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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1978-08-16, Page 2The last post Behind the scenes By Keith Roulston Where has all the summer gone? I don't know about you, but about this time every year panic starts to set in around our place. Where has , all the summer gone? Back in the bright early days of spring I made up an optomistic list of things that, .would be done around this rambling antique we call home before the winter winds blew. Well I can hear those winds just around the corner and that list is just about as long as it was the day it was drawn up. If it hadn't been for the bitter experience of last year, I wouldn't be so worried,these days. I had a lot of work I figured on getting done in the warm days of September last year but there were no warm days. In fact there wasn't much you could do outside last September unless it was to fill a newly-dug farm pond with water. That was easy since everything else got filled with water too including bean fields and basemenls. I spent that month trying to find a few dry moments to take an old roof off and put a new one on. It was finally accomplished one cold and blustery day in late September or• early October when it was all one could do to stand up on the roof. Only an idiot would be taking on such a job on such a day but then after those weeks of wet weather and knowing how much work had to be done. before winter there were a lot of us idiots doing things we should have left alone. This cold Work was of course followed by a case of near-pneumonia and of course was also followed by a week of beautiful warm fall weather. Now a logical person remembering all this from last year would get an early start this year, but then I'm not a logical person. There are so many good reasons in May, June and July not to get out the paint scraper and start taking the old paint off the window sills. Just about anything seems more important than building the new porch ' steps. Afterall, nobody's broken his leg yet onthe old steps: twisted an ankle maybe but' not broken anything. Besides, it's hard enough to keep up with the garden. with all those weeds that are growing 30 times faster than the plants that am supposed to be there. Of course there are also some good solid reasons for my own particular slow start on the summer work. There were revisions to be written for a play and rehearsals to go to and work generally associated with getting a production on stage. That helped cook May and June but the play went on stage July 11 so I've got to come up with some other excuse for the rest of the summer. I can't even use the garden, for instance, because by. now I've abandoned the garden to the weeds anyway. So there's nothing left but to get at the work. I'm one of those people who like old houses. I know it doesn't make much sense. It's much smarter to choose a nice new house but then people have been telling me for years I'm stupid. When it comes time for work around the house I'm inclined to believe them. Old houses somehow don't look quite so beautiful When there's miles of old woodwork to be scraped and painted. When the old gingerbread on the sagging porch is broken and had to be repaired it doesn't seem quite so precious. And when it comes to climbing to the end of a 30-foot ladder to paint the eaves, the tall stateliness of the old house isn't at all to be loved anymore. I'm a chicken at heart when it comes to height. The thing that really makes one have second thoughts about the old house, however, is When one tackles what appears to be a simple repair job, and three days later has to call in professional help. To solve one little thing sometimes means uncovering five big things. Even the simplest of th ngs takes an enormous amount of time. Scraping ' the paint of one window can take as long as painting five. Fitting in one new WindoW pane can take as long as building a whole set (Continued on Page 3 )"t 4Brussels Post ORUSSILS ONTARIO WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16; 1978 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community. Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario by McLean Bros.Publishers Limited. Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $9.00 a Year. Others $17.00 a Year. Single Copies 20 cents each. e. Who's responsible? /1.1.1111111 INTARLIOND 1073 Huron County can be excused if its reaction to the current polio scare is ode of confusion. Immunize, no matter what, we hear on the one hand. Polio vaccine isn't necessary for those over 30, we're told the next day. And anyway, there's no need for all this fuss...the polio cases are in Oxford County, which is not exactly on our doorstep. There seems to be province wide confusion about the extent of the polio risk and the precautions, if any, all of us should take. There is little co-ordination in the statements from public health people at province, county and local levels. Is it logical to have special advertised polio clinics in the northern part of Perth County while south Huron people, geographically much closer to affected Oxford County get the shots only if they call the health unit or their doctor? An emergency like the polio scare in Oxford shows that Ontario lacks a united voice, consensus on an issue that's crucial to everyone's health. We think that's something to be concerned about. • The polio outbreak is a complicated subject and we realize that out• of necessity the media or those who talk to• them over-simplify in the interests of being understood. But the multitude of conflicting instructions the public has been getting hasn't helped anyone. We need public health authorities at all levels saying approximately the same thing. They've got time, we hope, before the next communicable disease outbreak to get together and do just that. Meanwhile, we the public have to take some of the blame for the current confusion. Public health people have been hammering away for years telling us to keep' our immunization levels up. But hardly anyone, unless they're travelling to Europe or have just stepped on a rusty nail, bothers. Parents haVe even been lax about making sure babies get their first vital polio, diptheria, tetanus etc. shots. How many family doctors include a round of booster shots in patients occasional health check ups? Would it be feasible to do so? Fortmer Huron MOH Dr. Frank Mills has been quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying the province ought to make immunization compulsory. But is legislation the answer rather than individual responsibility? Certainly we need to understand that communicable diseases like ,' polio don't disappear just because there aren't any cases for a few years. They are held in check only by a high level of immunization among the population. Some people object to immunization'on religious grounds and they have every right to their beliefs. But do they put the rest of us at risk? Some of us are lazy or forgetful about keeping our immunities up. Polio will happen to the other guy, never to us. Perhaps both the confusion about what to do about polio shots and our laxness in keeping our booster shots up to date stem partly from the same source. We're looking for someone to tell us what to do, to spoon feed u§ the absolutely correct answer. We don't want to inform ourselves and take personal responsibility for informed decisions. We don't really want to have to make choices, to know details even about something as important as our own health. Is that it?