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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1980-09-04, Page 4Some area residents may have to become clock-watchers now that Earl Guenther has moved into semi- retirement. They won't have the almost flawless punctuality of the 84-year-old Dashwood man by which they have been able to determine specific times during the day that were marked by his arrivals or departures. For 70 years he served the area in various capacities associated with the mail and a variety of transportation businesses. While he's already sur- passed, by almost 20 years, the age when most people decide to retire, Earl plans to coast to a halt by maintaining his rural route delivery until September of 1981. He far surpassed even the most stringent meaning of the famous "neither sleet nor rain..." Motto of the mail courier and more than one area pest office worker has had many oc- casions to question how Earl's familiar figure could loom out of the most severe winter storms that seemed to halt everyone else. He is most reluctant to talk about his experiences for publication, and one can only guess at the stories that he could tell about his eight decades which span the horse and buggy era to today's satellite mail transmissions. Suffice to say, most people can only shake their heads in disbelief when they consider the man's constitution, depen- dability and dedication. Ei abli0104: t i73 AdV11.50/, Established 188,1 Amalgamated 1924. Canadian worries A recent gallop poll netted some rather interesting statistics on the things that worry Canadians. The major worry of Canadians is health, while the financial problem of making both ends meet finished a dis- tant second. Fear of unemployment was the third major wprry of Canadians and the fourth was having enough money in old age. Health topped the list with 35 per- cent of those polled listing it as their major worry. But following health, economic related concerns were a ma- jor source of worry. Making both ends meet preoc- cupied 23 percent of those polled while 13 percent were worried about keeping their jobs. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that as many people are worried about keeping the household budget in line and maintaining a job as they are worried about their health. But if Canadians are worrying too much about their socio-economic status their health is, liable to deteriorate .in any case. Maybe the merry-go-arOund will never stop. The same poll asked Canadians what gives them the most satisfaction and family and friends was a clear winner. Health and work were a distant second while religon, independence and leisure activities provided satisfaction to a minority. What all this may indicate is that healthy people with money who enjoy good relationships with family and friends, have few worries: But where does one find these people? Two years enough Recently, a recommendation from another municipality in Ontario has been making the rounds of nearly all municipalities seeking endorsation of the three-year term for municipal council members instead of the present two-year term. On the one hand, some people think that the three-year term would allow councils enough time to settle in to the job better without the extra expense of an election every two years. However some think three years is too long a term, as elected officials would quickly forget responsibility to the electors. While one-year terms would cer- tainly seem too short, three-year terms are definitely too long, and during that time the incumbents could really lose touch with the taxpayers, particularly on the local level. The first year of a two-year term d I lows the newer members to familiarize themselves with the game of politics, and by their second year they are fully versed on the operation of a council, and yet still fresh enough to offer new ideas. Should they not find council to their liking, they may bow out gracefully after two years. At the provincial or federal level a two-year term wouldn't allow a govern- ment sufficient time to introduce and enact legislation, before they would start politicing again. But municipal politics tends to run more on an annual basis, because it is financed by yearly property taxes and little advance plan- ning is needed. Although some money could be sav- ed by only having an election every three years, the amount is insignificant when compared to the loss of the democratic privilege. Clinton News-Record By SYD FLETCHER I was visiting the intensive care unit in the hospital. My sister-in-law had been in a serious accident. A dune buggy in which she had been riding had flipped over and thrown her out. Five minutes was the time limit for me to' visit her, Then my wife went in. I stood in the hallway, not a little shaken. It is not a good part of one's life to see a person badly injured in an automobile accident. I have to give the doctors and nurses of emergency wards a great deal of credit to face such things often, As I stood in the hall, I leaned against a covered stretcher for a moment without looking at it. My wife came out of the ICU and I chanced to glance down, From the corner of the sheet protruded a small 'bluish foot, that of a child of perhaps eight or nine. Hurrying from the hospital, I could not shake the sight of that motionless small form from my thoughts. Somewhere back in that building a set of parents would be coming to grips withlthe terrible know ledge that their little ..me would no longer be with them to annoy, pester, tease, and love them, that tomorrow the house would be strangely silent. At home I clutched my two urchins to me, grateful for the warmth that came from their little bodies, more than willing to forgive them of any small imperfections they might have, just happy to have them right here with me. ' ,PV,A,V,P,POVMMAM Perspectives u ar and Dispe sed by Smiley ^OS 55 Years Ago Mr. John W. Taylor is nursing a very painful finger these days Mr. Taylor was nailing steel laths on his house when he fell from the step ladder and came in contact with the lath in- flicting a painful wound. A report from the Cen- tralia Ladies Aid shows hoW hard work can accomplish great feats. Since the United Church burned down in 1921 the Ladies Aid have raised $4,110.44 towards furnishing the new church, This amount • will give the reader some idea of the great un- dertakings the ladies have so successfully conducted. Alfred E. Tennant, veterinary surgeon who for over 40 years has practiced in Exeter, died in Victoria Hospital, London after a serious illness of pneumonia. After an illness extending over three years, there passed away at her home in Guelph, Mrs. Samuel Pert, at the age of 68 years. The late Mrs. Peart was before her marriage Miss Marie G. Horne, daughter of the late Mrs. Horne, one of the pioneers of Huron County. 30 Years Ago Rev. H.J. Snell representing the London Conference, is in Toronto attending the General Council of the United Church. Exeter District High School Board approved plans for an agricultural barn on the school property at its meeting last week. Starting Monday, Sep- tember 25 adults haircuts will be 65 cents, children 50 cents (on Saturday 60 cents.) Exeter Chapter OES marked the twelfth an- niversary of its institution on Wednesday evening with Mrs. W.E. Middleton as worthy matron. Clayton "Dado" Hoffman, 62, a former member of the famous Exeter-Zurich . hockey team years ago, died Monday night in Galt from a heart attack. Elimville church will celebrate its 75th birthday on Sunday, September 24. 20 Years Ago SHDHS board agreed Tuesday night to advertise for another teacher. This will bring the staff number up to 26. Elmer D. Bell, Q.C., Exeter is regarded as a strong favourite to become the new head of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Association, reports indicate this week. Mayor R.E. Pooley recently attended a practice plowing session conducted at Springfield, Elgin county, in preparation for the Inter- national Plowing Match there in October. Bill Mickle Governor of Kinsmen District 1 flew by jet to Vancouver to attend the Association of Kinsmen Clubs of Canada last week. Hensall "Oddfellows" Midgets ended a 20 year famine for an Ontario Baseball Association Championship Monday night when they whipped Langton Lions 12-6 to win the all- Ontario Midget "D" crown. 15 Years Ago 'An area boy, Ralph Bat- ten, eight year-old-son of Mr. and Mrs. John Batten of Elimville was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital, London, Friday suffering a broken leg. The boys was riding his bicycle on Huron County Road 6 when he was in collision with a car near the main intersection of Elimville about noon on Friday. Council has decided to pay auxiliary police officers at the rate of $1.50 per hour when they are called in to work. This will only be in the case of emergency and must be authorized by the chief. Enrolment at South Huron District High School was up 74 pupils over last year to 846 on the first day of classes yesterday. Twenty-two teachers were on hand, boosting the number of teachers to 42, The new principal is Douglas Palmer, who came to Exeter from Wiarton. Tc Driver preoccupation can be fatal. Ministry of Transportation and Communications Ontario Poole 4 rrorti-Advocate, Siloptemb.er 4, 1980 — „ SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND C.W.N,A., OM,N.A. CLASS 'A' and ABC Published by 4, W, Ledy Publication* Limited LORNE EEDY, PyIKISHER Editor —Bill Batten Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh. Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett Composition Manager — Harry DeVries Business Manager Dick JOngkind Published. Each Wednesday Morning Phone 235.1331 at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0306 SUBSCRIPTION RATES; Canada. $14.00 Per Year; USA $35.00 What a record! "I spent a month getting a tan on holidays and lost it when I opened the bills ." making Canadian firms less competitive, particularly in the international marketplace. While minimum wage laws affect a limited number of workers directly, every increase may force other wages and salaries to rise. • The present system effectively forces labor intensive firms to speed up introduction of new technology, in the process re- placing people with machines. • The hospitality industry (resorts, hotels, restaurants) would be more competitive, perhaps providing more jobs for unskilled people. As a result, service in such establishments would be im- proved. • Of particular importance to smaller firms is the fact that minimum wage laws raise the cost of training unskilled work- ers, And that's an important item to consider at a time when the major complaint from both big and small firms is a short- age of skilled labor. Thousands of people oper- ating smaller businesses in Canada though, simply don't ' understand the need for a minimum wage. The reason: many smaller retailers across the country work a dozen hours a day, seven days a week, earning even less than the minimum wage in their province. But at least they do it by choice. Makes Few people would want to rush the aging process and in fact some spend thousands of dollars to ward it off in a cosmetic way as they pay for repairing drooping eye-lids, sagging chins and greying hair. However, there is every indication that booming business may suffer a severe setback with the announcement recently that the Ontario government has come up with a plan that enables senior citizens to get back more municipal taxes than they pay this year. Some municipal officials, who ob- viously spend more time checking on such things than their civil servant cousins at the provincial level, became aware of the situation when senior citizens asked them to fill out applications for the new provincial property tax grants. One clerk used the hypothetical ex- ample of a 67 year old farmer with a small holding on which he produced $4,- 000 worth of produce - enough to qualify for the 50 percent farm tax rebate. If he paid $950 in municipal taxes he would get a $475 farm tax rebate and the max- imum $500 senior citizens' property tax grant. In total he would get back $975 on a municipal tax payment of $950. The two provincial programs resulting in that bonanza are complete- ly separate. The farm tax rebates are related to productivity and income and the property tax grants are not. At any rate, there are probably a number of area farmers who will suddenly start feeling that they're 65, No essay this week. No controlled, clear, coherent concise evaluation of some piece of trivia, as is my wont. It's quite difficult to keep one's brains unscrambled in a summer like this. One day you are gasping around like a newly-caught fish, trying to ex:, tract oxygen from the humidity to re- main alive. Next day you are pounded on the head with hail - yes, hail - or you go down to the basement and there's a foot of water in it. First couple of times I mopped it up. Now, we just stay out of the basement until the indoor swimming-pool has dried up, by evaporation. Once again. we have discussed at great length, what to. do about the "patio". We call it that for want of a better word, We have two French doors leading onto the patio. The patio is a pile of rocks, ranging from three pounds to two hundred pounds. It has no known purpose that we've ever been able to discover. It has no geometric or any other kind of design. It looks like something a cross-eyed architect, well ihto the grape, assembl- ed one night with the aid of a bulldozer and a couple of bibulous, but mighty strong companions, in the belief that he was re-creating the Pantheon, in Rome. And if you walk up the back path at night, with no lights on, one of the protruding rocks can give a hell of a rip on the shin. Scattered among the patio rocks are bricks and half-bricks, pulled from the wall of the house by a vine that is a her- bivorious Incredible Hulk. By day, it is a thing of beauty, making the old house look like something out of a book of Georgian prints of stately homes. It must be at night that it turns into a monster, snatching bricks with its octopus-like tentacles and stuffing age rewarding although before they start searching for records in the family Bible to sub- stantiate their age, they should be ad- vised that provincial officials are scurrying about in an attempt to plug the loop-hole that has made them over- ly generous. Examples of such bureacracy in ac- tion are almost limitless it seems. The city of Fort Lauderdale made some sort if bureaucratic history by passing an anti-pornography bylaw in which every forbidden act was describ- ed in minute and colorful detail. The local newspaper refused to print the document for fear of being prosecuted under the bylaw's proyisions. Wortunately, the city's constitution provides that a bylaw does not come into effect until it has been published in a newspaper, There's still some question of how that little problem is to be overcome, There was also the case of the woman in Texas who received, in addi- tion to her regular welfare cheque, an unexplained cheque, for $140. She called the welfare office and was told that, pen-ding investigation, she should open a special bank account and deposit the cheque, in case it should be necessary to return it later. The cheques arrived monthly for 10 months and were duly deposited, but the woman then received a notice stating that she was being cut off welfare, the office having learned that she had a bank account with $1,400 in it. The examples do not all pertain to them into its voracious maw, except for those that dribble out of the corner of its mouth onto the patio. And let's not speak of nights. Four mornings in a row I went out for my post-prandial coffee and morning paper. Four mornings in a row, I dash- ed back into the house, white-faced, shouting things like: "Call the cops. Get the fire brigade. The Vandals are here, and maybe the Goths. The Mar- tians have landed. Gimme some bran- dy." Now my back lawn is not exactly pristine and perfect, a classic greensward. Let's say you couldn't bowl on it. unless you were using square bowling balls. It has its little ups and downs, like the rest of us. Some almost of ski-hill potentiality. But it's mine, and I like it. How would you like to go out and dis- cover that a herd of elephants had been grazing on your back lawn, during the small hours? There were divots there that Jack Nicklaus couldn't make with a nine iron. There were holes that look- ed as though they'd been made by Mighty Mole. There was turf and grass and dung all over the place. It looked like a used car lot from which all the cars had been lifted by a mighty magnet. Second time I saw it, I was cooler. Elephants make bigger droppings than that, and there's been no news report of a band of rogue elephants. I figured it was horses. But then I thought, horses eat grass, they don't kick holes in it. Third morning, I knew it was the dogs next door, a couple of beautiful Pinchyourman Dobers or something, But they're perfectly trained and kept in at night. Finally, I knew. It was a kid I'd failed last June, getting back at me in some twisted fashion. I rapidly ran through the group, mentally, and came up . public, bureaucrats. There are some which crop up quite frequently in private enterprise, particularly with the advent of the computer. Take the case of Walter Stohl. He received a credit card from a major oil company made out to Walter Tohi. He sent it back, pointing out that his name was Stohl not Tohl. When the replacement card arrived (you guessed it) it was made out to Mr. Stohl Nottohl. Walter used the card for months, signing Mickey Mouse whenever he bought gas, and was never challenged. He eventually received a corrected card. • It's said there's nothing new under the sun and one of the contributions to that department can be found in a play written by Henry Fielding, way back in 1731, .in which he cited the folly of lotteries. Much of it could have been written today as governments and private groups step up their advertising campaigns and new lottery gimmicks in an attempt to fatten their coffers, The opening lines of Fielder's play are as follows: A lottery is a taxation Upon all the fools in creation: And, heaven be praised It is easily raised - Credulity's always in fashion. For folly's a fraud As will never lose ground. against a brick wall. They were all too lazy to do such a prodigious amount of damage. Next, we thought of coons. There are some around. But no self-respecting coon is going to be out there digging like a dingbat when all he has to do is whip the top off the garbage pail and ragale himself on watermelon rinds and tag-ends of pizza. Fifth night, we left on the outside light and I sat up all night with a brick in one hand and a hockey stick in the other. Nothing happened except that I fell asleep about two a,m. and dropped the brick on my bare foot. Finally, as I should have done in the first place, I brought my neighbour a man on eminent good sense and wide knowledge, over to view the vandalism. He looked at me pityingly, as he so often does. But he's not brutal. He led me gently but accurately, as a seeing- eye dog does with a blind person. "You've had your lawn sprinkler on? Quite a bit?" "Well, sure. My grandsons turned it on back in July, I turned the tap off, but not the mainvalve.It's in the cellar. But there's been just a little trickle coming out of it for the last month," "Skunks" he stated succinctly. "The water brought up those white grubs and the skunks went after them," I wanted to give him an argument but I couldn't find a thing to say. If it wouldn't be a rotten pun, I might admit I felt a bit sheepish. Sheep were the only animals I hadn't thought of. Anyway, the Water is turned off and the skunks are off to ravagesome other plot. I learned something, an achieve- ment these days. And I one more mark on the lengthy tally my grand- boys must answer to one day. kr axa Mainstream Canada The Minimum Wage By. W. Roger Worth Are minimum wage laws reducing the number of jobs that could be available in Canada? The answer is yes, accord- ing to a recent study by two university professors, although earlier studies indicated other- wise. While the experts differ, there is little question minimum wages (now between $2.75 and $3.65 per hour, depending on the province) have an impact on business, particularly smaller firms. Consider a few examples: • Minimum wages may drive up the overall cost of labor, Roger Worth is Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business. A backyard,bonanza