HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1979-01-04, Page 4Times-Advocate, January 4, 1979
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Give them opportunity
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Perhaps due to the Christmas
spirit, most municipal councils com
pleted their first month in office
without any major controversies.
Hopefully, that situation will prevail
throughout the next 23 months as well.
One of the major items of discus
sion at some of the inaugural meetings
reported in the weekly newspapers,
was the matter of committee ap
pointments. Several elected officials
called into question the right of their
majors to name the people to the stan-
ding committees in their
municipalities.
The topic was also discussed in Ex
eter, where newcomers Jay Campbell
and Marilyn Williamson suggested that
the various positions should have been
advertised so citizens would have the
opportunity to present their names if
they wished.
That approach has been attempted
in the past with only minimal success,
but it nevertheless does provide an op
portunity for people to offer their ser
vices.
It also eliminates any suggestion of
favoritism in that anyone has the op
portunity to present his her name for
the various public offices, with the
final decision being made by the coun
cil as a whole.
Spirit soon wanes
By now. many of the toys which
filled Christmas stockings are broken
and discarded.
The longevity enjoyed by many of
those expensive creations is perhaps a
symbol of the spirit of the season. It is
discarded all too soon.
Throughout the area, the ’pre
Christmas season was filled with
special programs and events. People
went out of their way to visit a shut-in
or drop in on someone who is confined
to a hospital bed. Many even went to
church.
However, having performed the
once-in-a-year good deed, we forget
about those about us who need our con
cern and sharing throughout the year,
and not just at Christmas.
If you still have room for one more
resolution on your list for 1979, make it
one that encourages you to bring some
warmth and kindness to those in your
community who are passed over for all
but one or two weeks in the year. You’ll
make them feel a great deal better and
your own rewards will be almost un
believable.
“Of course we aren't gambling for money, officer — we're using Canadian dollars."
Think small
Back to the Stone Age
Bryce got his plum
The appointment of former Liberal
cabinet minister Bryce Mackasey as
chairman of Air Canada is more than a
bit disgusting, one more example of the
political interference and patronage
which has marked government in this
country far too long. Mackasey did a
good job as a senior member of govern
ment, but his career has all the
hallmarks of political opportunism.
This man left the federal scene to
jump into Liberal party activities in
Quebec and won a seat in the National
assembly, obviously in the hope of
climbing his way to the provincial
leadership. When that hope failed to
materialize he resigned from Quebec
politics and jumped back to Ottawa,
where he crowded out a good Liberal
candidate for his party in the riding of
Ottawa Centre. When he was soundly
defeated in the by-election his patron,
Mr. Trudeau rewarded him with the
chairmanship of Air Canada, a crown
corporation.
The same thing has happened in
Ontario, where Premier Davis recently
appointed a close buddy and represen
tative of a staunch old Conservative
family as chairman of Ontario Hydro.
If either of these men had par
ticular skills or experience to recom
mend them for these highly paid posts
it might be different, but Bryce
Mackasey doesn’t know any more
about running an airline than your
neighbor’s dog knows about scuba div
ing. It is doubtful that Hugh Macauley
is any better informed about electrical
energy. And in both cases the fact that
the men were political appointments
will keep the presence of big govern
ment hanging over the operations of
the corporations like an unseen um
brella.
The entire intent and purpose of a
crown corporation is to provide a ser
vice devoid of political influence in the
interests of efficiency and job security.
You can bet that no Air Canada
employee is going to admit that he
votes Conservative and Ontario Hydro
people will have to be pretty close
mouthed about any Liberal sympathies
they possess.
With the Post Office headed for
crown corporation status and with
Giles Lamontagne as postmaster
general perhaps it would be best for all
the mailmen to polish up on their “bon
jours” and “merci beaucoups”.
Wingham Advance-Times
Perspectives
Now that we’re into the fourth day of
a new year, many area residents will
already be wondering.what happened
to their lavish promises to change their
lives in the final year of the 7O’s.
All those resolutions to lose weight,
stop smoking, start jogging, be more
kind, etc., always seem attainable
when they are made, but putting them
into practice is another story.
One of the basic problems is the tim
ing, because January is obviously the
worst month in the year to attempt to
change one’s lifestyle to any con
siderable degree.
It’s the month when mother nature
tends to send along a few blizzards to
make it almost impossible to fulfill
some of those resolutions. There’s
nothing to do but sit around the house
and nibble away at the leftover turkey
and drain the dregs from the bottles
left over from the New Year’s eve
bash.
It’s a time when people can’t even
get out their doors, let alone head off
around the block on their jogging
routines.
So, in view of the many difficulties
we’re bound to face, the writer has
decided to delay his annual list of
resolutions to a more favorable time.
Now, isn’t that a sensible approach?
Similar to many parents, we’ve been
motoring around the countryside dur
ing the past week attending the annual
array of Christmas week minor hockey
tournaments.
The annual novice tournament stag
ed in Exeter provided some of the most
exciting games seen here in some time
and fans who didn’t take in any of the
games missed out on some incredible
action.
The five final games for the consola
tion and championship honors resulted
in three overtime contests, one that
came within 31 seconds of going into
extra time and another that was in
doubt until there was less than two
minutes remaining on the clock.
Hollywood script writers couldn’t
have done a better job in creating tense
situations, and when the combatants
are seven and eight years, old, it takes
on an even more frenzied atmosphere,
particularly in the stands.
Tournament convener Shirley Pratt
and her< assistants came up with an in
teresting post-game show when they
had five players from each team
„engage in a penalty shot qontest. It was
unique in that the coaches were asked
to send their weaker players out for the
competition and keep their super stars
on the bench. The reasoning was that it
was a chance for a few of the lesser-
lights to get in on some of the action.
The approach seemed simple
enough, but many of the visiting
coaches found it extremely difficult to
accept the rule. They just couldn’t br
ing themselves to not having their best
players in the competition, regardless
of the fact the shoot-out had virtually
no bearing on the division standings.
Ironically, some of the weaker
players proved that when they were
faced with a one-on-one situation, they
scored more frequently than most of
the super-stars, albeit more good luck
i /x
than good management in some in
stances.
* * *
As we enter the new year, one of the
usual items associated with the life of a
new calendar-inaugural meetings —
will be missing.
Those have already .been held by
most elected groups in the area in view
of the change in the municipal election
timing.
One of the predominant themes out
lined by area civic leaders was the
need for restraint in 1979, and obvious
ly that is an approach that will be
welcomed by most taxpayers.
However, it’s unfortunate that some
people involved in the senior levels of
government don’t share the concern.
The expenditures being made by the
federal government, for instance, are
too vast for most of us to comprehend
although it is getting easier when one
starts looking at his fuel oil bill.
Former auditor general Maxwell
Henderson possibly put government
expenditures into some perspective for
those of us not accustomed to big sums
of money. Here’s what he had to say on
the situation:
“One billion seconds ago the first
atomic bomb had not been exploded.
One billion minutes ago Christ was still
on earth. One billion hours ago men
were still living in caves. One billion
dollars ago, in terms of government ex
penditure, it was yesterday.
Inasmuch as Canada and
the United States sleep to-
getherCgeographically speak
ing) it should come as no sur
prise to learn that the two
national governments are not
dissimilar. Certainly they
share many of the same prob
lems — including communi
cations.
Civil servants suffer from
a horrible disadvantage when
they must communicate with
the rest of the world. The
disadvantage arises because
the civil servants do not
speak English. Instead, they
spew out a dialect, best des
cribed as “bureaucratese”,
which is all but incomprehen
sible to the uninitiated. The
basic distinction between the
two languages lies in the
number and length of the
words; English uses roughly
one-third as many phrases
(all of them involving fewer
letters) as bureaucratese to
make the same point.
Linguists recognize that
complexity in language is a
•sign of primitiveness. That is,
the most advanced languages
are the least complex. On
that basis, bureaucratese be
longs somewhere around the
Stone Age.
Bureaucratese, no matter
how backward, does serve
one very useful function: it
• obscures the fact that the
user does not possess the
faintest idea of what he is
trying to say. Since bureau
crats often find themselves
in the unenviable position of
attempting to justify poli
cies, formulated by superiors,
which they find utterly in
comprehensible, the value of
bureaucratese is obvious. Un
fortunately, however, the dia
lect surfaces — undoubtedly
through force of habit —even
when the speaker does have
a clear grasp of the subject.
Consequently, the public al
most never has the faintest
idea of what government
means.
The American Depart
ment of Energy recently ran
head-on into a bureaucratese-
created fiasco. Having mail
ed a civil service-designed
questionnaire to the nation’s
retail gasoline stations last
spring, the Energy Depart
ment was aghast to find that
fewer than 50% of the forms
were completed and return
ed. Worse yet, the recipients
of those forms were so an
noyed about the complexity
and fuzzy wording that they
barraged Washington with
complaints.
In the depths of their des
pair, the Energy officials
were struck by genius. They
decided to turn the job of re
writing the questionnaire
over to a junior high school
class.
The students possessed a
gift for recognizing the ob
vious. In place of a complex
set of instructions for calcu
lating the average monthly
gas price, the students in
structed the station managers
to simply write down the
price shown on the pump.
The revised questionnaire
went out this fall. The re- '
sponse has exceeded 80%.
And everyone is happy.
Now think of how pleased
we all would be if our own
government fired all the law
yers that currently draft our
incomprehensible regulations
and replaced them with high
school students. Remember:
complexity of expression is
the mark of a primitive mind.
“Think small" is an editorial
message from the Canadian
Federation of Independent
Business®
...................................................................... ..........
® memory lane
Even though I’m a teacher
I’d be among the first to
admit that education doesn’t
happen only in schools.
I can think of one classic
example.
This gentleman happens to
be an uncle of mine so I cai
vouch for the facts.
He failed grade 1 three
times. The teacher in the
one-room school had a
grudge against one of my
older uncles and that was the
consequence. It was only
when another teacher came
along that my uncle sud
denly advanced rapidly into
the fourth grade. No
problems there, because in
the one-room school he had
been able to listen to all the
lessons for all the grades and
thus had the older reading
exercises all memorized.
Nevertheless, more than a
little bitter at the school
system he left very early and
found his own way in the
working world.
Became a plasterer, an
artist really at the trade. He
found that he had the ability
to put the white stuff on at a
tremendous rate and could
make a good living at it too,
doing as much in an hour as
two second-rate tradesman
could do in the same time.
An ardent fisherman, he
converted his basement into
a sportinggoods store and
plies that business during the
slack construction months,
looking ahead perhaps to the
day when he won’t be able to
stand the physical strain of
plastering.
What has all this to do with
education?
As I said, he left school
early but that didn’t seem to
stop him from learning.
Aside from the knowledge
he gained in the business
world he read everything he
could lay his hands on,
philosophy, science,
psychology. You name it. He
read it.
A striking example of this
for me was his interest in
biology. Many people fish
and hunt but he went at it
differently, observing and
questioning. ' And when I
gave him my university
zoology book he understood
it. The material was difficult
for anybody, much more so
for someone with an
elementary school
“education.”
When we would discuss the
material, sometimes right in
the middle of a fishing trip
away out on the river, he
would come out with these
strange words that I didn’t
quite understand. I would
have to have him spell it,
then Would realize that the
problem was that words that
I took for granted, having
heard them many times in a
school situation, were like a
foreign language to him that
he had learned without ever
hearing it.
The point that I am
making is that if a person
has a thirst for knowledge he
is going to achieve it despite
his background.
Education, or whatever
you call it, can come in many
different packages.
Only fun is breaking them
imes
Times Established 1873
vocate
* UmMm Were
Advocate Established 1881
SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND
C.W.N.A., O.W.N.A. CLASS 'A' and ABC
Published by J. W. Eedy Publications Limited
LORNE EEDY, PUBLISHER
Editor — Bill Batten
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Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett
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Phone 235-1331
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SUBSC
Amalgamated 1924
Published Each Thursday Morning
at Exeter, Ontario
Second Cla»* Mail
Registration Number0386
SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $11.00 Per Year; USA $22.00
...... ..
Here we are staggering into another
year, and nothing done, not a single
resolution made. Ah-, well, I don’t
believe in resolutions anyv:ay, except
for the fun of breaking them. A man
does the best he can, and all the well-
intentioned resolutions in the world
won’t make him do any better.
Looking back over the last year, I
find it was much like any other: ups
and downs, topsies and turveys, ins and
outs, sideways and backward, no real
progress, but no real retreat, either.
My son managed to survive another
year among the pirrhanas and pythons
and poisonous snakes of Paraguay. He
is now a graduate masseur and
acupuncturist, hoping to make enough
from his new trade to come home for a
visit, after five years.
I can hardly wait for him to arrive.
My teeth and hair are still falling out,
my arthritis is giving me hell, I have a
bum back, and I could use a little free
massage and acupunctury. Even
through I’d prefer a masseuse. And an
acupuncturess.
My daughter lurched from one crisis
to another, as is her wont, but managed
to chalk up another degree and charm
or weasel her way into a job as a high
school teacher, after six months of
dearth. Any year, or any decade now,
she won’t be expecting handouts from
the old man.
My grandboys got a year older, sur
vived various fatal diseases, acquired
some very colorful expressions that I
cannot repeat, and elicited from one
beleaguered babysitter the statement
that they were the worst kids she’d
ever tried to handle.
The Old Battleaxe and I battled it out
for another 12 months, lost a little skin
here and there, eachAvon a number of
skirmishes, but neither won a decisive
battle, and the war goes on, sometimes
cold, sometimes hot.
We had a great trip to Europe that
lasted three weeks and cost me so
much that I won’t be able to retire until
I’m 83, at last reckoning.
Everything went up again: in
surance, taxes, heating. And
everything else came down: snow, ice
off the roof, the Canadian dollar, the
confidence of the Liberal party,
branches off my big oak tree, and the
number of years left to live.
It was a year like any.other: fraught
with terrors and horrors and pain and
misery and depression and loneliness
all over the world and in our private
lives. But also replete with simple joys
and sudden happiness and special
moments and overwhelming love and
occasional peace.
Wonder what ’79 will be like. Heck, I
don’t have to ask. I know. It’ll be the
same as last year, only more so.
My two rotten old rusty cars will be
even rottener and rustier, and I’ll have
to buy a third-hand turkey to replace
them.
My students will be even thicker in
the thatch than this years crop, and I’ll
have to reach even further into the well
to try to motivate them. There’s only
so much water in that well. Then it
turns to mud. So be it.
My wife will go on thinking that
listening to her worry about her
daughter, her son, her brother, her
father, her grandchildren, her sister-
in-law, are more important than my
reading the paper.
My grandboys will go on being a
source of utter delight and utter
despair to me, sapping my strength at
the same time as they give me nevi
life.
My pay will go up six per cent and in
flation will go up 13 per cent. So I’ll
stop eating beef, which is hard to
mangle with a partial plate, anyway.
I’ll make about 800 decisions. Based
on past performance, 738 of them will
be wrong, according to my wife. She
will make 400 decisions and 400 of them
will be right on.
My son will wind up with a total of
$24 profit from his new profession and
wire me for air fare home for a visit.
I’ll lose a few more chunks of my
corpus. This past year it was a few
teeth and piece of nose. In ’79 it could
be anything: gall bladder, liver,
prostate, or other unmentionables. I’ve
got lots of parts.
The ice will back up on my roof this
winter, and crash through the new
plaster on the living-room ceiling. I’ll
tell my wife it’s a mercy we weren’t
sitting there when the roof came in.
The picture tube on my TV will ex
pire right in the middle of the Stanley
Cup final. I’ll hustle over to my
neighbor’s.
My daughter will be fired from her
teaching job for making certain ac
curate, but colorful remarks about the
ancestry of the school superintendent.
I’ll tell her she was absolutely right,
they’re all the same, and send her
money to assuage the loss.
I hope you don’t think this is a*
pessimistic column. I am never a
pessimist; merely a realist. That’s
life, and that’s the way the bright new
year will go.
People are scared of another big hike
in the price of oil. Not me. Energy
crisis?' We don’t have one. If all the
politicians in Canada were laid end to
end, they’d produce enough hot air to
heat every house in the country.
See? It’s simply a matter of attitude.
Think of the worst things that could
happen in the New Year. And they
probably will. But you can cope with
them. Have a happy.
55 Years Ago
The old council in.Usborne
was returned by ac
clamation: Reeve William
Coates, Councillors James
Ballantyne, Fred Stewart,
Wellington Skinner and John
Hannah.
The newly elected officers
of Lebanon Forest Lodge
A. F. & A.M. were installed
on Thursday evening of last
week by V. Wor. Bro. M. E.
Eacrett. The officers are as
follows: W. M. H. Bagshaw;
I.P. M. J. M. Southcott; S.
W., J. G. Stanbury; J. W., G.
M. Childley; secretary, R. N.
Creech; treasurer, C. H.
Sanders; Sr.D., Thomas
Pryde; Jr.D., W. Frayne;
I. G. H. O. Southcott; Tyler,
S. Sweet, Sr.S., J. Pryde,
Jr.S., G. Thomson.
Nominations were held in
Exeter Monday and a long
list of candidates were
placed in nomination for the
different officers. They are:
for reeve, F. A. Ellerington,
B. M. Francis, W. D. Sanders
and C. B. Snell; for coun
cillors, Eli Coultis, Jos.
Davis, Rd. Davis, Wm. J.
Gillespie; C. F. Hooper and
J. M. Southcott for Board of
Education, W. H. Dearing,
Jesse Elston, A. E. Fuke, J.
H. Grieve, J. S. Harvey and
Thomas Pryde.
Mr. John Jacob and wife
left last week for Clinton
where they will take charge
of the Huron County Home.
30 Years Ago
Alf Andrus of Traquair’s
Hardware won a new
Studebaker car New Year’s
Eve in a draw sponsored by
the Exeter Legion.
So far the snow plow for
clearing the streets has been
xcalled into service only once
this season.
Miss Anna ’ Brock,
president of the local Junior
Institute, is attending the
provincial convention of
Junior Farmers at the King
Edward Hotel, Toronto. She
will take part in a panel
discussion.
Provincial Constable John
Ferguson and Chief John
Norry had a lively time New
Year’s day when they at
tempted to arrest two meh
from Ailsa Craig. They were
placed in the local lock-up
and Constable Helmer Snell
escorted them to Goderich.
25 Years Ago
Mr. & Mrs, Gus Latta,
Grand bend, celebrated their
57th wedding anniversary at
a family dinner on New
Year’s Day. The couple
farmed in Stephen until
retiring to Grand Bend about
a year ago.
Right Rev. W. A. Town
shend, D.D.' Suffragen
Bishop of the Diocese of
Huron, confirmed 10 can
didates during the service at
the Protestant chapel RCAF
Station, Centralia, Sunday.
Opening of the new Exeter
Farm Equipment building
owned by R. D. Jermyn,
coincides with the tenth
anniversary of the founding
of the firm. Dick Jermyn
took over the Case dealer
ship in Exeter from Snell
Bros. Ltd. July 1, 1959.
15 Years Ago
Mayor Cy Simmons
created an uproar when he
recommended council
salaries be reduced because
a works superintendent had
been hired to undertake
some of the work previously
handled by council mem
bers. The recommendation
wasn’t followed, although
Simmons said he would turn
back $30r of his $550 salary.
A descendent of Col.
James Hodgins, first reeve
of Biddulph, took over the
reins of the township. He was
Wilson Hodgins, who
defeated James Ryan in a
two-way fight for the reeve’s
post.
District municipal officials
were guests Of Group Cap
tain L. H. Randall at the
annual new year’s levee at
RCAF Centralia.
Gordon Vincent shot a wolf
in the Grand Bend area
during a jack rabbit drive.
Bill Wright and Lana
Keller were named king and
queen at the Exeter Teen
Town new year’s dance.
Miss Greta Harness
retired after serving nearly
39 years at the local branch
of the Bank of Montreal.
Severn: roofs in the area
collapsed under theweightiof
the 50 inches of snow which
fell in December.
Former Exeter Reeve
Chester Mawhinney and his
wife marked their golden
anniversary,