The Brussels Post, 1976-05-05, Page 2"bit Allowdooll*
Brussels Post
WpNESDAY,. MAY 5, 1976
MUSSELS.
ONTARIO
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Bros. Publishers, Limited.
Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Dave Robb - Advertising
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
/r —M, • Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association
\—.)Su6scriptions (in advance) Canada $6.00 a year, Others
$8.00 a year, Single Copies 15 cents each.
A homemade show
, Who says amateur entertainment is dead? It's so
alive around here that the Grey Central Home and
School production of Oklahoma is all sold out a week
before it opens. •
Oklahoma! is an ambitious show'and probably 100
people are involved in the play as performers or
helpers of some sort. We hear that rehearsals, which
have been going on for months, have been a lot of
fun and that the musical is top notch.
The Home and School should 'be congratulated for
getting the play underway and for getting people out
from in front of their TV sets and into performing
themselves.
The fact that nearly 1000 ticket8 for the shows
three performances at the end of the week have been
sold shows that there's a great interest in what the
players, all . local people, are doing.
Perhaps people are. getting fed up with paying $4
to see a -movie that's full of violence or with a
constant diet of weak comedy and high speed police
chases on the TV.
Can it be that we're getting back to the good old
days when people had as much fun staging their own
entertainment as other people did watching them?
, Whatever the reason, it's'good to see homemade
, entertainment -that's as good as What the profes-
sionals do.
Thanks
to the workers
Have you ever noticed that the same people show
up as organizers of this fund raising campaign and
that dance and as the backbone in several different
organizations in every small town?' Maybe you've
noticed and you've grumbled about it.
"Always after the limelight", you might mutter
after y ou read old George's name in four different
stories{ in the paper one week. An editorial in the
Biyth Standard suggests that We should honour, not
criticize, Our good citizens as Simon Hallahan, a
well known farmer in the Blyth area-was honoured
there recently.
The Standard says:
"It is people like Simon Hallahan that keep small
communities alive.. Look around and You'll see that
time after time it ,is the same people who lead
groups. This year it may be the Lions club and next
some other group, but the same names and faces
keep popping up.
Often these people are criticized as if. they are
seeking to be power brokers t but in 'reality, we
couldn't keep our small communities going without
thern.The horrid truth is that 90 percent 'of the
citizens just don't care enough about seeing things
happen to take an activetintereSt in their groups. Let
Joe do it they say, and the Joe's like Simon Hallahan-
respond to the challenge.
They've got other things they' could. do and
perhaps would prefer to do, but they won't see the
coMmUnity let down because'no one cares enough to
take a job, so they do it themselves.
It was good. to See a man like Simon Hallahan
honoUred. We heed to honour ore of these people
w
M
ho have' given so much Over the years. We ewe
them a lot."
Maybe only God can make a
tree - that's what the poet says. But when it
comes to planting them, I deserve some
credit. I'm one of his best helpers.
Planting trees is like eating potato chips. I
can't stop doing it. You'd think I'd be content
with a bowlful of chips -.or a couple of bundles
of seedling trees. But no, I have to gobble up
bags and bags.
You see it's part of my spring fever. My
temperature keeps rising. I'm feverish. Plant.
Plant. Plant. Trees, Trees. Trees. My whole
two acres are coming up green - in trees.
And it took the Perth County Junior
Farmers to set my fever off. They gave me a
hundred trees to plant. But it was their five
black walnut trees that really put the heat into
me:
Now, ,I use the words "black walnut trees"
with caution, "Trees" is hardly the word - for
those two foot twig's with a single hairy root at
the end. But the label does say black walnut.
It takes a lot, of faith to see an 80 foot high
tree with spreading branches and hanging
Walnuts with thick green husks. But hope is
built on•such little promises. And so are my
dreams.
I've been looking all over our countryside
for black walnut trees. And I couldn't find any
big ones, baby ones, rotten ones".Or stumps,
No kind at all. And this is black walnut
Country. Why, many of the people who settled
these parts followed the trail of the black
walnut trees. In looking for good land, the
German settlers used the walnut trees for
their guide. They knew the black walnut grew
in limestone soil - the kind they liked for
farming.
A/ICI.Or1CC they found the walnut trees, they
chose that land. And then, they proceeded to
Replacing
black walnuts
by Karl Schuessler
It really is spring
Amen
fell the largest and biggest of the trees. Didn't
that giant size prove this was good soil?
They cleared the land. And they didn't
leave the stumps, either, With typical Germ
thoroughness, they pulled them out by the
roots. And they turned the soil into the best
farm land in the country. They almost wiped
out every trace of the black walnut trail.
' While they broke their backs taking the,
trees out, I'm breaking mine, putting them in
again. Undoing all that labour of generations
ago.
These old German ancestors' must shake
their heads and wonder what this younger
generation is coming to. Returning the land to
forest and cluttering up cleared land.
But I can't help it. It's this black walnut
fever I have. It has traces of rek oak, hard
maple and black locust too.
The doctor says the only way I can cure it is
to work it out of my system. And am 1,
working! I've got 600 trees in already. hti
knees may crack. My arms ache. My back
compains. Even my shovel tells me it needs'
rest. But I have to keep going - until I get 3
thciusand in.
Then I know my fever will go away. Oil
won't come back until next spring.
With this temperature of mine rising end
spring, I'm going to prove this was black
walnut
tt country.
territory
I'm going to, make this black
And then I'll let some future generatiov
oh, w!lat fools they'll be - cut them all dow
again
But that's okay. I've, made my part with
God. lf He keeps on making them, I'll keepog ,
taking them.
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