HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 2009-12-09, Page 7Goderich Signal -Star, Wednesday, December 9, 2009 - Page 7
Opinion
Masons Grand Master to visit Carlow
To the Editor;
The leader of Ontario's more than
50,000 Freemasons will visit Carlow on
Wednesday, Dec. 9.
Raymond Daniels, elected Grand Mas-
ter for a two-year term in July, will attend
the amalgamation of Morning Star Lodge
and Clinton Lodge. The lodges were in-
stituted in 1874 and 1857, respectively.
Daniels, a retired music and history
teacher from Kitchener who also served
as a conductor and church choirmaster,
has said he is anxious to increase un-
derstanding of Freemasonry, which has
been active in Ontario for more than 150
years.
The fraternity has been in existence
for a very long time and has been quietly
endeavoring to assist men to be better
citizens and better men and through their
efforts, have an impact on their commu-
nity.
Daniels has said the real problem fac-
ing our craft in general ... is the lack
of understanding of the full potential of
Freemasonry to develop men's lives
Masonry initiates more than 1,300 men
in more than 570 lodges across the prov-
ince each year. We're initiating lots of
keen, intelligent, eager young men. Those
men are looking for something and we've
got to serve them in their quest.
Freemasonry is the world's oldest and
largest fraternal organization. Today,
there are more than four million Masons
worldwide, half of them in North Amer-
ica. Any man who becomes a Mason is
taught a pattern for living -reverence, mo-
rality, kindness, honesty, dependability
and compassion.
Alan Arbuckle
A family wish
To the Editor;
Well, it's Christmas time again.
So I will start off by wishing ev-
eryone a very Merry Christmas and a
Happy New Year.
It's the time when all the boys and
girls are sending Santa Claus their
Christmas wish. As strange as it seems,
I'm making a request just for one thing
for Christmas.
As everyone knows, my brother,
Ron Hallam, went missing nearly nine
months ago on Wednesday, March 25.
All I want is for him and his family to
for safe return
come to my Christmas dinner on De-
cember 19.
So, if there is anyone who knows
where Ron is please ask him to return
home. Also, wish him a Happy Birth-
day for me on the i 1 th of December.
Only God or Santa could bring him
back to us.
Thank you.
Yours truly,
Kathy Driscoll
Goderich
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The Haliburton Dump— a stinking pile of professionalism
I have this vivid recollection of va-
cationing in Haliburton, Ontario as a
young boy and every Saturday night
we'd pile into the car and watch bears
eating their way through the town dump.
Other carloads of people would be
gathered there as well, with headlights
trained on three, sometimes a family of
five black bears slowly grazing away
at the dump's evening buffet of rot-
ting garbage. Occasionally the bears
would cast curious looks our way, like
surely we had better things to do. But
we didn't. It was like watching a live
animal act at a drive-in theatre in which
the bears were woefully untalented. It
was cottage country entertainment, like
watching the taping of a really slow
episode of The Wild Kingdom.
Today of course, Haliburton has a
downtown movie theatre called The
Molou and the bears do magic tricks at
McKeck's Sports Bar every Thursday
and Saturday night. Today the Halibur-
ton dump is still a thing of beauty. As
you enter, computers are neatly stacked
to the right ready for the ride to the
recycle plant; row upon row of appli-
ances lined up to the left, waiting for
Haliburton's handymen.
There's a special covered area for
good, useable furniture while audio
equipment and other electronic de-
vices are tastefully displayed near the'
shack at the entrance. The
dump master, a big, friendly
man with red hair and a ruddy
complexion can tell you what
stuff still works and where you
might find a chain or a barrel
that could be a fire pit.
My brother-in-law Danny
spotted a great of English
style bicycle which we threw
in the back of my car on the
way out. it wasn't until later,
over a beer, that we figured
out that because the bike was
in near perfect condition and parked
near the entrance shack that it probably
belonged to one of the dump's employ-
ees.
I'm not saying theft does not happen
at the Haliburton dump. I'm just point-
ing out that it was Danny who stole the
bike.
The last time I visited the Haliburton
dump there was a kid, a real keener su-
pervising the recycle area.
Having just emptied a box of plastic,
cans and bottles into the appropriate
dumpster, I was crossing the mud path
to the cardboard container when the kid
cut in front of me. Running and yelling
"No! No!" he leapt into the container
of cardboard to retrieve a box full - of
newspapers.
"Geez. I'm sorry," said the man who
All the World's
A Circus...
had thrown the box in.
"That's okay," said the kid,
throwing the empty box into
the container clearly marked
"Cardboard" and stomping off
with the fiewspapers under his
arm. "Gotta pay attention to
the signs."
I looked at the guy and
laughed but he didn't. He re-
ally felt bad about having
contaminated the cardboard
container.
I drove further down the red
dirt road and stopped in front of a large
sign, with an arrow pointing left: "Gar-
bage Here." I had heaved two small
shopping bags of garbage over the sign
when I heard him coming for me.
"No! No!" said the kid, out of breath
from his run from the newspaper con-
tainer to the piles of stinking garbage.
"Not there," he said, pointing over
the sign to where my bags had landed.
"There," he said, pointing to the left,
the same direction as the arrow was
pointing.
I flung the big green garbage bag to
the left of the sign as instructed but I'd
kind of had it with the keener.
Trying unsuccessfully to disguise
my smartass tone I said: "Boy it's a
good thing you were here. I might
have made a mess of this place. Gotta
keep it neat, eh?"
And he turned slowly to face me, said
nothing and turned away, surveying the
acres of refuse like it was Lake Louise
at sunset.
"You know," he said, turning to face
me again, "just because it's a landfill
site doesn't mean it has to look like a
dump."
The smirk on my face subsided rather
quickly. I blinked a few times taking in
the depth of his words. Oh yeah, I'd
been told.
My hat goes off to the keener, the
lord of the landfill, the curator of the
Haliburton dump. (And that hat better
land to the left of that sign.)
Adequately chastened, I remembered
the words of Martin Luther King, words
I truly believed in but whose meaning I
had let lapse.
"If a man is called to be a streetsweep-
er, he should sweep streets even as
Michelangelo painted or Beethoven
composed music or Shakespeare wrote
poetry. He should sweep streets so well
that all the host of heaven and earth
will pause to say, here lived a great
streetsweeper who did this job well."
To the kid who takes great care of the
dump in Haliburton I say — well done
son, so very well done. And Danny, my
brother-in-law has your bike.
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