The Brussels Post, 1976-11-24, Page 2After the harvest
Amen
by Karl Schuessler
We need more optimists
Terry McDonough is a .father of nine -
children. And he's an optimist too.
talked with him when I was doing some
interviewing for a radio series on' the
authority of the church. The particular•
program was the authority of the Papacy.
Invariably the subject of birth control
comes up.
"Sure," he said. "Birth control worked
for us."
I was stunned. I stared at this man who's
now in his fifties and most of his children
are grown.
"Yes," he said, "When you think of it,
we could have had. . .say. . .possibly 24
.children. But we only had ten. One died."
See? See what ,I mean? That's optimism
- if I ever heard it.
It all goes 'to show you, it's how you look
at life. That's what counts.
And a cockeyed optimist - like Terry.
makes life tick a little better- and with
rhythm, too.
I like that kind of optimism. It makes life
possible. Who wants to go around like the
lady who sighs all the time, "Life's okay, if
you can stand, it?"
For my mind, you can bring on all the
Terry's of this, world. I need them to cover
for all the mistakes and blunders. For all of
my mistakes and boo-boos.
What can I say to Mrs. John Rauser?
When I wrote in my column her first name
was Helen, not Ida.
You May think Ida is a long way from
Helen. But for me it wasn't. It was real
simple. I phoned up the Glausers - not
Rausers -and asked Mrs. Glauser what her.
first name was. No explanatiOn, just Hello,
Thanks and Goodbye.
It took her son Ted Glauser to meet my •
daughter on the street in town and let het
know her dad goofed. I had the- wrong
mother. ,
And it really doesn't help to say both
families are Swiss.' I just made a miss. I
an't plead the names do rhyme. I'm just
out of time.
And it's times' like these I need Terry
McDonough.
Foethe lighter side of things, does make
life seem not all that bad.
So what if my newspaper publisher did
go out of business after only 15• issues of
his new weekly newspaper? and my
culumn died in childbirth? So what if I can't
tell the difference betWeen 'Seneca College
and Centennial College in metro Toronto?
I'm placing professors in the wrong
colleges all over the place. Why, I give
them degrees they don't even have.
But I take comfort in Terry McDonough.
And in Earl Butz, the former U.S.
Secretary Agriculture. Not that his humour
is all that funny. Well, yes it is, but it cost
him his job. He said recently the pope
should stay out of the birth control debate
because "He no playa da game, he no
maka da rules."
It seems that a lot of people may agree
with Butz, but it just wasn't the thing to
say. Our own Agriculture minister Eugene
Whelan says some funny things. And
probably they're best unsaid. Like his
latest, about all our beef eating. "Beef
makes people ferocious. Look it all those
people in South America. They eat 225
pounds of beef a person and they're killing
each other down there."
And there's another side to Whelan's
beef. "If you eat better, you love more."
Outrageous or no, I still say "Long live
humour.V Let's keep the Terry
McDonoughs and Eugene Whelans
around. Beef and bull belong, to the same
And I can keep on making mistakes
apologize to Mrs. Miser as I had to and go
to bed with a cup of her soothing fennel
tea. And hope, just hope, I can still keep
my job - keep on Writing about the people I
flied 'and iou.ing things up every now and
then. And still stay in good hiinimir.
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1172
Brussels Posy
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1976
BRUSSELS
ONTARIO
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each Wednesday afternoon at. Brussels, Ontatio
by McLean Bros. Publishers, Limited.
Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Dave Robb - Advertising
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
r---\ Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association
*CNA
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $6.00 'a year. Others
$8.00 a year, Single Copies 15 cents each.
We need each other
There is a distinct feeling in parts of this country,
noteably those west of Thunder Bay, that the tail is
wagging the dog. In this case the tail being Quebec's
French and the Maritime's poor. The theory some
Westerners are propounding is -that Ottawa is
imposing the will of Quebec on the rest of Canada
through the Official Languages Act and that
theMaritimes are bleeding the rest of the country
through their perpetual poverty.
Much of the discontent, we believe, lies in two
serious misunderstandings: First,. the Off icial-
Languages Act is .a safeguard to both Canada's
constitutional languages; and secondly that Canada
is a nation of interdependencies and not a Balkanized
autonomous group of economic regions.
The Official Languages Act is simple and sane:
There are people in Canada who speak French but
little or no English and there are an even larger
number who speak English but little or no French.
Therefore, the services of the Federal gdvernment
should, within reason, be available in both
languages. Perhaps that is the problem. The theory
is clear, but the practice has been so blurred by the -
costly empire built up by the Federal bureaucracy to
implement bilingualism that many people see it as
direct interference by government in the lives of
people. We believe that Ottawa would be better to
designate jobs bilingual that ray need it and offer
and encourage language training only to those that
really want it, And in the meantime, we could begin
with bilingual classes, at the age of 3 years and carry
through to high school. Then the problem . would
disappear in two generations and the participants
would all be linguistically and culturally richer for
the experience. ,
Surely Canadians can distinguish, the rightness of
the Official Languages Act and instead of
threatening secession, demand better implemen-
tation of that Act?
People who remember the days when Western
Canada was so dependent on the East during the
construction of the railways, the settling of the
Prairie plains or the desperate depression years will
be more hesitant in their charges that 'poor
Easterr.rs are running the economy of the rest of
Can de .eople who readily "rail" at the CPR and
CNR for wanting to tear up uneconomic branch lines
because whole communities will die, should surely
see that subsidies from richer areas are needed all
,over Canada. .
If we are not prepared to share the wealth of one
inegion with another, history will certainly remind us
years to come of our short-sighted sellishness.
The 'have' prov.intes like British Columbia,
Alberta, and Ontario must help support the
Maritimes now or their towns may die as Glace Bay
and Sydney, N.S. well know: People who have built
their lives there face the daily threat of upheaval
much as the small Prairie elevator towns.
Think ahead: What happens if people stop buying
Ontario's manufactured goods, or Alberta'S oil is
replaced with solar energy or B.C.'s timber replaced
by\Maritirne lumber?
Perhaps interdependence is a good thing for us all,'
in language and in economics.
(The United Church)