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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1978-12-07, Page 4 (2)Page 4 Times -Advocate, December 7, 1978 a P 144 N • You tell them `tis the season to be jolly...! But tell that to- the thousands of Vietnamese refugees -sailing aimlessly about in their overcrowded, flimsy boats looking. for a place to land and start a new life away from the terrors and inhumanities of their Cgmniunist leaders. Tell it to the mothers on_ those boats who watch their chilar�n die of starvation o`r disease while political leaders of other countries turn a deaf ear on their pleas for assistance: Tell if to the,fathers on those boats who could prbvide their families with • r more nourishment and bounty than they could ever imagine just. by getting ` the scraps from the tables of most Canadians. Tell them that the millions- we spend annually on dog food would feed thousands of them: that the billions we waste frr alcohol and tobacco would clotheand house them: that the defence budgets- of the world's great nations could keep them in luxury. Tell them we're not com- placent... it's just that this is the season to be jolly. Courtesy imperative During more than twenty years of existence as a regular .safety cam-. paign. Safe Driving Week has had many. varied themes: but 1978 is the first time the focus has been placed on "Courtesy". and the slogan adopted by the Canada Safety Council. is "Courtesy is Caring". Drivers will readilysee the con- nection: a courteous driver is a safe driver. ' As a part of this year's traffic safe- ty campaign. the Safety Council is ask- ing every -driver to take an extia se- cond or two to be courteous to others. Besides helping to avoid accidents. according to Counc Traffic Section Manager. George C' rrie, the. courtesy campaign has another very beneficial result for those who observe it it makes the courteous driver feel good'. The Council suggests each driver try this experiment: Leave five minutes earlier for work or appointment if there ,is con- cern about time -keeping, although in all probability it will be found un- necessary._ Practice courtesy. Wave another driver out of a driveway or in- tersection. Wait for someone to makeda left turn from the opposite direction. Give people a chance to cross the road if there is no crossing or lights. Smile at people. Results will be startling. Friendly smiles and waves in return, and drivers who receive a courtesy often pass it along to someone else.. If a whole town or city tries it,, the results should be fantastic. and accidents will be less. Keep 'em clean Although it appears that way, we can assure you there is no conspiracy by the Clinton merchants to try and drive business out of town. One of many examples this week. for instance, may have shoppers con- vinced that the merchants were indeed trying to tell the 9.000 people in our - trading area to do their Christmas shopping. elsewtiere. -and that is the deplorable condition of our sidewalks on main street after the first snowfall. It seems that only a few of our most conscientious merchants have heard of a snow shovel and salt, while the rest leave their storefronts more conducive to skating than walking. But, there are heated malls near- by, and other towns where the merchants are interested in the money we have to spend. so people will. still have somewhere to shop. Pity. Clinton News:Record STAN ` : 'y"° '< VNeWSW W'e 9i By 'SYDFLETCHER The htuseboat trip seemed like a terrific idea. . I had read about it in the paper. Rent a boat for a week and cruise along the Trent canal system for the most peaceful week ever. The boat owner took our money and then took us out for a brief spin out onto the... lake and back. "Nothing to it,". he assured us. The boat was thirty-two feet long, about twelve feet wide, and weighed about fourteen tons. On it our crew- - conSisted of a very nervous mother-in-law, four other adults, all inexperienced, and two excited kids, one two years old and the other seven. As' the owner said, there was really nothing to it. We breezed across the first lake, the sun shining and the breezes blowing in our. faces feeling very, much like Columbus as we sighted the first lock. I was out on the front and - -•my - brother -fn -law" was the pilot: "Quite a tittle bit of wind," i hollered back to him. "Keep to the right." He didn't hear me. Maybe Times Estobinhed 1873 Perspectives 1 should. have said "to the starboard'. Crunch! We hit the cement abut- ment. There was now a hole about the size of a small cabbage in the• side of the boat, about a foot above the waterline. • Bravelywe went onward to the next lock. rdecided That I' would pilot it in this time. To my dimay both sides of the lock entry had nice white yachts tied up along it and the space •' to go between looked smaller than my garage door at home. In a panic I decided to do nothing. I put the boat into neutral, feeling that treacherous wind push us toward the shiny sides of a cruiser, its owner dressed•in spotless bermuda shorts,' saying quite rude things to us as he pushed us away with his boathook. The lock master rushed over and escorted us per- sonally into the lock and for some strange reason there was someone to greet .us at„ each of fhe next three locks. By the next day though we felt more confident. Our strategy now was to ap- proach the lock with great care, tie up, then walk up to it and survey the area before entering. -On one stch occasion I ' heard the rockmaster sod- denly yell, "Don't touch that!" and looked around to see the seven-year Old playing with some dials. These turned out to be the contrgks for the large fire extinguishers which floods the 1Ock with carbon dioxide ' foam lb case of an explosion. • As we entered the locks now we had developed quite a communication system, with me standing master- fully at the front ready to grab one of the rubber tie-up ropes. - _ - "Not this one,"I'd y�Cll at my mother-in-law, who would be standing strategically at niidship, inside of course. • - "Not this one!" she'd holler to my wife and sister-in-law, standing at the back of the 'boat, futilely reaching for a rope we'd already passed and suc- ceeding only •in cleaning off some of the slime from the concrete walls with their T - 'shirts. "This one!" I'd say -and watch disgustedly as the distance between boat- Ind wall widened. • Amazingly enough, no one fell overboard, well almost no one. At Peterborough we pulled up to the swank Holiday Inn waterfront then realized it was just a private dock. I jumped on land with tie rope only to have my brother -In- law take off suddenly. Madly I leaped for the rail. •prenchtd to the waist I listened to my relatives yell "Man overboard!", and then crack up as I dragged myself 'over the side. Ah, me for the life of a sailor. Amalgamated 1974 Advocate Established 1881- 1 Imes ddvocate�4 ...Ow. M .-Y,e..+r. •r,W, SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND C W N A• O W N.A. CLASS 'A' and ABC published by 1 W. Eedy Publications Limited . LORNE EEDY, PUBLISHER Editor — sill Batten Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett Cempesition M"onoger — Harry DsVries Easiness Manager — Dick Jong kind Phone 235.1331 f' • • • Published Each Thursday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Clan Mail Registration Number 0386 GJ Per Year USA $22. "Ahem, back here! You're looking at the wrong hoyse!" bgla'N AROUND ^� • with the editor At least the moose enjoy it .This is the season when highways takeon aneven greater challenge as winter sends along a nasty coat of ice or snow to test drivers, many of whom have trouble enough wheo the pave- ment is dry and bare.. It is also the time of year when the salt trucks take to the roads. their. product usually ending up under your fenders rather than achieving the task for which it was intended. However, lest you think those salt trucks are useless. take cheer, their ef- forts are appreciated by some members of our society. Officials have ndticed that in some areas, particularly -in the north. moose and other game animals have dis- covered a new salt lick...the residue of the winter's ' salting. Frequent sightings havebbeen Made of the animals licking up the treat. So next time you look at the rusty fenders on. your car. remember that salt side-effects aren't all necessarily detrimental. - Body shop owners • don't mind it either! • • Everyone has been told about the story of the little boy who cried wolf andit certainly has many connotations in modern society. Not the least of those. is in regard to automatic bank . alarms. Exeter residents have certainly become immune to the periodic clang- ing of le bell at the local Bank of Mon- treal office. While we used to grab our camera and dash out the door to catch a fleeting shot of masked, bandits mak- ing their getaway, we now go about our regular tasks without another thought when the alarm•sounds. No doubt that may have been the situation recently in a small town in Michigan, where the police received the automatic alarm signal indicating that the local bank was being robbed. Instead of responding instantly, an • officer. was instructed to telephone the bat* and see just what was going on. • One of the robbers qpswered .the = phone, explained that. it Was all a false alarm ane>apologizedfor the in- convenience. The police called off the chase and the thieves escaped with about *4,000. • . • •• e. Unless you've fallen badly behind in your schedule, you're now looking at the final sheet on -tete 1978 calendar, and joining others in wondering where -the time has gone. What may be of even greater con- sternation is the fact that we'll soon be .lboking at the final year of the current Sugar and Spice Disposed by Smiley decade. The 70s are nearing history. While it's the time of year some peo- ple prefer to look back, others get - more enjoyment out of docking into the future and they'll be interested in a re- cent.survey taken by the McGraw Hill Company. They have taken a survey of several. hundred industrial firms and research organizations: asking them for predic tions as to what the fufure holds for society. - Findingsof the latest 'poll have been released, and we are told that by the end of this century vie will have drugs that will raise our. IQs by "several points. We will also be able to shed weight painlessly and will even tie able to control the sex of unborn children. By the year 2000. the study goes on. there will ben cure for cancer, life ex- . pectancy at birth will be 100 years, ar- tificial eyesight will be available for the blind, new limbs will be grown ar- tificially, electrical impulses will heal bone fractures and there will be -a sub- stitute for blood. But one wag. has made another prediction: bet you still won't be. able to open a 'bandaid without the red • thread eoming loose in your hand. Nothing -to titillate .the senses Chap wants to do a television stortie about me. I hae me doots about agree- ing, I have deep suspicions about that particular medium, and a very low regard for the vast majority engaged in its machinations. First of all, TV is One of the most pernicious influences on the im- aginations and vocabularies of the young, to whom I am trying lo teach the subtleties and beauties and clarities of the English language. There is alniost nothing to stretch the mind, to titillate the senses, to im- prove the language. Most television drama is ons -dimensional 's laid out flatly ilefore you. The nguag e- is brutalized. Suspense is chi dish. Acting is insensitive, And if, once in a blue moon, there is an intelligent. suspenseful, sensitive and imaginative piece -of work on. the screen, the mood is constantly shattered by noisy beer ads, .or dis- tasteful commercials about ring around the collar or underarm deodorant. it's a pity. Television, in the right hands,, could become the most war- ming. enlightening. enlarging ex- perience in the lives of many people. aside from their personal expVience wit yter humanbeings. ' Ru to pet cent of it is garbage, aim- . ed at the intelligence of a slow six- year-old. The tinny, artificial "a plaus." 'rhe -ever-increasing sex- ual iflnuendo. The eorstant shouting of so -culled comedians. The dull and derivative dance routines. The blotting and snarling of . rock groups. -And perhaps worst of all, those' insane, greedy game shows' -It is literal Met - that I can scarce refrain from throwing up when 1 come across one of those, ,_ with the bellowing master of ceremonies, the fawning contestants, and the idiotic audiences. You know, when television began, it had a good many flaws butniostof tnem were technical. At the same time it had a vitality and reality that swept all before them. brama was done live, and we had such great.plays as Paddy Chayefsky's Marty. Compare that reality and pathos with the slobbering, sugar - encrusted stuff like The Waltons. Com- pare shouting, leering Laverne and Shirley, or the late unlamented Maude with the great comics of the early days: Art Carney and Jackie Gleason, Sid Ceatar and Imogene Coca. You can't. There is no comparison. Perhaps it's because the big poobahs - of television have treated their massive audiences with more con- tempt than any other medium -has ever done, including the Hollywood of the big studios. ' And those appearing ori television • respond like fawning puppets. Hockey players get i- to,needtess fights so. that they can display the big macho on the p screen. Football players don't just score a touchdown any more, and leave it at 'that. They do a dance,. or they • bounce the ball hard off the ground and run around with their arms up in self- conrgratulation. Learned and intelligent prdor'i allow themselves to be made ridiculous by rhetorical questions from ignorant interviewers. - P.o4iticians allow themselves to be chivvied by churlish reporters, just to get .their images on the boob tube. Talented people in show business will • - appear on the screen with an ape or an alligator, and allow themselves to be insulted by a late -night -show MC, just to get in the picture. Only very occasionally does somgbne with great powers of articulation and a 'cdrtain *%born arrogance, someone like Malcolm Muggeridge, manage to break through the banality of the "typical. television interviewer. Only, rarely 'does an interviewer, • someone like Patrick -Watson, break through the carefully guarded porridge of the inter- viewee. With very few exceptions does a news reporter depart from a delivery as monotonous as a metronome. The National, Canada's 11 o'clock news,' 11:30 in Newfie, is about as exciting as a funeral servile. We ,-had smarmy Lloyd Robertson with the oiled tonsils, reading the news as though it were the phone book. Then we had contemp- tuous Peter Kent, who gay the im- .pression that h doi s a favor. These days w haveI old . solid, stolid George Mact.ean, who _delivers the news as though it were awarmed- over pot -roast. Which' it is; on most oc- casions. ccasions. •' In short, TV -is duff; dull, dull: 1 have great sympathy for two groups in our society. One is the oldsters and shut- ins, who have so little left in their lives, and rely on television for a diversion, something to take the mind -away from the aches apd pains and the loneliness. What they get is a combination of the utmost pap and crap that only a sadist could devise: cheap. ancient, Grade C movies; soap operas; sickening game shows. And the other group that gets my sympathy is young children. -With a few exceptio such as Sesame Street, all they hat 40 watch ` is pictorial pablum, great, uplifting epics like The Flintstones, or. violent and bloody movies. What a pity, when the medium could educate their minds, stir their senses with colorand music, and send their imaginations soaring. Andy Warhol, a New Yolk pop artist, said everyone eventually ' wilt be a celebrity for fifteen minutes. If that's the case, include me out. The TV ehap told me it would take only two hours of my time to make a two - minute epic about me and my column: I have no particular desire to look like a turkey for two minutes and spend the next two days feeling like one. Think small by Jim Smith Losing -Both Ways Several decadesagu•a mar- vellous new chemical was in- troduced to destroy plant - eating insects, a scourge of na- ture. Unfortunately, however, it turned out to have a couple of unexpected flaws. For one,'' the insects built up resistance to the chemical. For another, the chemical killed animals as well as insects. So we no longer use DDT. During World War N, an incre jible new vaccine was dis- covered to cure everything from the common cold to V.D. Unfortunately, the ultimate result was a new strain of peni- cillin-resistant germs. 'Once upon a time, we used lead as a base in paints, alumi- num wiring and''a drug called, Thalidomide. Now we don't. The point? Sometimes sci- ence really doesn't have much ' freedom in devising cures. The cost of ,11'e cure may be a brand new diseake. The same restrictions apply to gowsrnment economic poli- cies. One useful case in point: the B$nk of Canada's insis- tence on raising interest rates to, protect the Canadian dol- lar and maintain a semblance of health in our international capital balances. Raising thr'Bank Rate - which results in correspond- ingly higher rates within the commercial banking system - lures foreign investment funds into the country,"taking some of the downward pressure off the dollareand compensating, in .part, for the billions of dol- lars which leave this country every year. ' But saving the dollar and improving' the international capital balance Through ad- justments in interest rates are - only accomplished at disturb- ingly high cost in another area. Business expansion isoslowed and unemployment lyses. ,The pressure on business 'is a two-pronged attack. First, business finds that investment in new capilal,.equipment or factories costs more, so inv jl- ment plans are shelved. Then_ customers discover that their own finance costs are higher, so they cut back on purchases; faced with declining demand, businesses Thal can afford to .expand decide that they ng longer have. a' market gap to fill. . • ' • - Many industries - as Construction and heavy equip- ment -. depend on constant business expansion. Postpone- ment of business expansion (beCtruse eif the impact of higher interest rates) creates unem- ploymettl in these industries. .And that, in, turn, will cause unemployment•in tither indus- tries. Full recovery can re- quire years of corrective eco- nomic measures. We've been caught in this sort of bind before.-Remsm- •)er the mixed blessing of in. ¶ secticides. The Bank of Ca- nada's economic policy is the DDT of -modern economics. We could be paying for the Bank's actions a long, long time. "Think small" is an editorial message from the Canadian Federation of Independerh Rosiness 55 Yes Ago A at •. Mr. W.F. Abbott attended Football teams at the the Bee -Keeper's Associa- J.-A.D. McCurdy School, • tion meeting ."at Toronto RCAF Station Centralia Wednesday and Thursday of staged their own Grey Cup last week. . • battle recently, completed Warden B.W.F. Beavers with cheerleaders and ma - was presented with a gold- jorettes..Sale of candy afthe headed cane a t . the game raised *30 which was pecember session oflalhe donated • to the Springhill • Huron County council. Disaster fund. , , L.O.L. 924 has elected and .A head-on collision about installed officers for thee—one mile south of Exeter on following year as follows: No. 4 Highway early Satur W.M., G. Davis; D.M., ' day killed four airmen and Howard Dignan, P.M., W. injured four others and was L u t m a n; recording the worsthistory in the district's secretary, G. MacDonald; financial secretary -J.. • First rite in, the TA's Bradt; treasurer; James p Brintnell;. chaplain, Rev.-,_ public school essay contest James Foote; first com— mittee, W. Elliott. Mrs. Elrno H. Howey has been successful in passing the'junior examinationsheld at the Ontario College of • First prize of *25 was Pharmacy, Toronto.' awarded to Dinney Fur - Mr. Charlie ^oward who niture for theobest decorated has been in the west 'Mr sto�re--window for Christmas some time, arrived home spo�ored' by the Exeter last week. Businessmen's Association. 30 Years Ago 20 Years Ago ti • goes to Helen Cole of Exeter Public -School who like d ---- like to have a wonderful par- ty for orphans. Leavitt's Theatre will donate the entire gross proceeds from the Monday and Tuesday showings of "The Black Arrow" to the Exeter.. Hospital Fund, spon- sored by the Exeter Lions. The night classes spon- sored by the -Department of ` in service by Exeter DistrictOctober 1964. Agriculture and held in the Dashwood Industries will .� High School H g each Thursday are growing soon open its second plant at , in interest with 70 in atten- Mt. Brydges and plans to dance last week. build, a third one to be in On Wednesday, Rev•, production before 1964. George'.Lemdnt, a son -in -Three of the key men plan - law of Mr. and Mrs. Harry ning the major expansion Strang, of -town, was in- program are Sales Manager ducted into The pastorate of Jim •Finnen, Vice-president Knox Presbyterian Church, Howard Klumpp and Presi- Mitchell.dent Maurice Klumpp. • The county of Huron has Slightly over 22 inches of purchased the antique dis- snow has fallen on the area play of Mr. Neill of ,Gorrie. in the last five days. The This is the largest display of biggest Single fall was on antiques in Ontario. it will . Sunday when 11.7 inches fell, be placed somewhere in the most of it in a seven hour county. - . stretch. An Exeter man at . 'Mr. and Mrs. Russell RCAF -Station Centralia suf- Broderick, Joyce and Jetty feted a heart attack shovell left last week ,to spend ttyxi winter in Arizona.•,,"' spots►twrmas spatcirmeatinvseswawaomm saiateitm.lainfJ SWO91140, Don't Forget The Santa Claus Parade • 15 Years Ago The new transformer sta- tion being erected near Ceti= - traria by Ontario -Hydra's" western region will provide,. a capacity of three times the • present need and will cost *550,000. It is expected to be on Saturday, December 16 %itDike ata. allow..w.tsuetAideavRaisadsCkeee ecw►anc.,inae,ai+oeom