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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1980-08-13, Page 2• • • r. -.r te ! • ove to scare WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1980 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community, Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brustels, Ontario By McLean Bros. PUbliSherS Limited Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Pat Langlois - Advertising Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Atsociation • Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $10.00 a Year. Others $20.00 a Year. Single Copies 25 cents each.4 'Behind the scenes a by Keith Roulston Good for Bluevale! Bluevale is planning a new community hall. This is the result of a recent vote taken on whether to go ahead with renovations on the, old hall or to build a new one. Although the previous meeting which presented an engineer's report on the old Bluevale hall stirred up a lot of interest with about 50 people attending, only 30 people showed up to , vote on the matter. It's unfortunate that a decision had to be made without the vote of those other 20, but when a new hall is built those 20 shouldn't complain since they weren't there to help make the decision and as one woman pointed out, there have already been enough delays. Already the people of Bluevale have displayed their, ability for 'raising money for such a project. They-raised over $9,000 when they thought they were just going to be repairing the hall. The people of Bluevale are obviously looking toward the future when with gasoline shortages small communities will once again have to make their own entertainment -. Other small communities should take their cue for the future from Bluevale. Good luck to this forward-looking village. Short Shots by Evelyn Kennedy Mrs. Kennedy is on vacation Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley People, it seems, love to pay out their ' money to be scared. Television and the, movie makers have taken note and provided plenty of opportunity for people to do just that. We've had the horror science fiction ) pictures: The Creature from Outer Spaces, The Blob and even The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. There were the occult movies: The Exorcist, The Omen and others. And in recent years there have been the disaster movies; Earthquake, Towering Inferno, Tidal Wave, Jaws, you name it, , they've tried it. In each case some quite improbably happenings are made to seem quite possible and therefore terrifying. But while fertile imaginations have been at work dreaming up terrifying situations there has been one real life story more terrifying than any of the above that has been virtually ignored by the story tellers of the major, media. The story came briefly to mind again last week, thirty-five years after 'it happened. It has changed the whole reality of the earth and someday may be repeated to end the earth. THE GOOD GUYS The story, story, of course, is the actual explosion of two atomic bombs at Hiro- shima on August 6; 1945 and at Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Those two events riot only ended the Second World War but they changed the course of history. There was perhaps a certain smugness on the part of us on the "good guys" side for a couple of years afterward. We, after all, had a weapon' at our disposal that had ended a four-year-old war in just four days. But that smugness turned to fear in a few short years when, we realized that our new enemies, the Soviet Union, also 'had the: bomb. The chill of the cold war took over. Suddenly the tables were turned and we had to think of what it would be like if we were the victims of'that horrible weapon. ° We built fallout shelters. We had films on what to do in case of nuclear. attack. We had training in how to spot enemy planes. We spent millions, probably billions,,build- ing huge radar systems to spot the bombers before they got us. Perhaps I'm too young to remember, but I don't remember ever having seen much to really bring home td us just how horrible this new weapon was. I can remember the fright of a book and movie like On The Beach which dealt with the aftermath of a nuclear war when only a few survivors were left but with all its love of gigantic spectacles I can never remember Holly- wood taking on the biggest man-made spectacle this world has ever seen: the two atomic bombs. Hollywood has had a fascination with so many aspects of the Second World War. There have been endless movies about the • attack of the Japanese on Pearl Harbour. Nearly every battle in the island-hopping Pacific war has been portii4ed. We've had movies about D-Day and Thee Battle of the . Bulge and =Vies about the secret intrigue inside Hitler's camp. We've had quite a number of movies based on the 11,010cAnat: the Nazi program of rexterminating the Jews in all those ' parts of Europe, they controlled. And that's as it should be.' We should, never forget the horror perpetrated on one people by another. We should be on guard for the next time someone tries to perpetrate such a horrible scheme (as undoubtedly someone will.) THE OTHERS' PLIGHT Yet if we remember the plight of the Jews in Europe, why don't we remember equally the plight of the hundreds of "thousands who were wiped out in seconds, minutes and slow, painful hours at Hiroshima and Nagaski? Their's is an equally horrifying story. Some of those people who,Aid survive still bear the scars, • both physically and, psychically or those horrifying days in 1945. Could it be that we haven't dealt with,the reality of the.' Atomic bombings of ,two Japanese cities the way we've dealt with Pearl Harbour or the Holocaust because we aren't the victims but the perpetrators for a change? Could it be that the Americans, who have 'collie to terms with their own guilt feelings about the Vietnam wars have never been able. to handle the guilt when they think of what happened, at Hiroshinia: Could it be that the whole reality Of an atomic blast is too much for us to deal with? ' • , WE NEED TO BE REMINDED • *We 'need to be reminded of the real horror of an atomic explosion. We know in the back of our minds that nuclear 'warfare is unthinkable but after 3.0' years of living with the possibility if tends to numb us to the point we forget =what it' really • would Mean. All the people of the world should know just what those bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did to real - people, to real homes and hospitals. They need to know the pain and suffering that went on. Only if we keep remembering the horror of people experiencing a real atomic 'attack will we keep hammering at our leaders to make sure it doesn't happen again. .We can't afford to be complacent about war any more. More and more countries possess the power to do what was done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. War isn't a school yard fist-fight over hurt pride or spoiled honour any more. It isn't a battle between knights on horseback. It isn't even the horror of trench warfare of . the first World War or' the Blitzkrieg of the Second. Another war just may be the war to end all wars. People keep asking me if I have any plans for the rest of the summer, such as going on a trip, renting a cottage, learning to scuba-dive or whatever. To each and all of them I have one answer: "I'm going into a rest home where nobody under the age of 50 can get near me." We've just had a lengthy visit from our grandboys, the first in more than six months. If you have any druthers when your children are expecting children, put in an application for girls. There is no girl or girls on earth who could have put their Grandad through the physical obstacle course I've been through in the past week. When school ended in June, I thought I'd hang around for one mote year before making way for a real teacher. I was in pretty good shape and another 10 months in front of. the chalkboard would be no sweat. This week, I've almost decided to retire on the third of September. Somehow, I don't think either the authorities or the students want an English department head cranking around in a wheel chair. The bursitis in my shoulder is killing me, after throwing a baseball to a potential Babe Ruth for hours. My right foot is bruised, battered and sprained from trying to prove I can still kick a football over a big spruce tree. My knees are scraped, my hands are raw, my torso is thoroughly pierced from climbing trees to bring down small boys who can get up, but like cats, can't get down. My back door had to be removed and repaired after being slammed approx- imately 3,000 times by the boys and their buddies up the street. My face is burned to lobster-like hue from being out in the sun as long as seven hours at a stretch. The boys never burn. They're moving too quickly for the sun to hit them a single direct blow. I don't know much about girls. I had one about 28 years ago, and she was no problem until she became a teenager. The only idiosyncracy she had was wanting to go to the bathroom at the most inopportune times, such as sailing along on the three-lane highway at 60, with two turkeys tail-gating you, and not a tree or bush in sight. But I'm sure girls are not as curious, daring and dicey as small boys, who want to climb as high as possible, lean as far as they can over a dock or, cliff, and hit each other as hard as they can over the head with a fist, a stick or a baseball bat Do little girls get all cleaned up, dressed up, and thery .dash through the lawn sprinkler immediately and frequently? Do little girls go down to the docks with you, ask how deep the water is, then lean over at an angle of 65 degrees to look down and make sure you're not prevaricating? Do little girls eat junk food all day, then come home and gobble down enough dinner to keep a healthy lumberjack going? Do little girls plague you because everyone else on the highway is passing you, and when you tell them the other drivers are turkeys, suggest with a grin that maybe you are a chicken? Do little girls put on boxing gloves and try ,to hammer the daylights out of each other, no quarter asked or given? Do little. girls, the moment they've arrived 'for a visit, ask that everything be turned on: the fireplace (in July), the hi-fi, the fans, and the lawn sprinkler? Do little girls go from six in the morning Until nine at night without stopping in one place for more than nine seconds, aside - from the odd four-second pee demanded by Grandad? Well, maybe little girls are not as angelic as I've suggested, but little boys are just as demonic as I've intimated. In fact, my wife heard at the hair- dresser's that little boys are more honest, more affectionate and more lovable than littlegirls, who of course, are practising to he big girls. That may be. However, I'm about as bruised, battered bewildered and burnt at though I'd' climbed a mountain without any ropes, or crossed a desert without water. Gran doesn't take the punishment I do. Oh, she does a lot of work. The washing machine is thumping most of the day, there isn't a dry towel in the house, she's about run out of Band-Aids, and she spends hours in the kitchen, whipping up such delicacies as honey-and-peanut butter sandwiches and strawberry shortcake. (Guess who picks the berries?) She had a whirl in the backyard one day, batting, fielding, being shot with the hose, did nobly, but hasn't been out of the house since, and spent most of the next day in bed. Thank goodness for good neighbors. John "fixeded' the car doors when the boys, through some miracle of mechanics, had made it impossible to close them. He also "fixeded" the sprinkler. (Ballind, the little guy, wants to make sure the past tense is quite clear, so he adds an extra "ed"). Jim, another neighbor, fixeded the door, which was just about to fly away by itself.' MI in all, however, it hasn't been too bad, except for the sleeping arrangements. The boys are peripatetic while somnam- bulant: You go to bed in one room, idone, wake up at midnight in another bed, another room, three of you, and may wind up in the morning in still anotheri four of you. .I wouldn't trade them for all the Samantha., and Mary Mem and Joanne% in the world. But make me an offer.