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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1972-11-22, Page 2ere ••••••••••••••,11...11...,......••••••••••", Sugar and Spice by Bill Smiley Occasionally, I succumb to a great disenchantment with life. At those times I feel that some days are bad, and all the others are badder. Yesterday was one of the badder ones. It began at 2 a.m., which I think anyone will agree is a bad time to start a day. I had the Gallipoli disease. It's called this for two reasons. First, it was rampant among the poor sods trying to capture Gallipoli in. World War I, when the Australians lost more men to dysentery than they did to Turks. Second, it keeps you galloping, back and forth, forth and back, until there's something like a tunnel between your bedroom and your bathroom. Eventually, you are so weak it's an effort to pick up a Kleenex and have a honk. Enough to make a bad day, you'd say. Oh, no. It had to be badder. That's the Way the gods work. When they single you out for a going-over, they're not going to be happy with a mere case of dire rear. After waiting for' months for me to organize some storm window work, my wife had finally got cracking, which she should have done ,in the first place, and hired two young men to take off and wash and put back the storm windows. Four of them had been removed last spring and sat in the patio all summer, ga- thering twigs and dead flies. The others had never come off. The windows, that is. Looking through them was like having a bad case of myopia. You could tell there was light coming through, but everything else was just a sort of blur. Anyway, she had hired two of the most unlikely window-washers in town, a couple of former students of mine. Personally, though I like the pair, I wouldn't hire them to dig a grave. For a cat. However, as they weren't on welfare or unemployment insurance at the time, they leaped at the opportunity. After they'd checked on the going rate and agreed it was adequate. Barely. Not that they were immature or any- thing . Oh, no. They'd done their Grand Tour of Europe. One had spent SIX weeks in jail in the Netherlands. They'd had four or five jobs Since, in such productive in- dustries as leatherwork and Making health food., well, they arrive to do the windows the day I am' altnost on bands and knees With - - the Gallipoli. Bright and early. Eleven a.m. All I want to do is crawl into bed and feel forsaken. No chance. A brisk ringing of the doorbell. "Well, here we are", cheerily. A groan from me. They had a long ladder borrowed from a long-suffering father. Nothing else. I guess they were going to pry the windows off and wash them with the ladder. My wife mustered cloths and cleaning fluid. I dug up a hammer and screw-driver, which took me many minutes and many oaths. They set to work, and I nearly had a nervous breakdown. I cowered in the living-room. They're right there at the windows, grinning cheerfully, smearing the dirt around on the panes. They need a step-ladder. Haul it up from the basement with the last possible ounce of strength. Retreat to the bedroom. There's one of them up there, perched on the ladder, shouting at me to whack the storm windows from the inside. I whack and shudder, waiting, cringing, for the sound of a sir- foot storm window shattering into tiny bits. Or the sound of the ladder crashing through the inside window. Or the thud of a body hitting the turf. Wonder whether I have insurance to cover, first, the glass, second, the body. No idea. This went on for a couple of hours. Shouts, imprecations, poundings. I was in a state of collapse and the old lady wasn't much better. I was wishing I'd gone to school, even on a stretcher. But I guess the gods, besides torment- ing people like me, look after those who need looking after. Neither of them fell, even as much as eight feet. They finished the job. And they were there, very business-like, for the cheque. They also had some terse remarks about the inade- quacy of our cleaning materials and we felt properly guilty. Try it some day when you have the Gallipoli and a couple of nitwits doing your storm windows. A badder day. But it wasn't over. I finally got to bed, whimpering with relief. My wife came in and said she's been talking to our daughter, who haS a great rip-off idea. She's going to Cuba, and has a plan; she'll write a couple of columns for me, free. All I have to do is pay her for them. Saddest. However, silver lining department. )3y staying at home, I had miSsed a three-and.-a-quarter hour staff meeting, which is an abomination on the face of the earth. So, all in all, maybe not stieh aba.d day, after all. • .sises Post r. WEPNREDA`G NOVEMBER lson Serving PrePeele , and. the . .44;1'904044 community published, each. 'Wednesday aftOrt1904 at Preesele,.. Ontario by -Mclean Srop f. Pe4ltehere 141rotted* Evelyn Kennedy Editor TOM Haley AdVerti$Ing. Member ,canadian. Community Newspaper Association and Ontario. Weekly IIPWpaper ASwp.ation.. Subscriptions PA 404nco) Canada $4,00 a. yeAr., Qthcrs $5.9Q a year, .Single copies 10 cents each. Second Glass retail Registration No,. 0562, Telephone 087.,064I, New election regulations Municipal elections across Ontario are being carried out under new rules this year. While the whole procedure will not be completed until December 4th when voting takes place, nomin- ations, the first step in the elec- tion pro*cess, ended last week. Perhaps it is too early to assess the success or otherwise of the new regulations under which nominations may be accepted over a period of several days and each nominee must be nominated by at least ten rate- payers. But one conclusion, at least, has emerged and that is that new laws cannot ensure a change in the atti- tude of ratepayers in their lack of concern as to what happens in their. municipality. In Seaforth a handful of people turned out for an information meet- ing when members of council and other bodies'reported on activities during the year. While the top three posit- ions were filled by acclamation, interest in positions on council was at such a low ebb that a second nom- ination is_necessary. However, an election to select two PUC Commis- sioners will take place. Similarily in Tuckersmith where major changes in the structure of the township are pending and where to an increasing extent there is a growing urbanization only sufficient people to fill the council positionS were nominated. There seemed to be no curiosity or even interest in the impact which new and large communi- ties will have on the agriculturally centered economy that for more than a hundred years has served the town- ship. However, just to indicate that con- clusions of any kind perhaps are pre- mature is the situation in Brussels. Not a single ratepayer - other than elected officials - turned up at a public meeting called to discuss the affairs of the village. Yet in the face of this apparent apathy when nominations had closed every elective position from Reeve to PUC Commis- sioners was being contested. "Oon't think of it as losing a daUghter,..think of it as gain- ing a soh."