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Home My WebLink AboutTimes-Advocate, 1979-03-07, Page 4Page 4 Times-Advocate, March 7, 1979 opinIO N Ivook at alternates Huron County council members have again opened deliberation on reducing their size. The main thrust of the concern is not predicated on ef ficiency, but rather one of space. There soon will be too many members to fit into the council chambers at the county building in Goderich. At present, municipalities with 1,- 000 or more electors send a reeve and deputy-reeve to council. It is expected that within the next two years, more municipalities will reach that plateau, creating some dire overcrowding in the council chambers. The move appears to make sense, not only from the point of eliminating an expected shortage of seats. It should make council more efficient with only 29 voices to be heard rather than 45. Morris Township reeve Bill Elston suggests it could create a problem if absenteeism hits the same total as it did last week. However, that could be easily remedied by having alternates from municipalities where the regular member is unable to attend. In fact, that could pay some dividends in that it would require all members of the local councils to keep abreast of county council activities through more frequent reports from the present members who represent them. There’s a dire lack of com munication at the present time and the whole system would become more democratic if the present county representatives sought and gave opinions on the work undertaken in Goderich. Making a comeback Our grandparents would not only be surprised at our returning to the wood stoves, but also at the prices we pay for them, and for the wood. There is nothing more soothing if not war ming than looking into an open wood fire. While there is a tendency to burn in front and freeze behind, still the con stant attention required by a wood fire keeps you on the move and that keeps you warm. However when installing a wood stove care should be taken that the chimney is suitable for them. Even some fireplace chimneys are not suitable for them. Costly fires have resulted from improper installation of wood stoves. The most dangerous are wood furnaces used in conjunction with oil or gas furnaces. New model stoves burn the wood slower. Scores of companies have gone into the business of selling stoves. However stoves that permit a longer burning period drive more unignited gases off. These gases form a highly flammable substance in the chimney. The Canadian Standards Associa tion is now finishing codes and stan dards for wood stoves. It would be well to consult them before buying an ex pensive wood stove, or installing a wood furnace to use along with the pre sent oil or gas one. “Next time find out if your barber is a Conservative before you begin badmouthing Joe Clark.33 BATT’N AROUND .......... with the editor Too iniicli freedom Rising violence in North America can be attributed to people having too much freedom but not enough hap piness. Television violence has been blam ed as one of the major causes of the in crease of violence and aggression in today’s society. Children have freedom to watch what they like on the screen and the man on the street could not care less about the concern of others for his progeny. It may be that we are making television a scapegoat because it is easier to control than other factors such as poverty, discrimination, broken homes. Violence on television may be a betrayal of the deep fear people have of themselves in these turbulent times. A prosperous society falls victim to more violence than a poor society which is kept busy struggling to keep alive. Sociologist and psychoanalyst Ernest van den Haag calls for more emphasis on parental responsibility and established churches to become meaningful in order to help people gain a personal outlook on life that makes it meaningful. Perspectives Once in a while something really interesting comes along to liven up your day. The morning that a bomb was brought to school was one of those. A teacher came to me and said. “I’ve got a little boy in my class who said his big brother brought a stick of dynamite to school." "Oh?" I replied, with a grin, not really focussing on what she was saving. She smiled back, also not knowing whether a joke was being played on us. "I guess I better check it out." The older brother was in grade 8. I called him out away from the classroom. "Uh, do you have anything of an explosive nature?" I asked. "Sure," he replied. "1’11 get it." and went quickly to his desk. "I was just going to show it to some of the guys.” he Times Established 1873 /^l pleaded. "Don't tell my Dad. OK?” He handed the object to me - just a piece of copper pipe, flattened on both ends. Now at this point I was still inclined to treat the af fair as a joke, because it was obviously not a stick of dynamite, so, pleased with his forthrightness in produc ing the object I agreed that I would not tell his father and sent him back to work. Then I put the pipe in a cupboard and began the opening exer cises. When the children got to work I got thinking about the pipe and went back to ex amine it more closely. It was then that I noticed a freshly drilled hole in it at about the half-way mark. I lifted the pipe up and smell ed it. Gunpowder! I called the boy back. "Could you explain to me how this works?" “I don’t know, he muttered, his eyes down cast. "Well how do you propose that we’re going’to get rid of it9" "I could take it home on the bus? Bury it in the School yard? * The boy went on offering suggestions and as he talked Advocate Established 1881 more and more, getting very flustered, I began to realize that he was very much aware of the purpose of the pipe and was feeling very guilty about his intentions with it. His alternatives didn’t seem to be too reasonable. I could just see some little kid digging it up and I wasn’t too keen on handling it myself. By this time the pipe had me a little scared and so I called the O.P.P. The officer had seen the type of pipe before and had a healthy respect for it. "With a few modifications,” he said, "Very few, it would have blown every window in a classroom out.” "Mmm. I see.” "And if the person who brought it is over sixteen he could be charged with possessing a dangerous weapon,” he went on. I was glad to see him take the thing away. Needless to say I did go out to see the boy’s father. After the father and the officer finish ed ‘talking’ with the lad he was considerably chastened in spirit, not to speak of anything else. Me? Well, I’m a good listener for stories little brothers tell me. One doesn’t have to look far for hypocrites in today's society, but the members of the recently formed Huron County Society for the Freedom of Choice must have set some new stan dards in that regard at their meeting last week. Despite the high sounding democratic connotation of their name, the members debated at some length whether they would allow the press to attend their meeting in Clinton where they were pursuing their objective of fighting the recent ban on a book by the Huron County board of education. The reason for the reluctance to allow press coverage was that worn- out "so members can bare their souls in private”. Any group which would deny the public access to their proceedings com es under some strong suspicions, but it takes on even greater significance when the group is suggesting they are fighting for any type of freedom. To attempt to circumvent one freedom while trying to gain another is sheer hypocrisy and seriously under mines the credibility of those involved. * * * If you’ve been putting off that visit to a long, lost cousin in Vancouver or a trip to make one last impression on your rich, aging uncle in Halifax, the spring sale recently announced by Air Canada is an opportunity you shouldn’t pass up. Some 455,000 seats are up for sale at reductions of 48 to 68 percent, mak ing it extremely economical to flit about North America. Never one to miss out on a good bargain, the writer convinced the better half that this was certainly the time to finally make that long-delayed trip to visit a friend in Vancouver. Regular airfare to the sunny west is $443, while the spring special flight is only $159. Yes, that’s return! However, there’s a slight fly in the ointment, indicating that residents of this area do not receive the best of treatment from Air Canada by using the London airport. While it’s possible to get a direct flight from London to Vancouver, it is not possible to get a direct flight for the return trip. You have to land in Toronto and then book a ride with Great Lakes to get into London, and that doesn’t qualify under the terms of the spring sale arrangements. To make a long story short, the return flight from Toronto to Van couver is still $159, but if you want to go the whole route by air, it costs another $62 for the return trip from London to Toronto. So, if you happen to see a female hitch-hiker heading for Toronto around the end of March, you’ll know who it is. ★ ★ * Air Canada officials have expressed some surprise at the overwhelming response to the spring sale and perhaps it will point out to them that by reduc ing rates, they could entice more customers and eliminate the thousands of empty seats with which they are now faced. The 455,000 seats up for grabs in the spring sale represent the total for just over a month. Some people maintain that lower The shame of it all Times - Advocate (Rna SUBSC Editor — Bill Batten Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett Composition Manager — Harry DeVries Business Manager — Dick Jongkind ____Phone 235-1331 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 Amalgamated 1924 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $11.00 Per Year; USA $22.00 Published Each Thursday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 By the time this appears in print, the worst of the suffering in Canada will be over. And I don’t mean that dreadful February cold snap which turned us into our annual winter condition, a na tion of misanthropes. Burst water pipes, cars so cold you can’t even put them into reverse to back out in the morning, and temperatures that would freeze the brains of a brass monkey are bad enough. But we’re used to them. We know that in another four months, we’ll be gasping in a heat wave and beating off mosquitoes. No, that’s not the suffering we did this February. It was being smugly satisfied on a Thursday night, mildly dismayed on a Saturday afternoon, and utterly humiliated on a Sunday night that caused the suffering. Talk about blue Monday. That Mon day in Feb., after them Rooshians had kicked the living stuffing out of Canada’s finest, was so blue it was almost purple. I’m not saying that I, personally, suf fer when Canada’s primary export, hockey players, is no longer marketable. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that I bleed a little, inter nally, when a bunch of rotten red, pinko communists make a group of fine, young, liberal, capitalists look like a bunch of old-age pensioners whose Geritol has been cut off. Right after the second game, I went to the clinic and had a cardiogram, just in case. I must say we took it well, as a na tion. For once, there were no alibis. How could there be, when hundreds of millions of people saw our collective Canadian noses being rubbed in it? Sports writers, their guts churning, praised the play of the Russions and in timated that they knew all along what would happen. As they always do, after the event. The Canadian players showed more grace. The best of them simply ad mitted they were beaten soundly by a superior team. But they knew in their hearts that they, and all their highly paid buddies, were facing not a physical Siberia, but a Siberia of the soul. They were the Best in the West, and they had not been just beaten but thoroughly trounced, by the Best in the East, where hockey is a relatively new sport. Not for me to ask, "How did it happen?” All the experts have agreed that the Russians skate better, pass better, and are infinitely superior in physical condition to the pampered Canadian pros, who weighed an average of nine pounds more than their opponents. It is only for me to ask, "Why do we suffer so much when we’re licked in hockey?” And I think I know the answer to that. For a century or so, Canadians have been hewers of wood and drawers of water. Fair enough. We had lots of wood and water, and still have and other people need them. But we also had three superior finish ed products, manufactured at home, that nobody else in the world could touch, when it came to quality: maple syrup, rye whiskey, and hockey players. Our supremacy in these departments is virtually ended. Our whiskey has been watered more and more, our maple syrup has been thinned to the consistency of greasyspoon gravy, and our hockey players, with a few stalwart exceptions, are more im pressed with their hair-dos, their press /■>- rates would result in a greater passenger volume and greater profit for the company. Empty seats, of course, show no return. However, company officials appear reluctant to continue the experiment of offering lower rates to get higher load factors. They’re asking the Canadian Transport Commission for another five percent increase to take effect on April 1 That will probably create a few more empty seats and cut profits and Air Canada will react by asking for another rate increase. * * * As you will note, the T-A enjoyed another successful year in the better newspapers competition staged by the Ontario Weekly Newspapers Associa tion. This newspaper won the top spot in our circulation class for the second consecutive year and, in addition, won three first places in the categories which are used as a basis for the overall award. While we’re among the first to admit there is room for improvement, we do take some satisfaction in knowing that the judges feel the T-A does a first class job in covering the news of the area each week. The entire staff and our lengthy list of community correspondents share in the honors again this year and to them we extend our commendation and thanks. Ike. Newton, lying in the orchard one day, was conked on the cranium by an aggres sive apple. Inspired by the accident, he devised the the ory of gravity and avoided being remembered solely as a ne'er-do-well who liked to lie around under apple trees. Archimedes was sitting in the bathtub one day when he noticed that the water level would rise as he sank deeper in the tub and fall as he mov ed up. “Eureka! I’ve found it!” he shouted, startling many people around him who were unaware that he’d lost it. James Watt - about as am bitious as Newton — was watching the tea kettle boil when he realized that the power could be harnessed. Consequently, he developed the steam engine, started the industrial revolution and helped turn the green English countryside black. Today, every schoolboy knows all about gravity, Ar chimedes’ Law (to wit - if you don’t lose it, you don’t have to find it) and how to build a steam engine. But, without Newton, Archime des and Watt to ask the ori ginal questions, the answers would remain unknown. The answers are easy; it’s devising the questions that takes skill. In other words, you don’t get answers unless you ask questions. And too many people are reluctant to ques tion the status quo when it comes to sacred cows. Such as retirement. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has been seriously questioning the entire retirement situa tion in this country. A few weeks ago, the Federation sent its Director of National Affairs, Dan Horigan, to r clippings, and their financial statements than they are with beating their opponents. There is a sadness here. Rye whiskey is bad for the liver, maple syrup bad for the teeth, so perhaps their denigra tion is not a national disaster. But to have a hockey team that is the second or third or fourth best in the world? That is unthinkable. Every red-blooded, middle-aged male in Canada has hockey in his veins. He personally knows, or his best friend does, or he lives in, or lives in the next town to, or is sixth cousin of, or grew up with, or was preceded by only 10 years by, in school, a genuine hockey player, who made it to Junior A, or Senior A, or even the NHL, or one of its farm teams. Two of the quarterbacks on my high school football team, Les Douglas and Tony Licari, made it to the Detroit Red Wings organization. My brother-in-law, Jack Buell, played Junior A and Senior A and became a referee. My grandson, at the age of two, was given a hockey stick and demolished his grand mother’s hardwood floors in the living room, smashing a puck around the floor with great vigor and a certain lack of control. (She finally put her foot down when he insisted on scrimmaging around the piano while she was giving lessons.) To add insult to injury, this idiotic idea of Iona Campagnola, Minister of Jocks, has popped up. She wants to give $18.5 million of my money and yours to four Canadian cities, so that they can build big arenas to accommodate four more losers in an NHL that is already so watered-down with mediocre talent make a submission to the Senate Committee on Retire ment Age Policy. Simply stated, the CFIB argued that compulsory re tirement doesn’t make sense in social or economic terms. The Federation’s brief reiter ated the medical belief that work is a biological necessity such that those deprived of work are more likely to die earlier. And it emphasized that no economy can afford to discard its most seasoned workers, especially if those workers don’t wish to be come inactive. For many small business owners, the most productive years are those that others spend in retirement. Social issues aside, how ever, the Federation also pointed out that the cost of pensions is becoming a ma jor element in the overall cost structure facing business today - especially for small er businesses which, because of their weak market posi tions, are unable to pass the costs along to consumers. Already burdened by Work man’s Compensation, Un employment Insurance and CPP/QPP contributions, the smaller businesses can’t toler ate extra weight in the form of additional pension respon sibilities. In essence, however, the CFIB’s position is basic, logi cal and, surely, beyond re proach. Our retirement atti tudes are based on yester day’s society when life ex pectancies were shorter. Ca nadians today live longer; surely they should be allow ed to work longer, too. "Think small" is an editorial message from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business =. memory lane 55 Years Ago Misses Edna Pfaff and Dorothy Balkwill, of Strat ford Normal, were home for the weekend. The first crow to be reported this season was seen by Miss Elva Harvey on Thursday last. The three months course in agriculture and domestic science conducted by the Department of Agriculture was brought to a close Fri day evening last by a ban quet in the town hall. Following the banquet an ex cellent program consisting of music, readings, and ad dresses was given. Mr. Aylmer Christie proposed the toast to "Our Country’ which was responded to by singing "The Maple Leaf”. Miss Amy Fisher gave a humorous reading "Bargain Day”, Earl Mitchell propos ed the toast to the ‘Girl’s Class’ and this was respond ed to by Misses Thelma Taylor and Feme Francis. The Boy’s Class proposed by Anna Jeffrey and responded to by Harry Strang and Horace Delbridge. An in strumental duet was played by Misses Myrtle and Lila Pym and a vocal duet by Misses Stella and Elva Harvey. The “Junior Farmers Improvement Association” was proposed by Miss Ruby Wood and Responded to by Mr. Alvin Smith of Wingham. The ad dresses of the young people were of a very high order and reflected a great deal of credit on their ability. Reeve William Coates, of Usborne, was in Toronto last week attending a convention on good roads. 30 Years Ago At the Lions Club'supper meeting in the Central Hotel, Charles Dolphin, an architect from Toronto, out lined hospital planning for Exeter. Murray May 19-year-old student of Exeter District High School, was selected the outstanding, all-round athlete of his school. 20 Years Ago Establishment of a volunteer fire brigade for the Police Village of Cen tralia has been approved by Stephen Township Council. Salary increases for both Public and High School teachers were approved by the respective boards. Raises of $800 to $1000 were granted to High School teachers; $300 to $850 to Public School teachers. Hensail Council this week threatened to set up a dog pound and hire a dog catcher if residents continue to violate the by-law during the present rabies epidemic. South Huron Junior Girls basketball team captured the Perth title, and will be representatives for the local high school at WOSSA this month. 15 Years Ago A leap-year baby was born in South Huron Hospital. Henrik Berg was born here Feb. 29 of Danish citizens, Lt. and Mrs. A.G. Berg. Both Exeter Public School and Precious^ Blood Separate School held open house this week in celebra tion of education week. On Monday night town council approved proceeding with the installation of the $70,000 Main St. storm sewer this year after learning that the Ontario government would assurhe the major portion of the cost. Six year old Kang Wong Ho of Pusan, Korea, has been adopted for one year by the Exeter Legion Aux iliary. Besides his parents, there are three brothers and one sister in the family. that 60 per cent of them couldn’t have made a Senior A team 30 years ago. shG shpuld dois support an Order-in-council which proclaims that with the emergence of Red China, Russia is a°ainst Second‘rate powpr' not worthy to be faced-off Then Allan Eagleson can organize another Series of the Century with China, where they learned to skate about i^l PrObab'!' Wi" U by °ne 8031 in 1M°-