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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1990-12-12, Page 5Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1990. PAGE 5. A small step for mankind I think it’s the styrofoam pop cooler that depresses me most. It’s there every morning when I take my dog for a walk, poking the shards of its grey white bulk out of the ditch that runs beside the road I take. ,, If it weren’t for the pop cooler, the scene would be worthy of a Robert Bateman landscape - a grove of gnarled cedars fanning out left and right, the black and ancient Grand River snaking through the background, a squadron of Canada Geese in a low-level flypast looking for a likely corn field. I don’t know how long the busted-up styrofoam cooler has been lodged in the ditch - maybe years. Long enough to endure more than a few rains and snows without budging. Long enough to snag dozens of wrappers and plastic bags and other toss-offs of 20th century flotsam and jetsam that people throw over their shoulders or out their car windows without a second thought. Every time I walk past the remains of that cooler I think to myself, what manner of brain-dead bozo would drive down this The International Scene The origin of Santa Claus BY RAYMOND CANON It goes without saying that the spirit of giving has always been a part of Christ­ mas. So it was that the very first people to hear of the birth of Christ were the shepherds and the three Wise Men and both of them responded to the news by bringing tokens of their love and their joy to the baby Jesus as he lay in the manger in Bethlehem. Each country seems to have its own version of the spirit of giving; a spirit which manifests itself in the concept of Father Christmas. In parts of Switzerland, you may be interested to know, there is even a Mother Christmas who travels with him as well. But what of Santa Claus, the version with which most children on this continent are familiar? The story is told of a little boy named Nicholas who was born about 300 years after Jesus. As a child he was always going about demonstrating his love for God and when he grew up it is not surprising that he became a bishop in the church. Every chance he got he used the wealth and talents that God had given him to help others but, modesty being one of his characteristics, he did not want anyone to know of his good deeds and for this reason he tried to do as many of them as possible in a unobtrusive way. He was discovered in the midst of doing one of these deeds and it was not long before his fame spread all over Europe. Bishop Nicholas became St. Nicholas and there are still many legends in various countries about his activities. In some countries the children await his coming on Dec. 6 which has become St. Nicholas day in the Christmas tradition. The people of Holland were among those who adopted St. Nicholas as their spirit of giving and. after the Dutch had settled in parts of America, it is not surprising that they brought St. Ncholas with them so that he would help in making the young Dutch immigrant children less lonely in their new land. back road, see these trees, that river, those Canadas-and say to hirrrdr herself “Wow! What a perfect place to get rid of that old styrofoam pop cooler!’’ Somebody did. And not just a pop cooler either. I don’t have to squint to see the other crap we passersby have consigned to the ditch -- beer bottles, pop cans, cigarette wrappers, Big Mac containers, Dunkin’ Donuts bags. As a species, we really are a pack of slobs. Well, not all of us. There are people like Gordon Carle. Mister Carle is a commercial fisherman living on the outskirts of La Ronge in northern Saskatchewan. Driving in to town one day, looking out his side window at several years of accumulated trash in the ditch. Mister Carle cursed to himself and muttered something along the lines of “What a sight! Somebody should do something about that mess.’’ Which is when it dawned on Mister Carle that he was driving alone, hence he was talking to himself. If “somebody” was going to do some­ thing about that mess, it might as well be he. But even in a relatively unspoiled spot like La Ronge. the ditches are too much for one man to handle. Carle decided to go for help. He didn’t bug the Rotarians or Kiwanis or the Lions. He just approached all the people he knew in the community and said “Whaddyasay we adopt a ditch?” In New Amsterdam, which some of you may recognize as the former name of New York, the Dutch hung pictures of the saint in his high hat and long red robe. The children’s pet name for him in these pictures was Sinter Klaus. Many of the English families who settled in the same area were of the Puritan religion and this prevented them from celebrating Christmas. To find the reason for this, go back in British history and you will find that during Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan rule in England, all celebrating of Christmas had been banned and this included any reference to Britain’s lively old Father Christmas. At any rate, the English children in New Amsterdam noticed that Sinter Klaus always brought presents to the Dutch children. The former asked their parents if Sinter Klaus would bring presents to the English children as well and since, as everybody knows, he loves all children, so it was that Letter to the Editor Govt, against violence but pro abortion THE EDITOR, Because of their plan of full access and funding, the NDP is being hailed as a saviour by those who favour abortion on demand. At the same time, this govern­ ment purports to be against violence. Inter-uterus violence, motivator and pro­ moter of violence that follows, is not taken in consideration. If you tolerate and even sanction the termination of human life before it has a chance to prove its worth, you can expect the deterioration of the dignity and respect for human life. We see this increasingly every day. Our natural compassion is apparently still within us but it manifests itself in the protection of animals, often to ridiculous heights. Occasionally we demonstrate human love in highlighted cases and send 500 presents to an abused child. But we mostly neglect those around us because it is not glamorous to help if there is no recogni­ tion. Nothing is worse than the abuse of power exercised over those who depend on and often put their trust in those who are in charge. I still bear the scars of abuse encounter­ The La Ronge Adopt-A-Ditch program was born. “We asked local people to volunteer to clean up just one kilometre of ditch, both sides,” says Carle, “and we asked them to make a commitment to do it four times over the summer.” The idea took off. A La Ronge radio station supported the plan. Nearby com­ munities jumped on the bandwagon. Mayors, downtown merchants, whole fami­ lies and members of a nearby native reserve jumped on the bandwagon. By summer’s end 300 community volunteers had plucked the junk from more than 90 kilometres of ditches around La Ronge. Next spring, Carle and company plan to tackle the junk that has collected for most of this century around the area’s lakes and canoe routes -- in addition to keeping the ditches clean. We don’t have a lot of lakes and canoe routes where I live, but we have a ton of dirty ditches. Bet you do too. Think about it the next time you go for a drive. Check out the number of old mattresses, beer cartons, pop bottles and Pampers you pass in one kilometre. Not too daunting, eh? Nothing a half dozen volunteers with a pickup couldn’t handle in, say one Saturday afternoon in spring? Why not start your own Adopt-A-Ditch program? It’s not patented. You willing? I am. But not this afternoon. This afternoon I have to go out and pick up a styrofoam pop cooler. the kindly old person got around to looking after all children in New Amsterdam, not just the ones of Dutch origin. Since the other kids had trouble pronouncing the Dutch words as well as did the Dutch children, the word soon got changed to Santa Claus which, as you know, it is today. Since there was Father Christmas on one side of the ocean and Santa Claus on the other as far as the English speaking world was concerned, there soon became a grafting of the two personalities. Nobody is quite sure just when the reindeer-drawn sleigh made its way across the Atlantic but it did and so in New Amsterdam Sinter Klaus was delivering his presents in a vehicle of English origin. The changes in dress followed shortly afterwards until it was difficult to tell the difference between Mr. Claus of England and his namesake in New Amsterdam. Santa Claus as we know it had arrived. What will he be like 100 years from now? ed in Hitler’s Germany. My fear of the return to such a world has become verv real, where power over others was the motivating factor and those least able to defend themselves lost out. Yet, all the money or power we amass means nothing in the end. Only the legacy we leave behind will be of value. We all can and must contribute in promoting morals, ethics, dignity of human life and love for one another. Especially our clergy, educators, politicians and the powerful media who carry an awesome responsibility. We must muster the cour­ age to resist going the way of least resistance and selfish reasoning if we want to create a better world. What nobler cause could we have than to work on the building of our nation and not the destruction of our own offspring. There are many waiting and empty arms to receive a new bom baby. We would help our dying nation that has to rely on immigration to shore up our declining population. Let us build a responsible society and start now, for the day is short and the season right. ADRIAN KEET BLUEVALE. Letter from the editor A glimpse at a self-confident Canada BY KEITH ROULSTON I was listening to Peter Gzowski on CBC Radio’s Morningside as I travelled in the car the other day and it struck me that he was portraying the kind of Canada I’d like to see. I introduced myself to CBC radio’s Morningside a dozen years or so ago. The radio in our house was always tuned to the local station and when I got older I listened to stations playing the latest top 40 music. So it wasn’t until I met Don Harron when he came to do a fundraiser for the Blyth Festival that I started listening to CBC again. I’d long been an admirer of Don, not so much for his Charlie Farquharson character but as a writer and as a person who gave back as much as he took by doing things like fundraising for worthy causes. When I learned he had just been named to take over the Morningside program I started to listen in when I could. Since then Don ran the show for several years then turned it back over to Peter Gzowski who had originated it. Now I listen to the show when I’m travelling and envy those stay-at-home moms and dads who can listen for a whole three hours each morning. The country reflected on the show is a fascinating, self-aware, comfortable-with­ itself country and if the country was really like that from coast to coast, we’d have a much healthier nation. The show reflects a country, not just from a Toronto viewpoint, but from across the land. Gzowski may be talking to a correspondent in an isolated Inuit village one moment, a panel of top business experts the next, then off to Ottawa to a panel of political experts, then off to BC or Newfoundland for a panel on local issues. He’ll be discussing Canadian writers or movie makers without apologizing about how they aren’t as good or as well known as Americans. Among Gzowski’s audience, these people probably are well known because the people listening do more than read National Enquirer and watch Enter­ tainment Tonight. Yet it’s not an audience of the elite. Listeners include fishermen, trappers, farmers and millions of other people working at home. Over the years, even with my sporadic listening, I’ve met dozens of fascinating Canadians I’d never have learned about anywhere else, people like Murray Thomp­ son who was interviewed Monday morning just before he received the Lester B. Pearson Peace Prize. The former World War Two fighter pilot has dedicated his life to peace in the world, helping start groups like Operation Ploughshare. Yet though the program is proudly Canadian there isn’t even a hint of anti-Americanism or isolationism. Ameri­ cans are looked at as a very interesting, often-outstanding foreign country. Gzow­ ski dips into American and other world cultures without ever getting into a them-versus-us attitude. It’s the kind of confident Canada-build- ing that CBC was set up to do: the kind CBC television has never quite managed and with the cuts to CBC operations announced last week, perhaps never will. As much as I like the idea of home-made Canadian dramas (many of my friends earn their living from them), it is in explaining one part of Canada to other parts that it has its most important function. If 1 had power over CBC I’d assign a quota of so many hours each week to be produced in each of the provinces and broadcast to the rest of the country. It would not only help us understand other parts of the country but would reduce the sense of frustration so many areas feel when they think only the view from Toronto gets airtime nationally. The greatest function of television, radio and newspapers and magazines is to not just inform, but let us know enough about ourselves to be self confident. I don’t think many people in the current government Continued on page 19