HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1976-10-06, Page 2.1 •
g.
Amen
by Karl Schuessler
Burial at CN tower
It's National Newspaper Week in have a good rea
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1976
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
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association
ABC ' Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $6.00 a year. Others
$8.00 a year, Single Copies 15 cents each.
Brussels Pos
MITA11.1111410
11171
BRUSSELS
ONTARIO
In yoke
To the living
This is a message for young men who were friends.
of Skippy Skinner, and for the hundreds of other
Skippies in our country who like to drive cars fast.
If Skippy had known, as he stepped on the gas last
Monday on the New Highway, that in a few seconds
he would die under water, he would never have done
it.
But he didn't know. He didn't think ahead, or
consider possibiities. He must have been living
intensely in that immediate mom, ent,, intoxicated
by the thrill of speed.
The delight in speed is one of the great, intrinsic
pleasures, like dancing for the person who loves it,
singing for the good singer, surf riding for the
expert surfer. "Intrinsic" means good for itself
alone, without any before or after. Everybody has at
least an occasional craving for speed, although most
of us get it vicariously, by watching auto or horse
races. So it's nonsense to say that speed is bad. It's
terrific.
But in an automobile, it's terrifically dangerous.
Maybe you think : So what- I like danger, it's part
of the fun. And perhaps you're right there too. Rut
here are a couple of thoughts about that.
One is that life after 21 holds so many chances for
fun that the thrill of danger for the moment isn't
worth maybe throwing away the future for.
Another is that the men, the real men, who enjoy
dangerous sports like mountain-climbing, or white-
water canoeing, of free-gliding, train themselves
rigorously, and use every device and precaution to
keep themselves alive in the most dangerous
situations.
And still another thought. Maybe you've got the
right to risk y our own life. But how about others?
The life you destroy may not be your own.
It may be that of someone in another car, or
someone walking along the road, who isn't getting
your kicks out of the screaming tires and roaring
motor and rushing air.
It may be someone else's mother or father, or kid
sister or brother, or girl friend. Would you accept
the need for speed in some other guy who mashed
your mother to a pulp?
There's an old cliche which says a picture is worth
a thousand words.. Well, We've got a. picture in the
file which may say something to you which all these
words fail to say.lt's a photograph of Chief Hughie
Corkum and others, carrying, Skippy Skinner's body
out of the Back Harbour.
We didn't publish it last week, because the.
publisher didn't think it would be right. But if you
want to get the message about what can lie beyond
that speed thrill, come and have a look.
(In the Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Bulletin)
Seems as if I've been in the burying
business lately. One week it's about burying
me: Next week it's burying time capsules.
Well, I want you to know I saw a proper
burial last'Friday in Toronto. a wasn't for me,
but it was for a time capsule in the C.N.Tower
-- 1,800 ft. up in the air in an interior wall' of
that famous cement giant, the tallest free
standing structure in the world.
The fog all day pressed in on the tower and
hid it--keeping it in wraps. But by :the time it
came for the burial ceremony, the tower had
pushed off the wraps. The cement needle
soared against a blue sky.
- The tower was magnificent -- rising from a
green launching pad of inlaid grass and
transplanted trees and bubbling fountains.
The sight made you forget the desert that
surrounds it: twisting railroad tracks, round
houses, repair 'sheds and the St. John yard
station.
What a way to go! For that time capsule.
I've alwayS thought some people go out of
this world in grander style than they ever
lived. That time capsule sure did. It was a
little midget of a container—somethitig like a
farmer's fat cream can. All of three feet tall.
Gray and dull but sturdy. For it was well
wrapped in outer steel and inner plastic.
Double vaulted good and tight as every
decent burial should be.
The Rev. Donald Anderson said a prayer of
praise and blessing. And no, he assured me
later, the C.N. tower wasn't a modern-day
tower of Babel. This tower wasn't confusing
language. One of its main jobs was to enhance
language by its transmission signals.
Sure it cost $57 million dollars, but the
parson said it was a grand folly -- a fun folly--
and he was there to enjoy it.
Then canoe all the eulogies -- recitals of the
dreams and hopes and wishes of the people
who were burying them in the time
capsule.The words of praise came not only
from the big important people, but from the
little people--children Who wrote and won
prize essays and poems.
Like any modern burial, the embalning was
alaborate. Silica gel coated the inside of the
capsule. All metals were sealed in Incite and
papers, film and videotape •in chemicals •
everything put into preservation to wait for
the final resurrection on :hundred years from
now. Then came the burial. The Prime Minister
helped lift the capsule into the hole in the
wall. 'He was in good spirits as well as all the
other pall bearers.
"Do I .need a union card?" he kidded,
"Anyone 'got any gum?"
He got instead 'a trowel full of plaster. And
he patticaked it on'. "Mr kids would love
this," he said.
And like any other burial, those gestures
were symbolic: a spade of earth, a cast of
flowerpetals. The real job of burial is left to
the workmen who arrive a few minutes later to
finish up the plastering and seal the capsule
tight.
Then the marker. The setting of the grave,
marker.To record the name and date of Time
hundred
Capsule.ye To let tit rest in peace for the next one
Every funeral needs eats, doesn't it? This
one did too. This time ' it was ice cream and
especially
ca
for
ke--laye the occasion.
layers and layers — worth made
And like some funerals I go to, this one
wasn't sad at all. We ate and joshed and
talked. None of us were in the mood to stretch
our minds to the year 2076 and wonder what
the world would be like then. How would the
up
d itreawmsh hatnde ewrisahleitsieins?that time capsule match
Would there be, in fact, a world around
then? Would thie C.N. tower survive wind and
storm and airplanes and stolen helicopters?
But this was too much idle speculation on
such a happy day as this. This is now. We
were here to enjoy the day. This marvel of
technology to take its place next to other r
Canadian firsts: the longest inland seaway,
the longest gas and oil pipelines in the world.,
This was a day of celebration. We were in
no mood to contemplate. Just like the
pyramids of ancient Egypt, we would let
future earthlings rummage through the
preemrsapiencst•i-voer oruins?- and let them try to figure
us all out. Let then try to put some
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