HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1998-09-30, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1998. PAGE 5.
The pause
that refreshes
INVOCATION OF THE MUSE
0, chaste Erato, hear my plaint
I would sing the joys of yon house so quaint
Pray guide the hand of thy unworthy scribe,
0 Blessed Muse -- I refer to the Kybo
Yep Kybo. That's what we called it
when I was a kid — the kybo. I've heard that
the name was an anagram for Keep Your
Bowels Open, but I can't confirm that:
I do know that the kybo was known by
other names: Backhouse, Outhouse,
Boghouse and Wee House — to name a
handful.
Domestic outhouses have all but vanished
from the North American landscape and I
think that's a shame. It's difficult to describe
them (let alone sing their praises) to kids at
the tail end of the 20th century. Kids who
have grown up with shiny bathtubs and
porcelain toilets, without ever having to think
about hot and cold running water.
I once tried to explain to a college kid, the
old Halloween prank of furtively moving
outhouses farther down the path. He looked
at me blankly for a moment, then said ''But
wouldn't moving them like that wreck the
plumbing?"
Nuclear woes
Most of us have heard in one way or
another about the problems concerning our
nuclear power stations but, if you believe in
the old adage that misery loves company,
you can rest assured that this applies to the
nuclear field.
Let me tell you about tales of woe in two
European countries, one north and one south,
who are finding that the headaches involved
can be expensive ones indeed.
First, let's take a look at Sweden. Back in
1994 the ruling Social Democratic Party, in
an effort to attract a few more votes,
promised to retire all the country's nuclear
plants by the year 2010, with the first plant to
be closed before the next election.
Party members must now wish they had
never mentioned the word since the company
that owns the plant, has decided to take the
government to court on the matter. Public
opinion, over 60 per cent of it, is very much
in favour of not closing the plant until its
time is up as opposed to 20 per cent who
want it closed now.
Even if that does lake place, the
g6vemment has calculated that it will cost in
The John. The Jakes. The Necessary. The
Comfort Station.
Great places to sit and think, those old
outhouses. Stimulating.
I remember sitting there one time gazing at
the crescent moon carved in the door. Why a
crescent moon, I wondered. Out of curiosity I
looked it up. It turns out that the crescent
moon is an ancient symbol for women and
'way back in the days when only a fraction of
the population could read, such symbols
were required to keep men from accidentally
stumbling into the ladies privies.
(The symbol for the men's outhouse, by the
way, was circular-sun. It disappeared about
the time lcybos went co-ed.)
The Dunnie. The Closet. The Loo. The
Head.
Plenty of evidence of pioneer cleverness in
the construction of outhouses as well.
That crescent moon was more than a mere
design. It functioned as a pretty serviceable
"air freshener" in the days before air
conditioning, and yet it was narrow enough
to thwart unwanted animal intruders.
A lot of early outhouses were
whitewashed. Why white? Think "night".
In the days (and especially the nights)
before streetlights and flashlights, a white
building was a lot easier to find in the dark.
The Small Room. The Reading Room.
The Throne:
By Raymond Canon
the neighbourhood of $2 billion for the one
reactor alone. Nobody knows the cost for the
entire country.
When the question of what was going to
replace nuclear power came up, the
government replied that it would be a
combination of conservation, natural gas and
non-hydro renewables. However, many of
the renewable technologies are more
expensive than nuclear power while natural
gas, while cheaper, emits greenhouse gases,
which nuclear power does not.
Then it was suggested that electricity could
be bought from Norway, which has nuclear
power and Denmark, which has coal-fired
plants, which are already blamed for spilling
acid rain on Swedish town. The jury is still
out on that one.
Meanwhile, in Italy, the country has not
produced any nuclear power since 1987 but
trying to close down the non-operating plants
is proving to be horribly expensive. So far it
has cost close to $10 billion with another five
still owed. Where, too, does one store the
nuclear waste? There are 300 tonnes in Italy,
another 1,000 temporarily in Great Britain
and the Italian government does not have the
vaguest idea where or how to get rid of it.
To replace the missing power, the Italians
I remember once wondering why most
outhouse doors opened outward instead of
inward. That made no sense at all to me. A
door that opened inward could be held shut
with your foot to prevent someone from
interrupting your revery. Why didn't the
doors open inwards?
I asked an old Finlander about that very
mystery back when I lived in the bush near
Thunder Bay. He looked at me as if I'd asked
him which end of a shotgun I should point at
a partridge.
He explained that, while nocturnal animals
such as skunks, porcupines and large,
dangerous bears have extreme curiosity
regarding the contents of outhouses, they
aren't really swift when it comes to opening
and closing doors. In other words, inward-
opening doors would make it very easy for
animals to get in, but mighty tricky to leave
when their, urn, curiosity had been satisfied.
The Honey Bucket. The Chapel of Ease.
The Thunder Box.
And why such a long walk? Why, I
wondered, did outhouses have to be so far
from the house?
Depends on your point of view. And sense
of smell. The best definition of a kybo I ever
read was: "a little house behind a big house,
about 100 yards away. In winter, it's 100
yards too far; in summer, it's 100 yards too
close."
have turned to other countries, especially
France, which currently supplies about 14
per cent of all the electricity in Italy.
However, the French, who are delighted to
sell the electricity to the Italians, generates
all of it from, you guessed it, nuclear plants. I
guess nuclear plants are all right, as long as
they are located in other countries.
But remember what happened at
Chernobyl. The radiation emitted showed
little respect for national boundaries. The
Swedes, of all people, should remember that.
Perhaps they don't. If they cannot get
enough power from Norway and Denmark,
or choose not to from the latter, they may
turn to Russia and other countries of eastern
Europe to get what they do need. If the latter
have any to spare, it will be from nuclear
plants.
Let's hope that there are no more
Chemobyls lurking in the background.
A Final Thought
In general, the art of government consists
in taking as much money as possible from
one class of citizen to give to the other.
—Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
The
Short
of ►t
By Bonnie Gropp
A grandparent's value
A lot of people may not have been aware
that last Wednesday was Grandparents' Day.
With their role as more passive authorities in
a family, their day doesn't get the hype of
Mom and Dad's 24-hour honour. Yet, though
they are a figurehead above other
generations and may seem too removed to
understand, they are often the wisdom
helping children and grandchildren.
Never take them for granted. I was
grandparentless by the age of 22, having lost
three of them when I barely entered my
teens. In the years between, my maternal
grandmother was a regular part of my life,
though admittedly it was due more often to
her. With typical teenage insouciance I never
thought about the day she wouldn't be here;
we were just worlds apart in our thinking it
seemed. Selfishly and with tremendous
hindsight I know now, foolishly, I couldn't
be bothered to make the time.
I try to impress this on my kids, but like
many of today's families we face a different
challenge — distance. While I was growing
up my extended family, grandparents, aunts,
uncles, cousins, all lived within 10 minutes
of me. Mom's mom was my babysitter when
I was little and after I started school, she
lived close enough that I could go and visit,
or at least I did before I knew it all.
We shared Sunday's and special holidays
easily splitting time between two
commitments because distance was minimal.
Not so anymore. Families are often so
wide-spread that finding moments together
can take careful and thoughtful organization.
For example, my family Christmas this year
is being held the first of November to
accommodate all the people working
weekends. Unfortunately, faced with a four-
hour drive and another committment my
brother and his wife will still be unable to
join us.
When I think of how close I was as a child
to family and my grandparents (even though
they lived in town I spent a summer holiday
with them) I think how sad it is that many
children have never and will never
experience that bond. Though I suffered a
lapse as a teen, I was in awe of my
grandparents when I was little. In retrospect
I probably am again.
When I think of them, I think of people
who never seemed to stop working — unless
it was to pay attention to me. Their stories
were from an era so foreign as to be
romantic. It was them who could always
create the magic or find the time to do the
little extras — a walk in the garden, cookies
and tea in the dining room, sketches in the
kitchen.
My grandparents instilled in me a sense of
who I am and the type of people from
whence I came. They didn't know then but
just by doing things as they did then, they
taught me the importance of family, of
history.
I know all this now. I just wish I had
appreciated them more when they were here,
particularly Grandma, whom I got to have
longer.
I am an adult, and it often surprises me
how much I miss her, almost daily. The only
compensation is to provide-my children with
opportuntics to spend time with their own
grandparents, then help them appreciate the
value.
Arthur Black
International Scene