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Home My WebLink AboutTimes-Advocate, 1978-10-26, Page 4Page 4 Times-Advocate, October 26, 1978 --------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > v-.. '■ tj • Drivers beware Motorists, if you must drive on Halloween night, the Ontario Associa tion of Optometrists reminds you to keep a sharp eye out for trick-or- treaters walking in the dark. Soon children across the country will undergo a mysterious and magical change from child to ghost, goblin or any number of other beings from the imagination in observance of a special holiday just for kids — Halloween night. Young trlck-or-treaters sharing the streets with motorists and ghosts walk ing through unlit streets and yards, wearing masks-that may obscure their vision makes for a potentially dangerous night. Their safety depends, in part, on vi sion and visibility. Optometrists as members of the vision care profession urge you to help make Halloween safe. A distinct message Byelections often result in an anti government vote, but the results of last week’s 15 votes across Canada produc ed a result far beyond what may be ex pected in the way of slapping the government across the knuckles. It was an unmistakable rejection of the federal Liberal party and the leadership of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. The Conservatives won more than 50 percent of the popular vote and the Liberals less than 25 percent, even trailing the NDP in that statistic. The Liberals have been promoting themselves, and even more particular ly their leader, as the people who can best handle Canada’s national unity issue. However, the voters indicated in no uncertain terms that national unity may not be the foremost concern on their hands. Economic issues are more paramount and voters obviously want some action in dealing with rising infla tion and unemployment and the decline of their dollar. Last week, they suggested quite strongly to the government that unless some drastic improvements are shown, the job of dealing with those problems will be turned over to Joe Clark and his Conservatives after next year’s federal election. It should now be evident to Mr. Trudeau that the best way to keep a un ified Canada is to have an economically strong Canada. It may well be the only way to keep his Liberal party in power as well. BATT’N AROUND .......with the editor What are you doing to help? Has some advantages Ontario Intergovernmental Minister Thomas Wells received some resounding applause at the recent Association of Counties and Regions annual meeting when he announced the government has gone as far as it in tends to go with regional government. While the delegates heaved a sigh of relief with that announcement, they should not misconstrue it as a signal to end their own consideration for local government changes. There are many areas where neighboring municipalities should be cooperating in an effort to reduce the mounting costs of providing services to their respective ratepayers. Joint ac tion can often achieve that goal, not only in reducing costs, but also in providing improved services that a single municipality could not afford on its own. While regional government has been severely criticized by many, it was interesting to note the the Durham regional chairman advised the meeting that counties without regional govern ment should look at restructuring themselves. It is evident, that despite some of the problems, he realizes there are many advantages. Human nature being what it is, now that the Ontario government’s whip is no longer over their heads, local politicians may more fully explore those advantages on their own in itiatives. That initiative could pay dividends. npi-g ♦ -g1 llillK small Pass It On Perspectives Ask the average Canadian what he/she thinks of the present state of the economy and you’ll probably get some very strong negative reaction. Most people are amply aware that in flation and unemployment are serious problems, to say nothing about the severe drop in the value of the Cana dian buck in relation to the one floating around south of the border or in most other countries. Ask the average Canadian what he/she is doing to help correct the situation and you’ll probably still get some very strong negative reaction. The postal worker, for instance, will tell you he’s decided to go on strike for more money and shorter hours. That, of course, will add to the nation’s infla tion rate, and any prolonged stoppage of work will result in the demise of many small businesses and add to the unemployment figures. The marine engineers and deck of ficers employed by the Great Lakes Carriers Association will tell you they’ve also decided to strike for more money. That will tie up an estimated $400 million worth of grain awaiting delivery to foreign customers. If they don’t get those shipments, they’ll start looking for other sources and create untold economic problems in Western Canada. In fact, if you ask most wage earners what they’re doing to correct the nation’s economic woes, they’ll probably tell you their fighting for more money in upcoming contract negotiations with their employers. Ask those employers what they’re doing about it, and most would have to admit that they’re trying to increase profits as much as possible. In short, Canadians are doing nothing about the problem, except to complain that their governments aren’t doing anything. Until the people of this nation realize that they are collectively creating their own problems with increased demands, they will continue to suffer the consequences of high inflation and unemployment and will watch their dollars stay well below acceptably ex change rates with most other curren cies. The merry-go-round has to stop, and it Canadians don’t try to stop it themselves, they’ll find that inter national economic pressures will do it for them. Unfortunately, the conse quences will be extremely severe. it * * Here is this week’s tribute to bureaucracy: The National Collegiate Athletic Association announces that in an effort to involve more of the membership in the committees struc ture of the College Sports Information Directors of America, the “future of- CSID” the committee has initiated a committee on comitt'ees sub committee. How about that! * * * Exfeter works superintendent Glenn Kells had a good suggestion when he told council last week they should con sider staging the annual “public meeting” on cable TV rather than meeting in a hall. One of the main advantages, of course, would come from the fact that those who spend countless hours work ing for the betterment of the communi ty wouldn’t know for sure how much their efforts are appreciated because they would have no way of knowing how many people were watching the show. By staging the meeting in a hall, it is clear to everyone that most Exeter citizens don’t give a damn. The anonimity of TV would at least conceal that fact and perhaps not provoke elected representatives as much as poor turnouts at public meetings would. However, the novelty of a local TV show would perhaps entice people to watch the proceedings and become more cognizant of the efforts of the people who offer their time and talents to community work. It is something they deserve and ratepayers should collectively hold their heads in shame as they stay away from municipal public meetings in droves. Surely they can take time for one night every two years to listen to the reports of elected officials, offer their suggestions and otherwise show an in terest in their community. it it it Having been directly involved in the highly successful cable TV telethon staged to conclude the fund raising ef fort for the South Huron rec centre, it has baffled the writer to comprehend why more local organizations have not taken advantage of this communica tion system. It is used successfully in many com munities for fund raising programs, as well as information programs, and there is no reason to assume it couldn’t serve the same purposes in Exeter. Due to the time and cost involved, the cable owners have never promoted this aspect of their business, but they are required to make it available for community use. Perhaps someone’s missing a good bet? Hallowe’en has changed over the years. We never had to buy costumes. That was for little kids. We dug out the char coal to daub our faces with, found some old clothes, add ed a burlap sack and presto, we were first class hoboes. The key was light weight clothing. You needed to be fast and efficient if you were going to cover the whole town in those few hours available. I can remember one year we netted a whole bushel of treats. Then, my mother ‘cabbaged’ it all and doled it out slowly. Long after Christmas we were eating slightly stale peanut butter kisses. I must admit they improved with age and scarcity. Then we graduated to out houses, pushing them over, that is. Perhaps you remember the story of the boy who was asked by his father if he had pushed one over. “I can not tell a lie”, said the boy. ‘‘It was I”, whereupon he received a solid thumping. Through the tears afterward he remind ed his father that George Washington was not beaten for telling the truth about chopping the cherry tree down. “But his father wasn’t in the cherry tree,” came the angry reply. Be that as it may, there was a magnificent three holer near our house which we pushed over with great enthusiasm. “Unfortunately my father purchased that very farm not long after, and my brother and I had to help in reinstating the building to its former posi tion. Perhaps we were lucky with that small punishment. Some, farmers loaded their shotguns with rock salt and lay in wait for such people as were interested in the demolition business. Then there was the character who, after several such oc currences, moved the little house over about three feet and then waited in the bushes roaring with laughter as three lads ran up yelling, “All together ... Oh no!” Those days have pretty well gone by the board. Maybe just as well. I remember though, the old people who would ask us to come in for our treat, their faces bright and happy as they tried to guess our identities. They really seem ed to enjoy it. I remember the cool crisp October air as we scurried from house to house, a little afraid of the dark ones, very much aware of that special hint of magic and mystery that was everywhere in the night. The excitement and thrill of those Hallowe’en nights I still treasure as a good memory. Let’s keep Hallowe’en around, for the kids, and for those adults who still value it as a very special day. Sugar and Spice Dispensed by Smiley The year of the peacock Times Established 1873 imes - Advocate 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 Composition Manager — Harry DeVries Business Manager — Dick Jongkind ____Phone 235-1331 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1924 Published Each Thursday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Claw Mail Registration Humber 0386(*CNA SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $11.00 Per Year; USA $22.00 According to the recent magazine ar ticle, this is going to be The Year of the Peacock. There is afoot a strong move ment away from the grub and slob of the past decade or so toward some style and taste in clothes and appearance. I’ll drink to that. As a high school teacher, I’ve been in the front lines during the battles over clothes, hair lengths, exposed navel, and such-like. Not as a participant — I was never unduly exercised over ex cesses — but rather as an observer. During the reigns of a couple of pret ty conservative principals in a small town, I watched with some amuse ment, occasionally hilarity, their Canute-like efforts to stem the flood of horrors sweeping in from the cities. I think the first wave was longer hair for boys. Not the flowing tresses they sport today, many of them straight from the hair stylist, others with a hair-brush or comb often in evidence. Heavens, no. The first rebbls merely wanted to let their hair grow down to their collars. No way. They were expelled, letters were sent home, they were offered the price of a hair-cut, and generally harassed. But that was just the tip of the ice-berg. A side skirmish at the same time told teachers to keep their hair cut, wear a tie, shave off their beards (lady teachers, some of whom had better beards than some of the men, didn’t have to shave) and keep their shoes shined. Then the more docile girls got into the act, with the emergence of the mini-skirt. None of the younger male teachers had the slightest objection, but some of the old maids of both sexes were rather horrified. I believe, if I recollect aright, that one benighted educator suggested all teachers carry a ruler, and that skirts shorter than a certain, standard be forbidden. (Or tipped off. It might have been one of the young male teachers.) Beleaguered administrators tried grimly to hold the line. Boys were not to wear “ice-cream pants” or jeans. Girls must wear skirts. Then came the deluge. County school boards, made up of mothers and fathers as cowardly as all the other parents battling.the new wave of attire and appearance, cut the ground from under the administrators by declaring that anything went as long as the stu dent was “neat and tidy” or some such cant phase. Wham! Hair sprouted in all direc tions from masculine adolescents. The girls hiked their skirts higher or leaped into jeans. Granny glasses and Mother Hubbard dresses became de rigeur with the more advanced girls. Afro hair styles and Jesus beards marked the more hirsuite. Hip-hugger jeans and the bra-less look were a la mode. Girls ironed their hair. Curls were out, and pity the poor kid who had them naturally. She was a freak. Then the young devils wanted to wear fool clothes in the hot months, and June produced shoots that left nothing to the imagination, on both sex es, bikini halters on the girls, bare feet in the classroom, and finally beachwear. Every bit of it “neat and tidy”. This was followed by the Grease Age, or the Sleaze Era, mainly marked by denim. Buy a new pair of jeans and a jacket, wash them, fade them, shrink them, scissor th&m so they had ragged fringes, tear holes in them, patch them, and sew some provocative or scatological suggestion across the but tocks. This particular period blew away completely the “neat and tidy’’ euphemism. Greasy hair, scruffy beards, no makeup and general grub biness were the order of the day. Not a particularly pleasant age. Even I had to fight to avoid retching on occasion. And this particular movement dovetailed right into the new laws that lowered the drinking age to 18. In effect, it meant that kids from 14 up began to drink. Grade Eight girls were arriving at high school dances with a mickey in their purses. It also tied into a new barrack-room lawyer attitude on the part of some of the tougher kids. They knew well that punishment for infringement of rules was almost a thing of the past. No strap, no detention, and expulsion merely a welcome couple of weeks’ holiday. Or screw school, I’ll get a job, easy. Well, things have changed. For the better. The pendulum has swung. The kids are starting to dislike slob- bishness. Only those who are born slobs are keeping it up. Girls are wearing makeup, culottes, skirts, even dresses. Wispy boys’ beards are disappearing. Shorter, neater hair-cuts are popping up here and there. With jobs a lot tougher to obtain, the old cavalier attitude toward expulsion has moderated. The older kids are hanging in there rather grimly, know ing that, however much they hate school, it’s better than being one of the great mass of the unemployed, out there in the snow. Whatever is causing it, the new look is a welcome change after the sleaze days. Even my daughter, a graduate of the freaked-out look, is beginning to shed her tattered jeans for skirtfe and vests, smart sweaters, and anything else ladylike her mother will buy her. But knowing kids, I’m rather sanguine about the chances of the im provement remaining stable. Any day now, the boys are liable to start show ing up ifi spats ahd shaven heads, the girls in corsets and high-laced boots, like their grandmothers. Now, if only the young men would get rid of those ugly Gay Nineties moustaches... The story was patently false. At first, everyone knew it was a lie. By the second telling, how ever, it had become a “ru mour”. On the third round, it was “reliably reported”. And, after that, everyone knew that it was the truth. Tell a story - even the most outrageous lie — often enough and it eventually comes to be recognized as the truth. Which is what has happened to the belief that small businesses in Canada are less active in export mar kets than big firms. Some popular misconcep tions really don’t matter a great deal. Does it make the slightest difference whether the telephone was invented in Brantford or Buffalo, for example? But other misconceptions do matter. The issue of ex port drive is one of those is sues that count. We live, after all, in a global economy and any group of firms which fail to compete for international business are letting the home side down, as it were. For many years, the small business community has been claiming that it does pursue export markets vigorously while big business has been arguing that only large-scale firms are capable of getting into foreigners’ pocketbooks. There has never been any solid evidence to support the claims by either side (al- though, when you realize that most big businesses in this country are subsidiaries of multinational firms, it doesn’t make much sense to imagine those big firms com peting with the head office for world markets). But a new study by Talaat Abdel-Malek of the University of Saskat chewan has finally cast a sci entific light on the entire dis pute. Abdel-Malek has found - after surveying large numbers of big and little businesses — that there is no significant difference between the ex port attitudes ofbigbusiness and those of small business. In fact, small1 business in Ca nada is every bit as active in the export fields as are Cana dian big businesses. If anything, Abdel-Malek’s study would seem to fail to take full account of the role of the smaller firms. A sur prisingly large portion of the production by small manu facturing firms is done as sub-contracting on major contracts by big business. The big business assembles the components produced by the smaller businesses and then exports the final pro duct. Even though the small firm’s production is destined for the export market, it only counts as domestically-ori ented for purposes of the survey. Time and again, our na tion’s economic counsellors have advocated creation of more big businesses as the answer to Canada’s interna tional trade problems. Abdel- Malek’s study shows that in dustrial strategy to be quite inadequate. Discrimination against small firms cannot be justified by international trade considerations. A patently false story will always remain patently false, no matter how many retel lings lend it a veneer of “truth”. Small firms are as export-oriented as big firms. Pass it on. “Think small” is an editorial message from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business t r ,........................................................««? si MX. ' ' 55 Years Ago The anniversary services of Main St. Methodist Church were held on Sunday and despite the very incle ment weather large con gregations were present at both services. The pastor Rev. F.E. Clysdale con ducted the services. Hallowe’en passed off without any serious damage, although the usual pranks were carried out by the boys. A large number of masqueraders paraded the streets. Messrs. John Hunter, John Hunkin and Bert Ker- nick left last week for Trout Creek on a shooting expedi tion. A snow flurry visited Ex eter last Wednesday night and on Thursday morning the ground was covered for the first time this season. 30 Years Ago Mrs. Henry Dyck (nee Pauline Godbolt) leaves to day for Watson Lake in the Yukon to join her husband who is a radio operator with the RCAF there. The South Huron Plowing Match revived this year for the first time since 1941 was held on the farm of Arnold Becker five miles west of Exeter. A flying classroom latest acquisition of the RCAF at Centralia made a demonstration flight carry ing three instructors and eight students. Bruce Shapton of Stephen and James Harris, Kirkton were in Guelph representing the Exeter Grain Club in the Provincial inter-club com petition. A reception and dance was held in Mooresville hall Fri day for Mr. and Mrs. Earl Greenlee. 20 Years Ago The Grand Bend branch of the Canadian Legion which has been organized for 10 years this summer erected a new hall which has sparked Legion activities in the village and community. A modern dial telephone exchange will be opened at Centralia early Sunday. The new exchange will serve about 450 telephone users in the RCAF Station, Centralia village and Huron Park and surrounding areas. AC2 Bill Perrin, who was recently posted to Centralia from Springhill lost three relatives and several friends in the Springhill disaster in Nova Scotia. Don Taylor has won his se cond bursary this year. The SHDHS student was recent ly awarded a $400 Aikinson Foundation award and he earlier received a dominion provincial bursary valued at $500. 15 Years Ago RCAF Clinton square dance club was host to the opening workshop and dance of the Southwestern group recently. They entertained nearly 300 dancers including RCAF Centralia and Exeter groups. Orv. Wassman, Grand Bend councillor, won the grand prize of $2,000 in the draw sponsored by Sebringville Athletic Association. Huron Park was cut off from long distance calls Tuesday when a cable was broken at the corner of Huron and Main Sts. by a bulldozer. There is an interesting dis play of coins in the T-A win dow this week. The exhibit was placed by a number of enthusiastic numismatists including Warren Sanders, Carl Radford, and Wallace Pfaff. Please be generous this Hallowe'en