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The Brussels Post, 1980-02-06, Page 2MUSE LS ONTARIO WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6 0 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 ASsociation Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $10.00 a Year. Others $20.00 a Year. Single Copies 25 cents each. 41. S BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1979 The editorial page Beltiodt4,..1ces.. by Keith ammayeess sera Brussels Post For your children's sake Brussels has geared itself for a new activity recently with the formation of a Home and School Association. This is a step in the right direction. It's one way in which parents may have a definite role in their child's education and, as a group, make their points more strongly known to those included in determining education policy. A Home and School Association can help parents get to know their children's teachers better. If there are complaints on the educational system, what better way to get them known than through an active Home and School Association? About 23 people showed up at Wednesday night's meeting and there is hope more will turn up at future meetings. For the sake of the education of not only your children but children generally, let's hope that more people do show their active support for the Brussels Home and School Association. Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Trough patrol . If it was anybody but politicians involved the government would be taking action these days over the shoody advertising Practices that are seen oh our television screens every night. Dishonesty in advertising has never .been so blatant as It is in the, current election advertising that assaults your ears, eyes and intelligence every 10 minutes, all night long. Even shows primarily of Interest to children like Disney's Wonderful World pre crammed with ads for the political parties. Nothing like convincing our children at a young age just how dishonest our politicians can be. Strange iSnTit that honesty in advertis- ing in buying an underarm deodorant is important but not in selecting a govern- ment. Strange too that a radio or television station can refuse to take ads for maxi-pads but must by law accept election advertising even stations like CBC Radio which doesn't have commercials at other times of the • year. Top that by the fact that your tax money is being used to pay for some of that advertising and you've really got some- thing to be anry about. There has probably never in our long history of politics been an election like this. Nobody is running for what they are but for what they aren't. They tell us don't vote for us, vote against the other guy. Without saying so many words the Conservatives are saying yes, maybe our goyernment was a disaster but eight months of disaster is better than 11 years. The Liberals are saying we know you don't like Pierre Trudeau but anything is better than Joe Clark. The New Democrats are saying the other two parties are filled with liars, cheats and incompetents so you might as well take a chance on us. The saddest thing about the election has been the final conversion of Pierre Trudeau from indepent thinker to party politiciang Gone is the man who once said what he thought even if it raised the hackles of voters, "the press and even members of his own party. • Instead we have a man dedicated to not rocking the 'boat, to ridding the unpopular- ity of the Conservatives to a Liberal victory by carefully not saying something to bring out his own unpopularity. His, defeat in the past came from unjudicious honesty. His victory, if it comes, may come from dishonest silence. The press of course is furious. Covering the Trudeau campaign has become about as exciting as being assigned to cover the wrist wrestling championships. One can't really blame Trudeau of his advisers for steering clear of the press. He's been open and honest with them in the past and got burned when they twisted what he said, often in private and repeated it out of context. Yet seeing the shadow of the man is sad. If he wins elections he may once again contribute something to his country as Prime Minister but he's got.to do a lot to undo the image he's developecl in the last month. 1 ' The Conservatives are in the horrible position of having to run on their record since they are the government without having a. record to run on. They trk to Make it appear that they had great promises to keep if they'd only been given the chance to govern a little longer. But they're handicapped'by that fact they didn't seem to want to go before Parliament at all and that they managed in near record 'time to break nearly every promise they did make .eicept the one that the majority of people in the country wanted them to breaks the- promise to can Petrocan. They try to make themselves better by making the Liberals worse. Eleven years of incompetence under Trudeau they. say. They fail to point out that Canada' fared no worse than the rest of the West during that troublesome period of history in which Trudeau was prime minister. The Liberals, they say, did nothing about oil while they were moving toward self-sufficiency in oil. They fail to explain' how raising the federal sales tax 18 cents, a gallon was helping Canada toward self- sufficiency. All it was doing was giving John Crosby some money so he could keep the home-owners' rebate he promised. They're effective *advertising portrays them as the hockey hero in white being tripped, boarded and generally fouled by those sneaky dirty faceless villains of the N.D.P. and. Liberals. The ads make it look like the Clark government members were ' pros when they often looked like beginning skaters tripping over their own laces. And then there's the N.D.P. Their advertising often takes the form of short interviews with people who tell how much they hate or distruct Trudeau and Clark. The only honest man, they say is Broadbent. , But if Broadbent was really honest he'd cut out the B.S. about the saintliness of the N.D.P. Broadbent and the N.D.P. federally have never had to face political realities. They've never formed a government. They've never had to try to change a bureaucracy that had its own ideas of how to run a country; They've never had to deal with big business which has so much control on the economy. By blythely saying he'd be different Broadbent is proving he's the same, ready to stretch•any truth to get elected. One of the favorite extra duties of a high school teacher is "trough patrol." The euphemism for this is "Cafeteria super- vision." It's such a lively, colorful and varied activity that you get teachers vying for it, offering to trade off one dance supervision for a week of trough patrol. Of course, dance supervision is pretty dull stuff. All you have to do is check the girls' purses for mickeys of vodka, look to see who is throwing up in the washrooms, make sure that no one is setting fire to the stage curtains while enjoying a crafty drag call the cops if you find someone with dilated eyes trying to fly instead of dance. And there are too many teachers on supervision. We sometimes have twelve teachers to supervise only about three hundred dancers. The only real problem with dance supervisions is trying to retain your hearing under the assault of a rock band, 3 But trough patrol is another kettle of fish. It's exciting, dangerous, and turbu- lent. Never a dull moment. Oh, it's demanding. You need the resourcefulness of a Thomas Edison, the judgement of a Solomon, the tolerance of a saint, and the ability to wash your hands of the whole matter of a Pontius Pilate. Not to mention eyes in the back of your head, a strong stomach, and a thick hide. But that's why we trough patrollers feel we are a special breed. Like the first men on the moon. Or lion tamers, Or sewage experts. Take a huge cafeteria, once a gym- nasium. Futln it 500 exuberant teenagers just released froth four boring, monotonous periods in the classroom. Arm them with everything, from. plastic ferks to hard apples. Throw in two teachers, and stir with a mixture of sex, high spirits, the desire to show off, and a hardy streak of latent vandalism. Interesting. Lively? Oh, yes. Over in this corner, two grade-niners are flicking potato chips drenched in gravy at each other. In the middle of the arena, a group of seniors is screaming with hilarity at an off- color joke. In another corner a pair of young lovers is just on the verge of having sex. As you move to break something up, an apple splatters against the wall where your head just was. Colorful? Well, I guess. Here a squashed orange, festooned by french fries and garnished by sticky ice cream wrappers. There a trampled banana topped by a dropped, melting ice-cream bar. On the pastel walls some abstract art manufac- tured by flung apples, peanut butter sandwiches, half-empty cartons of choco- late milk, and other viands. Adding a nice touch of cool are the green garbage bags, surrounded by brown paper bags, thrown, and missed, from as far away as fifty feet. In the garbage bags," bulging, are about two hundred lunches, made up in the dark of an early morn by a loving mother. They are intact, including sandwiches, apple or orange, and cookies. The owner is downing his second plate of french fries and gravy, or his third ice-cream bar. Besides the color, there is a great appeal to the senses, something we English teachers try to instill in the writing of our students. For the eyes, there is Mary Ellen, bouncing braless around the peri- meter of the zoo, pretending to be nonchalance and drinking in every whistle. For the nose, though I can't smell, they tell me there is a pervasive aroma of cooking oil, onions, bodies and feet. For the ear, there is a cacophony, ranging from a noisy gruop singing "Happy Birthday" with some new words, to a squealing, giggling bevy of young girls, to.the triumphant shouts of the poker players as they slam down a full house over three nines. For the sense of touch, there is, of course, the stepping on a banana that shouldn't be there, or the picking up of an empty milk carton only to find a quarter- pint running up your arm. I mentioned some qualities the teacher requires. Resourcefulness. Like knowing how to keep your eye on a group that is going to get up and leave their table looking like a trough, and simultaneously breaking up a fight between two 'banty roosters from grade nine. Judg ment? You see a kid sitting alone, sucking an ice-cream -bar,. at a. table laden with debris. "It ain't mine. I ain't pickin' it up." He may be right or lying through his teeth. Do you act the petty martinet and snarl, "Pick up up anyway!'', or do you It was surprising to see the Lucknow Sentinel-Review reporting that a local Woman there hid found some really unbelievable specials in an ad in the Brussels Post. Everything from Silk Embroidered Cush- mildly do it yourself?, Tolerance? Absolutely. You have to remind yourself continually that some of these kids don't learn any manners at home, and others are just forgetful or careless. • You need eyes in the back of your head or you'll either be beaned by an apple or have an entire group of boys who have eaten about ten dollars worth of junk food move swiftly and silently to another 'table when your back is turned, leaving something looking like the town dump at their original table. You need courage, when you see four bearded hoodlums in the cafeteria, casing the joint, and you have a gut feeling they are not students. Tackle them and get a shot in the mouth, or run for, the vice-principal? I opt for the latter, it says here in small print. All in all, a varied life with a myriad of attractions, trough patrol. I only hope that, when I retire, the school board will let me come in a couple of times a week to do it, free, just for the fun of it. ion Tops at 49 cents to Women's House- dresses for $1.19 each, were offered: Unfortunately the clipping came out of a 1918 edition of the Post and from a store that no longer exists—the Carswell Bros. Cut-rate Cash Sale Store. 1918 Post offers terrific specials