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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1980-06-25, Page 4Amalgamated 1934$ .P00•4 Timm Estaislished l$73 Times-Advoccdo, June 25, 1980 Advocate Established.,1 051 airtstream Canada. SERVING, CANADA'S BEST FANMLAND 0.W.N.A. CLASS. 'A' and ABC Published by J. W. Ecody Publications Limited LORNE EEDY, PUBLISHER Editor Bill Batten Assistant Editor Ross Haugh, Advertising Manager — Jim Beskell Composition Manager — Harry.DeVrios Business Manager Dick Jongkind Published Each Wednesday Morning Phone 235,1331 at Exeter, Ontailo- Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 SUBSCRIPTION .RATES: Canada $14.00 Per Year; USA $35,00 Bl W, Roger Worth To some people, the word indexing has to do with filing systems and the like. To others, it's one of tie fingers that does the walking through Bell's vaunted yellow pages. But to the federal governs ment and bureaucrats in Ot- tawa, the word indexing con- jures' up visions of the sugar plum fairy dropping hundreds of millions of dollars on the nation's capital. The reason: Ottawa is talk- ing about dumping automatic indexation of basic personal income tax exemptions, a pro- gram started in 1974 to help Canadians deal with inflation. Indexing: let's be consistent Do it more often Roger Worth is Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business. One of the frequent comments heard at Saturday's homecoming at SHDHS was "we should do this more often". It was a sentiment expressed by many as they warmly greeted friends whom they haven't seen since leaving the local halls of learning. Despite the promises of "I'll keep in touch" which many students ex- change as they tearfully say farewell to close friends on graduation day, those promises become difficult to keep as people stray from coast to coast and half way around the world to pursue their livelihoods. The letters start to dwindle and Drivers who take police on high- speed chases should receive mandatory jail terms and automatic licence suspensions. That recommendation comes from Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police Chief Gordon Torrance and it is sound. Legislators who worry about high- speed pursuit have a tendency to blame police but, as Chief Torrance rightly suggests, the shoe should be on the other foot. A speeding driver, attempting to evade the police, is a danger to himself, his pursuers and any member of the public who innocently gets in his way. He has under his control a dangerous weapon, capable of doing immense damage to both people and property. I'm glad to be a Canadian in 1980 because of our geographical location. Southern Ontario doesn't have any tidal waves or earthquakes. We don't have mudslides or volcanoes. If we did, millions of dollars would be lost by the destruction and millions more for in- surance and repairing. Lives would be lost rescuing and evacuating and even more money lost for pay and funerals. Another reason is that Canada has many doctors. For instance in Exeter, there are seven doctors on call at the hospital. We have health units and up- to-date equipment. We have X-rays, operating rooms and helpful drugs. We have Chiropractors and Optometrists. These are things that poorer countries have few of. Poorer countries like Bangeladesh and Pakistan are contaminated with disease and starvation, while Canada has vast amounts of food, High speed pursuits Glad to be Canadian new friends are soon found to replace the school chums who were considered inseparable. Memories start to dim of those good old days and they are too soon forgotten in other than fleeting recollections. The current students and staff at the high school are to be applauded for making the extreme effort required to organize such an undertaking. Hopeful- ly, it will be considered again some time in the future. It was a day of many pleasant memories, rekindled friendships and encouraging realization that you were the only one from your class who hadn't noticeably aged. Freedom is another reason, for Canada is free with many allies. We are really a neutral country. If war does ever directly affect us, we have many treaties with England, United States and others, so that way we are lucky. Canada has one of the best air force, ar- my, and navy so we can defend ourselves properly. Non-anti-religion is a reason for which I am grateful. I am allowed to come and go as I please. But in Russia and Vietnam its a different story, because of anti-religion there. That's why you don't see any Russian travellers. I am glad to be a boy in Canada in the year 1980 whose parents, and friends, teachers and relatives really care about you. If they didn't, there would be no such thing as a loving or human race. John Wells Exeter Public School. Police can hardly be expected not to pursue a vehicle whose occupants are fleeing the scene of a crime. However, in many instances, what starts out as a routine questioning of a driver for vehicle infractions or Highway Traffic Act violations - ends up in a high-speed chase. Either the driver panics and flees, or he believes that, if caught, the worst that can happen to him is a fine. Chief Torrance's recommendations show foresight. If a driver realizes that he will go to jail when he is caught after running away, he may think twice. There is no excuse for drivers who disobey a policeman's order. Reckless high-speed flight is worthy of an automatic jail term Need lakes with hills 55 Years Ago Mr. George Jeffery,' Usborne had a successful barn raising on Monday, erecting the framework of an "L" shaped barn on a cement foundation to replace the one destroyed by fire. Never in its history did that portion of Hibbert having Cr omarty for its centre experience 3 days of such pleasurable excitement as on Saturday, Sunday last. The section celebrated the diamond jubilee of the church and the 105th year of settlement. Lovers of flowers will do well to spend an hour at Central Park and get acquainted with the beautiful flowers and shrubs that have made such a beauty spot of the grounds, The new pipe organ for the Lutheran Church Dashwood, has arrived and is being installed this week. Such a move would mean last year's personal income tax exemptions of $2,650 for a single person and $4,970 for a married couple would not rise. The result: every taxpayer in the country would pay more money to Revenue Canada. 30 Years Ago Lions Club awards for Exeter District High School were won by Kathryn Hunter in grade 9, Joan Ellerington in grade 10, John Haberer in grade 11, Joan Hopper in grade 12. Gerry Kesselring winner of the London Hunt Club gold tournament, was out on the Grand Bend links on Saturday. The first ladies' night sponsored by the new Exeter Kinsmen Club was held at Brenner's Hotel, Grand Bend. Nelson Stanlake has of- fered 500 pounds of fertilizer for the best sheaf of barley six inches in diameter at Exeter Fair. Officials of the Exeter Game Conservation Club expect to receive 700 day-old pheasants from the Department of Game and Fisheries — part of a long- term project to restock local forests with game birds. Grand Bend will apply for By SYD FLETCHER When I was a lad of about 12 or 13, we lived in Georgetown. At the far end of town there was a paper mill that employed a good number of the town's citizens. We used to roam around the mill property and up into the mill itself. Sur- prisingly nobody seemed to care about a pair of curious kids wandering about the huge machines. In fact, the workers used to show us where we could get big chunks of the stiff paper- board that we could use for projects at school. At the bottom of the hill where the paper-mill was, flowed a very dirty creek. It was full of yellowish-green junk that we only half realized at that time came from the mill. We never' worried about it even though we knew vaguely that of course no fish lived in it nor could we bathe in that creek - ever. Who would want to anyway? And the town's citizens seemed to take it as a matter of course. It was something you lived with if you wanted a job in that town. I never thought of that mill again until last week when I took a class of Grade 7-8 students through the Boise Cascade mill at Kenora. It's a huge place that turns out 750 tons of newsprint every day. The young fellow who Perspectives showed us through em- phasized how much money was being spent on con- trolling the pollution in the water which was used in the paper-making process and I thought to myself, sure, that's what you're getting paid to say. Yet a night later I was treated to a big feed of fresh- pickerel, caught in the Winnipeg River just below the plant. Delicious. The next day I had a chance to fly over the factory quite low, You could see the water in the stream and river below the factory. There was none of the yellow-green junk at all, that I could see. The water really looked inviting. I'm encouraged. Maybe we're making a little headway with pollution after all. An updated catalogue of suitable field trip sites for elementary students is being put together this summer, Once completed the catalogue will provide teachers with information about field trips in arid around Huron county on which they could take their students. This project is part of an Experience '80 program funded by the Ministry of Education through The Huron County Board of Education. Teachers often take their students on trips to area farms, businesses and in- dustries. We are hoping that more farms can be included in the new catalogue of field trips. Farmers who are willing to offer field trips of their farming operations for local children can contact us at the address below We would also like to thank the area businesses and factories who have already helped us by providing in- Dear Editor, Due to the crazy weather being ex- perienced for the past month or so, the summer holiday period has crept up without much advance warning. The kids will be fleeing from the halls of learning this week for their two-month hiatus and the pace for many area residents will slow ap- preciably as summer holiday time gets underway. However, it is an acknowledged fact that more and more people are cutting short their summer holiday time in deference to a winter vacation in the sunny south. The practice of taking a week or two off during the winter to get some respite from the snow and cold is a great idea, but those who stayed at home this winter may yet have the last laugh. The way the weather has been acting of late, those who head south for a summer holiday this year may actually be escaping more cold than those who went down when we were enjoying those nice sunny days in February and March. If the cold weather continues, the summer resort operators will be join- ing their cohorts in the ski business and asking the government to bail them out of their financial woes from lack of customers. Which reminds me of one of the current Newfie jokes going the round. Seems a Newfie was the recipient of a pair of water skiis and spent the entire summer looking in vain for a lake with a hill in it. One wonders if the basic reason that our forefathers found life less corn- Dispe I'd like to be able to say that the end of year for a teacher is fraught with sadness, as the delicate flowers you have nurtured during the year (and most of whom have turned to weeds,) leave you. Not so. Rather is it a lifting of several stones from a man who is being "pressed" to confess. The pressing was an old-fashioned method in which ever- heavier stones were placed on a man's chest until he said "uncle", or "Yeah, I said God didn't exist", or "Yup, I know where the jewels are." No so. On the last day of school a teacher walks out of the shoe factory, which most schools resemble, and is beholden to no man. Except his wife, kids, dog, car, boat, bank manager, garden. But it's better than being beholden to a lot of gobbling young turkeys whose chief aim in life is to destroy'your emotional equilibrium, and a gaggle of administrators whose chief aims in life are discipline, atten- dance, dress, drugs, and the entire mid- Victorian world that is crumbling around them. Things have changed quite a bit in the twenty years I've been teaching. In my first year, my home form gave me a present at Christmas and another at the end of the year. This went on for some time. They may have thought I was a dull old tool, but we parted with mutual respect and good wishes for a happy summer, There was always a gift: one year a bottle of wine and three golf balls, another year a table lighter that didn't work; another year a pen and pencil set with thermometer that still works. By golly, in those first years, there was a little sadness. Joe had turned from a gorilla into a decent lad, hiding his better instincts behind a mop of hair. Bridget had turned from a four- plicated was the fact that a summer or winter vacation was a luxury they couldn't afford. They didn't have to worry about whether it was going to be cold in Florida or mild on the ski slopes in the winter and vice-versa when the lazy days of summer arrived. A couple of columns ago, the writer made mention of the many changes in the local municipal facility lineup and noted that about the only thing that had been eliminated was the local bell ringer. Well, at least week's council ses- sion, clerk Liz Bell had a copy of a poem written about that bell ringer and it indicates quite clearly that holidays were something virtually unknown to Emerson Cornish. The poem was written by Innes Dalrymple Hey and it has now been added, to the town's archives and we Pass'` it along for your enjoyment. The old bell-ringer The town hall bell in Exeter, Has run for years and years, It's clarion notes heard far and wide, In springtime brought good cheer. The farmers in the nearby fields, Depended on the bell, It told them when noontime was here, And six o'clock 'as well, Always on time the bell-ringer Rang the bell each work day, Called men to work, rang quitting time, And children home from play. And oft some housewife in the town, Cut short her backyard talk, And rushed to put the dinner on, When the bell rang twelve o'clock. Emerson Cornish had the job, At each appointed hour, eyed eager beaver into a bra-less sex symbol. I wished them 'well, un- reservedly. Nowadays, if my home form gave me a present on the last day, the first thing I would do would be to send it to the local bomb squad. If they cleared, I would open it with tweezers and a mask, wondering which it contained: dog or cat excrement. Ah, shoot, that's not true either. They might put an icepick in my tires, set a thumbtack on my chair when I wasn't looking, write the odd obscenity in their textbooks, two words, with my last name the second one, but they wouldn't really do anything obnoxious. Just because I thumped Barney three times this year with my athritic right fist doesn't mean that we both believe in corporal punishment. We're buddies, and I'm going to keep my eye on my cat this summer in case it's strangled. And little Michelle doesn't ,really hate my guts, even though she deliberately stabbed herself in the wrist with a pen on the last day of school, came up to my desk, looked me straight in the eye, sprinkled blood all over my desk and pants, and asked, "Are you sure I have to write the final exam?" I'm kidding, of course. Those kids in my home form look on me as a father. Not exactly as a father confessor, mind you, or a kindly old father. More the type of father whom you put the boots to when he comes home drunk and falls at your eager feet. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they give me a present on our last day. Perhaps a cane; possibly a hearing aid. Presented by Robin, an angelic-looking little blonde who kicks Steve, just ahead of her, right behind the kneecaps in the middle of the national anthem, and makes him' fall forward kicking backward, He rang the bell, (for forty years) In sunshine and in shower. In the stormy wintry weather, In the hot summer time, In rain and sleet, below zero, The bell was rung on time. The morning bell told all the kids Get up, get dressed for school, At one o'clock their mamas cried, 'You have no time to fool". These kids grew up and went to work, And so the story goes, They married - now the old town bell Keeeps their kids on their toes. Many a working man has said (Some sultry afternoon) "I wish that old town bell would ring Quitting time must come soon." Before the big depression hit, Emerson rang the bell, Through the lean and hungry Thirties He rang it then as well. Through tragic days of World War II, New Airmen walked our streets, 'Em' rang the bell; boys far away Faced battle's scorching heat. V-E day came, the war ended, 'Em' laughs and likes to tell,. How our citizens delighted, In tolling Hitler's knell. The Fifties brought automation, And still 'Em' rang the belll, And thought of Harveys' Mill horses He liked to drive so well. Earthmen held rendezvous in space, Old 'Em' still rang the bell, In the mid Sixties he resigned, Retired, to rest a spell'. Innes Dalrymple Hey :1.44P1P The more I think of them the more nostalgic I get for the year we've spent together. At least, I am spent. They're not. They haven't invested anything, so there's nothing to spend. On second thought, I'm not a father figure to them. I'm a grandfather figure, In the last few weeks of school, before it was decided who would be recommended, and who would have to write the final, I noticed a definite in- crease in solicitude and kindness. If I dropped my book from senile hands, they would pick it up, and in- stead of throwing it out the window, would hand it to me gravely. And they became nicer to each other, probably out of consideration for my in- creasing sensibility. Instead of tripping the girls as they went to their seats, the huge boys would pick them up and carry them. Instead of throwing a pen like a dart when someone wanted to borrow one, they would take off their boot, put the pen in it, and throw the boot, so the pen wouldn't be lost in the scuffle. And speaking of scuffles, there have been verr few of late. Oh, the other day, there was a little one, when Tami, five-feet-minus, grabbed Todd, six- feet-plus, and shoved him out the win- dow, second-storey. No harm done. He was able to grasp the sill, and when she stomped on his fingers, managed to land on his feet, some distance below, in the middle of a spruce tree. Maybe it's all been worth it. They haven't learned much, but I have, and that's what education is all about. Three years from now, I'll meet them somewhere, on the street, in a pub, in jail. The boys will have lost their 14-year-old ebullience and the girls will be pregnant, and we'll smile and love each other. The change would allow the federal government to raise more badly needed cash, with- out having to blatantly "raise taxes." With, a federal deficit that may reach $14 billion this year (that's about $1,300 for every working Canadian), there may be some merit in the scheme. But what about the other side of the coin. If Ottawa is so gung ho to cut income-tax indexing, why not be consist- ent and outlaw indexing alto- gether, Ali federal government spending programs now in- dexed for inflation would not be increased, with the resulting political fallout. Members of Parliament, of course, might be upset if they had to forego automatic salary increases. Obviously, they are not go- ing to do this. So why not just raise the needed taxes through higher rates or other honest devices. Indexing results in govern- ment profiting from inflation, a funny kind of taxation with- out representation. permission to incorporate into a full-fledged municipality sometime during July. 20 Years Ago Stanley Saucier, director of Exeter Vacation Bible School announced a record attendance of 233 last week. Mr. Eldrid Simmons was burned about the face, arms, legs and body, Tuesday evening when he was using a blow torch, Twenty-two Exeter Girl Guides and Boy Scouts have won their St. John's Ambulance First Aid Junior Certificates. Examiners were Dr. R.W. Read and Dr. D.A. Ecker. Mr. and Mrs. James Masse who have the largest living family in Canada, 11 daughters and 10 sons, will celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary next Sunday. 15 Years Ago Mrs. Dick Weber, the former Jean Taylor, is listed as one of the 45 persons who have been successful in the three-year training program of the Municipal Clerks and Finance Officer's Association of Ontario. Henderson's Produce,. which has been in operation in Hensall for the past twenty seven years owing to the changes to the egg grading business will close effective Saturday, July 3. Winners in the Lucan Pigeon Club, whose birds flew from Peterboro last Saturday, June 19, Norman Hardy and Son, Frank Hardy, Tom Hardy, Clarence Hardy, Mert Culbert and Sons, and Chas Barrett, Exeter. Mrs. Hector Heywood Andrew Street returned Wednesday from England having enjoyed a pleasant three-weeks visit with her son, Calvin Heywood and family, formation. We would welcome any other in- formation re field trips that may have been missed. Please feel free to contact us. We are working out of the Exeter Public School. Our address is: Experience '80, Box 599, Exeter, Ontario NOM 1S0 235-2630. Paul Perry Dorothy VanEsbroeck * * * Letter to the Editor On behalf of the former staff and students of South Huron District High School, I would like to thank the present staff and students for Homecoming 1980. Organization and co- operation of all persons involved in the planning made the day a very pleasant and memorable one. Sincerely Lauretta Siegner Beholden to no man 4