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Times-Advocate, 1980-05-14, Page 4711 :NW 4 Times Established: Times-Advocator, May 14, 1980 173 Advocate Established 1001 Amalgamated 1924 SERVING: CANADA'S. BEST FARMLAND Q.W.N.A. clASS 'A' arid ABC. Pablished by-J. W.EAdy Publications limited IQRNE EEDY, PUBLISHER Editor Bill. Batten Assistant Editor Ross Haugh Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett, Composition Manager Harry DeVries Business Manager — Dick Jongkind Published Each Wednesday Morning Phone 2354331 at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $14,00 Per Year; USA $35.00 ,...MV4W-W.W.......+1,WMWM*4.0^,WVAVO.W.0,1,,,,,,I,Sv • Need bigger steps 1111,11 RIBBON 1.ARD 1914 4PCNA By W. Roger Worth, Spring has arrived, and farmers are out tilling the land, getting set to provide us with, yet another of the crops that have allowed Canadians to pay food prices that are among the lowest in, the western world. This year, though, farmers have been forced to do a lot of soul searching before plant- ing millions of acres of every- thing from potatoes to wheat. The reason: high interest rates of 18% or more on the one hand, and commodity prices that are abnormally low, on the other. In addition, fer- tilizer costs have increased dra- matically and prices on farm machinery are out of sight. Roger Worth is Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business.. High interest rates, though, are the real bugbear. Unlike most consumers who borrow on a long-term basis, farmers borrow heavily in the spring to buy fertilizer and seed, pay- ing off huge loans When crops are sold in the fall. As a result, farmers must make a decision on whether commodity prices will be high enough when the crop is har- vested to, cover the extra costs. And with farmers actually los- ing money on such items as pork and potatoes, the out- look for a bumper crop is not bright. Many times, consumers complaining about the high cost of food on supermarket shelves fail to understand the farmers' problems. It's time they took a second look. Canadian consumers pay about 22% of disposable in- come on food, compared to 30% or more in Germany and close to 40% in Japan. Who's responsible for the bargain-basement prices? The country's farmers, that's who. Instead of con- sumer gripes, they deserve a pat on the back, particularly in this year of skyhigh inter- est rates. One trustee charged that the board had failed to do any long range planning or to take a look at school closings to reduce the budget. Unless they can challenge that statement, it is obvious that the members were quite correct in cutting back their own stipends because they haven't earned it. That same trustee hinted that they had failed to look at some of these avenues because of political aspirations, this being an election year. There's little doubt that school closings would be unpopular, but perhaps no more so than this year's education budget. Sooner or later, someone is going to have to take the in- itiative to keep education costs in line with reality and hopefully the current board members don't think they can es- cape the inevitable by merely cutting their own stipends. The hole in the dike is bigger than that! "THAT'S the drought insurance you went out to get?" patient or inmate, and where one can- not mix with other community residents or enjoy community amenities, is hardly conducive to nor- mal behaviour. So we must change that. For too long, we have reduced the potential and normalcy of the mentally retarded person, and have further retarded his development. We have stressed the negative, not the positive. We have pointed out his "differentness" not his likeness to the rest of us. The mentally retarded per- son, for his part, being neither vocal nor articulate, has accepted his fate quietly. The Canadian Association for the Mentally Retarded and its nine provincial and 350 local associations are trying to change that. And we all must help. Normalization therefore means many things for the mentally retarded. But it also means something for those of us who make up the so-called "nor- mal" segment of society. It's time we revolutionized our thinking. It's time we raised our expec- tations of the mentally retarded. Old attitudes and fears die hard. But let's give normalizations and the mentally retarded - a chance. Sup- port the Flowers of Hope campaign and let them bloom. more than we are; we must not be less than we are and we must not be more than we are. The decision to change, to become a "developing person" can come from special moments that kindle our hopes that life can be different. Or it can come when the distress, the dis- satisfaction, the emptiness is too much and we decide to find some other way of being. We must realize that a change from familiar to unfamiliar involves risks. We often cling to inappropriate behaviour because it is familiar. There are no magic techniques to develop new coping procedures. We must explore who we are and what we want and what our values are. We may need to assert ourselves with our fami- ly, with our friends, attending support groups, attending workshops and seminars, by reading or we may need other counselling. One thing is certain — stress is here to stay. We had better learn to cope with it — our health and our happiness depend on this. Let them bloom The price of change The Huron County Board of Educa- tion members took one step towards reducing their budget last week by cut- ting their own stipends from $3,600 to $3,000 per year. but it is obviously a very small step. Ironically. they may have become so intent on the question of their own honorariums that they failed to realize that the budget is quickly getting out of hand. A 15 percent increase for Huron residents at this time is almost a burden, given the fact a large percen- tage of county residents are already facing an economic crisis through the current squeeze on farmers. There is little school trustees can do to halt inflation or declining enrol- ment, cited as the two main causes for the drastic increase in the budget, but it is questionable if'members have really come to grips with some of the action that must be taken in face of declining enrolment in particular. Normalization. The word may not mean much to you. You may not even find it in your dictionary. But for more than two million Canadians, or one- tenth our population, the word is becoming increasingly important. The Canadians in question are the approximately 640,000 mentally retard- ed citizens and their parents and families. For them, normalization brings almost revolutionary hope and new expectations. Normalization, simply put, means letting the mentally retarded person obtain an existence as close to the nor- mal as possible. It means for example, that the mentally retarded person be given the chance to do things we've long denied him, because our expectations of him were so low. It means we must free him to live in more normal settings. Sleeping in wards of 50 or more, taking every meal in huge cafeterias, or bathing in mass showers will never produce normal behaviour. So we must change that. It means we must free him to move and communicate in ways typical for his age; to use typical community resources be they recreational, religious, medical, social or whatever. Being isolated in remote institutions or hospitals where one is labelled as a Here is some very good advice from The Petrolia Advertiser - Topic. Chain smoking, alcoholism, muscle spasms, ulcers and pimples, all have one thing in common. They are the price we pay for coping with our world as we see it. Coping with conditions that are too severe for our physical or psychological resources, Stress can make life more difficult than it needs to be. Everyone needs to experience love, to know one's self as having value and to believe life has meaning. Unfor- tunately, we develop desperate strategies in our effort to fulfill these basic human neds. We try to compel people to love us, to achieve our value and to prove that our lives are worthwhile. In this impossible quest "stress-loops" are set up. Stress loops are self-defeating. Instead of evaluating ourselves we disclose ourselves — take off our masks. We must not try to live by external stan- dards. The most common despair is to be in despair at not choosing or not will- ing to be one's self. We must stop being Spend If members of Exeter council met behind closed doors to decide on a pro- ject that.would cost taxpayers over half a million dollars in the next 25 years, there would be reason for those tax- payers to be perplexed at not being given the reasons for the expenditure, It could even be assumed that members of council would consider it unwise to debate such a major expen- diture behind closed doors without the people who foot the bill being given as many details as possible through press coverage of why such an expenditure should be made. Even in this day of spiralling infla- tion, adding over half a million dollars to the budget over a period of 25 years is a sizeable cost factor, and one for which the taxpayers should be given some indication of the apparent need. Yet , Exeter council did meet behind closed doors last week to do that very thing. They agreed to add an additional man to the local police force and the es- timate of that costing taxpayers over half a million dollars in the next 25 years will probably be under the actual cost involved in paying that salary and the accompanying benefits. To top it off, they even went behind closed doors again at the same session to debate what stipend they would offer the new building inspector and zoning administrator who will be hired for the community. Over the next 25 years that expenditure will probably total something around $375,000, pushing the grand total of the expenditures deliberated away from public scrutiny to almost one million bucks. * * * In searching for legitimate reasons why these two topics should be held in secret, the writer comes up with a list that reaches the grand total of nil. Personalities were certainly not in- I'm glad I'm not a farmer. I'm glad I'm not a number of things: a bar- tender, a doctor, a goal-keeper, a fighter, Chairman of the Treasury Board, among many others. But I'm particularly glad I'm not a farmer. A bar-tender must cope with a low class of people, forever trying to tell him their sordid secrets. A doctor must handle some of the lowest parts of the human anatomy: piles, bowels, ingrown toenails, seed warts on the sole. A fighter, professional or merely domestic, must constantly be on guard against low blows, physical or vocal. The Chairman of the Treasury Board is faced with trying to sell savings bonds at a low interest rate when everyone else - banks, trust companies, and jumped-up usurers of every color are offering the moon in interest, But the farmer is faced with the worst low of all - low income, low prices, and the ?raw opinion of the vast majority of lowly-informed people in hand. A number of things has recently brought this to my attention, though I've known it, peripherally, for years. Last Saturday. the Old Lady and I gazed, with the fascination of a rabbit facing a rattlesnake, at a tiny prime rib roast of beef in the meat counter, We turned simultaneously to each other and as I was blurting, "What the hell...," she was saying, "It's been two years." We bought the little beauty, we slavered as it roasted, and we attacked it when cooked like a couple of Eskimos who have been living on boiled moc- casins for two months, and have finally killed a seal. Lying groaning after the orgy, I volved, because the two positions are vacant at the present time. Council members were not being asked to con- sider the merits of individuals, but merely of the positions. There is cer- tainly nothing delicate about that in any stretch of the imagination. If the discussion about police per- sonnel was related to decreasing the manpower and thereby giving the criminal element some indication of when the town may be at their mercy, then some consideration would possibly be warranted to not disclosing the details. However, when it is adding a policeman to give the town better protection, obviously the opposite would hold true and the criminal ele- ment would be even more aware that Exeter is a place where their interests would not be well served, ,.By their very action of hiding behind closed doors, council gives the impres- sion there is something to hide. I wonder what it can be! * * * During the same meeting, council passed a resolution calling on the Canadian government to express their disgust with the Russian government over the atrocities taking place in Afghanistan. Councillor DonCameron indicated he was somewhat reluctant to accept news reports of such incidents at their face value because it was often found they were inaccurate. Reporting on events in Afghanistan, of course, is difficult for newsmen because Russians are not known for holding news conferences where they answer questions on what is transpiring in their own country or anywhere else where they may be involved. It is not uncommon, under those cir- cumstances, for misinformation to be passed along as reporters are often began to think, the roast wasn't much thicker than one of the steaks you toss- ed on the barbecue ten years ago. It weighed 2.35 pounds. It cost seven dollars. With whipped turnips, roast potatoes and onions, a little garlic rubbed in, and a salad, it was something you wouldn't be ashamed to serve Queen Elizabeth. Then why was it such a big deal? Ber- cause we, like so many shortsighted, spoiled Canadians, have been shying away from the beef prices in the super- market for a couple of years, without really thinking about it, muttering, not really blaming the beef farmers, but feeling hard done by. A bottle of whiskey of any decent brand, costs eight dollars plus, the price of three pounds of prime rib roast. Which would you prefer? Which takes more tender loving care? Which returns a decent profit to the producer? In West Germany, people are paying seven dollars a pound for beef. If this happened in Canada, there'd be lynching p-irtins running through the country-side. looking for beef producers. Same day wt. bought the beef, I pick- ed up a five pound bag of P.E.I. potatoes for 49 cents, Ten cents a pound. I'll bet you'd pay more for manure, if you wanted to green your lawn. A pound of bread, shot through oachines, is about seventy cents. A pound of butter, likewise, is up around $1.45. A pound of eggs costs about forty cents. A quart of milk is ninety per cent watar and costs around seventy cents. A lousy lettlice, imported from California. co its a buck. Same for a bunch of asparagus. A pack of cigarettes costs more. /7-- working only on second hand informa- tion gleaned from sources that are not always reliable. The same thing holds true in this country when public officials do not provide the press or public access to meetings. They end up being suspicious of the reasons for not being provided with the access. I find it a little unnerving that the residents of this community are not given the reasons why an additional policeman is required, especially when the policing costs are spiralling faster than most other town budgets. * * * Residents would also be interested in hearing what stipend the building in- spector will be receiving, particularly in view of the,decline in building activi- ty in. the community over the past few months. There is little doubt that it has been almost a full-time job over the past two years, but the , ecgnomic conditions would appear to indicate that it will become very much a part-time position in the days ahead. Last month, for in- stance, only $264,000 worth of building was approved, with most of that being a $190,000 contract for renovations at the hospital. While it is impossible for anyone to estimate the amount of work in the future, there is an indication that it will tail off considerably and a full-time wage for a building inspector may become rather foolish. Perhaps the successful candidate could be given the job of animal control officer to keep him busy. There are several other possibilities and it is a situation which council must watch closely. Six imported tomatoes, shipped from New Mexico green as bullets, and less tasty than mashed toe-jam, will run you nearly a dollar. There's something crazy about our way of life, our prices, our values. We pay $1.25, and will eventually be paying $4.00, to run a rusty piece of metal from here to there. There are about six middle-men: the Arabs, the shipping company, two or three governments, the trucking companies, the eventual dealer. And we shudder as we walk past the meat counter and see that beef, choice, is $3.38 a pound. Would you rather have two gallons of gas or a pound of beef? Would you rather' have a quart of rye or two and a 'tali pounds of beef? Would you rather have a pack of fags or ten pounds of potatoes? Perhaps I'm not making my point. Eggs and butter and cheese are right up there in price, but the farmer who. supplies the milk is working for peanuts, However, these products have some kind of control. After all, Eugene Whelan dumped sixty zillion rotten eggs on us a few years ago, and Canada can't give away its huge supplies of powdered milk. But a lot of our farmers are being royally shafted: especially the meat producers and the poor devils Who come up with our spuds. Have you any idea of the capital cost, the heavy interest, and the horse labor that goes into producing a pound of beef or a pound of potatoes? I thought not. I'm glad I'm not a farmer. Mainstream Canada Farmers deserve a pat on the back. ugar and space Dispensed by rniley Happy not to be a farmer million behind closed doors 11 ,1• V1:4 r ott wo memory lane) 774. 55 Years Ago Rev. W.E. Donnelly of James Street Church, has been transferred to Wingham. Rev. J.H. Johnston of Essex will succeed him. Exter District Methodist Association strongly op- posed Premier Ferguson's new law allowing 4.4 percent beer. The meeting siad, "the Premier deliberately repudiated the fundamental principle of the British Em- pire of majority rights-by lightly ignoring the fact that 33,000 of a majority stood for the continuance of the OTA. Palmer's new grocery store and confectionery, Hensall, opened for business on May 20. 30 Years Ago Grand Bend. Women's Institute voted $300 toward South Huron Hospital at the May meeting. The home of the late Richard Davis, John St., was purchased by Harry Bierling for $4,250. Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Wilson and family arrived from Regina over the weekend. Hugh has accepted a position with Dinney Furniture, Alfred Coates has purchas- ed the residence of Mel Alderson on Albert St. Mr. Alderson has been transferred to London, Anita Datars. Zurich who has finished her course at Stratford Normal, will he engaged at Kitchener. Receiving BA degrees at University of Western On- tario are Stuart McBride, Marjory Klopp. Donald Southcott, and Pauline Haberer. 20 Years Ago Mrs. Hilton Laing, librarian of the Exeter Public School Library and Defence': Walk, jog, run, skate, ski, swim, paddle, pedal ...don't let life catch you with your head down. Dear Editor: The newly former Grand Bend Cancer Committee has completed their campaign and would like to use your paper to thank all the people who worked so diligently and donated so generously to the campaign. Our appreciation goes to all the stores and churches who handled the sale of daffodils, and a special thanks to Mrs. Laurie Bisbeck for convening the sale which realized $271.00. Mrs. Beth Wurm did an outstanding job distributing the daffodil boxes which she placed in over 50 places of business. $229.58 was realized from the pennies, nickles and dimes which were exchanged for plastic daffodils, and we thank Mrs. Wurm for her effort. Twenty dedicated can- vassers covered the area from the Ausable River cut on the South to Oakwood on the North and collected $3138,20 from c bout 500 Mrs. G.C. Koch, of the library board. attended the annual conference of the On- tario Library Association in London this week, Tom Arthur, of town. frac- tured his arm Monday when he fell from one of the viners at Canadian Canners Ltd. John Anderson of Hensall became sole owner of the Venner Trophy over the weekend as he won the an- nual Victoria Day Kippen Gun Club shoot for the third time. Town of Exeter's operations during 1959 resulted in a surplus of $1,- 433.26, it is reported in the auditor's report approved by town council last meeting. 15 Years Ago Ross Haugh. Stephen Township clerk became a fireman for a few minutes at his home. Youngsters had tossed firecrackers into an apple tree on his property. Haugh started a one-man bucket brigade, with a dish - pan, and tried putting the fire out. A neighbour, Al Smith soon arrived with a garden hose. but the tree was destroyed, Steve Willett, eight-year old son of Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Willert, 190 Anne St., miraculously escaped with only minor burns when the kite he was flying hit a 4,000 volt hydro line. He had some 30 burns on his body, but was in school the following day, feeling no ill effects, For the fourth year in a row, the SHDHS Bible Club has walked off with the Tri- County Youth for Christ Trophy for top marks in the annual Bible quiz. The Team consists of Ray and Marcia Sauder, Carol Sauder. Lynda Blanchard, Shirley Sauder, Betty Hamilton and Sylvia Cann. Edgar Cudmore was the winning team coach, householders and businesses. Our thanks to both canvassers and donors for a job well done. If, by any chance, anyone was missed in the canvass, the Toronto- Dominion Bank will be happy to accept donations at any time. Other donations which were sent in amounted to $272.00 and Memorial Donations received during the month of April amounted to approximately $351.00, for which the committee is very grateful. The present total for the Campaign is $4264.01, and our thanks goes out to anyone who helped in any way. Our banner, which hung on the Colonial Hotel, is still missing and if anyone knows of its whereabouts we would appreciate hearing of it. C. Stokkermans Chairman, Phone 243-2905 H. Blewett Canvass convener, 238-2787