HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1978-06-14, Page 2RDOP SURVEY — Anne Stedart, Muriel Taylor, Doreen taylor and Gail Pritchard
are going to be working in Ashfield, West Wawanosh, East Wawanosh, Turnberry,
Morris and Howick townships this summer, studying the needs of those people who
consider themselves to be homebound. The study is being jointly sponsored by the
Day Centre for the Homebound in Huron and the Rural Development Outreach
Project at. the University of Guelph. (VVingham Advance Times Photo)
WERE GOING TO WIN THE RACE — This unidentified gentleman helped Barry
Spring of Balrn Beach win one of the antique car games held at the Brussels Flea
Market and Antique Car Display on Saturday. The object of the race was to stop the
car at a certain point, get the apple, then race the car to the finish line and Mr.
Spring won. (Brussels Post Photo)
Behind the scenes
By Keith Rouiston
At home disasters
4Brussels Post
MAK LS
ONTARIO
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 1978 "
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community,.
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Etros.Publishers Limited.
.Evelyn Kennedy Editor,
Member Canadian. Community Newspaper Association. and
• Ontario Weekly NewspaperAssocia t ion
Subscriptions (in- advance) Canada' $9.00 a Year.
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Others $17„00 a -Year, Single Copies 20 cents each,
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Today fatherhood is changing. With more women
working outside the home, many children .are
discovering fathers for the first time. The old roles of
authoritarian figure is changing as the male-female
roles in society change. The distant figure who left
much of the child-rearing up to his wife has had to
, adjust to the new lifestyles.
Parenting at the best of times is hard work. It takes
love, an,d courage and a speci'al understanding to
grow up with our children. Fathers are products of
their own parents and sometimes it is difficult to
escape the patterns that they themselves were raised
in.
On Father's Day, we should pay special attention
to the men who play an increasingly complex role in
our families. We can sympathize with the father who
said, "I hope they (his children) see me as a decent
man who finds fun in living." So let us accord
fatherhood the attention it deserves!
Thanks, Cal
Brussels Reeve Cal Krauter deserves
congratulations for being the lone voice to speak out
publicly at county council against the removal of
books from high school English classes.
Such book banning smacks of Naziism, Reeve
Krauter said and he's right.
Totalitarian dictatorships always move to control
thought, to remove freedom of speech and to censor
literature. The public, especially the young, are
allowed, to read only what the state calls the truth.
There's no room in Nazi or (Soviet for that matter)
countries for writers who "tell it like it is", as do the
authors that county council supported dumping,
John Steinbeck, J. D. Salinger and Canada's own
Margaret Laurence.
It's easy' to say our reeve was exaggerating. It's
easy to ignore the book controversy and say
dictatorship and thought control can't happen here.
But we don't think citizens can do that.
On a trip to Ohio recently we were stunned to hear
a Ku Klux Klan leader on a radio news show. The
Klan, that infamous white supremacy organization
Was having a rally that day on the steps of the state
legislature.
The first thing the' Klan Would do when it won
power in Ohio,, its leader said, would be to censor
School textbooks and get rid of any that didn't share
the Klan's assumptions about life in AMerica. We
Can shudder at what theY'd be.
It's trite to say that the price of freedom iS
vigilance.
But it's a shame' that more lodal politicians don't'
Understand as Reeve Krauter does, how easily
choice can be er oded aWay.
Compared to the disasters at home, the
great problems of our time seem insignificant.
I mean who cares if there's trouble in
Rhodesia when the oil furnace has just
exploded and filed the house, inclUding your
new expensive living room rug, with black
guck.
Luckily, the latter hasn't' happened around
our place out here at Muddy Lane Manor but
that's about all that hasn't happened recently.
The water pump is wheezing and gurgling and
.sounding like it has a severe case of
pneumonia while coughing up only a few
dribbles of water now and then. just enough to
keep us feeling like we're in the middle of the
Sahara. it needs to be takenout and taken to
the repair shop bpt I'm almost afraid to after
just finally getting the car back from the repair
shop where it went in apparently for
something minor, and didn't return for two
weeks.
Meanwhile the dog has a turtle fixation, She.
keeps finding turtles all over the place, .even
though it's a' Ralf Mile to the 11001'est river.
Twice it's been those little painted turtles
she's found crossing the lane and they've
been about her speed. They just haul in feet
and legs with the first , yap she gives and
pretent to be .a rock. It doesn't fool her but
both are relatively safe.
The other day, though. she was sporting
around in a hay field and came upon a little
bigger game, a snapping turtle. It just didn't
play .the game the way she expected. She
barked and instead of taking cover, it turned
to fight, Luckily. the dog was slightly faster
than the turtle and Managed to escape those
vicelike jaws but the dog kept circling and
barking for hone's, now and then running up to
the house to get a drink of water then
Morning for more: I .don't know if the dog
Ana* wore out its throat, or the turtle expired
front noise 'pollution,
The biggest fun has been with the youngest
of our btood, He's just turned three and
'already he's been Wearing glasses' for over a
year:, He's gotten along reniarkabiy well until
this Spring, Now' for some reaSOtt. Whether
becasue they're hot and make hint sweat or
because bugs like to climb in behind the
lenses, he's begun taking theme off and setting
them down when he's outside. And, of course;
forgetting where he took than off and set
them down, Several times We've' undertaken
hurried, worried searches around the yard for
them bilt when you live -on a farm, there's a
heck of ' a lot of property to cover. We've
eventually found the glasses each time but
sometimes not the way we expected. After
one search that lasted more than an' hour, we
finally gave up. Later in the day the missus
was cutting the. grass when she came into the
house to report she'd found the glasses-.
Unfortunately it wasn't until she'd already run
over them with the lawn mower and retrieved
a couple of hundred pieces.
For me personally, the biggest problem was
learning to get along without a car for two
weeks. Originally it was thought the car would
be ready in a day, thenfour days and finally,
the garage couldn't even promise when it
would be ready becasue they were having a
hard time finding the parts. As usual, when. I
mess something up, I do, it well. The parts I
break are always the hardest to come by, the
one's your just not supposed to break so
people don't keep them around.
The break down came, of course, at the
busiest time of the spring when I needed a car
most. Luckily one never knows how good
friends are until one needs help. Offers for
help were quick in coming from many friends
with cars and trucks and.we got through the
worst emergencies, like carrying 3,500 copies
of a magazine back from the printers and
taking the wife to London for a doctor's
appointment.
- Still, you never know how much you depend
on a car until you're without one. Simple
things like a grocery shopping trip suddenly
require all the planning of the D-rlay landing.
When you're without a car and three miles
from town; you make sure you don't forget
anything.
• , There's atso a certain peacefulness about
not having a cap though. It's sort of like being
stuck at home during a big winter storm:
you can't do anything about it, so you Might as
well relax and enjoy it. Being trapped at home
meant I got More writing done in the latter
part of the sojurn. It took away the temptation
to slip into town for this or that and end tip
Waiting a couple of hours.
Still, peaceful as it was, there WAS a gigantic
shout of joy when the garage called to say the
car was finally toady. I'm not ready to return
to pioneer days doinpletely.
Father
Father's Day has always seemed to be an
afterthought. The special day commemorating
motherhood came first - it involved sentimental
cards, breakfast in bed, flowers and often dinner out.
The day set aside to celebrate fatherhood always
seemed to place a poor second. Father was that
shadowy figure who worked all day or sometimes all
night. In some families, five or six days would pass
Without the fathers' and childrens' schedules
crisscrossing. He was the family provider and very
often, the disciplinarian. You loved mother and
respected father.