HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1979-06-20, Page 2THE HIGHLAND FLING — Highland Dancers at the band concert held
in the Brussels Ball park on Friday night.
(Photo by Langlois)
Sugar and spice
By Bill Smiley
Dearly beloved
.WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 1979
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each Wedhesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
By McLean Bros. Publishers Limited
Evelyn. Kennedy - Editor Pat Langlois - Advertising
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association.
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $10.00 a Year.
Others: $20.00 a Year. Single Copies 25 cents each.
Brussels Post
13russels did it
Congratulations to the people of Brussels for getting together and
supporting the community this past weekend.
The flea market now in its fifth year shows signs of getting bigger
and better every year and people commented that they wished there
were more band concerts like the one in the ball park on Friday night.
That shows interest in what's going on in the community.
McDonald's Buildall with its fiftieth anniversary celebrations had
about 2500 people pass through its doors during the three day
celebrations.
It just goes to show that people can work together and put on events
for themselves and others to enjoy. And this past weekend, the people
of Brussels who went to these events did a great thing by supporting
them.
With support from the people in the community hew and bigger
events will be encouraged for Brussels. Let's keep it that way.
Behind the scenes
by Keith Roulston
Periodically we hear someone plead,
"Please, give us a politician who tells it
like it is." Given the state of the voter in
western countries these days the politician
who tells it like it is is likely to end up out
on his ear.
Ask Pierre Trudeau about telling it like it
is. His basket of election goodies was
rather empty beside that of his opposition
because he knew the country couldn't
afford more. The voters weren't so sure.
But more to•the point is the predicament
of Jimmy Carter in the U.S. these days. All
the polls say that Carter is in deep trouble
if he hopes to serve a second term as
president. Carter is a man who helped
engineer the Middle East peace settlement
a move that brought him praise from
around the world as well as in his own
country. But peace in the Middle East isn't
nearly as important as cheap gas in the gas
tank to the average American.
Take the present protests of truck
drivers in the U.S. The drivers are irate
and conducting blockades and even turning
to violence in some cases because of the
problems they have getting diesel fuel in
the quantity and at the price they feel they
need. They are demanding nothing less
than a return to the good old days. They
want cheaper fuel and increased speed
limits on highways.
They are just the voice for most
Americans who feel that they have a right
to cheap fuel for their big, powerful cars
that can whip along the highways at high
speeds, gobbling fuel at atrocious rates.
When somebody like Jimmy Carter tells
them that they can't go on like that, he's
not likely to be very popular. When the
price of gas goes up and when they find
there just isn't any gas at the pumps they
become more than ready to throw out the
man who warned them things had to
change.
The speed limit situation in the U.S. is a
case in point As one commentator put it,
the reduced speed limits in the last few
years have not only conserved fuel, but
saves lives and reduced highway mainten-
ance costs, yet one by one state govern-
ments have been passing bills to reinstate
higher speed limits. You can get away with
doing a lot of things to an American but
you can't mess around with his rights to
drive big, fast, gas gobblers.
Jimmy Carter is in trouble becauSe he
has had the nerve to tell people that they
'Can't go on living the way they have.
Ameticant can nO longer snap their fingers
and expect the rest of the world to jump.
The U.S. is still powerful, but big guns and
ships and plane-don't rule the world these '
days. Economics is against the U.S. It
cannot supply its own energy requirements
and the patsies who once gave away their
oil so Americans could live their high life,
the Arabs and south Americans, have
decided that if people are going to live high
because of their oil, then it will be their
people, not the Americans.
They're now bringing billions into their
own countries to help their own people and
telling the Americans they'll have to
conserve more.
There was a time when the U.S. could
have solved such a problem. It would have
found some excuse to move the troops in to
"rescue" some of these countries and
protect American cheap fuel supplies.
Those days too are gone. The blunders of
he Vietnam war have made Americans
much more careful about throwing military
might around. Carter has been more
respectful of the rights of other nations
than any president in recent memory
something that might find him friends in
other countries but not in his homeland.
The trouble is that the world is changing
and we in North America don't set the
rules any more. We've got so used to being
able to call the shots that we could use
more than twice as much petroleum per
capita as Europeans. We've got so used to
prosperity based on cheap fuel that we
expect our standard of living to increase
each and every year. We expect full
employment no matter what the circum-
stances and we expect cheap prices for
fuel, food and the necessities of life so we
can spend our money on the luxuries.
When things don't work out that way, we
get upset. When some politician tells us
that it is we who have to change, not the
rest of the world, then we shoot the
messenger who brings the bad news.
Pierre Trudeau found out when he told
Canadians that they would have to reduce
their expectations. Jimmy Carter is finding
out with his warnings over energy con-
sumption. Joe Clark will find out when he
tries to deliver some of his promises after
telling Canadians Trudeau was wrong in
saying that we couldn't go on living as we
had become accustomed.
The rules have changed and like it or
not, we'll have to change with them. But if
yon're a politician be smart and don't tell
anybody the real truth.
I'm often glad that I don't have four or
five daughters waiting in the wings to be
married. If I did I'd soon be in the
poorhouse, as we used to call it. Or on
welfare, as wecall it now. Or mumbling my
gums and my pension in one of those
Sunset Havens, or another atrociously-
named place for old people who are broke.
This opinion is a direct result of three
middle-class weddings I have attended in
the past two years. As an innocent
bystander, I am aghast at the cost -
financial, emotional, and stressful - of the
modern straight, or traditional wedding.
It's not too many decades since you
could send your daughter off in fine style
for a couple of hundred bucks. Her mother
made her dress. The church and the
preacher were free. You rented the
community hall, and the ladies' Auxiliary
catered the food. You could hire an
orchestra for $25. And you still had $50 left
to give the bride, your daughter, a little
nest egg.
My own wedding cost almost nothing.
We were married in the chapel at Hart
House, U. of T. No charge for the facilities.
Five bucks for the preacher (larceny was
creeping in). The organist was a school-
mate who played in a burlesque house, so
no fee. Borrowed a car from a friend for the
honeymoon, $20. My wife bought a suit
and her own wedding ring. I had supplied a
diamond, courtesy of a friend who had
been jilted, at half price. No ushers, no
reception, no drinks. The best man and the
maid of honour got a kiss.
And away we went, just as married, with
the same_ words (and still married), as the
modern bride whose old man has forked
out a couple of thousand minimum, whose
mother has been brought to the verge of a
breakdown over the invitations, guests,
hair-dressing, and a hundred other details,
who is herself ever-increasing demands of
her position as the big day approaches.
With my own daughter, I -was crafty. I
asked her whether she'd like a church
wedding and the 'usual reception, or a
cheque for one thousand. A chip off the old
block, she opted for the cheque, knowing
she'd get the other, too, if she wanted it.
I squeaked in just under. $1.500. She
invested the cheque in a car, which she
totalled in a roll-over on their honeymoon,
SO pun intended.
At a moderate accounting, today'a dad is
going Tor at least twice that before he sinks
into his chair on Sunday night with wrhank God, 'tallovet."
On second thought, $3,000 is modest,
the way today's middle-class wedding has
built up its hidden costs. It's $25 for the
preacher, unless he's lost his dog-collar or
been disbarred. Ditto for the organist.
Gowns for the bridesmaids, add $300. A
donation to the church for the oil heating.
Fifty bucks for invitations. Five hundred
minimum for new duds for him and the old
lady. A "little" going-away cheque for the
bride, another five hundred.
He's up to nearly fifteen hundred before
the preacher has even said, "Dearly
beloved, we are gathered here today ... "
If he's a real big-time spender, he picks
up the tab for the motels at which guests
who have come from afar at great trouble
and expense, lay their well-coiffed heads.
Then there's the open bar at the
reception, the dinner with wine, the
orchestra or disc jockey for dancing, the
open bar again, the towing charges for
guests who mistook the ditch for the road
on the way home. Call it fifteen hundred.
Of course, there are compensations.
With a big wedding like this, the bride
receives about four thousand dollars worth
of gifts. "Isn't it obscene?", asked the
bride's father at our latest, as we ooh-ed
and aah-ed over the loot. It was. But that
doesn't do the old man much good.
However, I guess it's all worth it. A
daukhter, especially an only daughter,is a
gift from heaven.
This last one was a lovely wedding. And
don't use words like "lovely" casually.
Kevin MacMillan 20, grandson of Sir
Ernest MacMillan, one of Canada's great
men of music, married Anne Whicher, 18,
whom I have known since she came home
from the hospital in a pink blanket. They
are very young. Good.
Both deep into music. We had a
beautiful Ave Maria, sung by Cousin
Kathy, and an excellent string ensemble,
before the wedding and during that
interminable time when they are signing
the register, and during. dinnet. Class.
Anne was kissed and cozened by dozens
of cousins, armies of aunts, and hordes of
hooligans, like me. She took it in her stride,
as she will life,
For my wife, the wedding was a chance
to gabble at 500 words per minute, with old
friends from school days, She loved it.
For me, it was being assaulted by large
ladies of indeterminate age who still had
that elusive beauty, fairly well camou-
flaged, of twenty years ago, and who still
thought I could dance till dawn. I loved it.
Good wedding.
sreartswee