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The Wingham Advance-Times, 1964-05-28, Page 9amokAr For the Grown-ups Too During the past two weeks quite a few parents of next year's high school students have missed an excellent chance t4 fully understand what the future holds in store for their sons and daughters, We are referring to these mothers and fathers who were not at the high school for orientation night. Perhaps this may sound like unnecessary crabbing, for a high percentage of parents were on hand with their youngsters to find out all they • could about the courses open to their children. The orientation nights are sponsored by the high school principal and staff in order to acquaint graduating Grade VIII pupils with what they may expect at the opening of the fall term and their en- • trance into high school. Actually, the information imparted is of equal or greater value to parents, who will play a large part in the student's decision about his or her course of studies. These orientation nights have a spec- ial significance since the new diversified course of studies was introduced two years ago. The Department of Education has laid all the groundwork for several streams of education to be provided by our high schools. Each of these streams has its own value—the whole idea being to provide the best and most suitable education for each student. Its purpose, basically, is to make sure that tomor- row's society is not cluttered up by square pegs in round holes ... the bug- bear of education in years gone by and one of the prime reasons for mass un- employment, Listening to the school inspector and the high school principal and vice-prin- cipal we learned that this new stream requires a very early decision on the part of the student and his parents about the line of work the young person wants to pursue in later life. In many cases this decision is not easy; in fact it is tre- quently impossible until the guidance people on the high school staff have had an opportunity to assess the student's capabilities in his Grade IX work. How- ever, the presence of mother and father at orientation night makes the problem vastly simpler. The adults are given some chance to appreciate the work the school is attempting to do and the student knows his parents have heard the story and will understand the decision which he faces. We can strongly recommend that when orientation night is announced next year all fathers and mothers take advantage of the opportunity to get first- hand information about the high school and the courses it offers. Time for a Revision Ontario's gambling laws are so com- pletely out of date and unrealistic that they have become a public nuisance. They are inconsistent and impractical. Last week the Optimist Club of Sarnia had several booths in which wheels of • fortune and dice games were being op- erated, closed down by the police. Though the club had operated similar games of chance at their street carnivals for the past 13 years, without complaint or interference, this year they were sud- denly informed they were breaking the • law. The same sort of nonsense has been experienced by other service clubs and it will continue until the laws are amended. Reason, of course, for only occasional crackdowns by police is that they will not interfere unless some citizen makes a formal complaint. In this latest instance the daily press quotes the anti -gambling act as permit- ting such games of chance at agricul- tural fairs and exhibitions. This clause must be sirnialr in nature to the one • which permits bingo games on an "oc- casional" basis. Our gambling laws are typical of the sort of legislation which has been passed all too frequently—the kind which seeks to keep everybody happy at the same time, for fear some votes might be • jeopardized. Gambling should be either legal or illegal, not a mixture of both. Obviously we cannot permit whole- sale gambling establishments to be op- erated for personal gain by unscrupulous individuals, because the potential danger of criminal racketeers predominating would be too great. But it is high time to clarify the situation where service clubs and other non-profit organizations are concerned. The truth of the matter is that laws which forbid gambing are completely un- enforceable. Gambling, in one form or another, can be and is carried on in a thousand places that the more innocent members of society never dream about. A person who wants to do so can bet on anything from the date of winter's first snowfall to the make of the next car which will drive past the town hall. It can't and won't be stopped. There are many perfectly sane and moral people who believe that the only sensible thing to do about it is to legal- ize gambling and permit the government to take its share of the money which changes hands. This does not mean that they think gambling is a good thing—any more than they believe smoking is a good thing. They simply recognize the fact that people will gamble and contend that if they have so much to throw away as luxury spending a fair share of it should be intercepted by the state for better purposes, You are entitled to your own opinion, but for goodness' sake let's get away from the outworn idea that every social ill has a religious or immoral connotation. Let's treat facts in a practical way and seek sensible outlets for the urges which centuries of history have proven to be part of human nature. Co-operation Would Be Appreciated One thing we hate to do in this col- umn is to scold our good friends and neighbours, but this week we are har- boring an irritation that it would be as well to get off our editorial chest once and for all. In the course of a week we receive many requests to take pictures of various is events which are occurring in the com- munity or district. If the requests come in from the district areas the time in- volved to send out a photographer may Yr run into as much as two hours. There may be mileage charges of as much as $5,00 and after that we have film to • process, prints to make and plates to prepare before the photos appear in the paper. All of this is part of the service we seek to provide and we are happy to co-operate. The only time we get riled is when a photographer arrives at the scene of some special function and then has to cool his heels for an hour or two until the participants in the affair find time to be photographed. It doesn't happen very often, but it can be mad- dening when it does. We have to fight off a temptation to drop the whole mat- ter and be too busy the next time the same organization is seeking publicity. All newspapers work within very tightly -set deadlines. Few of their em- ployees have any time to waste. In our case we are delighted to provide pub= licity, but we cannot do so without courtesy and co-operation. • THE WINGHAM ADVANCE - TIMES Published at Wingham, Ontario, by Wenger Bros. Limited W. Barry Wenger, President - Robert 0. Wenger, Secretary -Treasurer Member Audit Bureau of Circulation; Member Canadian Weekly Newspapers Associ- ation; Member Canadian Community Newspapers Representatives Authorized by the Post Office Department as Second Class Mail and for payment of Postage in cash 4 Subscription Rate: (One Year, $4.00; Six Months, $Z.25, in advance $5.0o per year; Foreign rate, $5.00 per year Advertising Rates on application OVERSEAS SHIPMENT—Berry Door Co., Ltd., Wingham, made the first shipment of door hardware on Friday to an English firm which is manufacturing garage doors under license in the Old Country. The huge crates are pictured being loaded on a Walden Transport for delivery at dockside in Montreal. Total shipment weighed in at 35 tons. —Advance -Times Photo. bain bb ncre,7Z/iint Wingham, Ontario, Thursday, May 28, 1964 SECOND SECTION SUGAR AND SPICE A Good Old Civil War By BILL SMILEY What this country needs is a good, five -cent civil war. It might relieve some of the pus and venom that seem to be filling Cana- dians these days, and get them back to the important things of life, like making money, love and rock gar- dens. Symptoms of the national ulcer are everywhere: the ferocity of the Cana- dian flag argument; the lurking threat of violence in Quebec; the growing de- fiance of police by youth gangs; the increase tactics on our Bill Smiley in homicidal highways. Perhaps a little blood- letting would purge our native land of this ten- dency to quibble and squab- ble about everything from the national anthem to the water level in the Great Lakes. There's also the matter of international prestige. AR the big boys -England, France, Russia, the U.S., China—have been through an all-out civil war, and gone on to greater things. In each case the country was so whacked out by the end of the war that every- body stopped bickering and complaining, and got down to the job of becoming a Great Nation. How can we hope to gain respect of the world if we never go through a testing time of seething htared, u n mentionable cruelties, gallant guerrillas, and aII the other ingredients of a good civil war? How is our national char- acter to be transformed from lumpy porridge to forged steel if we never throw a Molotov cocktail, blow up a bridge, or hurl ourselves, barehanded, against tanks? We should be ashamed of ourselves. Mumbling and grumbling about the CBC and the NDP and the Red Ensign and 0 Canada and what's for supper, when we could be stringing up cabi- net ministers, dynamiting the Soo locks, and sacking the O'Keefe Centre. The Irish had a rebellion nearly 50 years ago. It lasted a few days but they've written countless books about it, and every Irishman over the age of 20 swears he was in it, though he'll admit he was only a broth of a boy at the time. Why can't we have some grand traditions like that? Think of the stories we'd have to hand down to our ancestors. "Yes, Homer, your grandaddy was there, back in '64, when the Le- gion, enraged about the flag, marched on Ottawa. Mayor Charlotte Whitton slowed them for a moment at the ramparts with a tir- ade of invective, but noth- ing could stop them. They swarmed into the city, sur- rounded the government buildings, and fired a salvo of resolutions. One of these happened to pierce the Na- tional Debt, and the streets ran red with ink." Or, "Yes, dear, I want you always to remember, and to tell your own chil- dren, that your father was one of the brave freedom fighters in the Great Rising of '64. He was leading a wave of our gallant lads in a loot ... uh, liberating attack on the Seagram dis- tilleries, a capitalist strong- hold. He was cut down by the fascist firehoses and seriously wounded in the, uh, lower back when he fell heroically on the mickey of rye in his hip pocket." Only one stipulation. If this necessary catharsis, this national lancing of our abscess, breaks out, and it's brother against brother, father against son, may I be on the same side as my wife? BOX 390 Dear Sir; I would like to comment up- on your editorial of May '2l, 1064 "Mr. Pearson Popped It", You gave several arguments that may be used against the new flag. Please allow me to state a few of the arguments in support of the contrary and ma- jority view. First of all may I say that I am proud to see that we have a leader who is courageous en- ough to extract the base metal from his nether integuments, Imowing that he will lose the votes of the many Anglophiles who use Canada as a trailing address and nothing more. As for the,projected design of the flag, you say that it "will not remind one single Ca - Rem iniscing MAY 1914 This spring Josephine street has been used more than usual a s a place for playing lacrosse. This has turned out to be a dangerous and expensive sport as on Tuesday evening a large plate glass in the front of Mr. W. J. Boyce's store was broken by being hit with a lacrosse ball, The clock in the tower of the Post Office, which was in- stalled by Mr. A. M. Knox, was put into commission on Saturday last. The annual meeting of the Citizens' Band was held in the band room on Friday evening last, when the following of- ficers were elected: President, Fred Johnson; vice-president, Ray Dunlop; secretary, John Hewer; treasurer, Harry Hins- cliffe; property committee, A. J. Pilon, J. Carruth, W. Reid; sergeant and librarian, A. Hingston. Mr. Geo. Moir has install- ed a popcorn roaster in con- nection with his shoe shining parlor and will shortly install a peanut roaster also. Georgehas now a varied stock at his dis- posal and will no doubt meet with success as this is the only machine of its kind in town. MAY 1928 Mr. John A. MacLean had' the very pleasant experience on Friday in welcoming the Largest attendance in the town hall to any graduation exercise in con- nection with the local Hospital. His remarks conveyed the ap- preciation of the Board of Dir- ectors, the Superintendant and Staff at this marked evidence of interest in this institution. The three graduate nurses, Misses Alma 0, Free of Dun- gannon, Irene Collins, of Ar - mow and Lilian Hetherington of Wingham received the gold medals from the Superinten- dant, Miss M. E. Adams, and nadian of the land which hap- pened to sire his forebears", well, since the Maple Leaf is a universally recognized em- blem of Canada and since my forbears for at least four gener- ations hays been Canadians, the flag is very symbolic for me and I'tn sure for many other Canadians. Imperialism went out with Gunga Din. Why roust Canada :>e the last country to recognise this fact? Must the symbolic progress of our country he thwarted because of the mis- placed nostalgia of a group which calls itself the CANADI- AN Legion? Yours sincerely, Susan Wotsnop their diplomas from Mr. J. A. MacLean, chairman of the Board of Directors, and after- wards the staff presented the class each with a bouquet of roses. The following Turnberry farmers have purchased new cars, Howard Wylie, Essex Se- dan; Thos. Haugh, Pontiac Se- dan; Frank Powell, Pontiac Se- dan and Thos. Gilmour, a Pon- tiac Coach. MAY 1.939 The marriage took place Tuesday, May 16th, at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Arth- ur Bieman, 856 Wellington St., London, of Mrs. Mary Cross, sister of Mrs. Bieman, to Dr. Archie W. Macfie, of Toronto. Residents of Wingham, Brus- sels, Blyth, Lucknow and Tees - water will have to pay 35d for a haircut in future. This price became effective on Tuesday and is a raise of 10 cents. Mr. A. G. Smith, a former editor of The Advance -Times, suffered a painful accident at his home, 81 Willowhank Blvd., Toronto. Mr. Smith was going down the stairs when he missed a step and landed at the bottom, suffering a frac- tured rib and vertebrae between the shoulders, also muscle tis- sues torn. MAY 1949 President W. T. Cruickshank opened the first annual meet- ing of the Wingham Chamber of Commerce with a brief re- sume of the year's work and some stated objectives for the future. • Fifteen directors were elected from the thirty-two per- sons nominated to the hoard of directors. Those elected were as follows: W. T. Cruickshank, W. G. Burton, Rhys. Pollock, E. Wilkinson, A. 0. Garrett, R. Mowbray, F. Thompson, R. H. Llovd, J. P. McKihbon, R. 5. Hetherington, Ron Rae, N. Welwood, Ken Kerr, F. How- son, W. Woods. The,second disastrous fire in Wingham within three months broke out shortly after :3 o'clock Friday Morning and completely destroyed the H, E. Ratz Saw Mill, causing an estimated damage of 815,000, partially covered by insurance. The cause of the fire is unknown. About thirty-five years ago the rnill was also destroyed by fire and was rebuilt by J. A. Mac- Lean. Mr. Ratz purchased it about thirteen years ago. The family of Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Kelly met at the home of Mr. and -Mrs. Alvin Procter on Tuesday. May 24th, in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Kelly's forty- third wedding anniversary.