HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1977-06-29, Page 6Sugar and Spice
by Bill Smiley
Why I hate June
June is not my favaorite month of the
year. Maybe it's because on the second day
of that month, about 80 years ago, it seems
like, I was ushred into the world, somebody
gave me a slap on the bum) started to cry,
and I've been a bit jaundiced about June
ever since.
It certainly has some advantages over,
say , January. There'are no ten-foot icicle's
hanging from the roof. You don't have to
fight your way through snowdrifts to get to
the car. But it has its own plagues.
As I write, a three-inch caterpillar is
working his way across the windowsill to
say hello. I know he'll be a beautiful
butterfly any day, but last night I stepped
on his brother, in my bare feet and the
dark, on the way to the bathroom. Ever try
to get squashed caterpillar from between
your toes?
No, I don't live in a tree-house. The little
devils come up' from the basement or
through a hole in the screen. And they
have friends and relatives. Just as I typed
that sentence, a black ant, about the size of
a mouse, scuttled across the floor and
under a chair. He looked big enough to
carry off one of my shoes and masticate it
in a quiet corner. •
Insolent starlings strut about my back
lawn, scaring the decent birds away, when
;.hey are not trying to get into my attic
through a hole the squirrels have made, or
pooping all of my car, as it sits under a
maple tree, which is also making large
deposits of gook and gum on the vehicle.
Wasps and bumble bees are as
numerous and noisy and welcome as
gatecrashers at a cocktail party, if you
dare take a drink into the back yard for
a ,peaceful libation.
If it's humid and stinking hot, as June so
often is, it's like courting carnivorism,
whateveithat is, 'to sit out in 'the evening.
The ruddy mosquitoes turn you into a
wrthing, slapping, squirming bundle of
necrotic frustration in ten minutes.
Go up north into cottage country and you
wish you were back home with the
mosquitoes. The blackflies up there can be
heard roaring with laughter. as they slurp
up that guaranteed fly dope you've
plastered yourself with, and come back for
more. They'll leave you bloody. And not
unbowed.
I have never yet seen, or hear d of, 'a
June when the weather was right for the
crops. It's either too wet and hot for the
hay; or too dry and hot for the
strawberries, or too cold for the garden to
get a good start.
One dang thing June is any good for is
the grass you have,to mow. Stick your head
out some evening, with your mosquito net
firmly in place, you can hear the stuff
growing.
June is murder for young mothers,
trying to get their infants to go to sleep at
their usual hour. What kid of two in his
right mind is going to se ttle down in bed
at eight o'clock, with the sun streaming
through the drapes, the birds yacking at
each other, and the teenagers, who have
come alive after a six-month's' torpor,
squealing their tires at the corner?
For mothers of slightly older kids, it's
even worse. On a nice, cold January night,
they can feed the kids and stick them in
front of the TV set, or nag them towards
their homework. No problem.
On an evening in June. those same kids,
from six to sixteen, take off after supper
like salmon heading up to spawn, and have
to be hollered for, whistled for, and
sometimes rounded up physically, with
threats. after dark. '
In. January, even the hardy teenager will
hesitate to venture out into the swirling
black of a winter night. In. June, the same
bird will hesitate to venture in from the
balmy black of a summer night, where sex
as palpable as the nose on his face, and
probably a better shape.
June is a time when the land is 'infested
with n of only tent caterpillars and other
pests, but an even worse, virulence of
creeps: politicians, with, instant remedies
for age-old ills. I'll take a plague, of ten
caterpillars any day.
June is also the time for another of the
institutions that tend to maltreat the
inmates: marriage. Why anybody, of either
sex, wants to get hitched in sticky old,, ,
sweaty old -June, with all its concomitants,
I'll never know. But they do, and people&
around with vacuous looks talking about
June brides and such. (No offence to my
niece Lynn, who is getting married this
month. Boy, that'll cost me.)
,iune is a month when all the ridiculous
organizations with which we surround
ourselves have their last meeting before
the summer break. It's too hot. The turkeys
who always talk too much at meetings
seem to go insane because they'll have to
shut up for two months, and go on until •
midnight.
June is a time when people go out of
their minds and buy boats and cottages and,
holidays they can't afford and new' car s
for the big trip and fancy barbecues that
will rust in the back yard all winter.
June is the month when I have to sweat
in a boiling building through my most
unproductive work as a teacher: counting
books, stacking books, ordering books,
fiddling marks, planning course outlines,
When I could be playing golf Or drinking
beer or doing something' worthwhile.
Lead on July, with some of that hot, dry
weather, some big, black bass, lots of fresh
vegetables out of the, garden and an end to
the vermin of June, human and otherwise.
John D. Pennington
When in. BRUSSELS Stop in at the
TEXAN GRILL & GAS BAR
HOMESTYLE COOKING
at its best
Air Conditioned for Your Comfort
Member B.B.A.
Your Hosts June & Ken Webster
ATTENTION
WHEAT PRODUCERS
Save Time and Transportation Costs
. Bring your 1977 Wheat Crop to
J..Deitsch Farm
(Appointed Agent of the Ontario
Wheat Marketing' Board)
For further infor.mation contact:
Joe Deitsch
RR 3 Brussels
Phone: Bus. 356-2292 ,
Res: , 887-6824
6—THE BRUSSELS POST, JUNE 2o; 1977
Board of Ed
Trustees interested
in budget committee
Funeral services were
conducted on Tuesday, June 14,
1977 at the Watts Funeral Home,
Brussels, Ontario by l; the Rev.
J.R.Cousens of the Church of the
Master, Scarborough for the late
George Franklin Coates who died
suddenly, June 11, 1977 in
Scarborough General Hospital in
his 77th year.
Mr. Coates was born in Grey
Towns?, son of the late Mr. and
Mrs. R bert E. Coates, February
12, 1901. When he was two years
of age, his family moved to
Seaforth. On August 3. 1929, he
was united in Marriage to
Margaret Maunders, the
daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
William H. Maunders of
Brussels, Ontario.
Mr. Coates was a graduate of
Seafotth Collegiate, Toronto
Normal School and McMaster
Obituary
University. After one year at
Roxborough Public School; he
spent two years as assistant in
Brussels Continuation School. In
the years following, he was
principal of continuation schools
in Sioux Lookout, Embro,
Havelock, Lynden and Picketing.
His later years were spent in
Dominion Government service.
He never lost interest in his
former students and had a record
of every one he had ever taught.
This record he cherished. He was
especially interested in organiz-
ing Cadet Corps, 'Hockey, Field
Day and Cotnme tncement activi-
ties wherever he taught and while
in Pickering, Was President of
Pickering Library Board,
He was a life time member of
the Presbyterian and later.
United 'Church where for many
years, he WaS a valued choir
Trustees of the Huron County
Board of Education indicated at
the board meeting Thursday that
they all wanted to serve on the
1977-78 budget. committee.
Chairman Herb Turkheim went
around the room asking if any
trustees wanted to volunteer for
the committee and all but Charles
Rau of Zurich and Robert Peck of
Stanley said they would like to
serve.
The board was• attempting to
appoint the committee after a
recommendation from John.
Cochrane, director of education,
suggested that a committee
appointed now could begin to
develop its objectives and proce-
dures before actual preparation of
the budget begins.
Mr. Cochrane indicated in the
report that the board was, dissatis-
fied with the "rush" that the 1977
'budget was given by both
trustees and administrators. He
suggested that if the board
wished to 'give the budget some
other typ'4 of treatment it could do
so now.
'The director said , that the
committee has been six strong in
the past and the board should
decide if it wants that to remain.
It should decide on a method of
appointing members, should
decide on a method of appointin
a chairman and then proceed to
do so.
Wingham trustee Jack
Alexander took exception to the
chairman's suggestion that yokel,
teers be asked for. He said that ii
the committee was to be six
strong then the first six peok
asked would be on the committee
and the exercise might as well be
stopped there.
-I'd like to see the names of
anyone who wants to volunteer be
put in a hat and six chosen by
drawing,names," he said,
. After polling the 16 trustees
and discovering that 14 wished to
serve on the budget committee
the chairman .asked if the
committee. could be appointed by
the chairman's advisory
committee. He suggested that the
chairman's group could look ove
the special interests andsoncerns
of the trustees and try to appoinl
a • committee that would be
balanced in its approach to the
budget. He also suggested, that
the budget committee be left to
"choose its own chairman,
Vice chairman Marion Zinn
said she was pleased at the
concern of the board members
and pointed out that the exercise
proved that "a lot of people are
interested in the budget."
member.
Friends and relatives were
present from Toronto, Vancouver,
Thunder Bay, Bolton, Guelph,
Seaforth, London, Wingham,
Blyth, Stratford and Fergus.
The pallbearers were: his two
sons, two grandsons, Donald
Adams and Peter Hollinger.
Interment was in Brussels
Cemetery.
He is survived by his wife: two
sons, Dr. W, Robert Coates of
Thunder Bay; Dr, Charles F.
Coates, London, Ontario; one
(laughter, Mrs. Donald Adams
(Yvonne), Scarborough and ten
grandchildren, David, Mary
Beth , John Robert and Melissa
Coates; Cameron, Kimberly and
Leslie Coates; Michelle, Andrea
and Craig Adams; also his
brother Harold of Vancouver,