HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1976-08-25, Page 5RAVEN BEWLEY
Brenda Jean Bewley, Edmonton, daughter of Mr.
and Mrs. Walter Bewley, Walton, and Daniel Paul
Raven, Edmonton, son of Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey
Raven, Edmonton, Alta. were married in Duff's
United Church, Walton, August 6. The brides
attendantswere Miss Elizabeth Bewley, Edmonton,
(the bride's cousin) and Mrs. Karen Warwick, Owen
Sound. The best man was Torn Hegi .of Standard,,
Alberta and the usher was -Bob Warwick, Owen
Sound. Following the wedding a dinher was held at
Duff's Church ,and a reception at . the Legion Hall,
Brussels. For their wedding trip, they, will tour
Ontario then return to Edmonton via automobile and
camper. The bride is on the staff Of University
Hospital in Edmonton and the groom is on the Smith
Ambulance Staff in Edmonton. Wednesday, August
4, the bride's sister, Mrs. 'Mary Bake( of Albany,
Australia phoned to wish the-- couple much.
happiness.
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Now that the Games are over, and all the
tears have been shed, it's time to look
ahead to the 1980-Olympics.
What the International Olympic
Committee needs like a hole in the head is
new ideas, but I'll give them one anyway.
It's simple: give everybody a second
chance.
I'm sure people ,Debby Brill and
Bruce Simpson and" Yankovich
Strmzlwvzlski will agree with me.
Most of us get a second chance: in life,
whether it's falling down on the 'job,
impaired driving, or being married.Why
not the Olympic athletes?
I got a second chance once upon a time,
and I was ecstatically grateful for it. It was
a long time ago, and the Olympics had
been cancelled for The. Duration, but there
were some pretty . serious games in
progress, just the same:
It is one of the great ironies, and, my
students simply can't understand. it when I
try to explain, but yours truly, and a lot of
others, were .involved in . a bitter compe
tition. We were trying to become fighter
pilots, so we could .be killed
Isn't that silly? But it was so. No
Olympic athlete suffered any more tension,
anxiety, or frustration than we did when it
came to the big day, the final event, our
wings test. ,
Long before that, of course, were the
eliminationi. Fitst ;one was :the physical
examination, It was lough. Many a youth
with dreams of dicing throigh the clouds in
a dogfight was' shot down ,in the 14.0.s
office because he had flat feet or was color
blind.
Next came the preliminary heats: These
were known as Elementary , Flying
Training. If you came through about' 60;
hours of flying training without being
terribly air sick, without bOinicing more
than 40 feet on landings, and without
running into another aircraft and killing
yourself, you Made-the semi-finals.
We lived in constant fear. Oh, not of
killing ourselves. Nobody was concerned in
the least about that. The dread phrase was
"washed out." That meant that you
weren't going to-be that dashing figure - a
fighter pilot - but that 'y ou were going to be
retrained as a mere navigator, wireless op
or tail gunner. In other words, sent to the
minors.
If you survived the heats, off you went to
finishing school, known as. Advanced
Flying. This was like making the Oly mpic
team, but knowing you'd probably finish in
31st place.
I was sent, with a lot of other young
idiots dying to be killed, to Camp Borden.
It was quite an august group, including one
Jake Gaudaur, the laige, joVial gentleman
who is now the commissar of the Canadian
Football League. Hi, Jake.
Despite the augustness of the group, we
trained in mid-winter. We flew in snow, we
landed on snow, we crash-
landed into snow, and occasionally an
intrepid student, usually an Australian,
proved once again that an aircraft falling
6,000 feet will not penetrate the ice of
Georgian Bay. The whole deal was not
unlike Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.
And all the time, leering over our
shoulders, was the ugly face of that thing
called Washed Out.
It seems incredible, looking back, that
we were in such terror of that creature. If
all the young fellows in the world had
managed to have themselves, washed out,
there wouldn't have been anyone to fly and
kill and` die.
But we suffered all the palpitations of
Olympic contestants as we edged closer
and closer to that triumph of-sadolnaso-
chism, the Wings Test.
This consisted of about one hour of
psychological torture in which the student
flew the aircraft through a number of
uncomfortable and alarming exercises
while an' instructor, sitting 'in the front
seat, snarled imprecations.
Came my big day. Everything was great.
I was shaking like a wino. It wasn't quite
snowing, but it wasn't quite not snowing.
And the intercom wasn't working. .
Normally, this isn't a. big 'deal. ,The
intercomvas just a little .sort of telephone
into which the instructor shouted
Obscenities and the student ground his
teeth. '
But on a Wings Test, it can be something,
more than a minor nuisance. My instructor
would shout at me to do a steep turn to the
left. I would guess at the muffled
instructions and do a loop. He would yell at
me to do a 'Coop, and I'd do a sloppy slow
roll.
After half an hour of this bit nd man's
bluff, he indicated with a ferocious, gesture
of his thumb that he was taking over and
we' were ".going . to land. We did. He
climbed out, speechless. I climbed out with
my tail well between my; legs.
He just looked at me, • and :shook his
head. I just looked at him, and wagged my
tail. We both knew that I was Washed Out.
He walked away. I looked around for some
immediate means of committing suicide.
The only thing I could see was a whirling
propeller and that was a bit too messy.
There must, of course, be a cliinax to this
fascinating narrative. And there is. Next
morning I was moping about, feeling as
though I'd just learned my mother was - a
prostitute and my *father a quack
abortionist.
A voice: "Smiley, get your gear on!"
Another instructor, widely ' known as a
Mean bastard. We took off. I hate to brag,
but with the careless abandon of a man
who knows he is off to the galleys anyway, I
Hang that aircraft' around the sky 'in a
dream Wings Test.
Two days later, I not only had my wings,
but had suddenly become an Officer and a
Gentleman.
So. Everyone deserves a Second Chance.
And. that is my contribution to the XXlst.
'Olympics. I'll let the committee figure out
the . details. '
e urning can produce poisons
cleaner air- including air free
from tobacco smoke - contact
them. It's a Matter Of Life and
rte
Vinyl chloride is a colorless - potentially lethal - gas used to upholstery coverings, and meat Wrappers. Polyvinyl chloride was
produce plastics. Now it has also been discovered• in Cigarette used .briefly to make plastic
smoke.
containerSfor alcoholic beverages
until amounts . of vinyl chloride
Until now the gas was thought were found , which had seeped
to be exclusively man-made, from -the_ containers into the-
created deliberately for beVerages
manufacturing purposes. The fact
: .• • . '---- '
The production of vinyl chloride
that it has been fOund in a natural and polyvinyl chloride is a post
plant such as tobacco' raises the disturbing possibility that the gas World War II phenomenon, ...and
may also be breathed into the
the practice has been gtowing for
ials the last 20 year's. Not until the
lungs when other plant mater Seventies was it discovered that are burned.
long-term occupational exposure
The burning of trash, especially to the subStances could cause a
trash contapinraecdtideinthatpo plastic is a
inlyVayinby61 • rare and almost inevitable fatal ;
examined in the light of the new *form of cancer of the liver. In
findings recent years TLV's (Threshold
LiMit Values) have been set for 831 far the most itaptirtant , the gas.
deliberate use of the gai its in the
mantifacture of polyvinyl breathe
of the air we
ch loride, which is the basis of
bteathe at work and 'at play is a
mayor concern of yeUr lung
Widely used plastic products such
phonograph. records, toys;
association ,,, the Christmas Seal
people: To join the campaign' for
Breath.
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THE BRUSSELS POST, AUGUST*15i-1976 •