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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1986-08-06, Page 4Page 4 Times-Advocote, August 6, 1986 Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgama ed 1924 imes divoca e Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873 Published by l.W. Eedy Publications Limited Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario, NOM 150 Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. Phone 519-235.1331 TALK ABOUT MISLEADIN6r ADVERTISING? THEY DONT ea CARRY SPEED OR COCAINE! • LORNE EEDY Publisher BILL BATTEN Editor HARRY DEVRIES Composition Manager JIM BECKETT Advertising Manager ROSS HAUGH Assistant Editor DICK JONGI(ND Business Manager SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada: $25.00 Per year; U.S.A. $65.00 C.W.N.A., O.C.N.A. CLASS 'A' 1018 MUTE' Need some answers The closing of the Bell Aerospace - plant at Grand Bend may not appear to be a devastating blow to the area's economy in light of present employment numbers at the facility, but it is no less traumatic than had the doors been clos- ed when the firm employed its peak of 120. There .was always the hope the firm would secure the business to once again increase its employment opportunities and regrettably those hopes have now been completely dashed. At its peak, Bell Aerospace had a total annual payroll of $2 million and provid- ed spin-off employment for a number of area service industries. Obviously, the area would stage a collective leap for joy with the announcement of a planned establishment of that magnitude and therefore, the opposite reaction must follow the loss of one of our valued industries. While the economic conditions which sparked the decision may appear reason- ble, the people -who lost their jobs -over the past couple of years have every reason to feel betrayed by the federal government. Despite investing approximately $5 million in Bell Aerospace, the govern- ment then turned around and purchased air cushion vehicles from a competing British firm and the final blow for the area industry came earlier this year when they were not even asked to bid on a hovercraft order that was subsequent- ly placed overseas. In reality, the federal mandarins kiss- ed their investment goodbye along with the potential for 120 jobs in this country. That just doesn't make any sense, although the parent U.S. company can perhaps expect orders to flow in from Canada now that any future hovercraft will be built outside this country. Hopefully MP Murray Cardiff will be able to shed some light on the govern- ment's thinking when he sets out on his campaign in the next election. Can be reduced "I can't believe we did this. I can't believe we dumped that canoe. It all hap- pened so fast -- we didn't have time to think." "If we'd been thinking, we wouldn't have been out there in the first place." That conversation was contained in the comic strip "For Better or. Worse" and related to two principals in the com- ic being stranded in a desolate area after swimming ashore from their canoe which had tipped over in the choppy water. However, there is nothing very com- ical for many people who find themselves in similar situations. In fact, those situa- tions are often very tragic and many don't get a second chance to consider the fact that some clearer thinking would have prevented their deaths. The point is that many tragedies could be avoided if people took the necessary precautions or considered the possible- implications of their actions before they bec ime engaged in them. Tragedies involving youngsters often highlight the need for more parental guidance. An eight-year-old boy drowned last week in Lake Huron after advising that he was going to "crash some waves" -- a reference to riding an air mattress on the lake's choppy (five feet high) waves. Anyone with any water sense would have known that was a suicide mission! An 11 -year-old Toronto girl was kill- ed after being lured to a deserted track training site on the guise she was to be involved in publicity photographs for an upcoming track meet. A youngster with some streetproofingtraining would have known that a meeting with a stranger in a desolate area could have been a suicide mission! In hindsight, it's easy to point out that the youngsters were victims of their own stupidity or lack of parental train- ing in the ways of a dangerous world that is unforgiving of such mistakes. Those two youngsters can not be brought back to life; but others need not suffer the same fate if they are the beneficiaries of the needed training which replaces the hindsight of tragedy with the foresight of survival. Could someone you love been the vic- tim of similar tradegies or the many others which annually claim hundreds who surrender to a careless, thoughtless or unknowingly dangerous act? Need the facts Over the next few weeks 1 am going to be writing a. series of ar- ticles about the use of illegal drugs in Canada. Right nhw. over one-quarter of all teenagers in Canada have become involved in drugs. Among eighteen and nineteen year-olds. ..one in 25 is smoking marijuana on a daily basis. Kids are trying drugs for the first time at an average age of 14. Their grades suffer because they can't study or pay proper at- tention in the classroom. Their emotional and physical develop- ment can be damaged at a critical period in their young lives. Drugs like marijuana and alcohol are usually abused by the same people and become stepp- ing stones leading into other drugs such as angel (fust. LSi), cocaine, speed, hashish, heroin, or even sleeping pills and tranquilizers. With the use of drugs as widespread as it is today, very young kids are under pressure to make decisions about them. By 11. by Syd Fletcher the time they complete elemen- tary school they have to make a "yes" or "no' decision about marijuana. As they move into their teens they are very heavily influenced, as much by their friends or favourite rock stars as • J e/tor Manure does the jurna1ists have often been ac - bused of sinking to new depths to uncover some questionable stories, and I'll leave it up to you to decide whether the writer falls into that category in explaining the rather shattering news that sheep manure is instrumental in the economic foundation of the world. The depth to which I had to sink to uncover that revelation was 1,300 feet under the City of Yellowknife during a tour of the Giant gold mine. Giant is one of two operating gold mines which burrow under the capital of the North West Ter- ritories and also carves out cavernous pit mines that give the impression one is standing on the brink of Grand Canyon. My Yellowknife tour guide had arranged for a tour of the Giant mine during my visit and we ar- ::.rived along with a dozen other brave souls at the company office to start our trek into the bowels of the earth where the shafts run a total of 89 miles. The first order of business was to sign a release form absolving the company for any loss of limb or Life while crawling through the underground shafts. That always results in a rather uneasy feeling, despite the reassurance from the mine per- sonnel that signing off is merely a formality and nothing untoward should be expected to happen. Next came the fitting of miner's gear which included a set of coveralls, a safety belt on which one hooks the battery for the lantern which fits onto the hard hat that completes the ensemble. Well, almost com- pletes the ensemble. The final task is wrestling with a pair of steel -toed, over -sized' rubber they are by their parents. A representative from Alcoholics Annoymous, a girl in her late teens, visited my school to talk to my students. By the time she was 13 she was cross - addicted with alcohol and drugs. At fifteen she had had an abor- tion. At sixteen she had tried to commit suicide. With the help of AA she had kicked both habits and was leading a much healthier life. ,, it would be foolish on the part of teachers and parents to think that such things hhppen only to 'other' people's kids. Believe me. there is a problem in our own communities, one which we have to be aware of and have to be ready to deal with when it strikes at home: if you and 1 can give children the facts about the dangers of drugs, you can help them defend4heir decision not to abuse them. • boots that are covered with mud and push their weight into astronomical figures. There's lit- tle doubt they were instrumental in originating the termonology "dragging one's feet". * * * In a matter of seconds, the mine elevator delivered us to our destination 1,300 feet below the Batt'n Around ...with The Editor surface and my sinuses started to throb, giving rise to some speculation that my head .would have blown apart had we descended to the mine's final 2,200 foot level or the 5,000 foot level at Yellowknife's other gold source across town. With the lanterns on the helmets casting eerie shadows on the mine shaft, the group started slogging along the wet, muddy tracks which carry the box cars that transport the ore to various shafts which lead to the two giant crushers which pulverize the material before it is taken to the surface for the final stage of sor- tingout the minute quantity of gold. A ton of ore can yield as lit- tle as two ounces of gold. The tour guide continually ad- vised to be on the watch for the trains hauling out the ore, warn- ing that it was necessary to crowd as close to the narrow mine wall as possible to avoid be- ing scraped by the cars and their cargo. trick It was uncertain to most that there was room along the tunnel for spectators and trains in many places and there was little con- solation in being advised that the cars often jumped the tracks. That gave rise to understan- ding the popular expression: be- ing caught between a rock anda hard place; and it didn't appear worthwhile to ask whether the four ton of ore on each of the box- cars was an imperial measure- ment or metric. Only the autop- sy report would be concerned with that difference! After viewing the long, heavy drills used by the miners to laboriously drill holes into the solid rock walls, some in rifts that rise almost vertica:ly, it is easier to understand why their pay che- ques reach totals of $50,000 a year in their dark, damp, forboding surroundings. Fire, and the danger of floods when a drill breaks through into the rock under a lake, are cons- tant concerns, joined by the tons of explosives that are placed in- to the drilled holes to blast the ore. The explosives, of course, are the prime requisite in the opera- tion and very little ore -laden gold would be mined without it. And how do they make the ex- plosives? From sheep manure and diesel fuel! Don't ask me how it works, but without sheep manure, there wouldn't be very much gold on which to establish the world's relative worth. However, you can be assured the writer isn't going to be stan- ding around in sheep dip the next time someone passes the stable door on a diesel tractor! Rise and shine There are early risers who sit bolt upright at the first sound of the alarm clock. They rub their eyes, wriggle their toes, flex their muscles and start whistling the Colonel Bogey March. They do a dozen pushups, rip open the curtains, take a deep breath and put on their running shoes and jogging suits. They run ten kilometers, then take a cold shower and prepare 'themselves for the day ahead by eating a hearty _breakfast. We all know people like that. And then there are early risers like me. When the alarm goes off at 5 a.m., I push the other side and hope to wake up in due course. And 1 usually do. With my eyes firmly closed, I fumble for my glasses and watch. With creaking joints and weary bones i -stumble to the bathroom: While i shave, my eyes reluctant- ly begin to, focus. The image in the mirror tells me that i was not meant to be a morning person. My breakfast depends on how long after the buizer i woke up for the second time. A snooze of 10 minutes or more means no breakfast at all. Typically, Mon- days and Fri are zero - breakfast day . A shor r snooze means i have -time for a cup of in- stant coffee. And then I'm off. Why do i punish myself? Nobody forces me to get up at five. Do I hope to be rewarded some day for winning this daily battle against my real nature? i read somewhere that next to the shock of being born, the shock of being raised from a deep sleep and having to get up is the most stressful situation people like me ever experience. I don't know whether that is true or not. i've had some pretty forceful jolts in my life. But my system surely revolts against the crual awaken- ing five times a week. So naturally, i look forward to sleeping on weekends. Is •there anything unusual about that? I'm PETER'S POINT '• sure that millions of Canadians enjoy the comfort of sleeping a couple of hours longer on Satur- days and Sundays. Except, of course, for the early beavers who can't wait for the blush of dawn. even on a summer weekend. So we've 'got morning persons and night persons, right? At our house, we also have hybrids. The wee folk. On weekdays they can't be roused in the morning. They hug their stuffed animals and their blankets, and they just love their beds. They have to be coax- ed and badgered and finally dragged out of bed. But on weekends their per- sonalities change. Their internal clocks swing into high gear at the dawn's early light. They sit bolt r upright, rub their eyes. wriggle their toes, flex their muscles and start singing. At 5:30 a.m. they march into their parent's bedroom with a rousing chorus of "Good morn- ing, good morning, and how do you do''" Stephanie opens the curtains and shouts: "Look, Mom and Dad, it's a sunny day!" "Go back to bed, for heaven's sake," i grumble. "that isn't the. sun, it's the moon". Butall is lost. Duncan jumps into our bed on one side with two life-sized ted- dybears and half a dozen library books. Alexanlder launches the at- tack on the other side with his new soccer hall. And Stephanie wants to know why the farmer, crossed the road. How can we tell these happy kids to leave us alone? We can't. of course. Occasionally. just very rarely, we allow them to watch a movie on the VCR. But that's a cheap cop-out. Once agai4 my point is that I'm lost for 'an answer. 1 may as well face it. yor the next few years i will p(obably remain a reluctant mor- ning persons. By now 1 should be healthy as a horso, wealthy as a doctor and wise ava pundit. The fact that 1 am none of these in- dicates that I'm doing something wrong. Maybe i should start working weekends and taking Mondays and Fridays off. There is another alternative. 1 think i'll buy myself a pair of jog- ging shoes and learn to'whistle. Dee -did, deedeedee did -did dee...