HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1997-04-16, Page 5Arthur Black
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16,1997 PAGE 5.
Want to?
He has to!
No man knows what true happiness is
until he has a complete set of false teeth
and has lost all interest in the opposite sex.
Lord Roxbery 1847-1929
Ah, Lord Roxbery, thou shouldst be living
at this hour.
On second thought, no you shouldn't. As a
man secure and comfortable in old age, you'd
be a mighty lonely soul here at the butt-end
of the 20th century. We've got precious little
room for elderly people with elderly
thoughts. We worship Youth here. We're into
Grecian Formula and tummy tucks, face lifts
and herbal body wraps.
That wretched human being, the Duchess
of Windsor, is famous for having said: "One
can never be too rich or too thin." She might
have added "or too young". In fact, she might
have left her original statement in the jewel
box and simply have said "One can never be
International Scene
By Raymond Canon
From
Greenland’s
icy shore
One time when I was flying back from
Europe, the aircraft I was in decided to fly a
more northerly route in order to take
advantage of some strong tail winds. For the
most part we flew above a heavy cloud cover
but at one point we were in a section of
completely clear sky.
I looked down out of my window and saw
below me the most wind-swept, desolate land
I had ever seen. There were mountains and
snow everywhere and what I was seeing was
the interior of the huge island of Greenland.
Immediately the title of an old hymn From
Greenland's Icy Mountains came to me.
Judging from the scene below me, there was
no truer line ever written.
I was thinking about that line the other day
and decided to look up some details about
Greenland. To my surprise I discovered that
no less than 85 per cent of the island is to be
found under a permanent ice cap and any
charts of the region are marked "unexplored."
To give you some idea how big this is, it is
listed as about 700,000 square miles, or
about seven times the size of Great Britain.
Small wonder that all the towns and other
settlements are located in coastal regions.
There are no roads joining them so that the
only two means of transportation are by air
or by dog sleigh.
All this means that most of the food, in
fact, just about anything in the way of
consumer goods, has to be brought in by air
or boat, the latter only during a very short
"summer" season. Can you imagine what it
must cost to feed a family of four compared
to what the same food would cost in southern
Ontario?
too young" - because with youth, the
possibilities for richness and thinness are
infinite.
It's a merciless business, this eternal
pursuit of the Sweet Bird Of...and a
pointless one too. Gravity rules. None of us -
no matter how much we spend on plastic
surgery or sheep embryo injections - is
getting any younger.
That's life.
But it's tough living in a world that refuses
to let its inhabitants age gracefully.
I remember when I was young and
arrogant enough to actually believe the 60's
mantra that said "Don't trust anyone over
30."
Over thirty? Thirty-year-olds don't know
diddly-squat about anything.
I'm not sure 50-year-olds do either...but at
least we've learned enough not to utter dumb
cracks like that.
Nope, the only effective age-retardant,
wrinkle remover I've come across - the only
one that really works - is the good old belly
laugh. Laughter won't stop your hair from
turning gray, but it will keep you sane. And it
leaves you with the best Wrinkles of all -
laugh lines.
What travel there is around Greenland has
a decidedly Canadian connection. The land is
so bad that even normal-sized airports are out
of the question and, of the eight landing
fields on he whole island, only three are able
to take jets. The others are small strips, 2,000
- 3,000 feet long and the only plane of any
size that can get in and out of these runways
are ones that were built in Toronto by the
DeHavilland Company, currently owned by
Bombardier of Montreal and the Ontario
government.
The company has a worldwide reputation
for building what are called STOL aircraft
(Short take-off and landing) and you have to
see them to just that to believe it. All six of
the planes used to transport passengers out of
one isolated spot to another originated in
Toronto.
They have another important characteristic.
The seats are easily removable and, as soon
as the airline knows how many passengers
will be on a specific flight, the excess seats
are removed and freight loaded on. Thus you
may find yourself on a flight with a pile of
mail bags behind you or even a snowmobile.
Needless to say, space is never wasted.
The flight crews are not fussy about living
on Greenland. Since most of them are
Scandinavian, they like to commute to work
from Denmark, Iceland or Norway. They
work six days a week for three weeks, then
they fly home for three weeks.
Although there is not much to see on the
island, there are actually a few tourists,
especially during the summer season. The
most popular trip is a morning flight from
Iceland; the tourists look around for a few
hours, then fly back to Iceland in the early
evening.
This sounds a little bit like the train trip
from Cochrane to Moosenee. You go up in
the morning, look at the few important sites
and come back in the evening on the same
train.
Most of the population are of the Eskimo
Reminds me of the story about an
octogenarian running in the Boston
Marathon. A reporter from The New York
Times cornered him and said "You’re 80
years old! What are you doing running in a
26-mile marathon?"
The old fella shrugged and said it was no
big deal. He came from a family of long-
livers.
"Shucks" he told the reporter, "My dad still
runs our 200-acre dairy farm and he's 102
years old."
"And is he in as good a shape as you are?"
asked the reporter.
"Good shape!" scoffed the marathoner,
"Why the only reason Pop isn't out here in
shorts and running shoes is he had to be best
man for my granddad who's getting married
this morning."
"Your granddad's getting married??? How
old is he?"
"He'll be 130 next July," said the
marathoner."
"A hundred and thirty!" said the reporter.
"I wouldn't think he'd want to get married at
130 years of age."
"Want to, hell," said the 80-year-old.
"Granddad had to get married."
variety and the names of the localities have
been changed into Eskimo words just as they
have in northern Canada. In fact, a number of
relationships have developed between our
Eskimos and those of Greenland; there is a
weekly flight between Equaluit (formerly
Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island) and Nuuk
(formerly Goothab, the capital of Greenland).
But for the majority of Canadians,
Greenland's icy mountains remain just as
remote as they were 50 years ago, surely a
prime example of the old saying, "so near
and yet so far."
When I looked from 35,000 feet at some of
that inhospitable terrain I was as close as I
wanted to come.
Letter to the editor
Continued from page 4
for coping with career upheaval. These will
range from financial planning to special
interest groups, ways to thrive and the
Canadian Nurses in Independent Practice
(CANIP).
Following a 6 p.m. dinner, guest speaker,
Dee Preikschas will provide an entertaining
talk on humour. There will be additional
time for the exhibits followed by draws for
the door prizes.
Nurses wishing to attend are invited to
purchase tickets from representatives in their
local hospital or by calling Linda Balvert at
524-5240, CCAC at 482-3411 or 1-800-265-
5591 or the Health Unit at 482-3416 or 1-
800-265-5184.
Thank you for helping us to get the
message out to Huron County Nurses.
Linda Balvert, Fran Hook,
Marguerite Thomas.
A Final Thought
There is no ground more sacred than the
one on which a past hatred has become a
present love.
Don’t sacrifice the future
Parent/teacher night. An ugly premise for
many students, a dreaded date when the scoop
is dished.
I spent this occasion at a local secondary
school last week and the thoughts I came away
with were interesting. While only a synopsis
can be provided in the time most people
allowed themselves, there are some
conceptions formed. Most notably, from my
brief visits with seven educators, I was
impressed by a sense of real concern for my
children, their education and their futures.
From the many who remembered my oldest
two children, and asked of their welfare, to the
talks regarding my current attendees, I was
pleased by what I perceived as genuine interest
shown in my offsprings' academic success.
Another discovery, is how very well, in their
short association with my kids, they've come to
know them. Describing personality traits,
strengths and weaknesses, teachers could be
almost scary in their dead-on characterizations.
So what does all this mean? It means that
when it comes to our children's education, as
one might expect, their teachers generally are
the ones who know what's best for them.
Unfortunately when it comes to the big
decisions they are seldom asked.
Government mandated de-streaming, which
teachers opposed. It is, most will agree, though
perhaps with more diplomacy, a dismal failure.
Challenged Grade 9s are frustrated by their
difficulty in keeping up. Advanced students
often become bored and don't work up to then-
ability, thus making the transition to Grade 10
work more difficult. It is what teachers said
would happen. Government didn't listen.
More recently, the problem has been the cost
of cutting. On Thursday evening Huron County
Board of Education held a public meeting to
discuss its budget, one which promises a
reduction in spending of $1 million, despite a
tax increase. While some municipal politicians
argue the board should be able to freeze taxes
as the county and local governments have
done, Director of Education Paul Carroll,
himself a former teacher and principal, knows
the realities of such action. The only ones who
would pay would be the students. Staffing has
already been cut to the point that there are
often as many as 40 students in a class. There
are few programs left to be cut that would
mean any considerable tax savings. The board
has, Carroll believes, "hit the bottom". The
only thing a zero increase would do is sell our
kids short.
Of course, some will argue the amount spent
on salaries. The 1997 estimate for secondary
and elementary teachers' salaries is
$33,674,492. One local politician suggested
that if the board is $1 million short, a thousand
off each teachers' paycheque would solve the
problem. Protected by union contracts this type
of sacrifice is unlikely to happen. What is, is,
and as long as they don't come asking for
more, I can live with the salaries. Talking
inconsequentials won't help anyone.
What's important is our commitment that
sacrifice doesn't come from where we can least
afford it. Teachers know their students.
Teachers know their needs. Teachers have said
the quality of education in Huron cannot be
sustained with less money.
Would someone please start to listen before
we sacrifice our future?