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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1976-08-04, Page 2WEDNESDAY. AUGUST 4, 1976 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community. Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario by McLean Bros. Publishers, Limited. BRUSSELS ONTARIO Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Dave Robb - Advertising Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association OCNA Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $6.00 a year. Others $8.00 a year, Single Copies 15 cents each. Amen by Karl Schuessler ;IF Wheel upon wheels Stuck on pews I'm stuck on pews. And I can't get myself out of them. Of course, it's my own fault. I started it. Trying to rearrange people on a Sunday morning. Asking them to come up front and forWard when I'm preaching. But all week long I've heard some pew history. It's no wonder people want to sit where they damn well • please. It wasn't always that way. Only fifty years back, Lutheran people knew exactly where their place was in church. The old churches all had balconies, and not just in back either. They rimmed all three sides. Not that they were wide, only three rows deep in pews. The west balcony held the married men. The bachelors staked out in the east loft. The young male confirmands sat there too. All the women and sat downstairs. The old men sat-way up front 'downstairs. The older women behind' them. The preacher's wife and all his kids reserved down front center seats. ' And all the eligible young ladies? They sat downStairs in back under the east balcony. All Of the bachelors couldn't eye them. The oogling Was left to the married men. Their west side balcony seats' let them see all the pretty girls. The church elders stood up in back until. the sermon. Then the •y marched up front and sat right below the pulpit in pewS, reserved especially for then": When the preacher* ascended tO preach, and I do mean ascend, for he had quite a staircase' to climb, he stood at eye leVel With all those balcony seated men He preached for an hours At least, Church lasted two hours in those days fr'o'm 10:00 a nit. to noon. And if there was communion that Sunday, all the men walked up to the altar first, and took the wafer and the wine. Only then, did the ladies get their turn. • One preacher insisted on pews without much of a back to them - just one low narrow board.awake. He figured that ought to keep them And if That wasn't enough for one day, Sunday School took another two hours - in the afternoon. Note. All you Sunday School superintendents. Most all the teachers were men. Some didn't go home after church. The council, hired Louisa Hinz, who lived right down the road, to make the men dinner. And they'd wait On the verandah until her dinner was ready: She had, to go to church too, you know. Theri back Up to church for another two hour session. Wt eu thinking hewlW ahabteautsaibt.bath rest. I get all tired Those :fellows sure didn't know about the communications course I'm. teaching. The experts say people's span of attention iss short - only three fifths of a second. Why, CBC radio programs try to shift voices every three minutes. They think they'll lose the listener if they don't. But never mind. Those old timers had a way with them. They must haVe grown thicker striritzle e e isaclhleiiissiett ginen them. bet they worked up And another thing. Those men in the' balcony might have been Sitting high and loflY and hearing about things high and raiglq. But I understand some of the best cattle' buying and Selling went oki up there {66,, duc Am Ho; are Thi cro to hur It i tick will din thi Th( the Jur set] Poi Mil fin bey yea of cro Ho obt dir As hit Brussels Pos. Area recreation-- Why not? Once again there's a move afoot to get the county involved in recreation. ,So far the councils of Seaforth, Exeter and Goderich have agreed with the area recreation study committee who plan to ask county council to approve and give some grant money to area recreation. The committee would like to see recreation areas around the county's five towns. The plan might have Tuckersmith and McKillop part of Seaforth recreation area, and they'd share a director, an office and a program. Communities within a recreation area could still have their own committees. The Walton Rec Committee would plan activities at the Walton park for example, but they'd haye a voice in the overall Seaforth Area Recreation Committee too. Area boundaries haven't been worked out, but the committee agrees this could be tricky. "Wars are continually waged because of boundaries," their - brief says. For example, there has been no discussion yet of where villages like Brussels fit in. What the county rec people want from County Council is-a grant to help set up the areas which they hope will end recreational inequalities in the county. There's talk about, asking for two mills, county wide or about $35,000. There are inequalities in recreation in Huron. The larger places can afford full time recreation directoks; some of the smaller municipalities don't have the tax base for that. Some places in the county have marvellous facilities for recreation; sometimes only the people of one municipality are paying-for them in taxes while the people from several places use them. Area recreation, on a trial basis, just may be the way to eliminate bickering between municipalities over recreation and give every one legitimate access to all the facilities in each area. We think it's worth a try. There's another study underway in the county which aims at finding out what each municipality spends - on recreation, broken down so that, for example, arena spending by one township can be compared to spending on arenas by others. The rec directors hope it will clear up misunderstandings about who pays for what that arose when an earlier study over-simplified the recreation spending picture in Huron. A couple of towns in the county have had ,to cut back their recreation programs because of lack of funds - Goderich, for example, has no playground activities this summer. Other places are involved in hassles over charging fees to non-residents whose municipalities don't contribute to recreation costs. The recreation people are not suggesting a county wide program - that would be too big and centralized. They've found that counties WhO have gone that route are changing back to an area recreation system like the one proposed for Huroh. Really they are trying to get official, recognition and support, along With a formal organization for a situation that ,already exists. Recreation 'in Huron goes outside municipal boundaries noW.- , It could mean the maximum use of recreation fOr the minimum amount of money. It's hard to see how county council; with the good of all the citizens in Huron in mind, could disagree.