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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1979-05-30, Page 4I”?6 4 Times-Advocate, Moy 30, 1979 Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 f SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND C.W.N.A., O.W.N.A. CLASS 'A' und ABC Published by J. W. Eedy Publications Limited LORNE EEDY, PUBLISHER imes - Advocate WwA Hww*. N*r* A UmUh* few W) Amalgamated 1924 Editor — Bill Batten Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Advertising Manager —- Jim Beckett Composition Manager — Harry DeVries Business Manager — Dick Jongkind Phone 235-1331 (♦CNA SUBSC Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $11.00 Per Year; USA $22.00 Regional battles Canadian voters, with the excep­ tion of those in Quebec, have given Joe Clark and his Progressive Conser­ vatives a rather shaky mandate to lead the country, a situation which this newspaper predicted prior to the elec­ tion. It was pointed out that a minority government under Clark would have many disadvantages for the nation, and they become even' more significant in view of the fact that country is now so badly split in representation between English and French speaking. While the PC leader has announced plans to name some Quebec residents to the Senate and thereby make them available for his cabinet, there is little doubt his party will face a severe problem in dealing with the Quebec issue in view of their negligible representation in that province. Even the normal routine of the House of Commons will appear to be a battle between Quebec and the rest of the nation as the Liberal Opposition, which is overwhelmingly Quebec bas­ ed, tackles the Clark government. How well Clark can move to strengthen his Quebec support in the next few weeks will obviously be of considerable importance to the future of the nation. Pierre Trudeau will face an equal­ ly difficult task in carrying on the nor­ mal duties of the opposition party leader while his party has such a limited base of representation in all parts of the nation with the exception of Quebec. It is disturbing to contemplate the potential consequences for Canadian unity in view of the election results which could solidify the English and French Canada factions to an even greater extent than the past. “Your opponent's stooping to dirty tactics — he's taking a clear stand on the issues." with the editor Out for good behaviour Questionable law ‘'There is an old saying among legislators that an unenforcible law is a bad law. If that is the case, Wingham has been saddled with one of the worst pieces of legislation we have ever heard about.” That comment was from a recent editorial in the Wingham Advance- Times, and what makes it of interest locally, is the fact the piece of legisla­ tion to which it refers is the same property standards and maintenance bylaw which was turned down by Ex­ eter council this week. Judging from the comments from Wingham, and indeed those of Reeve Si Simmons who led the attack against adopting the bylaw, this community is fortunate to be spared from such edicts. Governments at all levels have gone too far already in their intrusion into the freedom of individuals, often without fully considering the conse­ quences. The consideration for such a bylaw takes on even more negative overtones when two of its proponents suggest it wouldn’t be enforced to its full extent, or that it could be enforced through a type of complaint procedure. Passing laws that won’t be en­ forced is an obvious waste of time, while relying on neighbors to air objec­ tions is a most dangerous procedure and one that could only create severe problems between neighbors. There is no doubt that some of the regulations in the bylaw make sense. In fact, they make so much sense that they don’t need to be legislated. Who, in his right mind, would permit his property to deteriorate, if he had the necessary funds to prevent it! That, of course, was the convincing argument presented by Reeve Sim­ mons. And if a property owner doesn’t have the funds to mend a leaking roof or cement his basement, what can be served by fining him up to $500 for fail­ ing to do so? While the local planning board has been asked to review the bylaw again, it is imperative they do so in terms of its necessity and practicality. The concluding comment in the Wingham editorial suggested, “when it comes to regulations which have a direct bearing on individual homes and their owners or tenants, it is apparent that clear thinking and common sense should take precedence over the mere power to legislate.” This column is being written as we sit in the Exeter Legion hall attending the trials of six OPP who were charged with assault in an incident over a year ago during the Fleck Manufacturing strike. The fact that there’s time to handle other duties shouldn’tbe misconstrued as an indication that the court session is dull or boring. It is anything but that. However, as the many witnesses appear, much of their testimony is a repetition of that which has been given by previous witnesses. A considerable portion of the time to date has been spent in the court looking at pictures and films taken by the OPP and the various news media that covered that event from which the charges arose. As a matter of fact, we’ve watched one film almost a dozen times. Last week, it was indicated the writer could be spending up to three weeks in court, having been called as a witness. Fortunately, that expectation was a bit pessimistic. After giving testimony on Wednes­ day, court officials indicated our ser­ vices may not be required again, although it was suggested we would be ‘on call’. What that means, remains to be seen, but does suggest that the task may not be as onerous and time­ consuming as previously suggested. ★ A * What our stay in court has provided is an opportunity to watch well-known Goderich lawyer Jim Donnelly in ac­ tion. It’s been a few years since we’ve watched him in action, and as usual, it is a most interesting performance. Watching a skilled craftsman in any endeavour is always enjoyable, and certainly there are few defense lawyers who are better at their craft than Jim Donnelly, that being an opi­ nion with which few Crown Attorneys will argue. While it would be expected that a defense lawyer picks up words or phrases that would escape the un­ initiated as being important, Jim has shown the same keen and uncanny awareness while viewing some of the movies taken by the OPP and media at Fleck. Surprisingly, he has spotted people in the films while those people haven’t even seen themselves while viewing the same from the same vantage point. X * * One of the more difficult aspects of the journalism field is that associated with the correct spelling of names. Through the many quirks of the languages that are represented in the names with which a reporter may be confronted, there are few which don’t present some hazard for the greenhorn. Even such familiar names as Smith and Brown have their ‘abnor- malties’ such as Smyth and Browne. Notwithstanding those difficulties, reporters soon learn that there are few annoyances to match the scope of names appearing incorrectly in print. The annoyance stems from the irate calls received from the person whose name has been printed incorrectly. In fact, some of our most memorable calls have been from people who have had their names mispelled. Readers who have aired such com­ plaints with this writer no doubt will take some consolation in learning that Mainstream Canada The Emotional Teacher Issue I ZX- a reont story in the London Free Prer u regarding our court testimony identified a William Baton. If that wasn’t enough for one week, the writer was looking through the list of coaches and managers contained in the program for the Hawks banquet and noted that a Bill Batton was in the list for the novice team. The author of that piece of literature assured us it was not an “o” but mere­ ly a slip in making an “e”. Oh well, perhaps now readers will realize that many publications have problems with names! * * * Speaking of the Hawks banquet, we take some mild exception to the coach suggesting that this newspaper was among those who predicted the local juniors were destined for last place when the season got underway. Nowhere can we find such an opinion expressed or even suggested. Granted, we noted one headline on November 9 which said the Hawks were in a battle for a basement, but that was a factual report as the follow­ ing night the locals were facing Tavistock in a game that was to deter­ mine which team would escape from the group basement. They were tied for that position. Normally, the writer doesn’t worry about someone misinterpreting a fac­ tual story from an opinion. But heck coach, those guys are too big to have it suggested the editor doesn’t have any faith in them! By H'. Boger Bor th To fire or not to fire. That’s the emotionally charged ques­ tion facing boards of educa­ tion across the country as stu­ dent enrolment dwindles. The issue in a word: money. Many elected education of­ ficials argue strongly that sav­ ings from declining enrolment in elementary and secondary schools should be passed on to the public in the form of lower taxes. Canada’s teachers and many Parent-Teacher Associations, on the other hand, vehemently oppose this position, favoring a reduction in class sizes and an increased emphasis on spe­ cial education, thus maintain­ ing the present level of employ­ ment. The reason for the reduced enrolment, of course, is Ca­ nada’s low birth rate and cut- Roger Worth is Director, Public A /fairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business. backs in immigration. As a re­ sult, there are fewer children to be educated. The teachers defend their position by contending that smaller classes would upgrade the quality of education by allowing instructors to spend more time with individual stu­ dents. Naturally, such a change would require more teachers. But the education officials who control the dollars point The cure for ebullience Perspectives “What grade are you in?” I asked the boy who stood at my school door, all ready to register. He stood a head taller than myself and I thought that surely he didn’t belong in my grade 5-6 classroom. “Grade 5, sir,” he replied, politely enough. “My last teacher said I’d have to pass Grade 5 properly before I could go on to the next grade if it took me ten years. “How long have you been in Grade 5?” I asked. “Three years, sir.” I shrugged. Who was I to question the wisdom of another teacher who ob­ viously knew more about Frank (not his real name) than I did? So Frank came to sit in my room, once we had found him a desk big enough for a young man of his stature. It wasn’t long till I could see why the teacher had failed him, year after year, Nothing seemed to penetrate. Arithmetic was a total loss and his other written work was almost as bad. Yet he never bothered anybody. The other kids liked him because he could hit the baseball right across the yard and could run like a deer. He was a natural first pick for the *person lucky enough to get that privilege as captain. Yet I got frustrated. Here I was, supposedly a teacher, and I was teaching this boy nothing. Absolutely nothing. He still couldn’t even do basic adding and sub­ tracting. Up in the hall was a great high glass case full of stuffed birds. The woodwork had been painted and repaired until it was a dull ugly black. One day I noticed Frank staring at the case. “I could fix that up,” he volunteered suddenly. “What would you do with it?” I asked, puzzled. My knowledge of painting is strictly water colours, I might add. “You know, strip it down and just, fix it up,” he replied, rather lamely, almost as if he had said too much. I got him some liquid paint remover, then another can of it, and another. You wouldn’t believe how much guck there was on that case. But he worked on it, first during art periods, then recesses and every lunch hour — for weeks. Next the petty cash took a beating for sandpaper, varnish and brushes. People who came into the school were noticing his project and complimenting him on it. He would beam. By the end of the school year he was almost sixteen and we both knew that his school career was over. The principal in the senior school had said that Frank had to go to grade seven and grade eight before he could go to high school. Rules, you know. But he finished his job on the bird case. A shining work of art. Something he could be really proud of for once in his life. The last time I heard from Frank he had made it as a cabinet-maker, a blamed good one who made more at his job than I was making as a teacher. My only regret is that I didn’t give him the odd period from math class to work on that bird case. It would probably have done him a sight more good than struggling futilely with 9 plus 6. There are a lot of depressed people in the world, for one reason or another: illness, mental or physical; poverty; insecurity; unrequited love; hem- morhoids — you name it. It’s difficult for me to understand depression since I have a natural tranquility, and sometimes even a spot of ebullience. This is either from genes or good luck, and I’m not bragging about it. Sometimes, when I feel a bit of ebullience coming on, which is almost every day, I have to take something for it, just as the depressed person has to take an elevator pill to get out of the gloom. If I come down in the morning feeling fairly ebullient, I take a small downer to get me down with the normal level of misanthropy. I pick up the morning paper. This depresses me sufficiently that I can get through the day without driving my colleagues and students silly with sheer cheerfulness. If my ebullience starts to build up during the day, after several brilliant lessons, the solving of some teachers’ frantic problems, and the crafty evasion of the latest edict from the administration, I have to take something to cool me down when I get home from work. So I pick up the evening paper. This depresses me sufficiently that I can go to bed without chuckling myself awake at the folly of mankind, If the evening paper doesn’t cool me out enough, 1 listen to the late news and gd to the sack with the* dense gloom that ensures sleep, the only escape from it. There’s nothing to quiet your jolliness like some of these items. “Board To Fire 214'Teachers,” when your only daughter, with three degrees and two children, is in her first year of teaching, and bound to be one of the casualties. Or this one: “Cancer Dooms Miners.” “Lung cancer deaths among hardrock miners are almost double those of men in other jobs.” I knew this 35 years ago. So did the mines. So did the government. So what has been done in the interval? How about, “Food Costs May Soar.” That’s about as startling as reading, in November, “Winter May Come.” They have already soared out of sight. The headline should have read “Rocket” instead of “Soar.” There’s nothing to take the extra ebullience out of a fellow like news stories that tell us Canada’s nuclear plants are not all that safe, or that the country is 60 zillion or something dollars in debt, or that your property taxes are going uplO percent this year. No, I don’t know what I’d do without the media. I’d probably spring out of bed in the morning, singing gaily, “Here hath been dawning another new day. Think! Wilt thou let it slip useless away?” I’d probably come chortling down­ stairs and cook up a big breakfast of bacon and eggs and real coffee instead of my usual tea and peanut-butter and jam sandwich. My wife doesn’t eat anything. And leave her a dirty big mess in the kitchen to clean up. Then I’d sail off to school, so happy with life that I’d be gawking around at the wonders of nature and probably run over somebody’s beloved dog. And when I’d got to school, buzzing with ebullience, the kids would likely cheer lustily, instead of rolling their eyes and groaning, when I announced we were going to learn some goody ole grammar, That cheer would disturb the rest of the school for the whole day, and I’d be on the carpet for upsetting the learning system. In the teachers’ staff room, I’d be a menace. If I shouted at the shuf­ fleboard, “Jolly good shot,” or “Well done, sir,” instead of the usual “Don’t miss. Don’t choke. Don’t be light.”, I’d be a moral leper. If a teacher came up to me, sobbing on my breast about some real or imaginery problem, and I burbled away cheerfully, instead of putting on my phony, grave expression of con­ cern, she’d probably think I’d gone senile overnight. And if I came home and walked in the door and didn’t issue my usual sigh­ groan, “Holy Cheese, what a day!”, my wife would know I had. This is when I must pick up that evening paper. If I didn’t, who knows what wild extravagance my ebullience might lead us into: having somebody in, going out for dinner, attending a movie making love? There’s no end to the iniquities into which good cheer and jolliness can lead one. Personally, I think people caught singing or whistling to themselves on the street should be locked up. They’re liable to start a dangerous trend in this country. Therefore, as a non-depressant, I couldn’t do without the media. They are the only thing that protect me from messing up my life and those of everyone I know by being happy. I make a deep obeisance to them, with my back turned. That sound you might hear is the breaking of wind. I may be vulgar but I’m happy. out that teacher's salaries are responsible for about 75% of education spending. By limit­ ing the number of teachers they can at least hold the line on tax increases. In addition, they also point to a U.S. study that indicates smaller classes have little effect on the quality of education. The battle between diametri­ cally opposed factions in the high stakes game is being waged from Halifax to Vancouver, with emotions running high as layoffs continue. In Toronto, for example, 3,000 people turned out for a board of education session that overturned an effort to lay off several hundred instructors. In other areas of Canada, the radio hotlines hum as well- organized teachers take the of­ fensive in attempting Io achieve taxpayer support for their position. Fallout from the situation has caused turmoil among those considering teaching as a profession. Enrolment in teacher-training courses has been chopped dramatically and more than 25% of last year’s teacher’s college graduates still haven’t found jobs. Meanwhile, fights over the closing of schools continues, with some secondary units dropping course options to trim budgets. There is no simple solution to the problem. Education has become a gut issue in Canada and it’s not about to go away. ---- ------------------------------------------------------a down memory Icins 55 Years Ago The Central Hotel for the past 35 years owned and conducted by W. T. Acheson was last Friday sold to Mrs. Chester Lee of Paisley. Mrs. W. J. Heaman, Mrs. Skelton, Mrs. J. A. Stewart, Mr. & Mrs. R. N. Creech and J. M. Southcott left here on Monday evening for a two month’s trip to Belgium, France and the United Kingdom. “Happy John” the corn and rheumatic cure vendor held forth north of Jones and May’s store Saturday night and did a land-office business. Easton-Webster at the Trivitt Memorial Church on June 9 by Rev. A, A. Trumper, Mr. Andrew Easton to Miss Mary Louise Webster, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Webster of Exeter North. 30 Years Ago Mrs. Pearl Cochrane sold Leavitt’s Theatre last week to G. D. Thompson of St. Mary’s. The sale marked the end of 37 years of en­ tertainment service to the people of the district by the Leavitt family, Exeter was honored by a visit from the Prime Minister of Canada, Rt. Hon. Louis St. Laurent, Friday afternoon. W, W. Taman who has been in the gents’ fur­ nishings business for the past 48 years, has sold to Len McKnight and Norman Walper, Norman Amos has pur­ chased the veterinary practice of Dr. Jose of Kirkton 20 Years Ago Members of SHDHS Board decided Tuesday night to ask seven municipalities in the district to approve a proposed $160,000 addition to include two classrooms, one laboratory, one shop and one cafeteria. Existing cafeteria will be made into two classrooms. A new record of thunder in May was established last month when it occurred on nine days during the month. The previous record was seven in 1956. The Sarepta Hotel, one mile east of Dashwood, which was purchased by the Department of Highways has been bought by Andrew Hamilton for $450 in public auction, New site for Darling’s IGA market now undergoing extensive renovations will open next weekend. The former Simmons implement building on the corner of Main and Sanders street has been completely revamped to provide 3,000 square feet for the market. 15 Years Ago Sharon Fletcher, RR 1, Woodham, was judged this year’s SHDHS “Posture Queen”. She won the G. A. Webb trophy in competition with two others, Nancy McTavish, Exeter and Darlene Parsons, Exeter. Mrs. Helen E. West, Grand Bend has completed suc­ cessfully a year at the University of Western Ontario and has received her diploma in Public Health Nursing. Mrs. West will be working with the Huron County Health Unit. Bill Murray, Grand Bend and Dennis Lamport, Crediton, copped the senior award in the SHDHS science fair with a demonstration of the working parts of an electric motor. At the meeting of Senior Citizens club in the Legion Hall selections by the Beatles (William Rohde, Aimer Passmore, Ray Cann, Robert Jeffrey) to record music evoked mild screaming, “Is this my bill or my speedometer mileage?’’