HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1972-11-01, Page 2I
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by Bill Smiley
•
Sugar and Spice
VON'T L-EAD IN1 "TPNFFI OWS
fat•CCADEN7
•
.11/1414101P
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1972
PROWS
ONTARIO.
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community
published each wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by Mclean Bros. Publishers, Limited..
gvelyn Kennedy - Editor Tom Haley - Advertising
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association,'
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $4,00 a year, Others.
$5,00 a year, Single Copies 10 cents. each.,
Second class mail Registration No, 056?•
Telephone 887-6641.
'1"4447.1'Mts
VP.
.AW$
Impaired hunters deadly
ow. The,Qn
that thi
one man
gun bias
bird to
ger. Be
season e
other vi
fate bec
moose, r
eyes of
tario Safe
s season a
has been k
t because
the hunter
fore the c
nds, it is
ctims will
ause they
abbits or
the man wi
ty League notes
!ready at least
illed by a shot-
he looked like a
behind the trig-
urrent hunting
probable that
meet a similar
resemble deer,
other game in the
th the gun.
But one must stil
Ontario Safety Leag
paign to change the
drunken' hunters cou
and an eyesight tes
tory before a gun 1
It's quite obvious
pairment can be jus
when hunting as will
motor vehicle.
(St.Mary
At the present time, it is not an
offence to carry a firearm and hunt
while under the influence of alcohol
or drugs nor is sufficiently good
eyesight a stipulated criterion for
the issuance of a gun licence.
The provincial government has un-
doubtedly given outstanding leader-
ship in hunter Saf6ty training as
substantiated by the decreasing
number of hunting accidents since
this program becave mandatory. •
1 agree with the
ue in its •cam—
law so that
ld be charged
t is made manda
icence is issued.
that such im-
t as dangerous
le driving a
s Journal-Argus)
•
Canoeing in Canada
A couple of weeks ago, while I was
writing down the date on my attendance
pa d, I got a bit of a shock. It was October
13th. Then I realized it was Friday. Hey,
my anniversary!
On, a gloomy Friday the 13th of October
1944, I was shot down over Holland by
German flak, crash-landed in a. plowed
field and was taken prlsoner.
I've been a little leery of Friday the
13th ever since, but when it also falls in
October, as this year, I feel a distinct
chill and my first thought is that I should
have stayed in bed all day, with the covers
pulled over my head, to be safe from the
searching finger of fate.
It's ridiculous, of course. I don't
believe in black cats, walking under
ladders,' broken. mirrors, the number 13,
and all those old-wives' symbols of
bad luck.
Even so, I know some of my students
wondered why I taught all day, that day,
with both hands behind my back. What
they didn't know was that I had myfingers
crossed, both hands.
Well, now that a reasonable time has
passed and the sky hasn't fallen in,I can
look baCk on that day in 1944 ith no
more reaction than sangfroid, which, as
any Englishman knows, means bloody
cold, and I have one of those, so every-
thing, is fine.
In retrospect, that day was not an
unlucky, but a lucky one. At the time I
didn't think so. I had a date that night
with a smashing blonde in Antwerp, and I
was justly annoyed that the stupid war had
interfered with my social life. •
But looking back, it was one of the
luckiest days in my life. I still had a
miserable, often wretched experience to
go through. However, it was one of the
most interesting in my life
'
and I made
Some fine friends and saw a lot of strange
things.
Also, my Wing was losing from five to
a dozen pilots a week. My own squadron
of eighteen pilots had lost Dave Backhouse,
Johnny Rook, evraffy" Price "Dingle"
Be ll, and a week before I got it, one of
my tent-mates, Freddy Wakeman, was
killed. (A week after I got it, my other
tent-mate went down in flames.)
I had landed once with a bomb dang-
ling, another time with no flaps, no brakes
and thirty-six holes in my drcraft. So
it was just a matter of. time.
I wonder how many of you have had
the sate experience: believing that the
fates had singled you out for special
punishment, and discovering, much later,
that what seemed at the time a black
cloud was really a silver lining in dis-
guise.
Of course, the opposite can happen.
Ask some of my friends who thought it
was the luckiest day in their lives when
they stood in front of the preacher with
that gentle, sweet, understanding and
voluptuous young creature, and found
themselves twenty-five years later man-
acled to a fat, nagging shrew.
(I know , girls, it works both
ways. Don't tell me that that handsome,
charming young Adonis you stood up with
is really the same person as that pot-
bellied, bald bore you're living with now,
whose idea of a good chat is to rattle
his paper at you and grunt.)
But on the whole, life, except for those
few unfortunates, the born losers, seems
to even things out fairly.
Twenty-eight years ago tonight I was
pretty blue and miserable. After the
most inept escape attempt in the annals
of escape, I had been given a thorough
going over. and was lying in a box-car,
tied up, aching in every muscle and a
number of bones,' including my nose bone,
and shivering like a dog evacuating razor
blades:
For some reason, the Third Reich had
neglected to. install a heating system,
blankets and mattresses. The only way
I could recreate the experience to-night
Would be to go out and try to sleep on the
Moor of my garage , which is of the
wooden variety, with plenty of ventilat-
ion.
Equally faulty was the catering system.
There was nothing wrong with the
waiters, except that they carried guns
and wore big boots. But they were the
soul of courtesy, untying my hands at
each meal. It was the menu that was
lacking. Not much variety. One item,
and at some meals, not even one.
The washroom facilities Were 'rather
inadequate, toe. • But how many of you
have ever been tenderly helped down onto
a cinder embankment by a paratrooper,
,his around your waist,yours around his
shoulders, to go to the bathrooM? I
was dragging one leg.
It was good eXperietice. I learned
to love black bread, wurst and cabbage
soup. I discovered that a single boiled
potato, right out of the pot, was a dish
for the gods: I learned how much I could
take. And I learned to be thahkfUl for
exceedingly small mercies. Well worth
it.