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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2000-09-27, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2000. PAGE 5. Other Views And your name would be??? What’s in a name, old Bill Shakespeare once famously wrote. Answer: plenty. Take the case of a convicted bank robber in Adelaide, Australia who is now free and walking the streets. He was in the slammer serving a 10-year sentence until a criminal court judge ruled that the jury that convicted the man might have been unduly and subconsciously influenced by his given name. The judge overturned the unanimous verdict and ordered the man released forthwith. The crook’s name? Rob. Rob Banks. Sometimes there’s justice. Sometimes people get the names they deserve. The actress Audrey Hepburn was married to a Swiss psychiatrist with the endearing name of Doctor Dotti. There’s a gas station attendant in Hatteras, North Carolina who answers to the name of Wheeler Balance. And there’s a famous religious prelate in the Philippines known to all the world as Cardinal Sin. If you have access to a Greater Manhattan telephone book you can look up a chap in the West Sixties who is listed as Mister Pleasant Finch. And if there’s any justice there, he’s a birdwatcher. Sometimes you have to wonder what people were thinking when they named their kids. There’s a student in New Zealand who must Driving in Europe can be interesting Well, I have survived another round of driving on the European highways, a considerable amount of driving to be sure, since I put on about 4,600 kms. in my time over there. Much of it was done on the notorious German Autobahn, on which you probably know there is no speed limit (and it shows). I also did a stretch on highways in Austria, the Czech Republic and Switzerland and am prepared to share my experiences with you, just in case you have driven there and want to compare notes, or else are going to be driving over there in the near future. You may be in that group of drivers for whom the nicest thing about European roads is that you never have to drive on them. In that case you can read the article and see what you are missing. Your average German Autobahn can be compared to our 401 by 20-30 kms. an hour, take away the speed limit and you will just about have it right. There are plenty of truckers who like to tailgate over there and there are all sorts of drivers, including many foreign ones, who bring their own style; the mixture makes for a hectic scene. I have to admit that the German driving grows on me and I find myself up to 150-160 kms. per hour if I don’t watch it. But there is one thing that annoys me; it is those jet jockeys driving Mercedes, Porches and BMWs who think that the left lane is their private turf and who get quite annoyed if you get in it doing anything less than 200. I just love to see them forced to slow down now and again. The worst thing about driving over there is the dreaded “Stau” or traffic jam which can come about quite suddenly due to an accident or some road work and in no time at all you are ip a lineup stretching over 10 kms. The longest I saw over there this time around was 14 kms. If you listen to the radio, they will interrupt programming every half hour to tell you where the Staus are. You just hope that there is not one ahead of you on the road you are on or, if there is, you can take steps to avoid it. That is, if you know the alternative roads. The Czechs do not drive as fast as the live with the name Genghis Cohen - and another college freshman at Williams College in Massachusetts whose driver’s license identifies him as Warren Peace. I know of a resident of the Midwest who would swap names with either of them in a heartbeat. His (or her) name? Katz Meow. Animals often bear the brunt of our penchant for handing out goofy names. The Algonquin wit Dorothy Parker named her pet canary Onan, “because he spills his seed on the ground”. There’s an aardvark at the London Zoo whose nameplate identifies him as Emilion. Why Emilion? Don’t you remember the old Al Jolson hit? Aardvark Emilion miles for one of your smiles my Mammmmmmy! Sorry. There’s really no limit when it comes to silly names. There’s a practising attorney-at-law in Los Angeles named Lake Trout. Germans but they do something that can be quite disconcerting. Their roads have a-broken, not a solid line, on stretches which we would normally call for no passing but they pass and expect the cars on both lanes to get over far enough to create enough passing room. Fortunately there is a bit of paved space on either side but the practice can be nothing less than terrifying to somebody not used to it. There are signs on the highways urging people to slow down. The most frequent one is a picture of several vultures watching a road. Above it in German is written “Hello speed demons! We are waiting.” If you think we have a lot of road construction in Ontario, you are right. However, the Europeans are keeping up with us and, as you can well imagine, when there is a lot of traffic and you reduce the road from two to one lane, it is no time at all before the traffic is backed up. Do that all day and you can imagine what the line-up looks like. Traffic lights take a shorter lime to change than they do here so it switches from red to orange to green -very quickly. Because of the shortage of space, turning lanes are also shorter so it pays to know where you are going. This shortage of space also leads to a higher cost for parking. To avoid this, take the train some time. I left my car in Urdorf, a suburb of Final Thought All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life. - Thomas Mann And he has a brother named Brook. Of course, you don’t have to put up with the name your parents gave you. Some people are willing to go to the trouble and expense of legally changing their name. A certain Mister A. Przvbysz of Detroit, grew tired of the hassles caused by his over- consonanted handle, so he changed it. He now answers to Mister C. Przvbysz. Humperdinck Fangboner. Theodolphus J. Poontang. Mrs. Maginis Oyster. Marmalade P. Vestibule - there’s no end of weird monikers. My overall favourite? It's hard to choose, but it’s also hard to beat a dowager who lives in North Carolina named Melissy Dalciny Caldony Yankee Pankee Devil-Take-The-Irish Garrison. But even the simplest names can cause serious embarrassment. I’ve got a friend by the name of Jack Jones. Simple name, right? What kind of trouble could come out of a name like that? I found out one time when I spotted him striding through the Arrivals Level at Terminal Two of Pearson International Airport. Hadn't seen him for years, but he was walking fast in the opposite direction. So naturally, I yelled at the top of my lungs: “HI, JACK!” Zurich, and took the train to the city centre. It is cheaper and unlike here they run quite frequently. Oh yes, did I mention it? You won’t like the cost of gas. It was $1.60 a litre in Germany and Austria, $1.50 in the Czech Republic and $1.30 in Switzerland. Try thinking of $80 Canadian to fill up your tank and you will have the shock of your life, the same sort of shock you get when a Porche goes through the sound barrier as it passes you in the left lane. Do you get the impression that driving in Europe can be extremely interesting? You are quite right! Letter Letters to the editor are a forum for public opinion and comment. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of this publication. THE EDITOR, I’d like to respond to the multitude of articles on the environment I’ve read in the media lately. Dealing with the environment on the farm is and always has been an important part of our livelihoods. It’s not a money-making or media grabbing cause, but rather just the opposite. Ontario’s pork producers have invested over $1 million on a wide range of environmental research projects in the last five years, including everything from improving manure spreading techniques, odour solutions, and using pig manure to reduce scabs on potatoes. We have also invested a lot of time and effort working with other farm groups, conservation authorities, and government partners to develop programs like the Nutrient Management Planning Strategy Environmental Farm Plans, and the Pesticide Safety Course. No flashy media spins or press conferences, just plain old fashioned commitment to finding solutions and scientific answers for a sustain able environment for evervcne. Yours truly, Sam Bradshaw Environment Specialist Qntario Pork. Bonnie Gropp The short of it Making memories The story of life is a series of images most often viewed in retrospect, detailing the times, people and memories who have passed through or impacted us. A word or comment will often bring to mind a picture previously relegated to nostalgia's dormant files. And it is often a revelation which mental snapshot will leap to the top of the stack. With fall fairs making their timely arrival, I was surprised by what memory overtook me when I contemplated this event in my past. Not rides on the ferris wheel, not candy floss and candy apples, nor wasting lots of coin on midway games you just can’t win. No, the very first thing I think of when I remember my fall fairs is root beer. A pitcher full of it to be exact, dumped all over me. You see, my cousin's boyfriend felt that before him stood the perfect opportunity to initiate a Grade 9er. With traditional sophomore malice aforethought, he approached this babe in the woods as a friend, raised his hand behind her back, over her head and, with great relish, drenched her. My next memory is the wasps, greatly attracted by the beverage's sweet stickiness. Then I recall the futile attempt to rid myself of the cloying liquid with a quick shampoo and laundering in the public restroom before going back to enjoy my day at the fair. Not exactly a great memory, but it certainly did inspire me to come up with some others. I remember winning first place for my writing and my chocolate chips cookies, which I believe, were much more a result of Aunt Peggy’s efforts than mine. I remember hours and hours of practising our marching in the days prior to the fair, the.i in Grade 8 being quite embarrassed by the fact that that parade took us right past the high school. The taunts of the Grade 9s, woo took the opportunity to rise from under theii freshman subservience, to inally humiliate rather than be humiliated made us cringe in chagrin. I remember friends and I rocking our world at the top of the ferris wheel and rolling with laughter on the Scrambler. Once started the images just kept coming. But my musing also inspired me as I visited two tall fairs recently to focus on things I might some day remember about these particular ones, new memories to add to my store of aging ones. People sitting together at tables, eating their fill of homemade pies, chatting over exhibits, enjoying the atmosphere, feeling and flavours of this annual celebration of agriculture. The youngsters crowding the midway, ready to challenge the most thrilling rides as well as their equilibrium. Or spending their bucks on lost causes at the arcade. I will for some time see the cautious deligh on the faces of the little ones riding the downhill slope on the Wilderness Adventure, certain that their steering was what kept the little cars on the track as they spun swiftly around the curve. I noticed too the many volunteers whose efforts at each and every fair and mroughout the year, contribute to the success of this anticipated event. With eyes open and ready to see the story of the fall fair, I couldn’t help but recognize their achievements. Though the scope of our small town fall fairs may not be as far-reaching as bigger affairs, they are a social, and cultural, event eagerly anticipated by people of a.M ages. And each year memories in the making.