HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1979-10-31, Page 2ON UWE LS
OMITASI 10
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1979
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each. Wednesday 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 520.00 a Year, Single Copies 25 cents each.
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BLUE
RIBBON
AWARD
1979
Brussels Post
CARE TO BUY A CRAFT — Mrs. Allan Webb was selling things at the
craft table to Mrs. Isabel Alcock at the Rebekah Lodge bazaar
Some names from the old photo
Vandalism
Some people may think that vandalism is given too much publicity
by newspapers and blame newspapers for inciting even more of it.
That's not what The Brussels Post is trying to do by getting the
man-on-the street interviews on the subject and printing editorials on
vandalism. One of the newspaper's functions is to serve the
community and it is hoped that editorials and stories on a particular
prybfem in the community could result in some solutions.
Papers which take up a particular cause can sometimes be the
catalyst by which the first steps or the first legislation to a problem are
taken.
Although people may think a village newspaper is too small to have
much of an effect on what is happening in the community, that isn't
necessarily so. A weekly paper can be as crusading as the daily
newspaper. Give us a cause that will mean something ancLbenefit the
.thole community and this paper will do what it can in the way of
publicity for it.
It is to be hoped that some of the proposed solutions to the
vandalism problem in the editorial in the Post and in the man-on-the-
street interviews will be taken seriously and provide some people in
the community with the incentive to do something about them.
Weekly newspapers are here to provide news on the bake sales, fairs
and accomplishments of people around the community, but they can
serve another function. And that function can be to make people so
aware of problems in the community that need solution and thus make
their community a better place to live.
Behind the scenes
by Keith Roulston
The ghost of Truscott
The ghost of the Stephen Truscott affair
refuses to die.
One could almost feel a collective
shudder last week as the 20 year-old
murder again took over the front pages of
daily newspapers. The people of Clinton
have to go through it all again.
It was 20 years ago this past summer
that the body of 12 year old Lynne Harper
was found in a bush outside Clinton. Since
then Clintonians have barely had a chance
to forget the subsequent events of a
murder trial before someone is bringing
the subject up again.
And so last week again the reporters
descended on Clinton to question the
natives about their memories about the
murder. The latest round of interest is
caused by the newly-released book Who
Killed Lynne Harper, by Bill Trent, a
writer who has made a mini-career out of
the Truscott story. For the second time he
pleads that Truscott was not guilty and that
justice was not only not done, but
deliberately sabatoged.
Was Steven Truscott guilty? I don't have
enough of the facts to know for sure?
Innocent people have gone to jail before
because important evidence was somehow
overlooked. Guilty people have gone free
before. Guilty people have proclaimed
their innocence to the end.
Growing up in the area I remember the
Truscott case. I was young enough that I
didn't know what it was about it that had
some of the older boys snickering but I do
remember thinking how horrible it would
be to be that boy, only a couple of years
older than me and being put in jail.
I think that's part of the reason so many
people will rush Out and buy this new book.
Many of us want to believe the boy was
innocent, that a 14 year old boy was
incapable of such a horrible act. He was a
small-town boy, a kid just like your own
son, your own brother, the neighbour's
kid, maybe even like yourself. How could
someone like that do such a thing? Surely it
must have been some demented vagrant
who carried out this dastardly act and let
the boy take the rap.
Well Steven Truscott, guilty or innocent
has taken the rap and is free from all but
his memories. He lives today under a
different name with only his family
knowing his past. But the town of Clinton
still suffers. And every time the people try
to put the murder behind them they only do
more to keep it alive. Reporters descend on
the town and start asking questions of the
locals and the locals are tight-lipped and
the reporters immediately think it is some
small-town conspiracy to hide the truth and
go back and write stories to that account
giving credence to the theory that people
are hiding the truth that could set Steven
Truscott free.
During the years I lived in Clinton I saw
the near paranoia that had overtaken the
people of the town of Clinton. I was there
when another murder took place with
another young boy charged. Out came the
,comparisons in print to the Truscott affair.
Out came the stories that talked about two
murders in 10 years and made the town
sound like murder city. Out came the
reporters asking everybody in sight about
this murder or the one just over 10 years
earlier. People began to think that the only
time a reporter from outside the town came
to Clinton was when he was snooping for
scandal, The mere sight of a television
news car Or a daily reporter with photo-
grapherS at his side was enough to make
people nervouS. Here we go again, they
said to themselves.
For awhile all the fuss since the original
(Continued on Page 3 )
Norman Hoover of
Brussels has identified some
of the people shown in the
1921 school picture in last
week's Brussels Post. In the
first row behind Archie
Ballantyne and T. Merner
Wood are Clifford Cardiff-
Second from right, and
Gordon Best - sixth from
right. In the second row are
Marjorie Hoover-second
from right Cecil Hall - third
What is so rare as a day in October? Now
that does not quite have the mellifluosity of
poet James Lowell Russell's famous:
"What is so rare as a day in June?" But it
makes a lot more sense to a Canadian.
A day in June? It's a zilch. Heat wave,
mosquitoes, and the grass growing as
though it were trying to reach the moon.
Twelve-hour day for the farmer. Water too
cold for swimming, except for kids.
Weeding the garden.
Now a day in October is something else.
Provided, of course, October is behaving
itself. Once in a decade, it becomes a little
tired of being the finest month of the year
and throws a tantrum, in the form of an
early snowfall.
But any month that combines Thanks-
giving, Indian summer, duck shooting, last
of the golf on lush fairways, great rainbow
trout fishing, and Northern Spy apples will
take a lot of beating.
Mornings are cool and often misty. By
nine a.m., the high yellow sky is filtering,
from an ineffably blue sky, through the
madness of color, the breath-taking palette
that is this country's autumn foliage.
There is a stillness on a fine October day
that we get at no other time of the year. We
can almost hear old Mother Earth grunt as
she births the last of her bounty: squash
and pumpkin and rich red apples that spurt
with sweetness when you bite into their
crisp.
Along with the sweetness and sunniness
of October, there lurks a little sadness. We
cling to each golden day, trying to forget
what follows October, the numbness and
dumbness and glumness of November,
surely the lousiest month on the calendar.
Thanksgiving is, in my mind, the finest
holiday weekend of the year. though it has
lost much of its "holy aay" effect and has
become a bit of a gluttonous family
reunion, a last fling at the cottage, or a
final go at the ducks, the fishing, and the
golf.
Perhaps we don't express it, except in
church and in editorials, but I honestly
believe that the average Canadian does
give a taciturn "thanks, God", at this time
of year. Thanks for the bounty. Thanks for
the freedom. Thanks for being alive in a
great country at a great time of year. I
know I do.
October is so splendid, with its golden
sun, its last brave flowers, its incredibly
blue sky and water, its panorama of vivid
colors in every patch of trees, its clear air,
that every poor devil in the world who has
never experienced it should do so once
before he dies. We Canadians are the lucky
ones, We see it and smell and feel it every
year, for a brief but glorious taste of the
best in the world.
It's a great month for the gourmet.
eighth from right,
Marguerite Wilton - ninth
from right, Florence Stewart
- tenth from right and Russell
Grant - eleventh from right.
In the back row, Mr. Hoover
identified Bill McDowell -
second from right, Edwin
Martin - fourth from right,
B.S. Scott (principal) - fifth
from right and Elsie Smith
sixth from right.
Besides the traditional gut-stuffing of
turkey and pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving
dinner, there is a wealth of fresh produce
that doesn't yet cost an arm and a leg, and
hasn't degenerated into the sodden,
artificially colored stuff we have to put up
with in winter and early spring.
Potatoes are firm and taste of the earth.
There are still a few golden peaches on the
stands. Apples are crisp and juicy, not like
the wet tissue affairs we buy in January.
There are still lots of field tomatoes
around, before the frost. Can anything be
quite as delicious as an ice-cold tomato,
right off the vine, eaten over the kitchen
sink so you won't slobber all over yourself
in your greed?
Is there anything to beat a butternut
squash, halved and baked, with a big gob
of butter working its way into the flesh?
And there's always the, chance of a meal
of fresh trout or roast duck. Though I must
admit that they are becoming scarcer all
the time, thanks to that infernal invention,
the deep freezer. The sportsmen who used
to drop around with the odd duck (the
flying kind), or a fresh rainbow, are now
socking them away in the freezer, and
forgetting their old friends who have
become a little too decrepit to crouch in a
blind or wade to the bum in ice water. Sob.
Hint.
For the housewife, October is a
re-gearing for action. The kids are out of
the way, her summer tan is shot, so it's
time for redecorating, joining organi-
zations, buying some smart new clothes.
And a great chance, with the earlier
darkness, for hectoring the old man, who
can't escape to golf or sailing or fishing,
and is stuck with her evenings until the
curling season begins.
For the athlete, it's perhaps the finest
time of year. The weather is ideal for
football, cross-country running, and still
fine enough for tennis and golf finals.
For sport fans, those adults who
fantasize by watching large, strong, young
men do the things they were never much
good at themselves, it's a cornucopia of
goodies: football in full swing, world series
ditto, and the hockey season under way.
Buttocks will batten through October as
millions of middle-aged males remain
firmly fixed before the idiot box most'
evenings and all weekend,
You know, writing a column like this is
really asking for it. We had such a glorious
September we don't even need Indian
summer. By the time this appears in print,
the ground will probably be knee-deep in
snow, there won't be one ragged leaf left on
a tree, and the ducks arid geese will have
chosen a new flyway.
But I don't care. That's' how I feel about
October.
from right Jean Walker -
Fourth from right; Miss
Morris, the teacher - fifth
from right, Jean Turnbull -
sixth from right, Cameron
Dennis - seventh from right,
and Norman Shaw - teneth
from right. Pictured in the
third row are Janet McVittie
- second from right, Jessie
Miller - third from right,
Norman Hoover - fourth from
right, Margaret Maunders
Sugar and spice
By Bill Smiley