HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1979-11-07, Page 2II/MU LS
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1979 oeemoro
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 $20.00 a Year. Single Copies 25 cents each.
eNA
BLUE
RIBBON
AWARD
ATTENTIVE AUDIENCE — Residents of the Callender Nursing Home in
Brussels watched attentively as Grade 2 pupils from Brussels Public
School entertained there on Wednesday afternoon.
(Photo by Langlois)
Sugar and spice
By BillSmiley
A deep and heavy cold
Remember that column I wrote last week
about the glories of October? Forget it. I
must have been in an euphoric mood. Reality
ht..s returned.
Caught one of those deep and heavy colds
thLt make you cough up stuff that gourrne is
pay for and call oysters. Had to take two
days off work, first time in two years, and
went back far from well, but driven from the
house by my wife:s solicitude.
Had the turn signals and the heating fixed
on my car, reached into my pocket to pay the
bill - maybe thirty-five dollars - took a look at
the bill, and had to be helped into the front
seat of the car. One hundred and one dollars,
plus change. Approximately 30 per cent of
the entire value of the car. You could buy a
pretty good jalopy for that sum, not so long
ago.
This morning, when. I looked out the
window, I nearly kededover. I can see six
roofs from the bathroom, and every one of
them was white, on the day after Thanks-
giving.
Today, when I got home from work, it was
hailing. And I'd forgotten to put the garbage
out.
Thought I'd give my wife a treat and cook
the Thanksgiving dinner. She wasn't keen
on a bird, as there were only the two of us.
But you have to keep up traditions, like the
British dressing for dinner in the jungle.
And that's just what it was like. Dressing
for dinner in the jungle. On the Saturday, I
picked up a nice roasting chicken, about four
and a half pounds. pay much
attention, as it was in a plastic bag, and felt
fat and juicy.
Got up a bit late on Thanksgiving Day, and
the stuffing was made. I dsually do this,
because I love experimenting with season-
ings. A shot of this, a dash of that, a soupcon
of something else. It usually turns out to be
either pretty exotic, or inedible.
Anyway, she'd beaten me to it, not
wanting to feel beholden. Feeling,be holden
is when your mate does one of your jobs, and
reminds you about it for the next three
years.
Well, I didn't mind. But that's the easy
part - the stuffing. The tough part is getting
it in, and wrestling with the bird, and
trussing it. You usually wind up with a
mixture of butter and dressing all over you,
up to the elbows and down to the knees, and
a bad temper. Often you have to scrub the
kitchen floor, there's so much goop on it,
once you've got the beast in the oven.
But I didn't mind. I've been through this
sweaty struggle before, and know well the
sense of triumph when the slippery monster
is finally in the oven, basted in butter, and
ready to start sending out that ineluctible
odor of roasting fowl.
This time however, I was rather shaken
when I pulled the bird out of the plastic bag
and prepared for battle.
It looked as though it had just come
through Grade 1 of ButCher's School. All the
skin was missing from the left side. It had
°tie leg, one, stuck up at an obscene angle.
The neck looked as though Jack the Ripper
had been at it on one of his bad nights. And
all the good guts = liver, gizzard and heart,
been stolen. These, along with the neek,
are what I make my magnificent gravy from.
The sleek *as there, all right, and as tough
If people in the Detroit Public School
System are wondering what happened to
balloons they launched, they might be
interested in knowing one was found in the
Brussels area,
The balloon, attached by string to a
styrofoam cup, was found on the Jack Bishop
farm at Concession 8, Lot 12 of Grey
Township on Sunday of last week by Kevin,
Darlene, and Michael Bishop, children of
Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Bishop of RR1 Ethel.
Jack Bishop is the children's uncle.
On one side of the balloon it reads: Detroit
Public Seldiols and on the other it says: City
Wide Reading Salutes International Year of
the Child. Printed on the cup there is a name
that looks like Tyrone Fizek and some other
'illegible printing, Unfortunately, no address
or phone number was given so that
somebody in the Detroit Public School
System could be aware that the balloon has
been found.
Detroit balloon
found near Brussels
as the neck of a vulture.
Did you ever try to truss a one-legged
chicken, semi-skinned, and make it come out
like the usual work of art? Don't. Your heart
won't be in it.
I was so disturbed that I had to resort to a
preprandial nerve relaxer, and this led to
further disaster: the pot with the vegetables
burned black, because I can't smell smoke,
and my wife was upstairs, staying away from
the blue air that often fills the kitchen when I
am cooking. It was doubly blue this time. It
will take a week of scrubbing to get the
carbon off the inside of that Tot.
To further the jollity of the occasion, we
got a call from my daughter who is teaching
a thousand miles away, in the north. It was a
bit like getting a call from Hades. She had a
wracking cough, and had been off work for a
week. Her students are "hard as nails", and
there were dark rumours of wild-dog packs
that will attack if you slip and fall on the ice,
and wild-dog kids who will do the same. She
was so lonely she could scarce hang up the
phone.
She has tiywalk a mile and a half, in windy
weather, to get anti-biotics from the doctor.
She is horrified that she gets only a little
more than half her pay cheque, when all the
deductions are made. Hah! After years of
being a student, living on loans and grants
(and handouts from us) she has entered the
chill world of capitalism and income taxes.
But it wasn't all black. That one-legged
chicken didn't taste bad, if you'd had
enough pre-dinner tranquillizer to destroy
your taste buds.
We did find that the damper on our
fireplace works, after twenty years, and we
got it closed to save heat dollars pouring up
the chimney.
And thanks to the town work crew, who
cut down one of our maples, the boy next
door, and a double sawback, I have my
winter's fireplace wood in the cellar. And I
know my daughter, tough stuff, will whip
those kids into shape.
IMMA111.1.411
Brussels Post
Remember?
Remembrance Day is a sad time for some. It calls to mind relatives
who were loved, but died fighting for what they believed in -- their
country.
The First and Second World Wars are now over but it's unlikely
they'll ever be forgotten. They should not be. The haunting stories
from those times should be passed on so+that each generation may
observe the courage and valiance of our men who fought.
The story should be told to each generation because soon there will
be no veterans to talk about the wars. But hopefully there will still be
someone to remember the veterans.
Remembrance Day offers a time to think about those soldiers and
the legacy they've left us. Wear a poppy November 11 at least and take
time to think of those who died so you could live in a free country.
Behind the scenes
by Keith Roulston
Author Farley Mowat' was asked .why, and we can see similarities to our present
forty years after the war began he should situation. People are becoming frustrated
turn to his experiences of World War 1i for by the economic problems they face, the
his lastest book And No Birds Sing: loss of buying power after decades of
"Because there's another war coming, 1 prosperity, the worries about price and
can smell it", he answered. supply of fuels, the uncertainty of higher
There have been many predictions of interest rates and a falling dollar. They've
war before. I remember a schoolmate been facing these problems for several
during the Cuban mis cle crisis nearly two years now and it just seems to get worse.
decades ago saying with conviction he had People are frustrated, and when large
no doubt picked up from his parents that groups of people are frustrated pressures
there would be a war before the. week was build up that are often only released by
out. There wasn't of course, just like there violence. To predict a war coming froth our
wasn't a war during the cold war period of present situation would be foolhardy. To
the 1950'S when people were being urged worry about one though i s wise.
to build fallout shelters to be ready for a Such worries are why, ' some 34 years
sneak attack by the Russians. after the finish of Canada's last major war
There's no more obvious threat to peace it is important for us to keep the tradition of
now than there was many times before. Remembrance Day alive. We cannot afford
Our neighbour to the south, the U.S. is less to forget what war costs us. We need to
involved in war right now than at any time remember those who have fallen but more
since WW2 ended. Open negotiations have than that, remembre the futility of war.
been going on with the Soviet Union on How much better a world might this be
arms limitations. Since the Soviets have today if those millions of young men,
traditionally been our main threat to our women and Children hadn't had to die?
peace that bodes well. What inventions might have come from
And' yet. . and yet. . . .1 know young inventors killed? What miracle cures.
Mowat's feeling, There's a disquieting might have come from young people who
sense that we're not as secure in peace might have become doctors? What artists,
now as we were at,some of the times that farmers, fathers and mothers have we lost?
seemed more tense. We may not have to Only by remembering do we keep the
worry about an outbreak of war tomorrow hope alive that we can avoid such useless
but who knows about the next day? , slaughter again. The greatest thing we
The uncertainty comes, I think, from the have going for us today to keep us from
knowledge of vvnat has led to wars in the repeating the idiocy of war is that so much
past. It's comforting for us to think of wars of the ronnantacis,m of war has been
as something that are forced on the stripped away. We have movies of the
ordinary people by the lords and politicians.: battles of the last war that show us not the
There was a time when' that was true of bravery and heroism but the slaughter, the
course, those times when peasants were at waste, the ruin, We see on a television
the constant command of warlords. In, news nightly the destruction in the minor
modern times, however wars come not so wars around the world. We have an
much from the decision of a single man but entertainment industry in television and
from the willingness of the people of a movies that today emphasizes not that war
country that is translated by that leader is glory but that 'war is gorey.
into action. If the People of a country aren't Remembering the reality of war is our
willing to fight, the leader may declara a war one hope for peace. Only when we forget
but he's not likely to be successful. We've what war is really like or when we
seen that in the U.S, where the will of the romanticize it are we in danger of being
nation was not behind the Vietnam war. ready to head , into another. These
War often results from an instability of a memories are important as we try to make
society. Like a build up of ions before a our way through this period of stress.
thunder storm the economic and moral . There will be some who want to promote
pressures build up in a country or society hate, distrust and violence in the coming
until with a flash the violence is unleashed. months and years. There will be some who
It's that instability, the pressures that are see the answer in crushing real or
now building up inside our western society, supposed enemies with Military might
that has people like Mowat worried. We But if we the indivi dual members of society
look back this auto mn simultaneously at remembers the horrors of war and refuse to
the 50th anniversary of the Wall Street be part of a new one the-likelihood of a war
Crash and the 40th anniversary of the taking place are much diminished. We
commencement of the Second World War can't afford to forget. •