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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1981-12-09, Page 2Brussels Post 4.4 enussas/r Established 1872 519.887-5641 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community Published at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning by McLean Bros. Publishers Limited A BoX 50, Brussels, Ontario NOG 11-10 Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher Evelyn Kennedy, Editor WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1981 Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of, Circulation. eiA $13 a year 40 cents a single copy Authorized as second class mail by. Canada Post Office. Registration Number 0562. My son the juggler Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Thanks, folks Have you noticed the latest improvement on Brussels main street --- the addition of Christmas lights, which add a cheerful atmosphere to the downtown area at night. The people to be thanked for this are some members of Brussels' new business organization who spent time putting in new lights where others had burnt out and then attaching them to the poles last Thursday night. The business organization is also busy working on other improvements such as trying to get the Export Packers building torn down and calling in Roman Dzus from the planning department and architect Nick Hill to show them what could be done to try and improve and downtown core area. With a new, interested group of people trying to make things better for downtown core area. With a new, interested group of people trying to make things better for downtown Brussels and with the enthusiasm they have shown, the business organization should go far. There is nothing less common in this world than common sense. How else do you explain how some people can package common sense in a new wrapper of buzz words and sell it back to us as the expensive product of consultant services? I had the chance to listen to one of these consultants last week at a conference I attended. He's a man who makes a good living talking to leaders of government and industry telling them basically what they would already know if they weren't so wrapped up in their own day-to-day activities that they couldn't see ahead or backwards or to either side. Now I'm sure our expert, a "futurist" skilled at telling us what to expect in the future, didn't display his full repertoire for us at the meeting since we were concerned with only one small segment of the future (people's needs in recreation and culture) but what he did show though, couched in terms complicated enough that his message went right over some people's heads, was simply the old saying that history repeats itself, or another, there is nothing new under the sun. WHERE YOU'VE BEEN Our expert talked about looking at things in context, or his "contextual way of thinking" simply Saying that if you want to see where you're going you have to look where you've been. Taking a look at our economic future, for instance, he said that although few government officials or politic- ians will admit it yet in public, they agree that the days of four and five percent growth in our Gross Natidnal Product are gone. Such things are still heresay with the general . public, We have come to take rapid economic growth, annual increases in our standard of living, as our inalienable rights. But our expert, Reuban Nelson from Ottawa, pointed out that four or five percent growth was not normal. We see the current slow economic growth as out of whack When we compare it to the years since the Second World War when We enjoyed tterhenctous economic growth. However, look at econotn-. ic growth over a 100 year period and you'll see that our slow growth of less than two percent is normal, the fast growth of the last 30 years in the anomoly.- Remember too, he Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston points out, that those days of the late 1800s included the industrial revolution when fewer people were producing more goods than ever before. Likewise, he said, our population boom since World War Two is the first time since the 1600s that the birthrate has increased and therefore anyone who expected it to continue was shortsighted. LONGRANGE We need people like Reuban Nelson because too many of us get wrapped up in day-to-day life that we can't see the long range. Whe6 we were teenagers we were so busy trying to be part of the gang that we often didn't realize how Silly we looked in our fashions, how stupid we were in endangering our lives to prove that we were just as brave in driving our cars at high speeds, could drink just as much and do so many other stupid things. Most of us grow out of those particular short-sighted failings but Often we stay just as short-sighted in other things. We are often just as bound to fashion, both in dress and though, when we are in our twenties, thirties and beyond as we were when We were teenagers. We go to the fashionable clubs, and restaurants, read the fashionable books, watch the fashionable television programs, buy the fashionable clothes, decorate our homes In the fashion able way, work at fashionable jobs. Thinking "in context" is, I think a little easier in a place like Huron county than in say A large city like Toronto. For one thing, we in Huron county live with our sense of history. In a place that is More stable, where we can still see houses and stores built by Our grandparents and great grandparents; We are more likely to see things on a wider dime frame. We also live close to nature, seeing the Seakitis blend ohe to anoth co r, knowin ter g that surnther will surely beme e Win arid My son the juggler, Yes, he was able to "fit us in" for a visit last weekend. We were honored. It's not often that he can get home for about 30 hours. We see just a little more of him than we did when he was 8,000 miles away in Paraguay. I'll try to describe him objectively, then move to a more subjective point of view. He looks like his Dad, from behind, I've been told many times, Something about the tilt of the head, the way we walk. About the same height and build, though I'm thickening a bit about the waist, dammit, and the hair is a different colour, his brown, mine white. From in front, he's more like his mother, especially the brown eyes that can turn in seconds from misty sentimentality to a couple of orbs that literally burn when they hit you. In temperament, he's a good mixture of his parents. He has his father's sweet, gentle, reasonable manner and complete disdain for the trivia of life. And he has his mother's ferocious anger over the trivia of life, her compassion, her desire for perfection, her urge to talk until the very bones of a listener are exposed. Like me, he's lazy as a coon dog, but can work like an ordinary dog when it's something he's interested in. Like her, he wants to be loved, and to have it demonstrat- ed. We kiss and hug every time we meet, rather unusual in these days for a father and son, who usually shake hands and start talking about money and cars and other such fascinating things. He's also a product of his times: the sedate fifties, the roaring sixties, the confused seventies. No wonder he's a juggler. I called him that, because from one meeting to the next, I'm not quite sure which balls (nopun intended) he's throwing up and catching. And sometimes failing to catch. winter melt into summer again, that things are ever changing yet forever the same. MORE WRAPPED UP People in the city tend to get more wrapped up in today, with themselves. A fashionable New York writer wrote that if' she was anywhere else in the U.S. but New York, she wouldn't get her hair done until she got back to the city. Some people talk about having a wine that isn't up to snuff as if it could be fatal. When I used to live in the city in the age of the mini-skirt, girls would have purple knees and thighs rather than be unfashionable. All this while people in the world are starving,, while making"our good life of today may be mortgaging our future. The lack of "context", Mr. Nelson pointed out, led us to think we could just throw out what we didn't want, like industrial chemicals, sulphur in the air, and other pollutants. People never stopped to think that we live in a closed system, that everything goes around aid around and what you throw out today will have to be dealt with tomorrow. They were too far from their own history and from nature. Yet we're not guiltless here in Huron county either. It took a lot of pressure before some municipalities agreed to sewage treatment. A lot of farmers today aren't well enough aware of the dangers of liquid manure waste, of chemical sprays and fertilizers. Worse, With modern agricultural practices they are actually ruining the land that has fed us for More than a century. They have only to look to once fertile places of the world that are now wastelands through bad husbandry to see the consequences. Trouble, is, too few of us are willing to look until it's too late, or until some high-priced expert tells Ms what we should see for ourselves. Short. Shots Continued froin page 1 In the rush and scramble of preparations for Christmas here are a few safety precautions that should not be overlooked. If yott are hanging Christmas decorations do not stand on a chair or brass. Use a step ladder. Check strings of lights for frayed And I guess the reason he's a juggler is that he has a streak of adventure and audacity in him, which forces him into a continuous confrontation with things as they are. He was a model kid until about 16: good marks in school, polite behavior with adults, hair neatly cut, practised his piano, under pressure, but faithfully. Bandmaster in the school orchestra. Altar boy at the church. Then, one summer morning, he went missing. He was 16. There was a thoughtful note in the bread-box telling his parents he was taking off for Quebec to learn French. Panic. His Ma insisted I visit the police, who were rather amused. He was only about the sixteenth kid in our community who had taken off that summer. I wasn't too worried, but what goes on in a mother's heart? I don't know. I've never been a mother, except to my two kids and their mother. He came home. Spoke pretty good French. Finished high school, went off to college. Then disappeared again. Was on his way to New Orleans when we nailed him in Baltimore. Went to three different universi- ties, tasting and testing. Found them all wanting, at that particular time. Don't blame him. Regret the years I spend acquiring a knowledge of English and philosophy and history, all of which I could have got on my own. He travelled, all over Canada-east and west coasts, selling vacuum cleaners in Calgary, working as a waiter on coastal pleasure boats. Somewhere along the line, after he'd been to Mexico and the southern U.S., he became a Ba-ha-i. That meant he had to make a pilgrimage to Haifa, in Israel. Which he did, stopping off in Ireland on the way home. Then off to Paraguay for five years. The juggler? Right now, he's in Toronto. He is taking courses at the University in astrology, music composition, and playing jazz, He is an expert, or thinks he is, on occult literature. Speaking Spanish, French and English, he has a variety of friends and acquaintances that would boggle the mind. Young women_ old men, Brazilian waiters, blacks, French- Canadian playwriters. How does he support himself? Well, he works two days a week at a classy restaurant in the city as a waiter. And he is also a reflexologi:..t, and gets $25 a rattle for treatments. Reflexology? That's a system or probing and prodding your nerve ends to get rid of the pains and poisons in your body. He gave me a two hour treatment last Saturday morning, and I, (thinking I was in good shape) hurt so much that I would have given him $25 to quit. He'll keep you up until three a.m., talking, then either bounce out of bed at seven, insisting you go' for a walk, or sleep until noon. His mother had bought a roast, a rather rare occasion around our place these days, baked a pie with special love, and had all sorts of goodies ready for him. He was fasting, and had been for a week, taking only liquids. She was miffed. And, among all his juggling, he spends countless hours working at the Ba-Ha-i faith, attending meetings, speaking, etc. An interesting character, the juggler. Generous to a fault when he has some money. Completely unscrupulous about borrowing when he hasn't. But, boy oh boy, I wish he didn't get so angry when I can't tell him the exact minute and hour his sister was born, so he .could do her horoscope. cords or damaged sockets. Never leave tree lights on when you leave the house or go to bed, Keep fragile tree ornaments above the reach of toddlers so they cannot cluteh and crush theist Cutting themselves or swallow- ing the sharp fragments. Most of all do not overdo it. Take, time out to rest. Your family and guests would much rather see you relaxed arid ready to enjoy yourself than harried and exhausted with frantic preparat- ions. We need common sense