HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1973-01-10, Page 2ESTABLISHED
1S7;
gBrussels Post
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1973
Serving BrusSels and the surrounding community
published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Bros. Publisher4, Limited.
Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Tom Haley - Advertising
.,Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and.
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Assoc.ation.
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada. $4.00 a year, Others
$5.00 a year, Single CopieS 10 cents each.
Second class mail Registration No. 0562.
Telephone 887-6641.
(Photo by Andy White)
Sugar and Spice
by Bill Smiley
We are reminded by an "Un-
churched editorial" which the United
Church of Canada- issues from time to
time that in 1906 federal legislation
made it criminal to work on Sunday.
It was an attempt in an admittedly
Christian country to suppress almost
all Sunday activities except church-
going.
The release goes on in these
words:
In today's pluralistic society
neither those who observe nor those
who make the laws would wish to
interpret them so narrowly. Much of
today's secular society has lowered
the emphasis on church-going but a
large percentage of that same secular
society would favor a'common day of
rest and recreation for all.
Despite this, observance of the
Lord's Day Act has been nibbled at
from all sides. You can shop for"
groceries,. see a movie, bet on a
horse, or ride a ferris wheel on the
Sabbath. The concern of those who
would continue to enforce the Lord's
Day act Is not for those who par-
ticipate in these activities, but
for those who must work on Sunday
in order to keep the stores, theatres,
and amusements *open.
Most of the activity is not
necessarily unsuitable -- perhaps'
the family where both parents work
need that Sunday afternoon trip to
the supermarket and perhaps it is a
real family event to shop together.
But what of the cashier, the meat
cutter, the man who fills the shelves
- - their families are denied their
company. The fact that they don't
work on Mondays doesn't compensate.
By Monday the rest of the family is
back at school or work.
While no one would deny that
certain vital services' must be car-
ried on over Sunday, the increasing
de-emphasis of Sunday as a day of
rest for as many as possible is a
creeping blight whose growth we
should'stop. There is a need for a
uniform weekly' pause 'the editorial
concludes;
Need for weekly pause
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As I recall , my last- column was a
tale of woe, relating the dreadful things
the gods had done to me in 1972.
I should have kept my mouth shut.
The same gods, annoyed. at my tiny
protest, decided to show me what they
could really do.
Take a cat. Go on. Any Old cat.
Take a freshly-waxed floor. Take a guy
with an armful of milk and eggs. Take
a wife who is upstairs watching TV when
she should be helping that guy with the
groceries;
O.K. The guy comes in. He takes
off his boots so he won't make a mess on
the newly-washed-and-waxed kitchen
floor. He is in his sock feet. Right?
Out of the grocery bags he takes two
quarts of milk, a dozen eggs and a case
of pop. He heads for the kitchen counter.
At that very moment the cat, unfed,
hurls herSelf at his legs, meowing and
rubbing. He lifts his right foot, gently,
to turf her out of the way, spins smartly
on his left metatarsal, and goes down like
Niagara Falls.
He fails to eject the grub, out of
some dim, primitive idea that you hang
onto the grub at any cost. The first
thing that hits anything is his noggin,
which tries to tear the copper off the
cupboard door handles.
The next thing that Strikes hard-pan
is his nose, which boundes off the floor
in a spray of blood and milk.
Yes, he's Still holding onto the milk.
He loseS only one .citiart of blood, two of
milk.
His erstwhile wife and protector comes
down and finds him , sitting in something
like a Masai wedding, .tWo parts milk to
one part blood, a cold cloth On his torn
Scalp, eggs all over the place and his
nose going up like a balloon being filled
With hydrogen,
But there's no fret, no MOM. He's
had his nose broken three times before,
and by far better people than a cat, or
his wife'S waxing.
Sitting there among the eggshells and
milk and bleed, he remembers fondly the
time hiS future` brether ,in-laW gave hiM
an elbow and cracked the old beeter
during fOOtbill `practice.
And then he thinks of that beautiful
tree-for,,all With the Royal Matinee,
Outside that pub Wrekhairii North Wales;
when the fighter pilots proved only tha.ttil ey
could not fight.
And he remembers, almost with plea-
sure, the (1-.ty he was being beaten 'up by
the Germa• guards, and nobody had even
broken his aose yet , and,then the little
guy who- was engineer of he lkicomotive
came rushing into the circle and kicked
him right Ail the snoot.
And I'd like to , say this mutt sat
there happily for ever after, thinking about
the other times his nose had been broken.
But she wouldn't let hitt.
Her first thought' was pure Florence
Nightingale. "Everybody will think I
did it", she wailed. "Yes, I would think
they would," I countered. "Knowing you."
"They'll think, you were drunk", was
her next oontribution. "Well, that's what
I'd think, if someone told me he'd lost
a one-round bOut with a cat", I suggested.
"How am I going to get the blood out
of that towel", She queried. "Well, you
might pretend you were a vampire, and
suck it out."
"people will think you'Ve been beaten
up", she worried. 'Yes", I rejoined.
Smitgly. No answer.
"I'M going to lock the door, so nobody
Can See you." And I replied, "I'm
going to call a press conference, and
admit it was all your fault, because you'd
waxed the floor, and you cynical, airrioSt
vicious hadn't put the cat out, and you
weren't down to help me with the grocer-
Ah, heck! I shouldn't put her through
all that. It was not her fault,. except that
she'd waxed the floor and hatirt't put the
cat out and didn't come down to help With
the groceries and insists I take my
bOOts off when I come in onto her rotten
polished floors.
It's not so bad, Apart from the
cuts on my note, which look as though a
gang of Giatwegiaria hod worked me over,
there are only the eyes.
For Softie reason, when you break your
there's a great sympathy from your
eyes.
They donit weep, elteept kr the' Ott
tik hOtitto They swell tip and op and bpi
At first they are red. Then they begin
to lOOk like 4 couple of tea,bage that have
been on the booze, And when the worst
is over, they turn a mitt of bilious
When that happene, you know you are.
**he: :freei, and that all yet have to de
is think up witty answers Pot the tioeryt
"Wile beat: you irp again'?"