The Brussels Post, 1980-01-23, Page 2
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WEDNESDAY; JANUARY 23, 1980
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 Atsocia0en
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $10.00 a 'liar.
Others $20.09 a Year. Single Copies 25 cents each.
We goofed!
The purpose of Oils editorial is to tell Brussels and area
Conservatives that The Post is not perpetrating a conspiracy to hide
from readers the fact that a.local man, Murray Cardiff of Ethel was
• recently named the Tory candidate for the February 18 election.
We don't know whether you'll believe this or not but'the simple fact
is the story of Mr. Cardiff's victory over three others at the PC
convention, held right here in Brussels, was left out out of last week's
Post on an oversight.
A pretty big oversight, we agree.
We'll explain, although we realize thatdoeSn't excuse anything. The.
Liberal and the NOP' nomination meetings appeared the Post stories
right after they happened because both were on. Monday nights, in
time for the current week's deadline.
The Post, although dated Wednesday, goes to the printers Tuesday
afternoon. The PC nomination, meeting was on a Tuesday night.
A reporter covered the evening, got Some good' photos etc. and
quickly did a story which appeared the next day in The Post's sister
paper, The Huron Expositor which doesn't print until Wednesday.
Staff laying out last week's Post made the mistake of thinking Mr.
Cardiff's win had already been covered the week before, since the
story was nearly a week old.
Making assumptions is something every reporter is drilled never to
do, but we blew it.
Like we said, the above explanation is not an excuse for our
oversight.
But we wanted to tell you about it anyway, and to' apologize to Mr.
Cardiff (a local man which makes our. mistake alithe worse), the other
candidates, meeting organizers, offended Tories and bemused
readers.
.That said, good luck Mr. Cardiff (and Mr. Craig and Mr. McQuail).
May 'the best man win.
And rest assured that since the election's on a Monday, it will be
covered 'in full in the pages of that week's Post.
Sneakers in January
Sugar and spice
By Bill Smiley
Short Shot s
by Evelyn Kennedy
(Continued from Page 1)
brought them to their feet in a well deserved
standing ovation. This 12-year old grade 8
youngster, skated her way to third place in
competition with young ladies of 20 and 21
years of age. She bypassed the junior
division after winning the novice crown last
year. The pressure of senior competition did
not faze her in the least. She gave a brilliant
free skate program.
**ill***
If you believe you have talent as a singer,
actor, or stage hand, now is the time to prove
it, Grey Central Home and School are
preparing to present "Annie Get Your dun"
in April. Auditions will be held in Grey
Central School this Thursday, January 24th.
Why not be there. If you are fortunate
enough to be selected for a part in this
production you will find it a good experience
and a lot of fun. I for one will be eagerly
anticipating attending a performance of this
rollicking play in April.
******
Congratulations to Lorrie Baier of Mitchell
and Lloyd Eisler of Seaforth. They won the
silver medal in senior pairs at the Canadian
figure Skating Championship competitions.
loth are 16- years of age. Lloyd also won a
gold Medal in the novice men's section. Both
were well deserved victories.
*!****
Lack Of snow, or no, the Lions "Polar-,
Dalze 1960" will go on February 15.16-17-19
"Polar baize" has been a popular event
here over the years. See ad elsewhere in-this
paper and watch for further particulars later.
You will not want to miss any of the events
being planled for.
******
The weather we have been having the past
weeks seems to have confused nature itself.
Stan Alexander found, when cutting wood on
his farm, that the sap was running. He also
observed frogs out sitting around a pond.
Strange things to happen this time of year! I
remember that years ago a Brussels man,
now long gone from among us, predicted
that some , day the southern states would
have the snow and oranges would be grown
on the shores of Hudson Bay. Could it
possibly be there was some truth in his
prediction?
******,„
Ate you all prepared to go for the swing of
the kilts and the skirl of the pipes? Saturday
is Robbie Burns Night at the Brussels
Legion.
*** 5**
Some of the headlines and news stories we
have read these past weeks are, ,to say the
least, "frightening." The Russian invasion
of Afghanistan following the situation in Iran
And the explosive situation in the Middle
East seems to be propelling us ever closer to
the horrifying prospect of war. What a
troubled world we live in when the threat of
war hovers fiver us. Pray cool heads and wise
deeitiont avert such a war.
******
There's somthing positively unnerving
in the experience of going out in sneakers
and a sport shirt, in the, month, of January,
in Canada, to pick up one's newspaper,
and being able to find it without groping
through half a dozen snowbanks to find
that tell-tale yellow or green wrapper.
If our December-January weather was
any sort of omen, this is going to be a very
unpredictable decade.
Personally, I loved it. Every night. I'd say'
a little prayer: "Please Lord, !make some
snow for the skiers." With my fingers
crossed behind my back. •
Frankly; I don't care whether they have
to ski on sand all winter, though it's rough
on the resort operators.
It's pure envy, of course. There is
nothing more degrading for a once-young
man, a pretty fair once-athlete, to sit in the
club-house drinking coffee and watching
those rotten kids come flying 'down the
slopes like so many seagulls riding the
wind.
Unless it's to be plodding along a forest
cross-country trail, desperately heaving for
breath and hear from' behind a sharp,
,"Track!", and once again have to leap off '
the trail into the deep snow while some
young punk of either sex goes by you like a
Jaguar passing a tractor.
Let them stew in `their own wax. Let
them frenetically chew the toes off their'
skis. Let them put on their great, thunking
boots and stomp around in the wreck room.
Let them whine and swear and decry the
vagaries of Old Man Winter,. who this year
seemed to know what he was about; for a
change.
Don't tell me there isn't a Mother
Nature. It's just that she's a preverse old
bag. Early last fall, I wrote a paean of
praise to the glory of a Canadian October.
Mother Nature' promptly turned on the
tap and sat there like a dowager having her'
Saturday evening soak, while we went
through the wettest October since Noah
was around.
I wrote another rather sharp column,
demanding at least a few days of decent
weather in hominally horn :d November.
-Like the capricious old trout she is, Mother
promptly turned off the tap, lit the fire, and
we had a November of unprecedented 'sun
and clear skies.
I didn't dare demand anything, for
December. I was getting leery of the old
witch's tnopds. Apparently sensing my
queasiness, 'she threw in .the works:- 12
inches of snow;
temperat res ~
warm rain; green grass;
m zero to almost hot.
Fickle wench.
My grandboys came down from the
frozen north, bragging about it. "The
snow's right over my head, Grandad," and
were kicked out Into the backyard in their
great cumbersOme tnowbOots and great
bulky snowsuits to play in the grass. They
could have gone out in shorts and fiddled'
with the hose, ,their usual July past-time.
My son arrived: hoine from South
America, expecting to freeze - to death,
blood thinned from five years in a tropical
climate, was exhilarated by the snow, and
a week later was.running around in a light
jacket, claiming that it got colder than this
in Paraguay.
My father-in-law, after spending nearly
half a century taking the rural Mail on days
when he'd set out in the morning with a
horse and cutter and nobody knew when,
or if, he'd ever get back, slipped on a bit of
ice this past crazy December and bioke
some bones.
But don't worry. We'll all pay for this
once-in-a-generation aberration of Mother
Nature. As I write, it's just a little nippy,
sun shining, blue skies, and, skeptical
Canadians going around shaking their
heads and muttering that, "We're' gonna
get it one, of these days." And they're
right.
I predict a January and February so cold
it would freeze the boobs off a brass
monkey; a March with so much snow we
won't be able to see the whites of
anybody's eyes; an April in whieb we'll all .
be skating to work, because there won't be.
any gas for our cars; a May like our usual '
• March; a June with millions of black flies
so
to death in their embryo stage; and o n.
. It's not all gloom. I think some hardy
spirits might be able to take a quick duck in
the lake around. August 1, -though they may
have to break the ice to do so.:
And think of all the money and ,energy
we'll save because we won't need any
air-conditioning. Of 'course we might be
burning our furniture to stay alive; but you
can't:take it with you, now can you? I think
Our grand piano, fed carefully, leg by leg
into the fireplace, will last longer than the
dining-room suite we bought aeons ago for
$150.
It sounds rather appalling, but there are
solutions. One would be for the party that
wants to get into power in this country to
simply promise to send everybody south.
Just close up the country for the winter,
except for Ottawa, which might as well be .
closed anyway., They could send us all in
cattle cars, as the Germans did the Jews. It
might even put us in the second running
for the Chosen People.
There is one other factor that amid save
the day. It is not only possible, but
probable, entirely so; that the next few
weeks in this country will produce so much-
hot air that we could all turn Off our
furnaces, open the windows, let it all flow
through, let the grass green, and bewilder
the living daylights out of the birds that
didn't fly south in October.