to live in. Our baby would have his own room again and we wouldn't always have to be walking around on tiptoes in fear of waking him up. We'd have our own furniture and the thought of eating our meals from a real table instead of the tiny cardtable we were using was almost too much for us to bear. Everything would be back to normal in a few hours after the huge moving truck pulled away . . . we thought. It would have been great if things really 'happened that way, but they didn't. We knew there would be lots of work to do and it was with this thought in mind that we decided to do everything we could to speed things up. Friday evening we borrowed the van at the newspaper and moved what little furniture we brought with us into the new home. This wasn't too bad, although I can think of better ways of spending a Friday night than lugging heavy cardboard boxes down what seemed to be an endless flight of stairs. When the last piece was loaded, with our son under one arm, we headed for odr new residence. Everything was going exactly according to schedule until we tried to get into the front door. It was just the day before that the house had officially been turned over to us (and the bank) and in the excitement of all the legal transactions I never thought of picking up the keys. Can you imagine the feeling of sheer panic when you're standing in front of the door with what feels like a 400 pound card- board box in your arms and the door won't open? I know men should never cry, but there are certainly times when you come close. However, not being one to give up easily, I waded through navel- depth snow and tried the back door: It opened easily, and once again the feeling that luck was with me returned. The rest of the night was uneventful. We were in our bedroom and preparing to settle down for the night, What more could you ask for except for our bed that would be coming on the truck from Chatham the next morning? Carpet salesmen will tell you that their product could be • • U6S CAUTION AROUND off0Y/h/ alACW/NORY compared to walking on air. Something seems to get lost though when you try sleeping on it. We had taken all this into consideration and figured the sacrifice was worth it because we would be on hand bright and early in the morning when the movers were expected. This is really the beginning of when a lot of small things started to go wrong all at once, The movers were an hour and a half late and shortly after they arrived we discovered they had left one of my favorite chairs behind in the warehouse. A few small things were damaged, but we expected that and after they left it was time to settle down and start putting our house in order. No problem, I thought, after all, it was the fifth time we had moved in just under six years. Although I am not particularly mechanically-minded I can't understand how I never seem to get any better at hanging drapery track after all the experience I've had. Perhaps someday this tricky art will be mastered, but right now I feel this is one of the most difficult jobs I have ever at- tempted. Fortunately my father- in-law was on hand and we finally got the job finished, Well getting settled isn't as easy as you might think. It seems like.a hundred small jobs have been done and as of Sunday night when this is being written it looks like there are only about 300 more to go. Maybe we'll have things under control by next summer, After working like a beaver all weekend I decided to take things a little easier. My plans were to go down to the office where it would be really quiet and write my column for the week. (Most editors are a 50 Years Ago The roof of the cattle shed at the Exeter Agricultural Society grounds partly collapsed last week from the weight of the snow on il. There is a move afoot to erect a skating rink, fair grounds, and a gymnasium for Exeter school on the grounds. Gladys Stone and Hazel Elliott, representing the James St. YPU were in Stratford last week at- tending the Huron-Perth Young People's Leadership Training. All day Tuesday a snowplow battled with the snow between Exeter and Centralia. 25 Years Ago South Huron District High School Board awarded teachers a $300 blanket increase at their meeting Tuesday night. Exeter Public school teachers asked for a $3,150 or 16 percent combined increase in salaries at their meeting Monday night. It was announced this week that a T. Eaton Catalogue Order office will replace Harvey's Grocery, a firm established in 1919. The mill which burnt down in December in Hensel! will be replaced by a fire proof Struc- ture, at a cost of $150,000. 20 Years Ago Norman II. Jones won a land- slide victory over his nearest challenger in the race for Henson reeve, Jones, who doubled his nearest opponent's totals, was elected with a record turnout of nearly 80 percent. Betty Brady was elected president of "Juke-Box Corners", Exeter's new teenager club at the organizational meeting held in the arena this week. Recreation Director Doug Smith conducted the electign, The Exeter branch of the Canadian Legion voted Thursday night to go ahead with the con- struction of the $25,000 addition to the memorial hall on William Street . The Ausable Authority official adopted the $140,000 Morrison dam project in Usborne as its major conservation measure at the annual meeting in Parkhill Wednesday. 10 Years Ago All traffic moving out of town on Monday evening was virtually halted at 4:00 p.ni. and nearly 1000 motorists were stranded in town as a result of the snow storm. L. D. Palmer gave a short talk to the Lion's Club Thursday evening when he outlined the problems a school faces when it plans to build an addition. Mr. Palmer is principal of SHDHS. Despite the . tremendous amount of snow, Mrs, Harvey Pfaff, chairman of the March of Dimes campaign, reports that the results have been successful so far, South Huron District Hospital announced thattheir capital costs for the coming year will be in the area of $75,000. Violence begets violence! This has been shown conclusively in various studies. Dr. Albert Bandura of Stanford University showed three groups of children one group through a two-way window, one group on TV, and the third group in an animated film sequence — an adult kicking an inflatable doll. These children were later given an opportunity to play with the doll. They mimicked the adults even to angry shouts and. gestures. This was true of all three groups — the one watching TV no less than the others. More than 50 studies involving 10,000 children ranging in age from three years to 19 years of age uphold the hypothesis that the more violence a child watches on TV, the more likely he is to be violent. It isthis kind of evidence which The Royal Commission on Violence in the Communications Industry is seeking. This Com- mission was set up on May 7 of last year in Ontario. The Honourable Judy LaMarsh chairs the Commission. A judge of the Family Division of the Provincial Court, His Honour Judge Lucien Beaulieu, and Scott Young, newspaper columnist, complete the panel.' These people with their staff will be gathering as much of the material on violence as is practical from all over the world. They will be presenting this in a succinct way to the public. They have already com- missioned original research on the subject. There are public hearings on the matter which we as citizens are asked to attend and to present our thoughts and findings. Violence portrayed on TV and its effects on viewers is a lively . topic of conversation today. It is estimated that the average child will watch 13,000 people die on television before he is 15 years old. It has been shown that TV !'desensitizes" viewers to Elliman suffering. Emotional response in two groups of boys one group of heavy viewers and the other of boys who seldom watched TV — Writers must be known to newspaper During the past few weeks the Times-Advocate has received several unsigned letters to the •-; editor. It is unfortunate that we couldn't publish them because they touched on subjects of in- must put some of our own effort into getting God's plan com- pleted, We want our faith or religion to come cheaply. We don't want to work at it. We don't want to spend time reading the Bible daily; we don't want to give too much of our hard earned money to cover the costs of being a Christian; we don't want to commit ourselves to teaching a Sunday School class, singing in the choir, or putting some honest to goodness labour into supporting our 'church and our faith, In short, we have no en- thusiasm for the task of being a 'well-built' Christian which should surely be the most ex- citing thing that could happen to us. I didn't go to church, Sunday, so tuned into the minister on TV. Three things he said that I remember: "Get up . Look up . and Link up." I agree. We Christians certainly have to get up off our backsides; look up to God and the wonderful op- portunities He gives us, and then link up with those around us and get on with the job of not only building better, more stable, happier lives for ourselves but also building more enthusiastic, forward-looking congregations. It's true, God is the Architect. He lays the plan out perfectly But as builders, many of us are complete flops. Our work is sloppily thrown together in such a way that it shows no credence to those around us, How can we expect them to believe us when we talk about wonders and mansions in heaven and they look at us and see only shabbiness and a haphazard building that totters and shakes when even the slightest breeze strikes it? was measured as they watched a film clip featuring human violence. The heavy viewers showed less reaction. In one item of research heavy viewers "over-estimated the number of police in the country, the percentage of violent crimes, and their own chances of being mugged." "Fear was worse among those frequently portrayed as victims — young women, the aged, and minorities." The gun and fist are reinforced as legitimate means of problem solving. Reason is underplayed. Television and other media are here to stay. It does no good to ban or prohibit. Rather an educative process seems to be the best answer. Rather than allowing children to watch programs alone, we should sit with them. Our views of the program can be indicted and their reactions invited, In this way TV becomes a means of learning. We should preview programs. Having looked ahead in the TV Guide we can highlight the good programs. The good is thus an- ticipated rather than the mediocre tolerated, Adults should set a- good example, If we are TV addicts our children will follow suit. We should provide other ex- periences ether than the ever obvious TV. Children watch TV when they have nothing else to do. Stimulating hobbies, sports, reading, and family social times — both in the home and on trips — are highly recommended. There is always the opportunity of protest. TV stations and' program sponsors are especially sensitive to public notice, Censorship has some proponents. The danger of such a course of action is also evident, Some sort of program rating may be the best compromise. It is to be remembered that parents have the supreme control and can select stations and programs they wish their children to see, The onus is on us to provide this control! terest to our readers. The following is the policy of this newspaper regarding letters to the editor, The name of the writer must be known to the newspaper. before any letter will be printed. The writer's name may be withheld at the request of the author providing the letter does not criticize anyone. else by name. All letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Ithe celeRimes-Abuocafe SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND C,W.N.A., O.W.N.A. CLASS 'A' and ABC Published by J. W. Eedy Publications Limited Editor — Jim Beckett — Advertising Manager Women's Editor, —Gwyn Whilsmith Plant Manager — Les Webb Cornpotition Manager — Dave Worby Business Manager Dick Jongkind Published Each Thursday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 Paid in Advance Circulation September 30, 1975 5,420 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $9.00 Per Year; USA $11.00 "I warned him about those loose shirt tells. "*\ J little better organized by writing their messages on Thursday or Friday when things aren't so busy.) However, I believed I had an excuse for being late due to the moving and all the related ac- tivity. On the way out the door my wife asked "what are you going to write about this week, It was really storming outside but the streets didn't look too bad so I shouted back, "I'm going to mention the efficient job the works department is doing in keeping the roads open despite the large amount of snow we've been having lately." That was before my car quit at the corner of Sanders and Pryde. The battery had died and the car was sitting on a sheet of ice. ' The first garage I called sent an obliging young man out with a half ton truck for what should have beena simple operation with the booster cables. I never expected his truck would get stuck as well and that we would have to contact another garage with a larger truck. About $20. and what felt like a severe case of frostbite later, I decided to return home write my column on my 19th century Underwood. That's when I discovered there's enough draft in my basement to fly a kite. It looks like a window was installed back- wards or something. A little skillful manoeuvering managed to cut down the draft a little . . but then the ribbon just popped right out of the old machine. Well typing is difficult when your fingers are half frozen. Is rust meems impossroble to gt alit he let terx goring thegethre proprely. Maybe things will be a little better next week. Let's hope so. Our response to now By ELMORE BOOMER Counsellor for Information South Huron For appointment phone: 235-0560 Violence on television •