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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1978-02-16, Page 4Page 4 Times-Advocate, February 16, 1978 Should stand firm Huron county secondary school teachers will find little support from taxpayers in their current strike with the county board of education. While monetary issues are not at stake in the present stalemate, few tax­ payers can get overly concerned about the teachers’ working conditions when they look at their salary ranges ■— an average of $23,200 under terms of the proposed contract. That’s more than double the average wage being received by the people who pay the teachers, and given the current state of the economy, those taxpayers can be excused for thinking the teachers never had it so good and that their demands are invalid. Similar to the teachers, people want the best possible education for Huron’s secondary school student. For the price they’re paying, they should be getting it now. They won’t admit it,but job securi­ ty is the issue at stake, and the teachers are evidently willing to use the students of this county as ransom in their attempt to find that security. It’s a ransom that shouldn’t be paid.' Ironically, indications are that 50 percent of the students who are in the Huron schools won’t even get jobs when they graduate, let alone any type of job security. It’s a fact of life teachers must also accept. It would indeed be unfortunate if the current strike continues to the point where students miss their current school year. It is, nevertheless, a price that may have to be paid, and should be paid if the teachers fail to use some common sense and realize their posi­ tion is untenable. The board should be encouraged to stand firm! A sour prediction cJhecEneigy§avers “Canada will have to solve its economic problems as a nation and not on a regional basis” according to Walter F. Light, president of Northern Telecom Ltd. in an article in Bell News. “National unity is not just a political flag-waving contest, it is also a matter of economic survival. There ate three basic reasons for our inabili­ ty to compete industrially in our own domestic market and in international markets: low productivity, high wages and a two-decade decline in our invest­ ment in innovation. “Between 1970 and 1975, our share of world exports dropped from 5.4 to 3.8 percent while imports increased from 26 percent to 33 percent of the domestic market demand. From 1964 to 1975 im­ ports of manufactured goods increased by two-and-one-half times while the domestic market for Canadian manufactured goods increased by only one-third. “We either get our manufacturing house in order or we face continued loss of our own markets and a shrink­ ing portion of the international markets. “A prescription for the ailing Canadian economy includes: increased expenditures on new plants and equip­ ment designed to improve the quality and cost of production, realistic wage demands, and a new Canadian commit­ ment to research and development. “Canada’s problems have been ac­ cumulating for at least the past 20 years, it may take that long to correct them. We are going to have to convince ourselves and our government that we must devote more of our national resources to creating our own technologies and constantly improving our* productivity instead of devoting them to taxes.” “Leave it to the Trudeau government to put an end to all the illegal activities in this country ... by legalizing them.” • ««*««*■with the editor That winning attitude Don’t complain If you don’t like what’s happening, this is a free country. There’s nothing to stop you from doing something about what’s bothering you - or trying to. But don’t complain about the dirty dishes if you won’t take your turn at the sink. Don’t complain about taxes if you’ve got your hand out for some of the goodies. Don’t call the next genera­ tion bums if your own family isn’t ear­ ning its own way. Don’t cry about infla­ tion if your own income isn’t tied to your productivity. Don’t knock the politicians in Ot­ tawa if you are not ready to support men who will do a better job. A better deal at last At long last the lonely voice of the would-be Canadian traveller has been heard beyond the wilderness. Finally the Canadian is going to be given the chance to see his own country at prices comparable to those which for the past two decades has enticed him to spend his vacation in Florida, overseas, or just about anywhere else in the world BUT Canada. Who’s to thank for this sudden in­ sight on the part of the federal Cabinet last week? Certainly part of the credit should go to Industry Minister Jack Horner who has made his position on the matter clear from the start. But the bulk of the credit probably belongs in two camps — to the growing strength of the consumer and to the pressure on the travel industry now being applied by that enterprising Englishman, Fred­ dy Laker. For those of you who haven’t heard about some of the bargains to be offered to Canadians within Canada, here’s just a smattering of the offers: air-tour packages by CP Air and CP Hotels will combine charter class air fares with accommodation at prices 30 to 40 per cent below normal; Canadian National Railways will offer at least one tour in every province combining train, bus and cruise tours; Air Canada will offer travel packages involving ac­ commodation arrangements to meet most travel allowances. It isn’t quite Europe on a buck a day, but it’s as close as we’re likely to come. And if Canadians don’t stop spending their travel dollars in foreign countries, and take advantage of these new packages, then the opportunity will be lost. The government has stated the new low-cost package tours are on trial and if they aren’t used, then they’ll be stopped. So how about it folks? Instead of Germany, Austria and France, why not make it Newfoundland, the Maritimes and Quebec? And for those low-cost student tours which operate during the mid-winter break, instead of Hawaii or Rome, why not a week-long jaunt up to Yellowknife or the Yukon? Travel is one area where Canadians will make things better foe themselves by staying at home. We might even get to like one another once we’ve made an effort to see how the other nine-tenths of the country lives. Listowel Banner The fantastic success of last week’s Sportsmen’s dinner proves once again that area residents are extremely generous when it comes to helping worthwhile causes, and particularly when that cause is as important as crippled children. Combine the profits with the recent snowarama and this past weekend’s special events at the Pineridge Chalet, and you have a considerable contribu­ tion "generated for the important task of helping these unfortunate youngsters overcome their handicaps. These events are not without a con­ siderable amount of work, of course. Lining up the special celebrities for last week’s banquet and all the plan­ ning that is necessary for an event of that magnitude takes a tremendous amount of effort on behalf of the Ex­ eter Lions and they must obviously be pleased that the citizens of the com­ munity rewarded their efforts so generously. The celebrities put on a great show again this year, and while humor was the major ingredient of the evening, there were also some thought­ provoking comments aired by the professionals/, not only on behalf of crippled children, but also for athletic endeavours in general. We were particularly impressed with the comments of Argo coach Leo Cahill, who while he may be one of sports best-known losers, has never let his setbacks deprive him of his will to win. It’s the type of positive attitude that all great athletes exude and points out that athletic endeavours are important in that the competition prepares young people for the rocky road of life. There are those who suggest that sports should be played mainly for fun and recreation and it matters little whether you win or lose. That’s only partially correct. Sports can be fun even when the emphasis is on winning. In fact, satisfaction comes with knowing you’ve,tried your best to win, whether a person has been in a sporting event or doing his daily work. Learning to cope with defeat is also an important ingredient, of course, but the real winners in life are those who refuse to accept defeat until they have tried their utmost to be winners. Competition in many aspects of our way of life has been down-played in re­ cent years, and one doesn’t have to look far to see some of the ill effects of that change. If crippled children didn’t have the desire and determination to overcome their adversities, the money raised on their behalf would be wasted. They play to win! Ofj * * * . One item that may have escaped the attention of all but the first arrivals at the sports banquet was the tasteful manner in which the hall was decorated by the Lions. It was simply beautiful! We’ve attended newspaper conven­ tion banquets in some of Toronto’s finest hotels and can’t ever remember any that looked more attractive than the South Huron rec centre auditorium. There were over 400 people in atten­ dance, but there was still room for many more in the hall. Many compliments were passed along by the sports celebrities in atten­ dance and once again it made local citizens feel extremely proud of their new facilities. ★ T*r * Ontario residents are apparently starting to get the message about energy conservation, at least accor­ ding to statistics from Ontario Hydro that the demand for electrical energy increased by only 2.2 percent in 1977. That was the smallest annual in­ crease in the past 33 years. Obviously helping people with deci­ sion to conserve energy is the fact that hydro rates continue to climb and economics is probably one of the major factors in the small consumption in­ crease. * * * During last week’s cold snap, many residents may have arrived late for work due to problems experienced in getting their vehicles started. However, employers should possibly check to make certain that was the cause, or they may find a situation similar to this tidbit we found in a safe­ ty article this week. Employee: Sorry I’m late boss. The car wouldn’t start at 8:30. Employer: Oh, what happened! Employee: Well, I didn’t get into it until nearly 9:00. ★ * * It seems rather ironical that with 1,- 000,000 Canadians out of work, the On­ tario government can’t come up with a replacement for Ontario Police Com­ mission chairman Elmer Bell. While we in this community know it will be next to impossible to find a per­ son of his ability to fill the position, there is little doubt that the salary of $42,000 per annum would be agreeable to many of those who are finding it dif­ ficult to secure work. Surely the Progressive Conser­ vatives have not dropped in popularity to the point where they find it impossi­ ble to locate a party supporter who can accept the position. Heck, Mr. Davis, for that kind of money the writer would be glad to be known as a devout member of the PC’s. by Richard Charles A word that you’ll be hearing often is “retrofit”. In case you haven’t met it, it goes like this: while a house is being built you can fit it with all the insulation you like, but when the house is already built and the insulation is not good enough, you bring it up to scratch with a retrofit. But why bother when you have a good-looking home and life’s not all that bad as long as there’s a thermostat to push higher as the weather grows icier? The triple retrofit answer to that is: with proper insulation your fuel bills are much lower (by 25 to 55% depending on the age of the home and the type of construction), you feel a lot better indoors without drafts and cold walls, and you are helping to save valuable energy resources instead of pouring them like water through a sieve. As a bonus, your home is more comfortable winter and summer. If you need a retrofit, and mdst homes do, your choice of insulating materials will depend on how you will use them, on their R-value (resistance to heat passing through them) and how well they stand up to moisture, fire, bac­ teria and vermin, and also on their cost, ease of handling and, depending on the use, their rigidity or flexibility. The main types you may choose from are called batt or blanket, loose fill, rigid board and foamed-in-place. Batt or blanket insulation contains glass fibre or mineral fibre (rock or slag) and has a woolly texture. It comes in slabs (batts) or rolls (blankets) with or without a vapour barrier, and is generally the easiest insulation to handle and apply. It fits snugly between regularly spaced joists, studs or strapping. Because it is rolled up like a carpet, the blanket is sometimes the more awkward to install. Since batt and blanket are equally effective, your choice should depend solely on where they fit best. Mineral fibre has a slightly higher R value than glass fibre. Loose fill consists of glass, cellulose or mineral fibres; or vermiculite, polystyrene, wood shavings or wood wool. It is sold by the bag and usually costs less than batts or blankets per unit of R value. Loose fill is especially handy for irregular spaces between joists or other odd-shaped areas. It is also a simple way to insulate a wall space if you can just pour it in. The vapour barrier must be applied separately. Rigid board insulation may be made of polystyrene, phenolic foam or polyurethane. It offers exceptional insula­ tion for its thickness and weight, averaging R5 (per inch thick) compared with an average of 3.5 for batt or blanket, and 3 for loose fill. Other features are its rigidity and a degree of sound-proofing. Polystyrene is usually the best buy, but it and poly­ urethane are flammable and need to be covered with a fire-proof material for safe use indoors. Phenolic foam is more fire-resistant. Rigid insulation can also be applied outside on walls, basements or roofs. Foamed-in-place insulation is injected as a semi-liquid in wall cavities - a professional job needing special equip­ ment. The material is urea-formaldehyde (average R2.5 per inch) but make sure it meets Canadian Government Specifications Board quality standards. Where you can’t insulate, you caulk or apply weather­ strips in cracks and joints, especially around doors and windows. You can find these spots by testing for drafts with a piece of plastic or tissue (hung from a coat-hanger) or by watching the drift of tobacco smoke. You can find out a lot more about insulation from Keeping the heat in, a publication of the Office of Energy Conservation, Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. Write to Box 3500, Station C, Ottawa, Ontario, K1Y.4G1. For information on government grants for re-insulation, write to: Canadian Home Insulation Program, P.O. Box 700, St. Laurent, Quebec, H4L 5 A8; or phone collect (514) 341-1511. Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 I I imes-Advocate iervMg Huron, North j North Umbtoft 5hwe WJ 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 Number 0386 Paid in Advance Circulation September 30 J 975 5,409 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $11.00 Per Year; USA $22.00 Sunny This week, for a change I’d like to write a nice, warm, sunny column, after bleating piteously in the last one about our dreadful Canadian winters. It’s difficult. There’s a raging bliz­ zard howling around the house. The wind moans, then wails, then shrieks in frustration as it can’t quite knock down the sturdy brick structure. If I’d been like the first two little pigs, my dwelling would be flat by now, and I’d be bowling across the fields like a tumbling tumbleweed. Couldn’t make it to work this mor­ ning. Managed to get the old ’67 Dodge started, barrelled through a drift on to the road, couldn’t make the hill, back­ ed down, got stuck while turning, was pushed out, went the long way around, drove for a bit in pure whiteouts, final­ ly put my tail between my legs, or came to my senses, crept home, rammed the old buggy into a drift, and dived into the house. My crazy wife, booted and scarved and helmeted, was just started off for the eye doctor’s, five blocks away. She thinks I make too much fuss about the weather, mainly because she stays in when it’s dirty, and I’m the one who digs the car out every morning. I told her to go ahead, but I wasn’t driving her down. She stepped out the back door, in the lee of the house, and declared it wasn’t bad at all, that she’d walk, implying by tone and expression that I was a big chicken, and that she, raised on a farm, was of the real pioneer stock who didn’t let a little 40- mile wind bother them. “Go ahead. Enjoy,” I suggested. She stuck her nose in the air, sailed out the column difficult back walk, go to the corner, turned purple and almost went flying off like a seagull caught in a squall. When she crawled back in, panting, I said it might be a good idea to call the doctor. She did and learned that he, sensible man, had started for town, turned around and gone home for the day, and all appointments were cancelled. If she’d tried to make it to his office and back, we’d have found her dead in a drift, in about three days. From my second-floor window, the only one that isn’t frosted over, I watch the show. One bewildered bird, tail blown inside out, goes by on the wind like an arrow, slams into a tree, grasps a branch, is caught again by the monster and tossed out of sight into the spindrift. Must be some sort of a miniature turkey, who didn’t know enough to go south with the rest of the folks, and thinks he has it soft because somebody is gorging him daily at a feeder. Wham! Thunk! One of the shutters has tom loose, swings open against the window frame, then slams back against the brick wall. This goes on at irregular intervals all day. My wife knows perfectly well that when the wind dies, the shutter will be in the half-closed position, a real eye-sore, and that nobody is going to wade through that snow with a ladder and fasten it back. I gently remind her that the same shutter blew off completely last winter, and lay near the front steps un­ til well into September before being put back up. “Rrrowrr!” There goes a snow­ mobile, hell-for-leather, with someone who thinks he’s Captain Marvel at the wheel. If somebody comes out of a sidestreet, that embryonic Evel Knievel will go straight into him at 40 miles an hour. Oh, well. One less. No cars about now, after a few idiots tried to make the hill, and all wound up backing ignominiously down. There goes the oil truck, lumbering through. Wish I owned about four of those and I’d be sitting in my southern condominium right now, chortling as I waited for the mail to arrive so I could count my cheques. Taxi company has obviously taken the phone off the hook. Don’t blame them. Send a driver out for a dollar and a half call to some crazy old lady who wants to go shopping, and wind up with a $15 towing bill. These goes another tow truck. They’re having a field day. And they can have it. I’m happy, sitting snugly at home, waiting for the soup to boil. Called the school. Hardly anybody there. But we teachers are like the Pony Express. We’re supposed to get through. I could walk. It’s only a mile, uphill, and I’d probably only get a heart attack or pneumonia. They’ll probably dock me a day’s pay for not trying to get through in my car and going in the ditch or running down a pedestrian. There’s that poor devil down the — Please tum to Page 5 55 Years Ago Messrs. D. Davis and D. A.. Pollock of the Canadian! Bank of Commerce enjoyed a long snowshoe tramp on Saturday last when they made a trip over the snow to the latter’s home at Grand Bend. Mr. Bert Clarke’s home had a narrow escape from fire on Thursday of last week. Soft coal was being burned in the furnace and the fire became so hot that the flooring in the second storey where the pipe runs through became ignited and started to blaze. It was soon put out. Messrs. Walter Cun­ ningham and Thos. Pry de are in Toronto this week attending a convention of marble dealers. The storm which raged for several days last week tied up traffic completely. They managed to get one train through a day. 30 Years Ago After a hectic political campaign that lasted for a month, Exeter has again - settled down to regular routine. Thomas Pryde, Progressive Conservative, was elected with a majority of 684 votes. For the first time in the history of Exeter, photos were sent by wire from this village toiappear in a Toronto newspaper, A Globe and Mail photographer was in the riding Monday taking pictures in connection with the election, The pictures were developed in Jack Doerr’s studio and wired to Toronto, Early Sunday morning, fire broke out in the recently erected Pentecostal Tabernacle and practically the whole of the interior was destroyed. 20 Years Ago Margaret Elgie, 12-year- old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Elgie, RR 3, Kippen won the Times-Advocate “Champions” spelldown held in conjunction with a Home and School Association meeting Tuesday night. The district is just digging itself out of 14.7 inches of snow which fell in four days. Some 50 people including passengers on a Western Ontario Motorways bus were forced to spend the night in Exeter town hall. Norman Long, mail carrier on route 2, Kippen, was unable to make his trip Monday for the second time in 23 years. 15 Years Ago Robert Grayer, of J. A. D. McCurdy School, RCAF Centralia, won the district public school mathematics competition held at EPS Monday night. Runner-qp was Larry Ritchie. SHDHS declared public speaking winners in three classes last week. Winners were: senior girls, Elizabeth Gosar; senior boys, John Lock; grade ten, Shiela Fahner and Bob Higgins; grade nine, Jane Poortinga and Grant Jones. Joanne Scott and Debbie Schaefer were declared King and Queen of the Kirkton winter carnival last weekend. Marlene O’Neil, Wanda Mitoraj and Gilliam McNamee were named the top senior speakers at the Lucan and Biddulph schools’ competition.