The Brussels Post, 1977-12-28, Page 2Dave Robb - Advertising Evelyn Kennedy - Editor
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Look ahead with hope
• 1177
gBrussels Post
BRUSSELS
ONTARIO
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 28, 1977
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Bros. Publishers, Limited.
0.0 IAN COMM uiv
Behind the scenes
By Keith Roulst.on
Ther,new year rings in, and the old out,
and we're all a year older'than we were this •
time last year, Except this year I think maybe
we're more than a year older.
For instance, when the New Year's Eve
celebratins reach their peak at . midnight, a
familiar part of the tradition for Many will not
be there this year. Guy Lombardo died in
1977. His familiar version of Auld Lang Syne
will, be different just as Christmas season
seetned* Somehow changed without Bing
Crosby around. Oh thanks to the miracle of
Modern.recording, we could still! hear Bing's
classic I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas,*
but somehow knowing. he had died in 1977
made it even more sad than normal.
Christmas day itself saw another departure
in the person of Charlie Chaplin from an even
earlier era of entertainment. And in case all
three of these seemed too old to bring a
feeling of loss to say those" under 35, the
passing of Elvis Presley must certainly shock
even this age group into the realization of how
quickly time passes.
Strange how we don't seem to be getting
older until suddenly we see how aged some of
the constant things in our lives like pop stars
and neighbours and friends have beccime. It
was a shock to lose these giants in the past
year. It was a shock to hear that Frank Sinatra
was suddenly in his 60's and that the "young"
Jane Fonda had turned 40. Why only
yesterday, it seemed, her father Henry had
been 40.
In the world of sport it seems that time
• passes even faster. It's a shock to realise that
people who seemed raw rookies only
yesterday are regarded as seasoned veterans
or even over the hill, thank goodness for
Gordie Howe, he seems immune from t'
But if the passing of time can bring a feeling
of sadness, it should also bring us a feeling' of
greater understanding of our world, of
patience. Crosby, Lombardo, Chaplin all date
back to the terrible Depression years. (and
beyond). People living in the depression,
going through the day to day sufferings midst
surely have thought it would never end, yet
here we are, 40 odd years later and the
Depression is only a fading Memory:
Sinatra rose during the War Years. Again in
the agony of wondering if there Was any future
at all, people found it hard to imagine a world
at peace again. Yet more than 3Q years later,
the war is nearly forgotten by most of the
population,
Remember even the riot so long ago times of
turmoil: the 'seemingly never ending bickering
of the Diefenbaker Pearson era in Canada, the
flag debate, the student uprisings of the late
1960's, the Vietnam war, the Watergate Crisis
in the U.S..? For so long they assaulted Us
every time we picked up a newspaper, every
• time we turned on a radio that they-seemed
problems that, would never go away. Yet today
they are only-inemorieS,,ancf fading ones at
o into history.
So the best thing we can wish in 1978 is a
whole new troy of glaritS like Charlie Chaplin
and Bing Crosby and Guy Lotnbardo and Elvis
Presley to resetie us from our troubles. ,
' 'We -should take 'comfort from that
• knowledge 'and learn "16" *put things in
perspective because of it. Today-. we, have
different problems, problems of' 'national
unity, inflatiOrt, 'unemployment. If we get too
wrapped up in these problems, if we listen to
the4adici too :much or read, coriStanly in the
newspaper, we're apt to make these seem the
worst crisis the world ever faced:.Ye.t when We
cOmpare them to the problems we've faced in
the past, they seem pretty minor.. We can
give toomuch importance to our 'Problems.
Over the years I've been in the, newspaper
btisiness, there were many tunes 'when there
seemed just too much to be, done and,Jhe
pressure of the deadline was awesome. I
learned to cope with that pressure by stopping
for a moment and realizing that a day from
now or a week from now, none of this Would
matter. The paper you worry so much about
getting out today will, this time next week, be
Wrapped around somebody's garbage, and all
,.your worries will have been useleSs, so you
Might is well relax a little, do the best you
can, but not 'get So wrapped up In needless
worry that you harm your physical or mental
health.
It's. much the same with everyone's lives.
They worry so much about getting ready for
the holiday season.but son it's `Come and gone
and It didn't really matter whether everything
was planned just so or not. Time passes,, and,
with it go needless old worries.
That's why, I think, people like Bing and
Guy and Elvis and Frank and the sports 'stars
and so on are so important.in our lives. People
talk about how ridiculour it is that these
people make mote than the Prime Minister,
more than the President of the United. States
and in a way agree.
But in an other, I sit back and wonder if Frank
Sinatra or Guy Lafleur aren't" as important as
the leaders of their governnients. When times
get tough, it is as much the entertainers, the
sports stars that come to our rescue „as the •
politicians, Irwe had to dwell on our problems
all the time we'd soon all be in,mental homes
It's the entertainers who take the pressure off
and allow us to remember that things .like
unemployment and • inflation and national
'unity are just momentaty problems and that
things like sport and art and music. Will be
here long' after these problems have passed
It is a mark of human decency to feel shame at
having been born into the 20th century. So began the
introduction to a popular reprint.
The statement reflects an uneasy conviction that
people of our time have somehow sunk to an ultimate
of decadence and have brought us to the brink of
hell, with about three minutes left to midnight, and
the lend .
No one, of course, should dismiss the facts about
our age that have generated despair.Yet"we should
resist the,tendency, as old as humanity, to let the evil
of immediate circumstance overwhelm us. 4
n fact the presence of fear must have been much
more immediate to past generations in the path of a
conqueror, or in the midst of an epidemic, than to the
present multitudes who watch television and the
instant communication of bad news it reports daily.
Indeed, television seems ,to cater to the mysterious
twist in human nature that prefers to hear evil than
good. Thus we are too little acquainted .with the
enormous amount of mutual aid, the'degree of
brotherhood and the dialogue between peoples that
exists along with the less pleasant realities of life.
Where there is no hope for the future, there is no
power in the present. However, there is nothing
within our knowledge to destroy the firm conviction
that now, as in time past, the prophets of gloom and
doom will lose out to the apostles of faith and hope.
(Unchurched Editorial)
To the editor:
I came across this little gem of Henirich
Boell, writer and Nobel prize winner and
made this translation:
"I search for much, but especially this; how
is it possible that 800 million christians have
not been able to do more to change this world.
A world of terror, suppression and fear.
Suppression will be yours, Christ said, but
be of good cheer, I have conquered the world.
I see, hear or notice so little of that conquest
of the christians and of the liberation from
fear. From fear of society's jungle. From fear
by the Jews, by the blackS, by the children, for
disease. A christian society should be a
society without fear. The christians haven't
conquered the world.
A different picture is even more ghastly.
What would the world look like if history had
had - no Christ? I leave to everyone's
imagination the nightmare of a pagan world,
or a world in which godlesness systematically
was practised.
Nowhere in the Gospels do I find
justification for suppression, murder or
coercion. A christian who is guilty of this iS
guilty. With christians, compassion is at least
possible arid every once in a while one find
some christians. And sometimes, if one
behaves like a christian, the world is amazed:
I would even give preference to the worst
possible christian world over the best pagan
world, because in a christian world there is
room for them who can't find room in a pagan
world; the crippled, the sick, the oldo the weak.
This world gave them more than roorn, she
gave them love,
I call Oil the iniagination of My
contemperaries to imagine a World in which
Christ had not appeared. I believe that a world
without Christ would even Make adventists
Otit of atheists."
Adrian VOS