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Home My WebLink AboutThe Brussels Post, 1977-07-27, Page 2Marsh World SALAMANDERS= These lizard-like animals are in fact amphibians, related to frogs and toads, The eggs are laid in shallow waf ter and hatch into a larva resembling the adult, but with frilly external gills. After several months the larva matures, loses its gills and leaves the water. Its time on land is spent in cool moist places where it feeds on insects', small 'fish, worms and other small creatures: The adults, overwinter in protected places, returning to the water in spring to breed. Salamanders range in Size from 3 inches to over One foot in length. Ducks Unlimited(Canada) 1495 Pembina Hwy, Winnipeg, Man, FOT 0 20,41i7 myraiim140 .102 Brussels Post BRUSSELS ONTARIO WEDNESDAY., ,JULY 27, 1977 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community. Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario by Mel!ean Bros', Publishers, Limited. Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Dave Robb - Advertising Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $8.00 a year. Others S14,00 a year, Single Copies 20 cents each, Enough is enough Keith Sharp and I had a great thing going. Now he's gone and spoiled it all. You see, we made a deal. If I took my rototiller up to him each week, he'd keep the ailing monster running. And not just running. For if the thing was feeling pretty good that week, then he'd practice some preventive medicine on her. Give her a going-over, a physical, more 'or less. Make sure all her gears and gaskets were going right. Check out all the nuts and bolts that might have jiggled loose that week. Maybe I made the deal with Keith Sharp because what I needed was some reassur- ance, some hope that my rototiller would work. Maybe I just wanted to .make sure that Sharp's hand of blessing rested on my machine for one more week. I knew I had an ornery rototiller on my hands. From day one, from the very first day I bought her brand new three years ago, she's been nothing but trouble. No • wonder the company painted her yellow. A good lemon yellow. We never took to one another. Every time I pulled on my boots and walked over to her in the garden, I knew I had to do 'battle*. It was a big fight from the time I pulled the rip cord to get her started to the time she decided she She want to work any more. Notice. She always had the say when to quit. She always gave out first, with some sort of excuse: A stone in her curly tines, a broken belt, or an overheated engine.. And if she really happened to be in an ugly mood, she'd throw a rod or let all her oil run out on the\ ground. That old girl knew how to get to me. She Imew how to cost me a hundred dollars in one big final groan and grunt. She knew exactly how to cut out on me - in a second flat. That's when 1. made the deal with Keith Sharp for a weekly check-up. He's the master of machines and small engines. So much so that he teaches a course to the shop boys at Clinton District High School, Keith Sharp knows how to treat machines. He doesn't swear at them. Call them cripples and beggars and wind up giving them a boot every now and then. He's not like me. He doesn't think if I wash them up on the outside, they'll work better On the inside. He doesn't try to psych them out with master race thoughts. He doesn't send them vibes that insist I'm in control: I'M running this little bit of 8 horse power of the other way Arent-id. No, I't nothing like that: Keith Sharp has the gentle approach. The reasonable approach, Let 'S face it. He knows how the machines work. Arid in his quiet way he checks•'out the ' parts. Eliminated the possibilities and conies up with the answers. He never fumes and foams over the machine. He's never in a hurry to rush the job along. He's never fumble fingers with the wrong tool in the wrong place. And each time I drove my yellow machine up to Seaforth for the weekly check-up, I came back with the same feeling. I'd tell myself. Look at Sharp's. attitude. His reasonable approach. It's the way he does the job. And by golly, he does the job, too. Now it's all over. He let me have it last week. He told me. about the saddest news I ever did hear. He's going on vacation. "You mean I'm going to be left alone with my rototiller?" I said, "I'm on my own?",, Four weeks." "But can't you leave me your telephone number, just in case?" "We're going to Vancouver." "But that's too far. You'll never be able to come back for a house call." "You'll do alright," he said, "Besides, you've got my loaner rototiller. You're not doing too bad with that. You keep it while I'm gone. It's a good,machine." So Keith Sharp thinks his red is a 'good machine? Well, I'll only say it's a better machipe. Better than my yellow one that's now apread out all over his work table. The engines taken down for a new ring job and overhaul. "But what if something goes wrong with your red one? What do I do then?" had Sharp/ He didn't know what to say. Because the truth was that very day I took his loaner back to him for a repair. The muffler had fallen off. A spring had snapped off from the carburetor. This •wasn't the first time I'd had a loaner from Keith Sharp. I've been through two of his loaners already this summer. And would you belt eve? I had a repair man in Mitchell fixing Sharp's loaner. One repair man fixing another repairman's machine. I could see myself doing the same thing all over again. I felt abandoned. Keith Shar p was casting me adrift in the Strange sea of rototillers. He was letting. me Swim/ upstream againSt a current of enginea, transmissions, wheels, gas pumps and pulleys. Arid I can barely "swim. He threw me out only one lifesaver. "This fall i'm teaching a night course in small e into the gt in e'strunk of said df as sy e w ealrif lifted h m ight I help if you kneW how an engine works,' You know, Sharp might be right: Yo miht sign , or send my wife. As an example of how big cars are regaining their form€r popularity, a Canadian dealer reported thaLa customer recently bought a Rolls Royce for which he paid $92,000. Can such a shocking expenditure for a car be justified? Of course the buyer would probably reply, "It's my money -- I can do what I like with it." But can he? The answer isn't all that simple. On a smaller scale, the same question could be asked of millions of affluent Canadians now indulging in a headlong spending spree for luxuries. If it isn't electric toothbrushes, it's snowmobiles, $50 dinners, pleasure trips to Africa, expensive stereo sets or clothes that aren't really needed but feature a short-lived fashion. On the surface, such-luxuries seem quite innocent. And a little splurging is only human. Yet some serious side eff,?(As can result when large numbers of people spend there's no tomorrow. What about its effect on inflation? How much longer can we drive big cars that gobble up our limited fuel resources. Are we justified in carefree buying when millions. all over the world live in unimaginable poverty? The handling of one's money is really a moral issue. We can go on acquiring more and more material things that reflect self-indulgence. Or we can challenge each impulse to do so. For our guidance, there is the Chrsitian concept of stewardship - the belief that our money shouldn't be spent just as we wish, but regarded as a gift we hold in trust. Scripture is full of clues and themes that add up to a single message on our management of physical resources: there are limits ... enough is enough ... learn to say no to more. (The United Church) Hi there! Amen by 'Karl Schuessler Vacations can be difficult