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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1981-06-03, Page 2lUltf S 'Y'?#:°;dI :.!”*.' I.' 11#4$11SW''r V i13,181*4,t' OrYP • '4' ,..rAccEAM -4-7VAA*Ao; Cfn,41.,411*#. k7., kY14~Mllp,lk4•.1,11Yis 1872 Brussels Post „ BRUSSELS Box 50, Brussels, Ontario Established 1872 519-887-6641 NOG 1H0 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Confusion Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher Evelyn Kennedy, Editor WEDNESDAY; JUNE 3, 1981 Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of Circulation. Subscription rates: Canada $12 a year (in advance) outside Canada $25 a year (in advance) Single copies - 30 cents each Authorized as second class mail by Canada Post Office. Registration Number 0562. Published at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning by McLean Bros. Publishers Limited Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston It's old fashioned to give a damn Old-fashioned at 34. What a heck of a thing to have to say about yourself. It's true. • I'm about as antique as a Model T Ford (though nobody's lining up with money offering to re- store me like they would an antique car). I mean I've always know that I wasn't really with it.(see, even that, "with it" is very out, "trendy" is in), but I feel so muchlike a dinosaur when I look at the rest of the populace. The feeling 'came back the other even ing as I read an article in Saturday Night .magazine by Sandra Gwyn. Now if Ms. Gwyn is a trend-setter, I may be in for better days. Somehow, though, I think that both Ms. Gwyn and I are out in left field watching the rest of the world race by. The writer was dealing with the North-South dialo- gue, the attempt to get the rich nations of the world to take a look at the necessity of distributing the wealth of the planet more fairly. Now this is not exactly a subject that is taken very seriously these days. When our Prime Min- ister took off a few months back to try to build a bridge between the rich and poor nations, to help get discuss- ion going at least, many at home in Canada said it was only something to get people's minds off the hor- rible economic mess at home Others loudly suggested that he should be staying home trying to keep his own count- ry together instead of galla- vanting around the globe at our expense. Others claimed he was trying to create a job - for himself when he finally retires. The point is, you see, that this business of bringing rich, and poor nations together isn't something to be taken seriously. It's very old fash- ioned, part of the fifties when Mike Pearson was making Canada international "good guy" with our peace, force work and other international work, or part of the sixties when idealism flowered in the youth rebellion and people dared to dream of a better world. Mike Pearson is dead and the flower child- ren's better world is a re- novated townhouse in Cab- bagetown i in Toronto with a Jaccu7i: in the bathroom and a Mercedes in the garage. BAD GUYS? There was even a few years ago, an article in a prominent publication that expressed exasperated dis- gust at this desire of Canad- ians to be seen as the good guys. Why not be like the Americans and not give a damn what people thought of us internationally, it asked. As Ms. Gwyn points out, Canadians have turned in- ward, inward on themselves, satisfying an ever-increasing demand for more material- istic goodies in their lives, and inward on their country, worrying about every little squabble, every bit of Fad economic news. We have convinced ourselves that we are severaly deprived if our income doesn't increase at a faster rate than inflation every year. Even the so- called humanists of the New Democratic Party make it seem that Canadians face starvation in the next 24 hours if the government doesn't come up with some miraculous economic cure. CULTURE SHOCK In the Saturday Night arti- cle Iona Campagnola, who did work for the international agency CUSO after she got knocked out of politics, talks about 'her visit to the Camb- odian refugee camps in Thai- land where people killed flies, . collected them and mixed them with their rice to get more food value. "The real culture shock wasn't anything I saw out in Thai- land," Ms. •Campagnola said. "Not the flies, or the gunfire, or not having a bath, or nearly stepping on a viper. The real culture shock was coming back here, where everyone is so smug and self-satisfied and self- - centered." There doesn't seem to be much hope of things chang- ing on a vast scale. Our tempo of life is so ruled by American dominance that the influence of Ronald Rea- gan who is planning cutbacks in already meagre U.S. for- eign aid is likely to turn Canadians even more , in- ward. There is some hope how- ever, according to Ms. Gwyn's article. The very fact that the Prime Minister of Canada is interested in a subject sends waves through the Canadian Bureacracy. People once ingnored be- come people to listen to because the Prime Minister is listening to them. Agenc- ies that have been ignored like the Canadian Internat- ional Development Agency (CIDA) suddenly take on new importance (the fact that they have been ignored must also be blamed on the Prime Minister). There is hope then that :this old-fashioned farm boy who grew up with the idea that Mike Pearson was an international Hero, who ac- cepted the idealism of the sixties if not the drugs and war protests, might end up being at .the beginning of a trend instead of the end. Here's hoping, for the world's sake. Life is often confusing, occasionally amusing. If you can't cope with the confusion and enjoy the amusement, you're in bad shape. A couple of weeks ago, when we had to change the clock, I managed to confuse and amuse myself at the same time. On the Sunday night, I dutifully moved the clocks ahead, an hour, following that old aphorism about changing from Daylight to Standard and vice versa. I'll give it to my faithful readers, especially those who turn the hands in the wrong direction and arrive at church an hour early or at, work an hour late. It is "Spring forward; fall back." And that has saved many a muddle since the days when I used to do what I've described above. Well, that's what I did. At least I thought I did. On the Sunday night, I set my alarm clock an hour ahead, and was on time for work, with my usual four seconds to spare. But the next night, Monday, got confus- ing. I fell asleep after dinner, as us seniles so often do. I woke up. My wife had gone to ' bed, probably in disgust. I checked the clock in the house. First call was my alarm clock.. It had stopped at twelve noon, and it was pitch dark outside, so I knew that was wrong. I don't have a watch, so I couldn't check that. Then I checked the two electric clocks, one up, one downstairs. They were the same. The horrible suspicion, lurked in my mind. Had I really moved those two ahead on' Sunday night? Had my wife expected me to do it, and not done it herself, which she. should have done? I could have wakened her and asked her. She also has a watch. Does one waken a sleeping crocodile, even if it has a watch, to ask the true time and have it say, "Hold out your wrist"? 1 decided to use that great gift of mankind- reason. I switched on the TV set, and there was Knowlton Nash blatting away about something or other. Mr. Nash, as you may remember, delivers the CBC News every night at eleven. Except in Newfound- land. Bing on. Reason had once more prevailed over panic. I knew it was between .11 p.m. and 11.20 when they seem to run out of news. Easy in my mind, rather proud of my logic, I set all the clocks for 11:15 p.m. which seemed safe, and went to bed. When my alarm went off, it seemed rather dark out, "Oh well, one of those gloomy days," I reckoned. Had my breakfast; read the paper. But something seemed strange and out of kilter. To the editor: If the latest unconfirmed report from UFO headquarters could be unscrambled, it might read something like this: "Stand by." Something weird is going on down there. Another new game is being popularized.They call it bugging. Everybody gets into each other's hair (if they have any or not), singly or collectively. All are enslaved to greed, continually destroying their one and only life-supporting environment, all in the name of progress. Stop. The real freak of nature has just been identified and confirmed. Stop." I am thinking of the developed world in .particular where good stewardship and conservation has been replaced by expan- sion and exploitation; the net result being an accumulated mess of problems the whole world finds difficult to cope with. Man's assumption that "nature exists Checked my neighbours. No light showing and they're early risers. Checked the street outside. No cars streaming by, no reluctant students plodding off to school. Began to have a horrible inkling, whateyer an inkling is: A few cars began to apear. Finally a school bus, either very early or very late. Still no students stolidly marching up that hill to the Big School at the Top. When it was 8:30 by my clocks, I decided to make a move. Put out the garbage. Not another garbage-putter-out in sight. Got out the car and drove to work. Nobody in sight, Either I was an hour late for work, or an hour early. I'm just terrified of losing my job, as you can imagine, so finally I arrived at the school. Three cars there, instead of 300. The night watchman let me in. It was five minutes to eight in the a.m. It was only then that I realized my inkling had been bang on. I had put myself on double-Daylight time. All the clocks were two hours ahead of what they'd been last Sunday. It wasn't soo bad. Now I know what freaks those people are who get up early and get to work half an hour ahead of time. My assistant department head walked in at 8:30 and fainted dead away when she saw me sitting there, perfectly groomed, chafing to get started, indeed, already yawning a'bit. By 4 p.m. the ass of my pants was dragging on the ground, 1 could have used a cane, there was a special meeting 1 couldn't avoid, and they carried me out to an ambulance at 5:30. By the time I got home, my-chest was heaving rythmically, my eyes were tightly shut and I was sucking my thumb and searching around with the other hand for my security blanket. 'My wife was all out of kilter, because she, too, had been on super-Daylight Saving Time. She'd had lunch at 11 a.m. dinner at 5 p.m. wondering where I'd. got to, ,and was ready for evening snack at 7 p.m. The only thing that really disturbed me was that someone, in the general confusion, realized it was column Day. They had to give me amphetamines to wake me up, hoist me into a chair with a block and tackle to write this, prop my eyelids open with broken toothpicks, and then give me Great News. "Tonight is the night we do the income tax, dear, because tomorrow is one day too late." I think I'll move the clocks one more hour ahead and do the income tax return tomorrow, commencing at 5 a.m. And I'm going to strangle Knowlton Nash for appearing on a 10 p.m. show. solely to serve mankind" must be rejected is, he is serious about perpetuating his own kind'. The combined pl ant life, marine and wild life constantly and instinctively recycles and conserves to build a more habitable habitat for all, including us. I don't want to discriminate or sound like a religionist, but facts are facts. Ecology, laws are found throughout the Old Testament, the Karma of Buddists, the Koran of Hinus, the Reciprocity of Confucists. Yet the' peoples of the developed world have almost shameless- ly made this planet less habitable than all other religions combined. When the early Christian fathers viewed this life on earth 'as "a vale of tears with the better things to come in the world beyond," that must have had a profoundly negative effect on the man-nature relationship. W. Stephan Listowel The real freak of nature Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Two waves swept over me the other day. No, I wasn't on the beach at Waikiki of Monaco or even such plebeian places as Florida, California or Mexico, which are now frequented by us common people. And no, I wasn't drowned, as I know you were hoping. (Two waves. Maybe we won't have to listen to Smiley's blathering any more.) I can swift' like an aging, arthritic , seal, and it would take more than two Waves to do me in. The first wave came when someone announced at school that the price of pop in cans were going up by a nickel. I was swept by a Wave of nostalgia for the days when pop was a nkkel. And then came the second wave, one of ' revulsion, as t realized what inflation had done, not only to pop, which is irrelevant to a decent life, but to many another cherished aspect of our daily living. • Being swept: by two waves of Strong emotion is not an easy thing to cope with, and I had to fight off students who crowded around; saying: "Aie you alright; Sir? Can we get you a Coke or something? (They'd never think Of a stiff Scotch). Maybe he's had a stroke and we'll get a day off." And so on. A moving experience. But I was so upset by the twin waves that all day I kept calling Shakespeare George, Bernard Shakespeare and Dylan, Thomas, Bob Dylan. My students didn't know the Bob so it didn't really matter. That night, however, I looked back on the Please turn to page 16