Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1981-11-18, Page 2519-887-6641 Published at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning by McLean Bros. Publishers Limited A Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher Evelyn Kennedy, Editor WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1981 Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of, Circulation. $13 a year 40 cents a single copy Authorized as second class mail by Canada Post Office. Registration Number 0562. .w.77 Brussels os ...\-1872 russels Pt \.....BRUSSELS Established 18 72 Box 50, - Brussels, Ontario NOG 1 HO Serving Brussels and the surrounding community United we stand Brussels is trying once again to form some type of business organization. A venture that succeeded once before, then failed because of a continual lack of interest is attempting a comeback. Now that Brussels has more new merchants on the street who are interlested in seeing the village improve from the standpoint of making it attractive both to the people who 'live here and to visitors from other communities, it might just put some new blood back into a business organization. Some people are worried that, this organization might fold just like it has in the past. If that's what we're worried about, we should be looking at other communities, like Blyth, Seaforth and Wingham where such ventures have been successful. Perhaps they could show us how to avoid the mistakes that cause the downfall of business organizations. If you're one of those who was frustrated with the way things were running before, come to the meetings and state what improvements you think could be made. Of pourse, belonging to any organization puts you in a "you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't situation" people do want this community to be attractive and to attract a lot of business to the downtown, but sometimes they would rather just complain to the first person they see, rather than inquire gently about a problem and then try to help clear it up themselves with the help of others. Brussels can improve its appearance so that it does live up to its title of the prettiest village in Ontario but it will require tne co-operation of the` business people and the community. To the editor: MS Society needs help REMEMBRANCE DAY SERVICE — The color party stood in respectful silence as wreaths were laid in honour of those who fought in the First and Second World Wars at a service at the Brussels cenotaph on Wednesday. (Photo by Ranney) Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley We've changed On Wednesday, November 25th, the Huron County Unit of the Multiple Sclerosis Society will hold a general meeting at the Vanastra Recreation Centre. This unit was formed only last year, and while the initial meeting was well attended, subsequent meetings failed to attract any interest. The Huron County unit is struggling. It has been kept alive only through the efforts of four people in Wingham, and now they arc wondering if the effott-has been worth it. If the Upcoming general meeting, fails to draw people willing to work and make the unit a true 'Huron County Unit', it will fold. MS is an unusual, debilitating disease. The cause has not been pin-pointed, hence there is no cure. Yet its effects are well documented ranging from the mildest form with no impairment to the most severe requiring institutional care. In this the International Year of Disabled Persons, it shouldn't be too much to ask that people be willing to help their neighbour. The Executive of the Huron County Unit of the M.S. Society. There has been a tremendous change in the manners and mores of Canada in the past three decades. This brilliafft thought came to me as I drove home from work today and saw a sign, ina typical Canadian small town: "Steakhouse and Tavern." Now this didn't exactly knock me out, alarm me, or discombobulate me in any way. I am a part of all that is in this country, at this time. But id did give me a tiny twinge. Hence my opening remarks. I am no Carrie Nation, who stormed into saloons with her lady friends, armed with hatchets, smashed open (what a waste) the barrels of beer and kegs of whiskey. I am no Joan of Arc. I don't revile blasphemers or hear voices. I am no Pope John Paul II, who tells people what to do about their sex lives. I am not even a Joe Clark. I am merely an observer of the human scene, in a country that used to be one thing, and has become another. But that doesn't mean I don't have opinions. I have nothing but scorn for the modern "objective' journalists who tell it as it is. They are hyenas and jackals, who fatten on the leavings of the "lions" of our society, for the most part. Let's get back on topic, as I tell my students. The Canadian society has roughen- ed and coarsened to an astonishing degree in the last 30 years. First, the Steakhouse and Tavern. As a kid working on the boats on the Upper Lakes, I was excited and a little scared when Isaw that sign in American ports: Duluth, Detroit, Chicago. I came from the genteel poverty of Ontario in the Thirties, and I was slightly appalled, and deeply attracted by these signs: the very thought that drink could be publicly advertis- ed. Like any normal, curious kid, I went into a Couple, ordered a two-bit whiskey, and found nobody eating steaks, but a great many people getting sleazily drunk on the same. Not the steaks. In those days, in Canada, there was no such creature. The very use of the word "tavern" indicated iniquity. It was an evil place. We did have beer "parlours," later exchanged for the euphemism "beverage rooms." But that was all right. Only the lower element went there, and they closed from 6 p.m. to 7:30, or some such, so that a family man could get home to his dinner: Not a bad idea. In their homes, of course, the middle and upper class drank liquor. Beer was the working-man's drink, and to be shunned, It was around then that some wit reversed the old saying, and came out with: "Work is the curse of the drinking class," a neat conversion of Marx's(?) "Drink is the curse of the working classes." If you called on Someone in those misty days, you were offered a cuppa and something to eat. Today, the host would be humiliated if he didn't have something harder to offer you. Now, every hamlet seems to have its steakhouse, complete with tavern. It's rather ridiculous. Nobody today can afford a steak. Bu t how in the living world can these same' people afford drinks, at current prices? These steakhouses and taverns are usually pretty sleazy joints, on a par with the old beverage room, which was the epitome of sleaze. It's not all the fault of the owners, though they make nothing on the steak and 100 per cent on the drinks (minimum). It's just that Canadians tend to be noisy and crude and profane drinkers. And the crudity isn't only in the pubs. It has crept into Parliament, that august institution, with a prime minister who used street language when his impeccable English failed, or he wanted to show how tough he was. It has crept into our educational system, where teachers drink and swear and tell dirty jokes and use language in front of wo, men that I, a product of a more well-mannered, or inhibited, your choice, era, could not bring to use myself. And the language of today's students, from Grade one to Grade whatever, would curl the hair of a sailor,a nd make your maiden aunt grab for the smelling salts. Words from the lowest slums and slummiest barnyards create rarely a blush on the cheek of your teenage daughter. A graduate of the depression, when people had some reason to use bad language, in sheer frustration and anger, and of a war in which the most common four-letter word was used as frequently, and absent-mindedly, as salt and pepper, have not inured me to what our kids today consider normal. Girls wear T-shirts that are not even funny, merely obscene. As do boys. Saw one the other day on an otherwise nice lad' Message: "Thanks, all you virgins -"for nothing." The Queen is a trump. God is a joke. The country's problems are somebody else's problems, as long as I get mine. I don't deplore. I don't abhor. I d'on't implore. I merely observe. Sadly. We are turning into a nation of slobs. Short Shots Continued from page 1 parade and the committee in charge hope it will be bigger and better than ever. Do you plan to enter a float? Prepare to do so and do your bit to make Brussels Santa Claus Parade something to talk about, ***** Ottawa Roughriders did what most of the experts predicted they could' not do. They defeated the Hamilton TiCats for the Eastern CFL title. Next Sunday they meet the Western Champion Edmonton Eskimos. Can they win the big one-- The Grey Cup game? We will just haVe to wait and hope they can.