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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1980-07-02, Page 2driewom",; :717.-777 • Pi 4: . Brussels Post WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1980 co7iLz' 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. BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1979 Doreen Raymond brought in a picture of the old SS No .1 school in Grey Township. Mrs. Raymond's aunt Jessie Menzies, a teacher at the school is seen standing behind her pupils. Can anyone identify all these youngsters? Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Maybe next year? Canada Day is over. Brussels had no real activities to celebrate the occasion. Each individual had to rely on his or her own creativity to show how he or she felt about this country. Lately Canada seems more fragmented than ever and a celebration in more of the communities around could show that the spirit to co-operate and keep this country together is there. Perhaps at the next Canada Day celebrations, the various organizations and clubs in Brussels might come up with a few activities to keep the people entertained. Maybe it's thought that there's no use holding such events because too many people go away on the holiday weekend. But what about the people who have no means of getting away from Brussels but might be able to find some transport doWn to the arena or the ball park if some interesting things were happening there. Smaller communities than Brussels have put on Canada Day celebrations. If you're interested in seeing such celebrations in the area you should let the village council and different service clubs and organizations know about your interest. All it takes is a spirit of co-operation on all sides. Behind the scenes by Keith Raulston will be back next week. You have no idea how tough, life is for us celebrities: signing autographs, b'eating off groupies, phone ringing with congratul- ations and requests for interviews,; trying to be triumphantly modest. I'm certainly glad my celebrityness, lasted only one day. Two days and I'd probably have started thinking I really was somebody worth knowing. I did start charging students one dollar a piece for autographs, and bad a fair little urn tnere until one of them reminded the others that they could get a free signature just be reading the nasty remarks I make on their report cards. That was the end of that bonanza., To the bewildered, your old, broken- down, favorite columnist was the subjectof a .profile ih a national magazine ,called Today, and the phone has never started ringing since. Some people thought the article was dreadful. An old colleague was disgusted because the magazine printed how mach I make a year. My wife was furious. The photographer who took my picture scrunched up the drapes he drew behind me for a background, and they looked as though they needed ironing. My assistant department head was annoyed about my picture, because the art department of the magazine had not used the air brush to wipe out the wrinkles, jowls, and other appurtenances of wisdom and maturity. A bright young colleague, who writes well, expressed the opinion that the article was badly written, and Was attaeked furiously by other colleagues who thought he was jealous. He wasn't. He was right.' It was a bit, choppy because an editor had obviously been busy with the scissors, to make the thing fit around'photographs and into the space allotted, as is their Wont in a magazine that caters to a typical TV audience-mentality. But those wonderful people, my com- pletely uncritical students, thought it was great: first, because my, name was in big type; second, because it was a national magazine; third, because my picture was in it; fourth, because they got reflected glory. They'd have been just as happy if I were an axe-murderer, as long as I hit the media. So, one day my Grade 9 thought I was just that snarly old grey-haired guy up front who kept telling , them that a verb • has to agree with its subject. The next, I was in the same magazine as Richard Burton, and my wife was taking on the dimensions, figuratively speaking, of Eliza. beth Taylor. Personally, I have some scores to settle about the article. For one thing, it was too innocuous and kindly. The writer, Earl McCrae, is, a cracking good sports writer, who has done some fine: hatchet jobs on sports „figures in, Canada. Least he could have done is 'carve me up a, bit, and let me get into a slanging match with him, via the riublic print It was, as though McCrae k usually as soft as a sword, had muttered to himself, "Poor old sod; he's over the hill. I'll use the butter instead of salt." This is the same, writer whom George Chuvalo threatend to punch right through the -wall of a -gym when he had written a piece about George, the perennial punching bag. , Another guy I have a bone to pick with is Ray Argyle, who owns, the ,syndicate that distributes this here. now column: At one point in the article, he called 'me a "monument." Well, I'll think of something to'call you, Mr. Argyle. , One adjective in the' article is going to create endless amusement for old friends of My wife. It is the word "languid." Mind you, it's rather a neat word. Better than pudgy, pugnacious, bubhling, feisty, or any of those other-over-worked magazine article words. But my wife is about as languid as a Roman Candle. We were at a big wedding the weekend the article came out. About halfway through the reception, I was fairly bubbling, fairly. feisty, and pleasantly pugnacious. • , ' I drifted over to where she sat, deliberately looking languid, and observ- ed, "Migawd, you're looking languid tonight." She marched straight to the bar and had me put on the Indian list. (Oh, • yeah, somebody is going to write that that is a racist remark.). You'll be glad to know that the wedding turned out well. I drove to the reception while she map-read. She drove home, but I couldn't see the street signs. , We drove around a strange city for an hour and a half, completely lost. Finally, I saw a car, and a place beside it that seemed to be open. "Stop! I'll ask where we are," I nipped out, went up to the stopped car, and demanded of the two police officers inhabiting it, "How, in the name of all that is holy, does one find the Royal Contmught Hotel in this misbegotten city with all its stupid one-way streets?" The cop was a modicum of decorum. "If you'll just look to your right, sir, you'll see that you are parked directly in front of it" So much for being a 'celebrity.