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Times-Advocate, 1988-03-16, Page 6Page 6 Times -Advocate, March 16, 1988 Times Established 1871 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1923 • BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1985 imes dvocate Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario, NOM ISO Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. Phone 519.235-1331 ROSS HAL •tdilur CNA 1231 B1(1.111 Publisher is Adsertismg %tanager Il RR1 DI%RIH 1)0s sstliII (umposrtrun Manager' Business Manager , SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada: $25.00 Per year; U.S.A. $65.00 Watch your invoices While we would guess most businesses are very careful about their accounts payable, police -authorities across Onta- rio are warning professionals and busi- ness owners to watch their invoices. Not all bills are what they appear to be. Those in question are what look like in- voices for a classified directory compa- ny. They have been arriving at many area businesses in the last couple of weeks. A sample of one of these look-alike in-, voices appeared on the business page of last week's issue of the T -A. :Any .company with a large number of bills- and accounts could quite easily make a mistake and send a cheque for the amount which in most cases is for $l 17. Probably to stay within the law, a nota- tion at the bottom of the bill says, "This is a solicitation for the order of services and not a bill, invoice or statement of ac- count due. You are under no obligation to 'make any payment on account of this offer unless you accept this offer." This disclaimer likely avoids any charg- es of fraud,, but the practice certainly Tacks good taste in business standards. Some of -these borderline practices work, taking advantage of personnel who are too busy to check carefully each doc- ument which crosses their desks. Add to this the fact, many large compa- nies have one department responsible for receiving invoices, another for approv- ing payment and a third for actually mak- ing payment. It would be easy to let something like this slide through. Many ingenious methods are used in ad- vertising, but this -is one which businesses and employees should be on the watch for. An extra few minutes of more carefully checking bills could avoid unnecessary costs. Buyer or presumed buyer; beware. By Ross /laugh Should be challenged If the voters of Ontario who are re- sponsible for electing our Liberal pro- vincial government allow the sales tax to increase to eight percent without a fight they deserve the shafting they are about to get. - It's time Ontario residents realize our province does not have a pot'of gold at the end of the Liberal rainbow where you can just snap your fingers and addi- tional funds will appear. The recent hints the sales tax may be boosted to eight. percent should be chal- lenged before it becomes a reality. When treasurer Bob Nixon states a one percent hike in the sales tax would raise over 900 million dollars he's really ad- mitting failure in his ability to operate the richest province in Canada. A sales tax grab is the easy way out. All signs of prudence, fiscal restraint and good old common sense have been thrown out the window. Nixon is sending us a message that Sim ply states "If we're- short of money we'll take it from the people who elected us." If the Liberal plan to make Ontario a Netter place by raising sales taxes had • been included in their election platform the majority might not have been as large. It's amazing how politics and rnathe. matics never seem to agree. increasing the sales tax from seven to eight percent is an actual tax hike of 14.28 percent. Not bad when some of our leaders are taking credit for beating inflation clown to less than five percent. Very few clunkers Like any professior., the teach ing trade has a few clunkers it? it. There arc some teachers who regard the business merely as a means to get a pay cheque and don't cart very much about.chil- dren. Some of them arc burned out even though they may not have that many yaars in'. yet. They: com•c to school poorly pre- pared. have poor discipline. and are out of the door like a shot when the last bell rings. Fortunately such people arc few and far between. Over the years i have seen so many teach- ers who put hundreds of extra hours into their jobs. who genu- inely like .kids and want to sec them progress to the best of their ability. . Mrs. Ridley was a prime ex- ample. When t met her. about twenty years ago. she was in her last year before retirement. A wid- ow. whose husband had been f killed by a lightning bolt while he was haying, she was onc of those people who was a real in- spiration to younger teachers. She had that knack of getting By the -.: Way Ssd flett her thc very best out of -youngsters. That year she was teaching a Special Education class. Some of the boys assigned to her had a reputation for giving everybody a rough time but she seemed to have them wrapped arcund her little finger. Not once did I ever hear her raise her voice. One look, and the toughest boy would be very shecpish'and would do exactly • By lint 11•• kris what he was told. It wasn't stcrness though (hal created that authority. I think you would call it instead the "iron hand within the velvet glove". Thcy just knew righl from 'day onc that she wouldn't tolerate any nonsense. If that sounds like they didn't have any fun you've got the wrong impression. All kinds of laughter erupted from her class- room during the week and you could tell that the class was en- , joying itself. Once 1 came in dur- ing a Hallowe'en party and there was Mts. Ridley sitting on the floor playing a game with the youngsters. Somchow she didn't seem to lose an ounce of dignity in the process. When she left the profession that year'thcre were many adults who came to her retirement tea and thanked her for the tremen- dous contribution which she had made to their lives. Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873 Published by J.W. Fedv Publications Limited YOUR RECAR? SHOWS YOU'RE. AN WMMORAL,CORftu?T, GREEDY, LYING ,CHEPTING, PERVERTED, EXPLOITING, SUB -- HUMAN SCUM, MAD DOG -- AND YOU'RE NOT EVEN ATV t. AZtLI ST ! J � • �!.;fF:fry • •/• /0„,,;.,;••• /r / Pipe dreams? (lave you ever had a chance to win an enormous amount of money? • That seems like a silly quos-• tion in a province that has three lotteries a week with grand priz- es that would put most people on easy street for the rest of their lives. "Phis topic was brought on by a letter wc received this week from l tarsi. l lcrzog in l lamhurg, West (;ennany. • The otter seems almost too goo(I to be true. 'There are two kirels of tickets. that are availa- ible. • Get this. With the standard ticket you have a ,1I percent chance 01 SV1111101g (Nle of 1I1c priers on draws nla(te every Fri- day r)ij!lit for 26 -weeks. That's 1il'tlt your ticket is {r.o(HI I('r)() weeks. I Icrc conics - the catch. The cost, is $ 186. Now the story gets better. Then conics the (•il:ince to buy a prolesslor';tl ticket with an 8.1 pert cid dunce of winning, The charge for this kind of almost • certain chance of winning is $518. For this you get two ticket numbers good for each Friday night for the six months period. The weekly grand prize is listed at $869,5(8) in Canadian dollars. Farther on in the brochure it says .the maximum prize is $434,782. Does this sound like a pipe (IIL'an)? From the editor's disk by Ross I laugh It certainly docs. We certainly would challenge the odds of win- ning. Our I .oltario or 6-49 lotter- ies don't oiler such great odds. Of the thousands of tickets pur- chased locally each week on the three drawings it's unlikely to have more than one big winner a year and that is stretching a point. Irish at heart I've never 14)111 This IO anyone. ltul Ilre lune h;is corse' to ht' haul. All my lily I've wanted to be hill I've (ur.ed my ancestors lot being un dist,. It was most • fucem a(I, rrtr (►l therm. Now I :um fe;uly 1er(lime (nil with it. 1 aur an i bbetnophtle. 1'ou see, I was fealty• meant to be Irish. Long below Mete were lrouhles un Ibe I•.lue'r:11(1 Isle, it h;(1 been (le•Icrinsin•el that ! would be Cont etvrd, herrn and hrolighi up 111 a lovely hamlet .shout fifteen mile'. south 01 Limerick, in deepe •.1, rreenrst Mllnste_r.•'I'hey hada ('elm. name picked out tor me an(1 rvery11u'. htil clue to vern1y severe cosmic intrrlrience Ihrie was a mixup, ail I was ronreivcd and subsequently born in an ugly 111(111%1oal city nowhere near Limerick, where the only thing green was the number eight sIFcc1(111. "i low very unlike Ireland this whole place is!" 1 exclaimed, not realizing That i was quoting Yeats. I was utterly surprised and disappointed. To this day i am strongly attracted by the colour green. The best, proof is that my wife, tthough of Scottish ancestry, has green eyes (the same colour as mint)- You knew, of ciwrsc, that the Scots of iginalC(I in Irchn(1? If 'you ({;,!nt, (ion 't take my word for itlook 1t up. t love green, especially in trees, on (awns, and 00 S20 bills. In fart, 1 love.cvcrything about the Irish. 'That's why to me St. Patrick's Day is such a wonderful, stirring event. The most important day of the year. And I 1'1';'I'ER'S I'()iN'I • prepare for it. i hatc to miss a St. Patrick's Day parade. Did you • cvcr sec the one in New York? I used to drive down there every March, just to stand on the sidewalk of 5th Avenue, watching the marching. hands and , drum majorettes and McGuinness floats and drum majorettes and American Legion veterans ;ind drum majorettes pass hy. 1 kccp three large cartons of St. Patrick's Day paraphernalia in the basement. 1 can do without Christmas decorations, but not without shamrocks on t h c glorious 17th. On or about March 1st, i sneak into the cellar and unpack the stuff, and in no time at all our place looks like the Leprechaun Tavern in the old Alexandria Hotel. The kids complain because they grow tired This writer confesses to pur- chasing a lot of tickets over the• last couple of years, but wc have hopefully finally come to our senses about the easy way to get rich quick. It just doesn't happen that way. Lottery tickets can become ad- dictive, the. same as drinking or smoking. . - - We have friends who will say, "W( only spend $10 a week. That may not sound like much, but over a year that's $520 and over a 10 year period it amounts to $5,2(0. • - Our guess would he that any- one that spends $520 in one year would be lucky to get hack half of that amount in prize money. Certainly there will be an excep- tion or two, but not many. . - After buying a lot of these tick- ets we have come to thc realiza- tion that it would be better to put your money under the mattress. it may not gain any interest, but it will still he there when one of those rainy days comes along. of Wild Irish Rose and the Irish Rovers and Anne Murray which I play on the turntable non-stop. And Elizabeth doesn't think much of tilt metallic -green tic which I insist on wearing no mattcr what colour my shirt is. But no one or nothing can stop me. It's m y Irish destiny. i was meant to be Irish, and 1 wish, begorra, I were Irish. As if it weren't bad enough that I didn't have Irish parents, i've never even had an Irish girl friend, . at least not as far as 1 know. And that wasn't a matter of choice either. They just wouldn't have mc. In spite of my green eyes. I don't know what' they wcrc looking for, but l'vc never succeeded in breaking down the invisible barrier between those who arc Irish and those who arc t: nvious of them. And here we arc, close to St. Patrick's Day again. Flow i wish I wcrc one of you, ye children of Eire. But since i can't be, let me quote this lovely verse by the philosopher John Locke, who — like me — was only Irish et heart: 0 Ireland, isn't it grand you look Like a bride in i.er rich adornin'? And with all the pent-up love Of my heart I bid you 'the top o' the mornin'!