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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1981-12-30, Page 2Published at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning by McLean Bros. Publishers Limited. Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher Evelyn Kennedy, Editor WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1981 Memoer 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. 4%4', 11:1.4SOMile&•441.41.1.-•,11, m t 1. t• ,872 Bitaissels Pos BRUSSELS r Box 50, Brussels, Ontario Established 1872 519-887-6641 NOG 1 HO Serving Brussels and the surrounding community Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston Another year ONTO Let's keep Brussels moving Another year has passed. Some of the noteworthy news events that took places in Huron County were: The election of Murray Elston as the New Huron-Bruce M.P.P. after Murray Gaunt announced he would net seek re-election. Ontario Premier Bill Davis visited Huron County and was interviewed on CKNX, Wingham. Bill Bramah of Global TV interviewed some local residents.. Both Morris and Grey Township celebrated their 125th birthdays, with Morris holding an especially big party which brought lots of people into Brussels and the surrounding area. And in. September, the Brussels Legion celebrated its 50th anniversary, bringing a number of people to the area. It was a good year fcir Brussels to do business and people made the most of it. What will-1982 bring? Although the forecast for the economy looks gloomy no doubt the people of Brussels will pick themselves up as they always have. For one thing, the merchants are looking at how the downtown area can be improved for both those who live here and these people from outside•of Brussels. They've talked about promotional ideas to get more people shopping in the village whether the economy slows down or not there will always be people in Brussels who are interested in seeing that things keep moving in this community. Let's keep it that way. It's the end of the old year, the beginning of the new and traditionally we make pledges about the thin& we would like to change next year. There are so many things in this world that need to be changed that we have plenty of scope for resolutions. But what can we do to resolve the many vast problems of this world. We feel so small, so impotent. What good is it for us to expend so much of our energy for such few results. We might as well stay home and watch television. The most recent issue of Harrowsmith magazine contains a marvellous story, one of the kind we need to hear now and then to restablish our faith in mankind. The story takes place in the area of southern France south of the Alps and north of the resorts of Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo. This area, however, had neither the beauty of the ski-resort areas of the Alps or the glamour of the Riveiera. When the story begins just before the First World War the area is a grim place. The story teller, one Jean Giono was on a walking trip through the area, over the mountains. This area south of the Alps was little more than desert, barren and colourless where nothing grew but lavender plants. The villages and homes were mostly deserted and those people who still remained were grim, cheerless people living in hovels trying to scratch a living from the rough land. The hiker ran out of water and had walked for five hours without finding any springs or rivers that hadn't dried up. Finally he came upon a shepherd with about 30 sheep who welcomed him, gave him water and later took him to his home for the night. Despite the harsh conditions the shepherd kept a neat, tidy house, ate well, dressed well and lived far beyond the lifestyle of other inhabitants in the region. He just didn't talk much. He had been alone so much that he didn't feel the need to talk: While the visitor was with the shepherd after the supper had been made, the dishes washed and put away and all the work for the day done, the shepherd pulled out a bag of acorns and began to sort them out until he picked out 100 perfect acorns and went to bed. The next day the hiker learned what the shepherd was up to. Using an iron rod )16 carried as a stick, the shepherd spent part of his day while the sheep were grazing in the valley below, planting the 100 acorns on a ridge of land. The hiker asked who owned the land but the shepherd didn't know. Under persistent questioning, the shepherd told the hiker that he had started planting the acorns three years ago. In that time he had planted 100,000 acorns of which 20,000 sprouted and grew of which he expected a further 10,000 to be killed off by one reason or another, Still there would be 10,000 oak trees to grow in an area where nothing ,else grew. The man explained that he had lost both his wife and his son, and now took his comfort from his sheep and dog. He had thought the area suffered for lack of trees so decided to do something about it. He was also starting a nursery where he was growing beech tree seedlings from beech, nuts and he was thinking of planting birch trees in the valley. The hiker left the shepherd and a year later was at war. After the war he returned to the area and found much of the area the same except that on the ridge the trees were taller than either man and the shepherd, who was now keeping only a few sheep but had started bee hives, was still planting. The treed area was 11 kilometers long and three kilometers at its greatest width. There were beech trees as high as the shoulder and clumps of birch in the valley. There was water flowing in the brooks that had been dry as far as the memory of everyone in the area. By now the wind was carrying seeds that replanted themselves. Hunters were coming to the area to hunt game that had been unknown years before. It had happened so gradually that everyone thought it had happened by nature, although forestry experts were baffled by such a phenomenon. The hiker went back several times but the last was following the Second World War. He found a country unbelievably different than the one he had first visited. The village he had seen then filled with grim people was now several times larger, filled with happy, friendly people and children. There were farms settled among the groves of trees. Water was plentiful. The area was beautiful to the eye. The hiker estimated that some 10,000 people owed their happiness to the work of one man. He was still alive, now 87 years old. All during the war he had gone on planting trees. He had moved 30 kilometers from his original plantation to continue his work. And no one, outside of the hiker and a friendly forestry official the hiker brought to see the shepherd, knew who was responsible , for the vast changes in the area. That shepherd, Elzeard Bouffier who died in a French hospital in 1947 knew something that most of us refuse to see. We each have the power to make the world a little better place even if we have no money, no resources outside ourselves. We can learn much from him. I wish I were. . • • • Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Sometimes, when.my family gets particul- arly active, another word for manipulative, I wish I were a crusty old bachelor, living in a shack up north somewhere, smoking my pipe, reading my old favorites, communing with nature and quietly and philosophically facing the only sure thing in this world; death. These moods 'don't last long, and they are not indicative of deep depression. I'm not a wrist-slitter or a pill-taker. I'm just a poor old guy, slogging away at his daily chores, caught in the web of a nutty family. My daughter, after eight years of alternat- ing between having ,babies, collecting de- grees, and moving from one sleazy place to another, seemed to have reformed. A little over two years ago, she' got a job, teaching in Moosonee, one of the armpits of Canada. But the money was good, she enjoyed her work, and she swore, "I'm never going to be poor again." That sounded pretty good to me, having bailed her out on half a - dozen occasions and spent a goodly few thousand on tuition fees, living expenses, baby presents and such. She was offered a department head's position, accepted it, and seemed ready for another year in the north. Three weeks later she informed uS that she was quitting the teaching game, moving to Hull, Quebec, and looking for a job. Three months later, she's poor again, and hasn't a job. That's about standard in our family. My son is equally impervious to the fact that we live in a capitalist society. Perhaps that's not quite accurate. But he doesn't exactly ooze with the work ethic. He's not afraid of work, but he's an idealist. That; and 40 cents, will buy you a cup of coffee in this country. At present, he works two nights a week as a waiter in a classy restaurant. Makes good, money, but working more at that would cramp his other life. On the side, he treats people with reflexology, a type of massage, at $25 a rattle. So he's not broke. But he rents a piano, takes lessons in music composition and jazz, and recently forked out $500 for a course in healing people. All he wants is about ten thousand bucks to go back to Paraguay, buy some land, build a centre for the dissemination of Ba-ha-i and healing by natural methods. When he has money, he blows it. Expensive gifts (to hiaparents long-distance calls, but buys his clothes at second-hand shops. Recently gave us a beautiful book, and a week later applied (to us) for a $300 loan, interest to be paid. He was "a little short." Only after the cheque was written and gone did we find out what for: to visit an old friend in a hospital in New Jersey. I wept a little, but not for long. I'm insured. One thing about Hugh. He brings us interesting guests. The last one was a diviner, 84 years old, as spry as a cricket, and full of either super-sensitivity of you-know- what. This octogenarian's name is Campbell. I never got his second name because he never stopped talking or divining. He'd brought his divining-rod with him,. and went dowsing around the house. He discovered that there were six streams flowing under our house, sending off radiation that was making my wife insomniac. Immaculately dressed, he'd flop on the floor in his expensive gray flannel suit, assure us that you had to sleep with your head to the east, leap up, and do some more drowsing. Claimed he could find water, minerals (oil for all I know). Then he and Hugh went out and - pounded stakes into the ground at strategic spots around the house, to destroy the radiation (I think.) Campbell was in both world wars, slogged it out on a prairie farm in the depression, worked in mining, and is all set to take off with Hugh for Paraguay, "just for the hell of it." He's a little deaf in one ear, a little blind in one eye, and just plain little, about five feet six. But he's full of ginger and has more interest in life than the average .16 year old. Then, of course, there's my wife. Time and again she has laid it on the line: "No more money to those kids. They've been bleeding us for years." Then comes a woeful phone call of a down-in-the-mouth letter, and all her resolut- ion filet out the window. Or down the phone line. She thinks nothing of 5100 a month iong-distance bills, when the "kids", 34 and 30, need help. Last weekend she phoned my daughter three times, told her she was coming to visit, to take her out to dinner, to take her to a super hair-dresser, and to buy her a new wardrobe. Then she asked me if I could scratch up a grand. And I don't mean a grand piano. We have one of those. And yet I hope she carried out her promises (threats?). It would be worth a cool thousand, which I don't have, to get the old lady off my back for a week, buck up my daughter's morale, .improve the grandboys' manners, and crash the daughter into a job as head of the CBC or something, which my wife is not incapable of doing when she gets rolling. Just today comes a letter from a nephew in Costa Rica, telling me his mother's estate is' still not settled, even after my intervention, and that he thinks he's being screwed by a Toronto lawyer, who refuses to answer the boy's letter. So I have to dig into that one and do some bullying or threatening. My Uncle Ivan is still the patriarch of the family, at 90. They say I look just like him. I don't want to be the patriarch of the family. I just want to be a crusty old bachelor, etc., etc.