HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1979-05-09, Page 4Pa9® 4 Times-Advocate, May 9, 1979
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Ready to serve
Seventy years ago, the president of
a London Bible class playing handball
in a church basement was hit on the
nose and was given first aid treatment
by William Loveday.
While that no doubt was ap
preciated by the long-forgotten church
official, it also became a very
noteworthy event in that it was the first
recorded case where a person in
Canada received assistance from a St.
John Ambulance brigade unit.
William Loveday, along with 19
other members, founded the Forest
City Division of the St. John Am
bulance Brigade in May, 1909, and of
course the brigade work across the na
tion since then has touched most peo
ple.
The Brigade now has 4,000
members in Ontario who last year con
tributed 450,000 hours of unpaid public
service. There are over 12,500
members in Canada.
These volunteers, in their familiar
black and white uniforms, provide first
aid service at all kinds of public
gatherings across the country. They
are also a part of Canada’s history,
with service in both world wars and in
every emergency disaster.
The record of service and
assistance to Canadians is most en
viable and the 70th anniversary being
marked by the Brigade is a time when
their efforts should be duly noted by the
countless thousands whom they have
served or stood ready to serve over
those years.
“Serves him right! Who do those union leaders think they are, thinking they're above the law — us?"
BATTN AROUND .......
$
Prophets of gloom
We should resist the prophets of
gloom. One of these was Aurelio
Peccei, president of the Club of Rome.
He was delivering the keynote address
in Ottawa recently. He said that the
world is getting older by not better,
that there is probably less than a
decade left before certain options
which may still be open are lost.
One way to resist the prophets of
gloom is to endeavour to see the world
in better perspective. For instance, let
us imagine that the entire progress of
the human race is represented by a
period of 50 years.
This is for many a more easily
compassable period, and carries more
meaning than descriptive writing in
terms of tens of millions of years.
Until 49 of the 50 years were over
man would not have begun to be at all
civilized. Having emerged to
something worth calling human, he
would still be hunting with primitive
weapons. He would have no settled en
vironment.
Yet note the sudden and swift
change. Half way through the fiftieth
year man invents writing. Only in the
last two months of the fiftieth year
would he know the blessings of
Christianity.
Man’s printing press would be only
a fortnight old. And only in the last
week he travelled by road. An hour or
so ago he learned to fly.
Peccei’s keynote address outlined
many of the Club of Rome’s beliefs
first stated in 1968 when the Club of
Rome was established. It may be
significant that the president
somewhat relieved a traditional
pessimism by saying, “We are living in
a kind of period of grace’’.
Aurelio Peccei spoke better than
he knew. Since then Pope John Paul I
has become Bishop of Rome. History is
full of surprises!
For-that matter, this world of ours
is but a child, still in the go-cart. Take
heart. Give it time to learn its limbs:
there is a Hand that guides.
The United Church of Canada
The action people
May is Red Shield month, the time
when the Salvation Army makes its an
nual appeal for funds. In our books it is
one of the fund-raising drives which
deserves the broadest possible support.
Many times during any given year
you will answer your doorbell to the
ring of a canvasser for some religious
group or other. If you think like we do
you almost invariably say “no”
because you support the church of your
own choice. With the Red Shield
appeal, however, there is an important
difference.
The Gospels tell us that Christ laid
upon us the responsibility for looking
after the less fortunate in our midst,
his injunction must certainly have in
cluded the skid row bums, the
alcoholics, the unmarried mothers —
in fact the whole gamut of his children
who would find the burdens of life more
than they could bear. Though many
denominations have sprung up in His
name over the past twenty centuries,
none have taken His words more
seriously than the Salvation' Army.
Most of the Christian churches are
heavy on the respectable, sober and in
dustrious strata of our society. Yes,
certainly, most of them do have some
favored projects for the unfortunate,
but it is The Army which assumes the
great share of the burden.
There are many worthy causes in
this world, but few are more worthy
than the Red Shield appeal.
Wingham Advance-Times
It may come as a surprise to some,
and a welcome relief to others, to note
that Canadians will be going to the
polls in less than two weeks.
While we’ve been fed a daily menu of
election coverage in the daily press and
on television, the campaign locally has
been extremely quiet and there is little
to suggest that it will heat up very
much before May 22.
Election campaigns in this riding
have always bordered on the dull side,
with a few exceptions, and this one
may go down as one of the more
sluggish to date, despite the fact some
would suggest that the 1979 trip to the
polls may be among the most impor
tant ever made by Canadians.
There are a couple of basic reasons
for the lack-lustre event in Huron-
Bruce, not the least of which is the fact
sitting member Bob McKinley is ex
pected to have an easy time in holding
his seat.
The NDP have never been able to
mount any serious support in this
riding and Liberal challenger Graeme
Craig has entered the fray with several
distinct disadvantages, among them
his lack of ability to generate much
enthusiasm among his supporters. His
biggest problem, of course, is that he is
carrying the party’s colors at a time
when they are a little tarnished in the
minds of many people and it becomes
an almost impossible task to unseat a
sitting member who has the advantage
of being well-known in the riding and
can spend most of his time denouncing
government policies, rather than hav
ing to defend his own party’s election
planks.
Mr. McKinley enjoys the best of all
worlds in this battle and probably
won’t even work up a sweat in regain
ing his seat.
Another basic reason for the lack of
interest locally, is that the change in
riding boundaries has left this area of
South Huron at one of the extremeties
of the riding.
Most of the meetings and rallies are
being held in the central portion and
local residents have to make a con
certed effort to attend. It’s an effort
not too many are making and that has
added to the hum-drum atmosphere.
* * *
Perhaps the most interesting aspect
of the entire election campaign is the
lack of decisiveness being shown in the
many opinion polls being conducted
across the country.
The conclusion appears to be that the
majority of Canadians want to have the
Progressive Conservatives in power
next term, but they also want Pierre
Trudeau at the head of that govern
ment.
That, of course, will be a rather dif
ficult situation to master, but points up
the apparent lack of confidence many
voters have in Joe Clark.
At this point in the campaign they’re
still a little uneasy about giving him
the reins of this nation.
* * *
Another reason for the apparent lack
of interest in the election locally is that
most people are busy with their own
pursuits and find it difficult to get the
time to involve themselves in election
meetings and campaigning.
Last week, area residents were kept
hopping with the round of special
events staged for Education Week by
the area schools. It was a very busy
week.
Among the more enjoyable programs
at many of the schools was the presen
tation by school choirs. The kids we
heard obviously enjoyed their task and
delighted the audience with their ren
ditions.
It also prompts the question again as
to why the singing has to end with the
area’s elementary schools and isn’t
continued at the secondary level.
It appears to be sucha waste of talent
that the youth of this area can’t con
tinue in their musical pursuits, even it
it was only for their sole enjoyment.
* * *
There won’t be very many readers
surprised with the announcement that
the average family spent more money
in personal taxes than it did on food and
medicaj care combined.
Statistics Canada, working with
figures for 1976, discovered that 18.7
percent of the average family budget
was used to pay taxes. Food expen
ditures, by comparison, accounted for
16 percent, shelter 15.7 percent,
transportation 12,3 percent and
medical and health services only two
percent.
While it may be fun playing with
percentages of that nature, most peo
ple would probably- agree that the total
always seems to come out over 100 per
cent no matter how you split it up.
DOUAR IERIE
Enjoy tax benefits
from sale of farm
By Donald Shaughnessy, CA,
future income earned when
the money received for the
farm is invested, can also
be divided between hus
band and wife. The poss
ible tax saving is consider
able.
An example: Farmer
Smith and his wife pur
chased their farm for
$30,000 in 1950. In 1971,
the value was $200,000.
They sell it in 1979 for
$350,000.
The gain, since 1972, is
$150,000 and it would all
be taxable as a capital
gain. If paid by one person,
the total tax would be about
$30,000 (in average circum
stances) but if it were split
between husband and wife,
the total tax would more
likely be about $20,000 a
saving of $10,000.
Now, if the proceeds of
the sale are invested by a
retired couple at a safe
9 or 10 per cent, it might
produce an income of
$32,000 per year. Income
tax would amount to about
$9,000 if the income is
taxed as if it were received
by just one person.
But splitting the income
between husband and wife
would put each in a lower
tax bracket, and the total
tax would probably amount
to no more than $6,000.
If you have already sold
your farm, it may not be
too late to realize these tax
advantages, since the
government usually allows
you to adjust your taxes for
the four preceding years.
Acting quickly can earn you
a big tax refund.
About half the farms in
Ontario are jointly owned
by husband and wife. Many
of the joint owners, who
purchased their farms
before 1972, do not realize
the enormous tax benefits
they can realize when they
sell their farms.
Since 1972, when capital
gains tax was introduced,
the law works like this: if
you give assets - say half
the farm - to your spouse,
any capital gain which
arises when that asset is
General financial advice
by members of the Institute
of Chartered Accountants
of Ontario.
sold will be taxed as if it
was all received by one
person. It does not affect
the tax if you gave half the
farm to your spouse.
But this rule does not
apply if you gave half the
farm to your spouse before
1972. If this is the case with
your farm, treat it ser
iously; you can save a lot of
tax money.
There is a good chance
that a farmer, being accust
omed to reporting all farm
income as if it had all been
received by one person,
might report the capital
gain, on the sale of the
farm, as if it too had been
received by just one
person.
This is not necessary,
however, if the farm was
owned by husband and wife
before 1972. In such cases,
the capital gain, arising
from sale of the farm, can
be split between husband
and wife -- reducing the
total capital gains tax to
be paid. Most important: if
the capital gain is split,
Mr. Shaughnessy is with
G.H. Ward & Partners,
Cobourg.
Sugar and Spice
Dispensed by Smiley
memory lane.
SYD FLETCHER
Perspectives
Some people’s capacity
for love seems to have no
bounds.
Take, for example, a cer
tain couple in Woodstock.
When I knew them he was
the technical director in one
of the city high schools, a
quiet, non-assuming chap
who was well-liked by the
rest of the staff.
I met his wife at a staff
get-together and we chatted
for quite awhile. It was men
tioned in passing that they
had adopted some children.
Now this a topic dear to my
own heart so I inquired as to
how many.
“Nine,” she said,
somewhat hesitantly. My
mouth dropped open a foot,
I’m sure.
It turned out that they had
taken in three children, one
at a time over a period of six
years. Then this family of
six appeared in Today’s
Child. There were three
boys and three girls, ranging
in ages from six to sixteen.
Now perhaps it may seem
a little bit like ordering a
child out of Simpson’s
catalogue, but that’s exactly
how they ended up with a
family of nine children just
by picking up the ‘phone.
It wasn’t easy, as you can
well imagine. The father’s
first step was to extend his
whole two storey house out
by ten feet, as a lot more
room was needed. The new
family created tremendous
demands on their family
budget with six more bodies
to feed and clothe.
They had to face too, the
fact that the older boys had
strong memories of an
earlier life which they
weren’t about to surrender
in a hurry. One boy ran away
four times. Once, the police
came to the door and asked
the father if such and such a
person was there.
“Why yes, as far as I know
he’s sleeping downstairs”,
he replied.
He wasn’t. The Toronto
police had picked him up
hitchhiking along the 401.
The oldest boy fell in with
a tough bunch of young men.
One night somebody rang
the doorbell.The father went
out and found his boy lying
there, bleeding badly. Som-
body had applied a baseball
bat to his head after a
difference of opinion. Many
nights the mother stayed up
talking to this boy, counsell
ing him, crying with him
often, as they adjusted to a
new way of life together.
Yet there were many good
times mixed in with the bad.
The children eventually
responded to the warmth
and affection that was in
that home. They learned to
call them mom and dad,
learned respect for other
people’s values. Now, five
years after the family had
reached its upper limit as to
size, the mother felt that she
could honestly say that she
did not regret the step and
that yes, if she had to do it
over again that she would
not hesitate to pick up that
telephone and call the
Children’s Aid Society.
I have to feel that when
God was giving out love that
he must have given this cou
ple a heaping tablespoon
full, and then some.
55 Years Ago
Miss Eva Carling,
’daughter of the late Thomas
Carling, has been appointed
superintendent of St. Luke’s
Hospital, New York.
“Well I’ll be bobbed,” is
what most of the young
ladies are saying these days.
Mr. Borden Cunningham
who has been attending
Huron College, London, is
home for the holidays.
Miss Helen Wethey sang a
very pleasant solo in Trivitt
Memorial Church, Sunday
evening.
A cablegram was received
Tuesday morning from Mr.
Alonzo Hodgins of Crediton
to the effect that SS Gracia
on board of which were
Messrs. W. H. Dearing,
Harry Sweet and himself had
landed safely in Liverpool.
Mr, & Mrs. William Pfaff
are moving to town this week
from Stephen into the house
recently vacated by Dr.
Atkinson.
20 Years Ago
Installation of new
fluorescent lighting for Main
Street, Grand Bend, was
approved by the Council and
the PUC was instructed to
install 23 fluorescent fixtures
on Grand Bend Main Street
to replace the mercury
vapor lights.
Thirty two years to the day
after he started business,
veteran barber Elmore
Harness, town, relinquished
the clippers of his shop on
Main Street. His business
has been taken over by Don
McCurdy.
Cowan’s Lunch building
Sarepta, will be offered for
sale at a public auction
Wednesday May 27 by the
Ontario Department of High
ways.
Hurondale Dairy, Hensall
was practically destroyed by
the tornado which swept the
district Monday morning.
Over 150 men of the com
munity held a bee to clean up
the debris and Ron Mock,
owner of the dairy will
rebuild immediately.
Society breaking up fast
So, this is the Year of the Child. Well,
you can have it. And them. Our society
is breaking up fast. First, in the 60s,
the teenagers took over. They got into
drugs and politics and violence and
dropping out and communes and health
food and free love and ripping-off the
government and driving their parents
to drink and depression.
Then we got into Women’s Liberation
Movement. Raucous and intelligent
women trying to upset a perfectly good
system that has been working well, on
the whole, for about 20,000 years. We
should never have given them the vote
back in ‘21, or whenever.
They have wrecked family life, pop
ulation growth, and the economy by
their ridiculous demands. They have
psychologically castrated their
husbands and turned the occasional kid
they had into a whining brat who thinks
that love and whatever else he wants
are more important than a good whack
on the bum.
They have sent the unemployment
rate soaring by sailing into the job
market in their hundreds of thousands.
Just because they have high skills or a
university degree, they think and say,
quite openly and without shame, that
they should be considered on the same
level as, or even higher than, a Grade
10 dropout male who can barely tie his
shoelaces. Sheer arrogance.
They have wrecked the educational
system by refusing to remain baby fac
tories. This has caused rapidly falling
enrollment in our schools and a lack of
jobs for male teachers, whose wives
are among the worst examples of tiny
families and hitting the job market.
And now it’s the year of the kids.
There are series on child-battering in
the papers, articles about one-parent
children, and even child symposiums
in which the little turkeys are asked to
comment on how their parents should
behave, what’s wrong with the world,
what freedoms they should have, and
any other inane question a smarmy,
patronizing interviewer can think up.
We are smothered by stuff from the
media about children: day-care cen
tres, inner city schools (slums),
special education, gifted children,
obscene T-shirts for kids. We are
harassed and harangued by priests who
have never had a child and social
workers up to their ears in stale psy
chiatry, and politicians who know that
kids can’t vote, but grab the coat-tails
of any issue that receives media treat
ment.
And what good is all this going to do
the kids? Not much. They’ll go right on
doing what they’ve always done:
dreaming, fighting, playing; being the
happy, morose, belligerent, shy, cruel,
gentle, brilliant, slow, and utterly
delightful little animals they’ve always
been.
In Canada they’ll be over-fed, over
spoiled and over here. In Africa they’ll
be over-starved, over-populated and
over there. And in both places they’ll
be over-loved with that weird,
irrational love of children that prevails
throughout the world, civilized or un
civilized.
Oh, a few laws might be passed, and
many resolutions approved. But the
drunken mother or father who beats a
child will go on doing so. The ultra-
permissive parents wiil go on turning
out monstrous teenagers. The over-
protective parents will go on turning
out still more monstrous teenagers.
But the great mass of kids in this
Year of the Children will be much like
every other generation: curious,
resentful of things that they don’t un
derstand, ready to fight to death for
ideals, gradually conforming and com
promising to the realities of life, and
going on to become monstrous parents
themselves.
Now I don’t speak from the seat of
the Old Philosopher, or any such
hypocritic elevation. I recently had a
visit from my Grandboys. I speak first
hand.
It was Easter weekend, and we’re
still scraping chocolate off the
woodwork and picking up squashed
jelly-beans and ripped rabbits’ ears.
But it was a great weekend. That
marvellous alchemist, Time, has
wrought a great change in them. They
are becoming personal friends, instead
of sibling rivals.
The destruction was down about 800
per cent. True, Nickov kicked a ball
into a collection of Doulton figurines,
but nothing was broken, I took the ball
away, and he didn’t even have a tan
trum.
But the TV is still working. A few
doorknobs are missing, but not all of
them, as on previous visits. They can
eat without bibs, though Balind did get
about 80 grams of relish and ketchup
down his front when mangling a hot
dog.
However, he’s only two and has a
grin that would disarm the devil. And
he said something that so shook me
that I went down in a faint, and my old
lady had to pick me up. I’d plunked a
peanut-butter and honey sandwich in
front of him, and he said, “Thank you,
Grandat,” as casually as though I were
a waiter. I’d never heard either of
them say “Please” or “Thank you”
before.
They didn’t sprinkle even one can of
powder, mixed with toothpaste, on the
hardwood floors. They didn’t break a
single window. They didn’t anoint the
TV with cold cream. They took off their
muddy boots when they came in, in
stead of marching over the Indian rug.
And when I said, “Don’t wreck my
typewriter,” or something of the sort,
they didn’t blurt, ”... you”; they said,
“OK, Grandat,” or something of the
sort.
Maybe this Year of the Children has
something going for it, a whole lot
more than Sixties Sulks or Women’s
Lib Nerve-Wracking,
But when is the Year of the Man? I
hope I’m around long enough to enjoy
30 Years Ago
The Exeter ball
suffered a set-back
Charles Seymour the catcher
fractured a bone in the ankle
while sliding into second
base during an exhibition
game.
Mr. H. T. Rowe last week
pulled from his garden a
stock of barley that had
already started to head out.
The stock was a seed that
had lain in the ground all
winter. It showed
remarkable growth for so
early in the season.
During the weekend two
missionaries of the West
China field of the United
Church visited the district.
Mrs. Kenneth Wu spoke at
Kippen YPU Anniversary
and at Greenway in the
afternoon and Crediton in the
evening.
Mr. and Mrs. Russell Snell
have every reason to believe
that Friday the 13th is a
lucky day. On Friday May
13, a little daughter
Elizabeth Ann, came to
brighten their home, while
Friday July 13, 1945 was the
birthday of their only son
John.
team
when
15 Years Ago
Famous
cowboy,
recently entertained
capacity crowd of bean
growers in the Exeter Legion
Hall. In addition to listening
to Atcher, growers were
given an illustrated
presentation on weed control
materials by Chipman
Chemicals Limited.
OPP Constable George
Mitchell who recently passed
his tests for corporal rank is
being transferred this
weekend to the Kitchener
detachment.
Ross Dobson was ac
claimed president of the
Exeter Kinsmen for the
coming term at their regular
meeting. At the same time,
the members honored their
faithful treasurer for the past
years, Harry Keiswetter,
who has been transferred to
Sudbury.
Exeter’s swim pool
committee received
authorization to commence
construction this week.
US singing
Bob Atcher,
a