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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1980-07-23, Page 2WEDNESDAY, JULY 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 Association, Subscriptions (in advance) Canada. S10.00 a Year. Others $20.00 a Year. Single Copies 25 cents each. 0.411101111,4k, •••. Ethel area we welcome your news llohi4d.the-see00$: Hoon County :Separatist? Maybe I should be the one to lead it. I mean after all I reach a potential audience though this column every week of 10,000 or so people. Maybe I'm the one. The one for what You ask? WhY, the one to lead the, separatist party pf Huron county d course.. I mean everybody else is threatening .to separate so why not us? Sure I know we're usually a few years behind the fashion of the time in. Huron so we should maybe wait a couple more years yet to get going but we might as well start thinking about it right now so we can get the plans working properly when the time comes. I mean why should we be left out? Quebec's been threatening for years. Alberta's been talking for the last five years as if, it's' a separate kingdom with King Peter on the throne. Saskatchewan has a party dedicated to joining up with'the United. States and, even Newfoundland is . making noises like it might like to be out of the country is joined only 30 years ago...if the oil wells come through of course. If not they'll be glad to stay and take our money. And of course. there's British Columbia, which has never been, too sure it wanted anything to do with the rest of the country. Well now why should we be any different ,(mind you people have been saying that the People in Huron were a. little different for years now).. I mean we've got the credentials. The west is unhappy because the rest of the country doesn't elect the right people so that the people they elect can sit on the government side instead of the opposition. We've been doing that-for years. I mean Bob McKinley knew when to quit. He knew after only a few months of sitting on the government side of the house that something had to give. Either the government would change or he'd get turfed out and the Huron electors would put in somebody they, would really understand, somebody who could sit in the opposition. I mean who else but Huron county consistently elects Liberals • to Toronto and Conservatives to Ottawa? We've got our grievances just like other parts of the country. We ' don't speak French like Quebeckers but some aren't too sure we speak English either:The west has been upset for years about railway rates. Hell, we wish we even had railways. The west is upset because Ontario is taking their oil at less' than world prices. We'd just like to have some oil for people to steal. • CHEAP PORK ETC. I mean they might as well steal our oil if we had some.' They've stolen everything else. We've been keeping the country supplied in cheap pork, beef, milk, eggs, chickens and even pork and beans for generations now. If it wasn't for the farmers of Huron county getting so little for their farm produce the people of Toronto and Kitchener wouldn't be able to afford two cars so they would need to steal their gas and oil from Alberta at, unfair What's more we exported a lot of those people who are now living in Toronto or Kitchener (or these days Calgary) using, up all that food and fuel. Our kids have been taking off to parts unknown for 100 years now. Maybe our biggest grievance against the rest of the country is that they didn't take some of the turkeys that got- left behind (not counting you and me of course). And what do we get out of all of this? Well about the only thing we've got .nitire of than anywhere else in the country is snow. MINTY OF SNOW Oh, we've got plenty,ot that. The rest of the country took the money and the gas and oil and the uranium, and gave, us the snow. Themay have.to work hard to find their oil or uranium but we don't have to look hard for our snow: 'we just, have to work hard to get rid of it. Come mid-winter about the only thing visible in these parts is those big hydro towers that take electricity from the nuclear plant down to the cities.- Awful thoughtful of them wasn't it to build the first atomic power plant, in our back yard at a nice safe distance from the cities? Now I ask you fellow citizens, doesn't all this add up to a gOOd case for having our own separatist party? i mean just listing all our, grievances makes ,me think we shouldn't wait a couple more years to get going but should be right up with the latest fashions for a change. Maybe I should rent a, hall. It wouldn't have to he a big.one of, course. I . wouldn't expect many people to show up (I'm not even Sure if there's anybody out there reading this.) We woulcIn't.warit this thing to get out of hand right off the bat anyway. I mean it took Quebec 15 years of 'threatening to pull out before it finally got 'to the point of having to vote to pull out. Saskatchewan should be geod for 20' years. We should shoot for 30 or 40 -I guess'. I gran if we threatened to pull out any sooner we wouldn't have enough time to bargain for all the things we've been left out of in the last 100 years. No, .let's start small and build slowly, but yell a lot. WOULD THEY MISS US? ,We'd have to be careful of course. We wouldn't want anybOdy to call our bluff too soon. I mean they just might not miss us at all if we did quit. On the, other hand, if we • move too slowly the whole country might be owned by German industrialists invest- ing their extra cash. Gee, this thing is getting more complicated than I thought. Maybe I should go back to the drawing board a little longer before I rent the hall. Advertising is acceptec on the condition that in the event of a typographical error the advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. While every effort will be made to insure they are handled with care, the publishers cannot be responsible for the return of unsolicited 'manuscripts or photos. Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley The Brussels Post has heard some complaints lately about the lack of cover- age it gives to the Ethel area and to Grey Central School in particular. Not a newspaper to take such complaints lightly, the Post decided to investigate the matter by looking at six months of back issues of the paper. In March, the paper published,• two pictures of rehearsals of Annie; Get Your Gun and in April the front page was taken up by a six column picture of the Annie, Get Your Gun cast, a review of the play, an editorial on what the Grey* Central Home and School Association had accomplished and another picture of the cast inside the paper. In May, there were pictures of the 4-H certificates being presented at Grey Cen- tral in Ethel _which included some Ethel area girls. The spring concert at Grey Central school was covered in the paper and in the same issue, a story described how Ethel had raised money for the Listowel Hospital addition by holding an auction sale. In July, the paper contained stories on the two teachers leaving Grey Central school and in the same issue were pictures of the Grade 8 graduates, the Kindergarten class graduates, MVCA scrapbook award winners, playday trophy winners and academic trophy winners. The school has been repeatedly asked to let us know of any news and we welcome write ups of things happening there. Also, the Ethel correspondent, Mrs. Cliff Bray would be only too happy to get some news of happenings in Ethel. So Ethel area residents, please take time to phone her and let her know about your visitors and special occasions. Deciding what the kids are going to read There are times that are sent to try us. And whoever said that said a mouthful. Every time a child is born, first, second, 12th or grandchild, we are tried with a combination of fear and joy. Every time an oldster dies, we are tried with regret, sorrow and nostalgia. When a daughter is married, we are tried with grief, happiness, and the bank manager. When we're applying for a job, we are tried with sheer terror, a mind that functions like a rusty pump, and sweaty armpits. On the eve of an operation, we are tried with a sudden realization that we've let our communication with God slip rather badly in the last five years, and a simultaneous realization that surgeons are not God, and one little slip means you've lost your spleen instead of your left ovary. • Wives and husbands try us. The former with what Mary said to Edith before Gwen' butted in. The latter with why they double- bogied the 17th hole. Politicians try us. And try us, and try us. And we always wind up with a gaggle of geese nobody in his right mind would vote for. Preachers try us, either by reminding us we have sinned and there is no health in us, or going off into a tedious half-hour dialogue with God, who must be as bored as the congregation. Waitresses try us. They don't wipe the table. The bring the two eggs-over-lightly tough enough to sole your boots, and the medium rare steak so rare no self respecting wolf would eat it. Or so well done you could use it as charcoal on the barbecue. Old friends try us, sometimes thor- oughly. After 15 minutes of eager conver- sation during which they tell you how successful they are at Acme Screw and Gear, they ask: t'And how's Jack?" Since you've never had a brother called Jack, John, Johann, Ian, Sean or Jan, and your two sisters are Mabel and Myrtle, this can be quite trying. Best answer is: "Fine. How's Archie?" You then find yourself talking about two people neither of you ever knew. Some of my craftier readers will long since have realized that this is merely an inordinately lengthy introduction to a personal experience that is trying: In other words, a long spiel to a pain in the arm. Right on, crafty readers. The most trying time for the head of the English depart- ment is the end of June. Alone on your bowed shoulders and greying head is the chore of deciding what 1,500 sensitive teenagers are going to read next fall. Actually they're about as sensitive as an old rubber boot, but their parents think they are. Here's the' situation. You have 20,000 books. One third of them are falling apart. Another one-fifth is so scribbled with obscenities by those sensitive youngsters that you couldn't peddle them at a burlesque show. Your budget•for new books is the same as it was eight years ago. Books have doubled and trebled in cost. Well, no problem there. You simply sprinkle some gasoline around the book storage center and drop a match, hoping you don't burn the whole shoe factory. But there is a problem. The books aren't insured. Of course, you get great support from your English teachers. Their tastes range from Dickens, who turns the kids off like a tie in the summer, to the Texas Chain Saw Murders, which would probably turn them right on. After these suggestions, they - the English teachers - go off to sail their boats or stride the golf course. And lurking in the wings, of course, are the self-appointed censors, most of whom have never read a book from cover to cover in their lives. They know less about sex and profanity that the veriest Grade Sitters. Hovering behind the censors is the great body of administrators, educators and politicians, huddled in terror that their sponsorship of a book might cost them a job, a vote, or a, censure from some other nit who has ascended to the height of his/her competence. Ah, what the heck. It happens every year. I'm too old to go back to The Mill On The Floss, the most boring book I've ever read. A Tale of Two Cities is liable to stir up the Pequistes in Quebec. Uncle Tom's Cabin will infuriate the black militants. We'll hang in there with Huckleberry Finn, a homosexual novel about a black man and a white redneck; Who Has Seen The Wind, a filthy novel about the sex life of pigeons; Henry IV, Part One, about an old drunk and a young libertine; Hamlet, a play about an incestuous hippie; Lord Of The Flies, a novel about kids murdering each other; True Grit, with' 17 violent deaths; The Great Gatsby, concerning a weird bootlegger; Dracula, which the kids love and The Pearl, in which a guy kills fourpeople and his baby has its head shot off. Then there are: Of Mice and Men, in which a chap shoots his buddy, a moron, in the back of the head, and Julius Caesar, in which the lead character is stabbed 16 times by his buddies.