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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Lucknow Sentinel, 1982-03-03, Page 7.11 L` PCi NOW SENTINEL "I &Am Tows" zatabn.lied1$73 • SHARON J..DIETZ - Editor PAT LI,ViNGSTON , Office Manager MERLE. ELLioTT Typesetter JOAN. HELM Compositor Lacknow Sentinel,. W,, March 3 1982 -fie 6 Business and Editorial Office Telephone S28-2822 Mailing Address P.O, Box 400: Lucknow. NOG 2110 Second Class. Mail Registration. Number 0847 Sebeerfotiea rate, 814.50 per year r solvent Sealer Citizen rate, 812.00 per year r aivi eco, U.S.A. end. Feretp, S3a.Os per you (r advance Sr. Cit. U.S.A. lord Fla, 536,00 per year le *Aimee Time to move quickly oitrailsafety The CP train derailment in Medonte Township, northwest of O*4111* on Sunday, which forced the evacuation of at least 1,500 threatened by toxic smoke has raised the question of rail transportation. safety in this country again. Sunday's derailment was a grim deja vu for Mayor Hazel McCallion of Mississauga. Chlorine gas drifting in the air after a. derailment of a CP Rail freight train forced the evacuation of almost 250,000. Mississauga residents and shut down .thecity for 11 ''days in Ndvember, 1979, Ironically, Federal Transport ter Jean -Luc Pepin was at home preparing a report on 1 in rail safety has improved since the 1979 Mississau ter, when he received news of the derailment, northwest of Orillia. The report was to have been handed down in the House of Commons on Monday - According to Mayor McCallion, time is running out on the railways and the Canadian government or they'll soon have to account for lives lost in derailments of trains carrying deadly cargoes. .• McCallion said railway objections to costs have held up implementation of recommendations issued by Ontario Supreme Court Justice, Samuel . Grange, following his inquiry into the Mississauga derailment. ' McCallion said inspection of equipment and tracks has to. be far more thorough -than it is now, and she suggested Ottawa begin spot checks. • . .one fcrot in the furrow The snowthrower bit the manure a couple of weeks ago. Thisreporter wrote a column about .farm wives literally taking a beating in the back forty. The column suggested that tough times, high interest rates, low returns and the fear of , bankruptcy had turned ' some farmers into wife -beaters and child -abusers. I thought farmers had given up ; writing letters to the newspapers. No way. ' The mailbox was burdened . with irate letters suggesting thatI had fallen out of my tree for mentioning that life for some farm families can be lonely and terrifying. Apparently, a few dozen . people in, the areas where this deathless prose is printed thought I was including every farmer. The column, the letter -writers said; intimated that every farmer beat his wife and kicked his kids. Now, I am really sorry if I left that impression: It is simply not true. What the column suggested, perhaps too vaguely. if the letters received are a yardstick, was that it is more difficult for a"farm wife and family to get'help then it is for a city, wife. That is all;' nothing else. It was not meant to suggest that every farmer in Canada is a wife -beater just because he is a farmer. It waswritten only to suggest that if such things do happen in the country, it is more difficult for a farm wife to get help. To suggest, as one or two letters did, that all farmers are upright and would never resort to such tactics to vent their frustrations and anger, wouldbe hiding your head in the sand: One letter writer said he had lived in the country all his life and had never heard of a fanner taking out his anger in a brutal manner. That may be true for some peopl a but it is simply not true throughout the country as a whle. Some farmers do. And I would be the first person . to suggest that, on a per capita basis, fewer farmers resort to such tactics than any other segment of the population. I believe more farmers are law-abiding citizens than most. other areas of endeavour.. I have lived and worked with them all my life and have found them to be, sincere, honest and gentle people with a reverence for life, and the land that is not found anywhere` else: But there are' a few rotten apples. Whether those fine people who wrote such indignant letterswant to believe it or not, it it is still more difficult for a farm wife, isolated from town, to get assistance when it is needed. - To suggest that every person engaged in agriculture is perfect is to hide from the truth. Take a look at what happened a few weeks ago when a group of farmers donned' masks and held shotguns, and rifles and even managed to con a big -city newspaper . photo- grapher into using their picture in the paper. Fanners have recently participated in quite a few acts of intimidation. They have acted as rabble-rousers and vigilantes.: To quote a letter published recently in Farm and Country magazine will underscore my point: "As a farmer I am fully aware of agriculture's precarious economic situation, but intimidation; threats and violence are the wrong way to correct the situation." Amen to that: • A .broken wheel j suspected of 'causing Sunday's derailment. CP officio is have said the hairline crack which' caused the broken wheel could only have been. detected by `x-rays. Margaret Scrivener,. former chairman of the Ontario. Task Force on :Provincial Rail Policy said Sunday's accident indicates nothing has rainy .changed since the Mississauga crash. - Scrivener repeated the recommendations made in her task force report: freight trains are too heavy and the track is not adequate in many instances for what it's expected to bear. • Transport Minister Pepin rejects as "terribly negative", claims that nothing has changed since the Mississauga derailment. Pepinassured reporters .yesterday improve- ments are being made as quickly as possible. "You can only move at a certain speed in these matters." Several of the Grange report recommendations are in the process of being .implemented. Forty per cent of trains carrying freight in Canada are now equipped with modern, heat -resistant roller bearings. The. Mississauga derailment •occurred when an old-fashioned friction bearing overheated and seized a wheel: ,• "Hot box" detectors, sophisticated infra -red scanners that are placed on the track to . detect overheating wheel. bearings, .are expected to be used on all urban routes by 1984. Grange's report called for the detectors: to be installed at 20 mile intervals on routes frequently used for dangerous ° traffic. One recommendation which has not beenimplemented is the colour coding of cars. Experts at the scene Sunday could not determine which cars were involved in the: fire following the derailment until the smoke shifted to permit them to see placards carried on the sides of the cars. If the cars were painted bright colours and the colours were coded to mean certain dangerous chemicals and substances, experts would be able to determine almost immediately what chemicals and substances were involved in the fire.. Lives can be lost while you wait for the :smoke to clear. One thing is certain, railways are going to have to get over their inhibition aboutspending more# to make the transportation of hazardous goods on the country's railways safe: The government is going to have to Move more quickly or lives will be lost in a derailment. Derailments• are happening with increasing and alarming regularity. The derailment 'on Sunday near Orillia was: accompanied by two 'more in British Columbia,, both on Sunday, "A lawyer for CP who testified at a. Canadian Transport Commission hearing in 1980 said the Mississauga derailment was something that "might only happen in 100 years". It might never happen again ° said N. D. Mullins. Well, it's been an awfully short. century! Letters are effective The following editorial' reprinted ' from The Huron Expositor (Seaforth), details the results achieved by a letter to. the editors of a group of local community newspapers: "It's conventional wisdom that letters to the editor are among the most read items in any. newspaper. "It's pointed, out with some regularity on this page that a letter to the editor is an ideal place to putan opinion,, a criticism, a pat on the back, out into the open. "This week we've seen proof positive that a letter to the editor gets things. done. • "It all started a few weeks ago when a group of Huron and Perth separate schoorters got upset about senior administrators' : refual o what they andthe board considered a fair raise proposal. The supporters got organized. They didn't : call radio open line shows, they didn't hold meetings all over two counties. , • . "No, they t rote a letter outlining their positions and personally delivered it to the office of every newspaper in red#tees the two counties. It was when the thousands of readers of those papers had read that` letter to the editor that things started to move. "One signee, '.ouis Maloney, says countless petitions in support came in, one with over 50 signatures. All : over Huron and . Perth people Were calling the letter .writers: Their stand was a topic of conversation, just about every- where when the newspapers containing their letter came out. That letter struck a deep chord in many, many Huron and Perth 'taxpayers. "This week a letter from those who startedthe hullabaloo says the HPRCSS board's original offer has been accepted. That will be confirmed at the board's regular meeting February 22, which the concerned ratepayers will attend. "But the episode : is proof of how much can be accomplished by a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. If you've got a concern, try it." by don campbell: When the cold hand of nature probes the earth, to freeze the growth of vegetation into a state of inanimate suspension, it is, for all intents and purposest the death of the season. Nevertheless, from the warmth of the. human heart, there radiates a faith much deeper than the blanket of snow upon .the meadows, for man in his wisdom knows, that after the death of winter, comes the inevitable birth of spring. Neil MacCrimmon stood by the rough window of his cabin and looked through the dancing snowflakes to- wards Blake's Folly. We cannot, even the most meticulously researched story, 'record the thoughts which passed through his mind, but we can perhaps, imagine his feelings. Did he ponder on the unpredictable circum- stances which segregate mankind into the classes of wealth and poverty? • There . wasa profound\ difference between `his humble log home and the mansion which Dora Blake had left as a monument to her false pride. Yet a new nation cannot be founded upon gold. From humble beginnings, the courage which rose from the depths of deportation, exile and poverty, induced the Highland pion- eers to strain their physical endurance to the limit, and build the foundation for the Dominion which we call Canada. Neil could only . guess what . lay ahead. A roan knows for sure what is in the past, but he.cannot speculate on the dramatic events of the future. Could MacCrimmon ever foresee the part which his great grandsons would play in honour of their heritage; that strong hybrid flower begat by the thistle atld the maple leaf? He surely could never have envisaged the music of the pipes played by his descend- ants; whilst they stood waist deep in the sea, which lapped the beaches of Dieppe and Normandy. In retreat, the .music of bitter but orderly retirement, so that they may lick their wounds, and wait impatiently to play the call to advance. In the charge, the hair rais- ing rant of Clan MacLeod, the cries of defiance and the flash of cold steel, 'advancing from the sea and across the sands to victory. Beside the stone hearth where the fire crackled and. spluttered, Flora MacCrimmon stirred a blackened. cauldron ‘h a long spoon. In an atmosphererclarged with wood smoke and cooking food, baby James slum, ered contentedly, 'oblivious to the hopes and fears which his father envisioned, through the glass panes of the window. • In April, William Blake would sell his land and return to the warmer'and softer climes of his native Georgia: ..This would be the signal for the MacCrimmons to move to another place, and another era in the history of the exiled people. There is a time to sow, a time to reap and, by sheer necessity, a time to tear ones roots from the earth and replant the tree of survival id another soil, so that a family ma live o i h hope of prosperity. MacCrimmon was not an educated, man, but , he realized even in •his ignorance, he had only two reasons for living. He must love and be loved and secondly, he must find a sense of purpose, to bridge that mysterious, inekplicable brief period, between birth and death.• Neil knew 'Only too well that he, and he alone, was responsible for itis destiny. From the pulpit, the Revere-•' end Duncan . MacLeod may have pointed to other, obscure reasons for life on this earth, but MacCrimmon was a practical. man. For him, nothing could replace the satisfaction of work- ing to acquire that measure of free- dom he had never known in his native land. Even though he could not guarantee his ',goal . in life, MacCrimmon was assured that he was loved. His love had survived the terror of the Atlan- tice, the encounters with evil men in Halifax, and the first uncertain days in Upper Canada. Whatever else may accompany •him on the trail to the rolling lands west of Bolton Town, Neil MacCrimmon knew that those he loved would journey with him. As if to consolidate and ascertain the source of his conviction, he felt the warm soft hand of Flora slip into his calloused palm, and her voice whls- pered into his ear. "Come awa free ye dreams, Mac Criminon. 'Tis time tae put grand, f thoughts frau ye head and a wee bit o' food into ye belly!"