Loading...
Times-Advocate, 1982-02-03, Page 4f3 Thet *'Adv est• IrhKwry 3, 1163 • Ames - dv&Me Times Established 1873 Serving South Huron, North Middlesex Advocate Established 1881 & North Lambton Since 1873 Amalgamated 1924 Published by J.W. Eedy Publications Limited LORNE EEDY Publisher JIM BECKETT Adsvrtising Manager BILL BATTEN ROSS HAUGH Editor Assistant Editor HARRY DEVRIES • Composition Manager • DICK IONGKIND Business Manager Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. Phone 235-1331 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $17.00 Per year: U.S.A. $55.00 C.W.N.A., O.C.N.A. CLASS 'A' and 'ABC' Sacrifice the holiday There's a movement to drop Remembrance Day from the list of school holidays. Good idea! But, it should be dropped as a holiday for everyone now receiving it. In recent years, local Remembrance Day services have been moved to the preceding Sunday and there isn't anything staged on November 11 for school children to attend to mark the observance of remem- brance for those who fought in the great conflicts. It would be far more meaningful to leave students A in school and stage special programs on Remem- brance Day. The current practice does nothing to honor those who paid the supreme sacrifice, nor does it help in any way to educate those new generations about the torch that has been passed. Making people give up the holiday would perhaps be beneficial in impressing upon them that such a sacrifice is small indeed in comparison to that which was made on' their behalf by so many. Change is warranted The Exeter PUC have terminated the questionable practice of extending the grace period for only a por- tion of their customers who were late in paying monthly utility bills. Although the bills clearly state that they must be paid by the 20th of the month to avoid a penalty, the practice was to extend the deadline to 11:00 a.m. on the 21st. There was obviously no validity in such a move. Why should someone arriving at 11:00 a.m. be given a benefit that was not extended to" a customer arriving with payment at 11:30? Both were clearly beyond the stated time limit. The result of bending rules is that they soon have to be broken. Now the PUC have extended the payment deadline to the 21st and hopefully the bills will show this change and the PUC will strictly enforce it to be equitable with all customers. Unless the change of date is noted on the bill, the argument will continue that some customers are being given preferential treatment by being allowed to pay one day late, while those who pay two days late are denied. The PUC would still be in an untenable position by having the bill say one thing and the office staff saying another. Feeling the pinch Canadians should have a great deal of sympathy for the thousands of entrepreneurs operating small and medium sized businesses that are in financial trou- ble. While many bankers, accountants and government experts suggest mismanagement is the major reason for business failures, there is little question high in- terest rates are playing a prominent role. In a recent survey, for example, the 63,000 - member Canadian Federation of Independent Business found 78 percent of respondents had shrink- ing profits, and 10 percent actually lost money. Another 32 percent had already laid off workers when the survey was taken last fall and a full 56 per- cent said they had curtailed expansion plans because of the high rates. But that's not the whole story. The evidence that small business is in bad trouble was underscored recently when Ottawa reported business bankruptcies reached a record 8,055 in 1981, up an astounding 22 percent over the previous year. In addition, at least that many companies were placed in a holding pattern called receivership, and another 8,- 000 or so simply closed up shop. That's the good news. The bad news from the economic forecasters is that the situation is gong to get worse before it gets better`. As more firms go broke and expansion plans are placed on the back burner, job creation will grind to a halt. And these small and medium-sized businesses have been creating a clear majority of new employment oppor- tunities for years. This is why Canadians should have compassion for entrepreneurs in trouble. Without them, unemploy- ment would be much, much higher than the one million people now seeking work. We'll all become dullards If all work and no play makes dull peo- ple, then residents of this area are ob- viously on the verge of being declared totally dull. For four weeks in succession' people • trudged off to work as usual on Monday morning and returned faithfully ,through to Friday, and then just as they were set 'to gear up for a weekend of play, Mother Naure put an end to their plans. Most activities from Friday night through to Sunday night were cancelled, only to have the weather break in time to resume normal workingschedules on Monday morning and hrough to the following Friday night. The only people who benefitted dramatically from the consistent schedule forced on us by the weather were members of the clergy, some of whom didn't have to preach a sermon for three consecutive weeks. Given the assumption that they only work one day in the week to begin with, it was hardly necessary to bestow such added benefits on them. However, it may give rise to speculation that more is pro- vided through prayer than some would suggest? If the weather pattern continues in its consistent pattern for the balance of the winter months, some thought should be given to changing the normal weekly schedule by putting workingdays on Saturday and Sunday and aving the weekend activities staged on Tuesday and Wednesday. Winter makes most of us dull enough, without taking away all the pleasures of the weekend! The writer was among the group of 46 Exeter hockey players and parents stranded in St. Marys by Sunday s blow, and while intense rivalry always features any hockey competition between the two centres, it ended on the ice and our foes became gracious hosts for the night. 1 With Police Chief Bruce Cowan direc- ting affairs, all the players and their parents were soon settled in for the night, and judging from the comments on the bus on the way home most of the lads who were staying with their adver- saries found they were actually human once they got off the ice. There are some team officials who don't want players fraternizing with the opposition! especially during playoff time, but it is a sad commentary on the BATT'N AROUND with the editor game when the players can't leave the ice and have some fellowship together and enjoy all the' benefits that should ac- crue through minor hockey. Have no fear that the local players will lose their intensity or desire to win when the playoff series resumes, or that they will be any more gentle in their body - checks. Everyone returned home having made some new acquaintances and it may just increase the . rivalry between the two centres, although it may enjoy the added benefit of being on a more friendly note. Players and fans alike will probably find that it is even more fun. So, the ill wind may blow some good again! While storms tend to curtail the news events available to cover, it is often replaced bysome unusual stories that are uncovered s the community coffee club meets for prolonged sessions or friends and neighbors gather to chat while the wind makes jaunts elsewhere impossible. The writer doesn't have time to attend such sessions, but the advertising manager has provided a couple of tidbits that readers may find of interest. I can- not attest to their veracity, other than to say the informant is, with some excep- tions, normally reliale. His first story pertains to an enterpris- ing student at the local high school, who apparently disliked regular class atten- dance and decided to enjoy some holiday time. Seems he concocted a story of being in- volved in a training program as an em- balmer with a local funeral home, ad- vising that he may be called out of class at random to assist whenever a death oc- curred and required his assistance. The bluff ended after suspicions were raised when the enterprising youth ap- peared to be answering calls through his premonition of death and not calls for his assistance over the intercom. A check with the funeral director ended the escapade. The second story is more hair-raising, although it again involves a large degree of initiative. A repair man was called to a honhe to fix an electric stove and was greeted by an unfriendly dog. After call- ing off the animal and setting the repair man to work, the home owner departed. MI went well, until the repairman at- tempted to retrieve his shoes. The un- friendly dog had positioned itself between the man and his shoes at the doorway and every movement was greeted with bared teeth and an unfriendlyrowl. Finally, the resourceful repairman managed to inch his way to a nearby phone and called police to come and help him out. The police in turn, recruited a person well known to the canine to com- plete the rescue and the repairman was off to his next job...after wiping his swea- ty palms, it is assumed. "Then he said he was so happy the car started in this cold he could kiss it." There was some comic Looking back over the last year or so is enough to give a chap a bit of depression, to say the least. about the condition of the country andthe world. Let's hope we can all win a lottery, or a Nobel prize, or even a game of bingo, in the year ahead. It was a year of the shooting of a Pope, a president, and thousands of less eminent persons. Fortunately, the two Big P's survived, but most of the little ones didn't. • Despite the, dread threat of, sanctions, economic and otherwise, the Russians are still in Afghanistan, and it serves them right. They are fin- ding it about as easy to conquer those crazy Moslems as the Yanks did to subdue those crazy Viet Cong communists. It was a year in which Poland hit the headlines, and stayed there, with a big. black question mark looming up for 1982. The Irish, of course, • kept knocking off each other with the gay aban- don that has been their trademark for years. In Central and South America, dictatorships continued to slaughter and torture anyone who disagreed, while the world looked on calmly, and in some democracies, benevolently. In Canada, things went from bad to worse. A massive economic slump began that is not going to improve much this year, according to most analysts: Inflation proceeded merrily. Thousands upon thousands lost their jobs as plants closed, small businesses went bankrupt under crushing interest rates. and the same fac- tor brought to an almost absolute halt all types of building and expansion. But never mind. We now have an oil company all of our own, and a quarter of one in Ontario, even though the big - companies are heading out of Canada for greener pastures as fast as they can load up • their equip- ment. Despite • the best -laid plans of all the mice in ed Forces grew steadily more pathetic. Personnel of about 90,000 to defend one of the largest coun- tries in the world. More than half of them not fighting men, but people pushing paper around, or cooking, or doing something equally glorious. Practising war- fare with obsolete weaponry and low morale. Our defence budget is lowest of any country in - Sugar and Spice Dispensed By SmUey Ottawa, the massive national deficit inr creased, and everyone in a position to do so, from town councillors to M.P.'s, voted himself a substantial 'increase in salary. The bickering and squabbling and in -fighting over the patriation of the constitution revealed 'the littleness and insukarity and regionalism of our country, with everybody wanting to get his nose into the trough, but nobody wanting to pump the pump or dump the swill. This final agreement on a patchwork constitution sent Rene Levesque home in a sulk. Not unusual, but he was badly shaken when his own party dumped on him and demanded independence for Quebec. With the neglect of years building to a climax, the Candian Arm - volved in NATO, with the exception of Luxemburg. Maybe we should declare war on that tiny prin- cipality, to show the world that we are still a proud and gallant nation. Trouble is, we might get licked. And just to top off a great year, along came that blackbudgel covered with whitewash, that promised more equityin taxation. For "equiy" read: the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor, and the middle-class get a punch in the paunch. The budget is a deliberate in- vitation to invest in your country's future. Let the government do that for you, with its oil companies, its hefty aid to industries that are go- ing down in the quagmire, its taxes on everything but breath. Not death. Death is taxed. I could go on for weeks, but so could anybody else. relief Let's turn to the sports scene for a little comic relief. Montreal Expos blew it again. Ferragamo, the millionaire quarterback for Montreal Allouettes, was a fat flop. And Les Canadiens were blown out of Stanley Cup playoffs by a buncli'of kids from Ed- monton. Toronto provided more comic relief. Once again it had the worst baseball team in the pros, the worst football team In Canada. and one of the -.poorest teams ht the N.H.L. Again, I could go on. It was not a bumper year. But• -there were some bright spots, and let's remember them, to cheer us up at least to the point where there isn't a national orgy of wristslashing. Like a shining star in the shoddy charade of the so-called National Hockey League was the performance of Wayne Gretzky. At 20, he played with a grace, skill, finesse and strength that had even our morbid sports scribes raving. Hope he scores a 100 goals and adds some of his class to the sorry spectacle pro hockey has become. Our skiers had a great year internationally and both men and women are now in the top ranks. Our swimmers grabbed many a medal in international competition. Finally, let's hear it for that great junior hockey team, who put some tinsel on the year's end by winning a gold medal and beating the Europeans at their own game, and cleanly. Dealing with winter woes During the last mpnth Southern Ontario has been hit with a series of cold days that have set new records all over the place as the mercury has plunged to -20 degrees and more. Then when you add a 50 or 60 mile/hour wind you come up with startling wind chillfac- tors. Here in this part of the country we tend to forget the domestic effect that severe cold can have on a car, cutting the battery's efficiency down to about 5 o 10%, making the oil so thick that it acts like hardened glue in the engine, literally paralyz- ing it. In the western part of Canada such temperatures are common -place and people there learn how to deal with them. • I can remember one trip we made out to Manitoba at March break. When we drove through southern seats in the car • were frozen as hard as boards. The icy slush stuck to the bottom of the car had to be chipped out with a Perspectives By Syd Fletcher Michigan we hit a rain storm. That rain froze into great ruts on the road which made the car swerve all over the place, and then give up. We stayed in a motel over- night in Duluth, Minnesota and came out in the morning to find that the temperature had dropped to -35 degrees. It was so cold that the vinyl hammer and screw- driver in pieces about the size of a dime. If it hadn't been chipped out it would have cut the tires to shreds. For us, it .was something new but the westerners took that weather as casually as we do the heat of summer. For me, I couldn't believe that it took my car almost two days to thaw out in a heated garage. All the people who drive cars there have as a minimum night protec- tion a Klock heater. Most daces of work have plug - ins for the workers' cars. It was strange to see all the plugs in a hospital parking lot. My host had a heater for his battery plus a heater -fan inside to keep the ice off the windows, and of course the block heater. And to top it off the car was inside an un- heated garage. He seem- ed to have a healthy respect for winter. Then again, he thought nothing of driving 50 miles, one Arctic -like night, to take us out for supper. 1 guess it's all in what you get used to.