Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1978-02-02, Page 4Pafle 4 Times-Advocate. February 2. 1978 r ------------- - o»» 1 im I O IM J Good night out The list of celebrities planning to attend next Tuesday’s Sportsmen’s dinner in Exeter continues to grow, and obviously the list of area residents planning to attend should be matching the same pace. The Lions dinner is one of the better entertainment features on the area’s agenda, and while the cost of $25 per ticket may appear high at the out­ set, it is comparable to practically any “night out”. However, when one considers the fact that the majority of proceeds end up helping crippled children, the double benefit should put the event high on everyone’s list of priorities. It’s a great night to help overcome the winter blahs! Time to be frank The town hall restoration project has jumped back into the headlines again, and unfortunately there’s credibility gap showing that could damage the campaign now underway to raise funds for the project. Some rather questionable com­ ments and actions have been evident in the past couple of weeks and unless supporters of the project start levelling with the citizens of this community, they’ll completely “turn off” any sup­ port they may be seeking. Mayor Bruce Shaw drew the ire of members of council for the manner in which he announced a special meeting between council and the Ontario Heritage Foundation. He advised them that the meeting was intended to give foundation members an opportunity to explore council’s philosophy about heritage buildings and then apparently indicated to a London Free Press reporter that the meeting was being held primarily to discuss a grant for the town hall. Last year, the Mayor had his credibility called into question about other facets of the project and his ac­ tions this past week leave him open to similar questions. The Ontario Heritage Foundation also erred in requesting that the meeting be closed to the public. If it was intended to provide them with a forum to outline the reasons why the ratepayers should contribute to the project through the general tax levy, those ratepayers should have been given the courtesy of being permitted to sit in on that meeting and hear the views outlined. Closed meetings do little but raise suspicions, and obviously the town hall project has had so much of that ele­ ment that people should be going out of their way now to ensure that everything is completely open. It is also difficult to understand the reasoning used by Exeter and District Heritage Society president Doug Gould in refusing to say how much the project has gone over budget. Is the figure so high it may frighten people? If the public is being asked to donate funds to the project those donors are surely entitled to know how much is needed. The time has come for some open and frank discussions to prevent the project from being turned into a com­ plete misadventure. “He was recovering fine ’til compensation set in.” BATT’MAROUND .....• ■ *with the editor An unconditional surrender Remember when... Remember when cigarette cartons were the perfect Christmas gift? Remember when there was nothing but cigarette jingles on the radio? And TV screenfuls of young lovers romping through the great out­ doors in a cloud of cigarette smoke? Remember when people thought nonsmokers were squares and goody- goodies? Remember when almost everyone on TV and in the movies smoked? Remember Ed Murrow and Humphrey Bogart? Remember when a pack of cigarettes cost a quarter? Remember when there were more adult Canadians who smoked than didn’t? Remember the free cigarettes the airlines used to pass out to please their passengers? Remember when a doctor might offer patients a cigarette to help calm their nerves? Remember when everyone suf­ fered in silence if someone lit up in a no-smoking area? Remember when people bought cigarettes for their rich, strong flavour instead of low tar and nicotine levels? Remember when kids weren’t up­ set because their parents smoked? Remember cigarette packs — and cigarette ads — without these lines, “Warning: Health and Welfare Canada advises that damage to health in­ creases with the amount smoked-avoid inhaling”? Remember when people always said, “No” if anyone asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?” Your lung association remembers. As you live and breathe, give more to Christmas Seals. They support your lung association and its fight against the causes of lung disease. Like cigarette smoking. Power of prayer United Church people believe in the power of prayer, but they don’t do much praying, according to a reader survey reported in the current issue of The United Church Observer. Eighty-six percent of those who answered the survey said they believe “God hears and answers my prayers”. Eighty-two percent believe “prayer can change my life”. Yet only half pray as a regular dis­ cipline, and only 56 percent say grace at meals regularly. Among those who pray, most pray for their families. About one in four pray for the church’s missionaries. The survey indicated that the United Church is not a charismatic church. Only three persons said they prayed in tongues. Only four percent belong to prayer groups; 82 percent prefer to pray alone. A popular theory was being espoused some time ago that our adverse weather was the result of the Russians having mastered control of the elements. Such a theory made a wizard out of the chap who first coined the phrase “cold war’’. Well, we're not certain how accurate the theory may be, but whoever is responsible should immediately be declared the “winner” so we can return to normal. They can set their own conditions for the total surrender. Right now, we’ll sign anything! Even a five-year stint in the Siberian Salt mines would be a comparative pic­ nic or we’d be happy to loll arouna on the Russian wastelands on guard duty if that’s what is planned as punishment for capitalists. Come take us away, Igor! We’ve had enough, already! Despite the problems and tragedies that occurred during the storm, there were still some lighter moments. The writer had a bit of a chuckle peering through the office Venetian blinds while pounding out this epistle. Looking across through the blizzard we see a sign in the Victoria & Grey window which has a question that most people have been asking since the snows started: “How about tomorrow?”. That sign is probably advertising a registered retirement plan, or something, but it no doubt is the same type of question people throughout the area have been asking themselves, wondering if tomorrow can really be as bad as today. Those who have been shut in their homes and have been listening to the radio have also had some humorous telephone conversations to brighten their day. People who admit they can’t see two feet past the end of the veran­ dah railings have been calling to check on road conditions. Where did they ex­ pect to go? It’s difficult to comprehend how some people can be so oblivious to the fact that driving conditions during a blizzard are impossible. On Thursday afternoon, a brief lull occurred and we stepped out the office door to take a couple of pictures. Within minutes of the lull, there were numerous cars and trucks venturing onto the streets. Some were getting stuck right in the middle of the main drag, thereby hindering the plows which made a brief run at attempting to clear some streets. Just where did those people expect to get when they jumped into their cars? The answers would obviously be too foolish to elicit. * k k It’s not difficult to sympathize with people who get trapped in their vehicles during a blizzard. By the nature of our mobilized way of life, thousands of people are on the roadways at any given time and a sudden storm can create havoc for them. However, that same sympathy is not extended to those who are foolish enough to venture out after a storm hits, particularly when news broad­ casts indicate quite clearly that the conditions are expected to be among the worst on record. They have nothing but their own stupidity to blame for their plight. k k k One of the interesting aspects of the storm is the fact that it was most ac­ curately predicted by the Farmers Almanac, which by the way, was the first weather source to be equally on target with its prediction for the severe winter experienced last year, The Alamanac correctly called for a “storm period” from January 24 to 27, and while that prognistication was out a couple of days, the forcasters for that publication have been uncanny. Generally speaking, the editor of the Almanac has predicted “another rough winter” for 1978, and right now that is coming closer to the truth than most people would like to see. * * * One of the unfortunate aspects of the blizzard of ’78 is that it takes away some of the awe from those grand old tales spun by members of the older generation. They can still recall their stories and tell grandchildren about the plights they suffered in earlier years, but the kids can quickly dampen the enthusiasm by pointing out that nothing has been as bad as the storm they’ve just experienced. There are new records set for wind velocity and barometer readings and by the time this winter is over, there is ample indication that we may also set a new record for total snowfall. Those are obviously the type of records to which we’d just as soon have another generation lay claim! * k k While glancing through a magazine the other day, we came across an in­ teresting article that explained why so many people suffer heart attacks while shovelling snow. It was explained that in moving 200 shovels full of snow, a person has in effect lifted close to a total of six tons. The snow isn’t that heavy, of course, but in shovelling, a person lifts almost half his own body weight with each shovel full. So gentlemen, it’s much easier to push it..or better still, let the better half do it. A steep increase Car registration fees in Ontario for the 1978 licence year will go up by $20 to $60 for an eight-cylinder auto. That’s an increase of 50 per cent. The licence for a four-cylinder car will go to $30 from $23; the six-cylinder vehicle fee will increase to $45 from $32. Most of the other provinces are not increasing their fees. (Quebec will have an increase, but this reflects the premium for the new government no­ fault insurance benefit.) The Ontario Treasury says road- related expenditures are growing faster than the revenue from road users and the increases are needed to bring more balance between expen­ diture and revenue. An argument can indeed be made for getting the users to pay a larger share of road costs. But the Treasury also tries to explain the big fee jump by saying the new charges will “en­ courage energy conservation.” If the Treasury officials can find a car buyer who decides to buy a six- cylinder car instead of an eight­ cylinder because he’ll save $15 on the licence fee, we’d like to meet him. (On the second thought, we’d rather not.) (The Financial Post) Times Established 1873 Iimes - Advocate South Hurtwi, North Middle,** K X North Umtrtnn Since Advocate Established 1 88 1 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 Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett Plant Manager ■— Bill Weekley Composition Manager — Harry DeVries Business Manager — Dick Jongkind Phone 235-1331 (*CNA SUBSC.................... Amalgamated 1924 Published Each Thursday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Humber 0366 Paid in Advance Circulation September 30, 1975 5,409 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $11.00 Per Year; USA $22.00 J„.J cJhec£nei^Savers /».r Richard Charles Like a house on fire You may have seen those pictures that show heat-as if it were light. This is called infra-red photography, and with it you can see the heat escaping from homes in cold weather. A house or a whole town filmed from the air will often look as though it were going up in flames. That’s how bad the heat losses usually are. As individuals, few of us can afford to throw money away on heavy fuel bills. Asa nation, we can’t afford to use precious energy resources to warm up the sky and the snow piles around our homes. Thorough insulation can cut the year’s heating bill by as much as half, and similarly save resources that produce the heat. The size of these savings will depend, of course, on how much you can improve your insulation. That’s not all. Better insulation makes a home more comfortable. You can feel a difference (as much as 4° to 8°C) between sitting beside an exterior wall that is well insulated and one that is not. Turning up the thermostat will not make up the difference; in fact, it makes things worse by increasing the temperature differential between the cold wall and warm central air. This increases the speed of the convection currents which feel like drafts. Two handy terms to know in discussing insulation are “heat flow” and “resistance value”. Heat flows by conduc­ tion (as you soon find when holding a hot potato), by convection (as with warm air rising) and by radiation (as with the sun’s warmth). All three kinds of heat flow have their uses, but they also rob us of heat unless there’s insulation. Resistance value (R) is an insulating material’s ability to keep the heat from flowing through it. The thickest insula­ tion may not be the best; it’s the kind of material that counts. The R value is stamped on the cover of most packaged insulation material - if not, ask the dealer. As an example, a six-inch layer of a good insulator like glass fibre has an R value of 20, but the same thickness of gypsum board scores only R4. The minimum recommended R values for insulation in various parts of the home are: ceilings 28, walls 12, base­ ment walls (less than half exposed) 8, basement walls (fully exposed) 12, floors (over unheated garage or crawl space or overhang) 20, floors (over unheated basement) 8 to 1 2. The first step toward cutting heat losses from your home is to check the fit of doors and windows, where the walls meet the foundation, and the present insulation in the ceil­ ings (attic), walls, basements and floors. You can get an insulation expert to do this, or try it yourself along the lines suggested by the Office of Energy Conservation, De­ partment of Energy Mines and Resources in a booklet called Keeping the heat in. This is available from Box 3500, Station C, Ottawa, Ontario, K1Y 4G1. On the face of it, the least protected areas of a home call for attention first, but other things for you to consider are whether the work will be easy and relatively inexpensive, •time-consuming and moderately expensive, or somewhat difficult and more expensive. The time of year is another factor. The amount of insulation you can add to your home may depend on the way it is built some houses cannot be improved beyond a certain level. There are many ways to insulate, and some that even your local expert may not be familiar with. You can find out about the alternatives and a lot more in Keeping the heat in. One final word. Don’t be put off if insulation sounds like a big and complicated deal to you. There are lots of little things you can do yourself to save fuel and make your home more comfortable in winter. And even some of the larger jobs are not all that tough. Whatever you can invest in insulation is bound to repay you. Oh, those winter blues W. O. Mitchell, well-known and respected Canadian writer came out with something on a national TV in­ terview with which I wholeheartedly concur. He suggested, more or less, that everything that is wrong with the Canadian character can be blamed on our Canadian winters. After a couple of months of winter, we feel harassed, persecuted, and vaguely wronged. We become insular, grumpy, gloomy and generally unfit to live with. When it has snowed and blowed for a couple of weeks on end, or a couple of months on end, as it has around our place, you are ready to kick the cat, complain about the cooking, snarl at your children, or quietly climb into the bathtub and open your wrists. I haven’t any figures, but I’ll bet our suicide rate soars after the holiday season, when we face three months of being cold and being broke. (I wouldn’t insult anybody by making this bet in Canadian dollars. Make it yen or marks or francs.) I would like to expand oh this and make the bet on divorces and deaths. People get to the point, about the end of January, where they can’t stand themselves, let alone their spouses, so they split up. Old people and sick people, huddled at home or in hospital, get so sick of living that they just up and die. You will retort that a lot of affairs begin in mid-winter. This is true. But it’s not love. Most of them are among the apres-ski crowd, and it’s sex or a desperate measure to keep warm. I can’t imagine anyone falling in love while whizzing through farmers’ fences on a snowmobile or shoving a car out of a snow-bank. What I can imagine is a sober, decent citizen, perhaps a kindly retired clergyman, committing murder with a shovel after the town plow has refilled his driveway for the fourth time in 24 hours. I can contemplate, with some sympathy, the ordinarily happy housewife and loving mother being hauled into court for child-battering just after her kids, with friends, have trooped in with half a ton of snow and slush on their boots and marched across the kitchen floor she has scrubbed three days in a row. You may think I exaggerate. I do not. I, one of the mildest sweetest chaps you’d ever encounter, have seriously considered mayhem when some turkey with bald tires starts up an icy hill ahead of me, skids sideways across the road and leaves me there with my wheels spinning and smoke coming out my ears. I'm not against winter in principle. I’m just against winter in Canada. They can have all the winter they like in principle. Nor am I unaware that there is a tiny, benighted portion of our populace that thoroughly enjoys winter. Childfen, on the whole, love it. Instead of going through red lights on their bicycles and being killed by cars, they can dart out from between two snow banks into the path of a car that is sashaying along on glare ice. Teenagers, another notoriously unstable group, also seem to like winter. Instead of breaking their legs riding motorbikes, or their necks in speedboats, they can break their legs riding snowmobiles and their necks on a ski hill. At any given time in any given winter, half a dozen ski bums are clumping around in the average high school with casts on their legs. Curlers, too, don’t seem to mind the winter. They drive in a heated car to a heated and often luxurious curling club, where they can run up and down the ice for two hours in their beautiful gight pants, and then sit around drinking and discussing every rock thrown ad nauseam. The only thing more boring is a golf foursome going over every shot in the bar. But at least they have the sense to do it in summer. One other segment that professes to love winter is the swinging singles. Every weekend they pile out of the city in their thousands, heading for the ski hills. And the chalets. And the big drinking sessions. And the chance of meeting Mr. Big or Ms. Boobs. And on Sunday night, after spending perhaps two hours skiing, often none, they pile back in their fast cars and head for home, a menace to everything on the road. They’re in the same category as the same singles who do the same thing in summer, except that the ski mob, the city slickers, don’tknow how to drive in snow. But ask anybody sensible if he loves — Please turn to Page 5 55 Years Ago Mr. Lloyd Beavers has accepted a position as hydro superintendent at Ayr and left Friday of last week to take charge of his new position. The Missionary Com­ mittee of James St. Sunday School offered a prize for the best essay on Missions and the prize was awarded to Miss Marjorie Clarke. Messrs. Wei Johns and Trueman Elliot have formed a partnership in the cleaning and repairing business and are renovating the building that was used by Mr. Elliot. On Tuesday morning, fire was discovered in the upper part of T. W. Parlmer & Sons, Gent’s Furnishing store on Main St. in Hensail. The town fire engine was immediately on the scene. The upper part of the store was somewhat damaged and the lower floor suffered only water damage. 30 Years Ago A disastrous fire Tuesday morning destroyed the wood­ working factory on James St. of Mr. Helge Jensen. Hon. Farquhar Oliver, leader of the Liberal Party in Ontario will speak at Liberal rallies in Zurich, Grand Bend, Seaforth, Exeter and Hensail next week. Miss Marion Cowen has taken a position with the London Life Insurance Co. Two public meetings have been held during the past week to consider the ad­ visability of erecting a building in Exeter for a new manufacturing industry desirous of locating here. Messrs. Glen Robinson, Bill Essery, Stan Hicks and Harold Penwarden attended the hockey game in Toronto Saturday night. 20 Years Ago New Crest Hardware in Hensall owned and operated by Drysdale Hardware Ltd. stages its grand opening this weekend, following $10,000 renovations. The newly organized Grand Bend Chamber of Commerce has already arranged for the operation of an information booth on the Bluewater Highway open daily in the summer months and weekends in May and June. New broadloom carpeting covering the entire auditorium and new oak pews are being installed in Hensall United Church as part of the $7,500 renovation program. A Centralia firm, C. A. McDowell arid Co., has been awarded the contract for construction of a dial telephone exchange building to be located opposite the RCAF Station, Centralia. 15 Years Ago Over 300 members of district Women’s Institutes attended the 60th an­ niversary celebration of South Huron Women’s Institute at Exeter Legion Hall this week. A canvass of the village of Hensall by 26 volunteer mothers for the March of Dimes campaign realized $212 Tuesday. Approval has been received by Group Captain L. H. Randall, commanding officer of RCAF Station Centralia for the con­ struction of a winter sports arena at the station. Con­ struction will commence by early spring. Clerk C. V. Pickard ad­ ministered an oath of office to Exeter’s new PUC which will hold office for 1963-64. Commissioners are Mayor W. E, Simmons, former mayor R. E. Pooley, who was elected chairman; and Murray Greene, vice- chairman.