The Goderich Signal-Star, 2009-05-06, Page 9Opinion
Goderich Signal -Star, Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - Page 7
Peewee girls exemplify the spirit of hockey: coach
To the Editor;
As the coach, I would like to thank
the girls of the Goderich Peewee
Sailorettes for a great season. I would
also like to thank my coaching staff;
John, Shannon, Michelle and Beth for
their help and to the Legion Auxiliary
for support.
This team provided an opportunity
for players of different ages and skill
levels to participate in the •game of
hockey. The team consisted of nine to
12 -year-olds, some who • have never
played hockey.
I was fortunate to watch each girl's
hockey skills develop over the season.
In the final game of the Waterloo tour-
nament last November, I had one of the
players ask me what happens if we
lose. I explained that• we would place
second and her response was, "second
is still good." This positive attitude
was displayed by eaeh of the girls over
the season.
Out of approximately 60 Peewee C
teams in the province, these girls are meaning of minor hockey...fun, team -
number three, not an easy feat compare work, respect for yourselves and others
to other divisions with only 25 teams to and hard work. Congratulations girls
compete against in the province. on an excellent season and being
You girls certainly exemplify the true Provincial Bronze medal champions.
Tom Vance
Goderich Legion Auxiliary Peewee
Sailorettes coach
Spain sends Goderich thanks and warm regards
To the Editor;
I hope that you can find space to publish
this letter, to say thank you to the people
of Goderich who made my father, and
many hundreds of other airmen so wel-
• come when they were stationed in the area
during the early years of the war.
My father, Philip Frederrick Cooper,
known as Freddie, passed away recently
aged 91. He often spoke of his time in
Canada with affection and fond memories
of the people he had met and who had
made him so welcome into their homes
and into the community. He never fulfilled
his dreams of returning to visit his old
haunts and to contact old friends, mainly
due to declining health in his later years.
I know he kept in touch with people
from Goderich as I have found some cor-
respondence but it dates from the early
1980s. A book called the Children of San
and signed by airmen, I believe, was sent
from Canada to my father.
As a small child I can remember getting
small gifts and a card from a lady I believe
was called Mrs. Sibbald, and I have come
across some photographs of the Sibblad
and Whitehead families. If any relations
of these families would like them
please drop me a line, that would be
appreciated.
Thank you in the hope that you can
publish this letter as it may go some way
to saying thank you once again to the
people of Goderich for their kindness and
generosity to those airmen posted in your
area during the war.
Sincerely
Derrick Cooper
Las Siesta, Torrevieja,
Alicante, Spain
Coaches Association gives props to Goderich's efforts
To the Editor;
The Coaches Association of Ontario
would like to thank the Town of God-
erich for officially proclaiming On-
tario Coaches Week: April 18-26, 2009.
Throughout the week, FREE workshops
were aimed at recruiting, developing and
celebrating volunteer coaches. Goderich
was one of 40 communities to officially
proclaim the week as "Coaches Week"
Hopefully we have inspired more On-
tarians to pick .up a whistle because good
coaches can positively influence a child's
self-confidence and attitude toward sport
and fitness as a lifelong pursuit.
Once again, thank you Goderich for
recognizing the positive influence of
coaches.
Yours in coaching,
Jessica Taggio
The Coaches Association
of Ontario
'Fire good,' 'Man cook': The history of barbecuing explained
Christopher Dummitt, a young profes-
sor at Trent University in Peterborough
has written a book, The Manly Modern:
Masculinity in Postwar Canada which is
based on a study he conducted on barbe-
cuing. He theorizes that men began cook-
ing outdoors as suburban living crept
across the country in the 1940s and
1950s. He concludes .that men barbecue
in order to assert their masculinity.
Well, that is one large load of crab,
lightly brushed with lemon and olive oil
then braised with shells cracked over
white coals.
Pulleese! ! ! Men barbecue to be
manly?!? Like taking up the tongs turns
us all into a bunch of grunting
Neanderthals!
First, men cooking over fire began sev-
eral million years ago and "second, I'm a
bit of a grill master myself. I barbecue
three times a week all year round. I have
a customized barrel pit that takes wood,
a cast iron barbecue that uses charcoal
and a copper Turkish grill that uses both
hardwood and coals. I even invented a
• `teepee pulley system' that fits over all of
these cookers allowing me to raise or
lower the grill according to the level of
heat. •
Men cooking over fire is an ancient
custom predating iron, the invention of
the wheel and Bob Barker. Two million
years ago Homo habilia, an erect primate
roamed the southern hemisphere of the
fiarth. Homo habilia operated primitive
tools which he dragged behind
him in a wheel -less cart.
Leather waist straps had not
yet been invented so that the
bottom half of his wooly mam-
moth outfit revealed a fair bit
of butt crack. His nickname
was `Thumbs.'
Homo habilia's 500 cc. brain
had the reasoning capacity of
an American Idol judge which
enabled him to create fire to
both heat his cave and roast
mammals that were slower
afoot then himself. He employed a vocab-
ulary of five words. "Fire good" and
"little fella tasty" were pretty much it.
These were good times for prehistoric
humans. Man hunted and barbecued what
he caught, woman gathered wood and
fashioned bulky clothes from animal
skins. He cooked everything that moved,
the minute it didn't, and she went into the
cave's kitchen after the meal and did the
sticks and planks. Foreplay involved a
head lock.
Man cooked because man invented
fire. Only a man would sit for several
days rubbing two sticks together and
expecting something to happen. One day
it did! And after suffering near -fatal
burns to most of his body, he couldn't
wait for it to happen again. Man created
fire on the same day woman discovered
laughter.
Watching man conjure up fire out of
All the World's
A Circus_
4 • • * x . * 1 4 • • • . • . . • • • • * •
4 i • • s t • i • • • t • •
nowhere and make those funny
sounds by placing his hand
under a sweaty armpit and
pumping hard — woman was in
awe of man. Man could do
everything, especially provide
cooked food and woman did
little because she was often
injured from falling to earth
hysterical. Once she cracked a
rib watching him slowly push-
ing rocks across a sheet of ice
for no particular reason.
Although he could still not
get his head around the concept of the
wheel, Homo habilia invented a thing
called the "pocket fisherman" which
brought more variety to the meals.
Then suddenly the earth began to warm
up, much like today. They needed to
wear less animal skins. Man's vocabu-
lary expanded from "fire good" to
"woman hot" and "little fella over-
cooked." Yes man became distracted by
woman who was now wearing two-piece
marmot skins and ferret thongs in several
colours.
Man began to burn everything from the
meat on the stick to the hair on his arms,
which was considerable and then —
"Wow! Woman T-shirt wet" — he began
to ingest fermented mead while cooking
which only made things worse.
Much like today, man claimed that the
meat on the fire was not burned, it was
cooked "Cajun," but nobody believed
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him.
When man could no longer complete
the simple task of roasting meat over
fire, false idols appeared selling new
methods of cooking like the Cro-Magnon
Grill and wood -fired rotisserie ovens in
which the spit was turned by spinning
gerbils that later doubled as appetizers.
Barbaric man had lost his touch; the
simple gift of searing meat by flame was
gone.
Having failed at the one thing he was
good at, he desperately tried to recapture
his prowess as the great preparer of food.
Ordinary flames were no longer enough,
he tried heated rocks .to cook and later
cedar planks.
Delusional, he began to drink heavily
both during the cooking session and the
meal. He drank Lite Mead to lose weight,
but he drank so much of it he always
looked bloated.
Desperately he tried cooking over
chunks of carbon and eventually jets of
natural gas that burned under strips of
steel bars. Sometimes he would fall into
the flames and the drink in his hand
would splash all over the food. He said
he was "marinating" but nobody believed
him. He tried all manner of cooking sys=
tems and he even invented a tripod from
three long sticks with a pulley allowing
him to raise or lower the grill according
to the level of heat so ....
So, maybe I've said too much.
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