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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1977-11-10, Page 4PAGE 4--CLINTON NEWS -RECORD, THURSDAY, NOVEMRER 10, 1977 Forgetnrigto rernember It's funny how remembering and forgetting are thought to be such op- posite meaning words, but so often they coincide with one another. One evident example of this is Remembrance Day as it is celebrated in present times. Today, it seems, it is not d day of memories and paying tribute to those who fought for us in two wars, but it is now a day of forgetting. School children can forget their studies and spend the day playing outside or watching television. Business employees and workers can forget to set their alarms in the mor- ning for work and instead sleep in At seems that peop,le's short memories have let them forget how to remember and November 11 is just considered by many to he another "holiday", not the day that was set aside to allow people to pay 'heir respects to those living and dead who gave their 1-ives in the •war for our freedom. Although the Legion annually holds a lovely and loyal service in honor of Remembrance Day, to the uneducated, the apatheti - and the young, this often means nothing and isn't understood. Perhaps part of our forgetfulness 's based on the fact that many of us, especially the young, don't really know what they're supposed to be remem- bering, for,they've never really known war, its effects and its results. Remembrance Day might not be taken so lightly if our government, our schools and other institutions helped Legion members and other concerned people teach us what the day stands for. A young child cannot appreciate or understand the meaning of the day when he is merely told to stand and be quiet for a minute, or given a day off school. Instead of closing the schools for the day, perhaps attempts should be made in the future to allow the children, as classes to attend the town's Cenotaph Service as a group, and spend the day learning why it is important and what they are supposed to be remembering and honoring. Although a small group of students, like the Brownies and other clubs, participate in the service, this only covers a small portion of the children. It is important to teach the children the facts about Remembrance Day, for it is they who will decide its future. If they forget about it now, where will it be in the next generation. Do we need Block Parents? If your young son or daughter ever needed a place to run to, a refuge from strangers, or a place to turn when feeling ill, would he or she have one? A Block Parent Program could provide this refuge, but does, Clinton need a Block ,Parent Program? The Block Parent Program is a program which provides a place for 'children to run to -in an emergency. It provides white cards with day-glo red lettering picturing a child in hand with an adult, which are clearly displayed in front room windows in at least two homes in each block. The sign advises the children that there is a place of refuge .if they are alarmed by strangers, or hurt in an accident or sick, or if they are being chased by bullies or vicious dogs. Thetprogram is a community effort involving the local police force, local school boards, and the volunteer Block Parents.. It is under the auspices of the Canada Safety Council and supported by the Ontario Safety League. If you think incidents such as child molesting are not about to happen in a small town like Clinton, consider the words of Margaret McGee, chairman of the Ontario Block Parent advisory committee who said, referring to the claim that rural areas do not believe there is a need for such programs: "But it is a false sense of security, and it is time they realize it," she said, pointing out that Harrow, a small town of 2,000 had three attempted pick-ups in the last year. Wingham has just started a program under the guidance of the Legion, but it is too early to tell how effective the programreally is. But consider the facts, and decide, if Clinton would benefit from such- a program. Sugar and Spice/By Bill Smiler Give us a break Ok, God. We get the message. We give up. You may stop weeping any time over the silliness of your favorite creation, man. Although at times I'm not so sure it's weeping You're up to. I guess You tried to give us a little warning last winter, when you dumped more than 16 feet, of snow on my humble abode. But wayward children that we are, we ignored Your broad hint and went right on sinning the sins of pride and presumption, as we have done through thousands of years of floods and plagues and droughts and famines. So You decided to sock it to us, beginning about the middle of August. The wheat is rotting in the fields. The vegetables liegleep and putrefying in the mud. And the over- cast is so bloody low that even the birds are walking. Enough, Your Heavenliship. Don't let it rain no more. I've been searching my own soul to see where I went astray, and for the life of me can't admit that I've been more sinful than usual, to call down Your wrath in the form of 40 days and nights of rain. Maybe it's nothing drastic, but just a sort of general slippage over the years, throughout Thy people. Let us now undo our shirts, contemplate our navels, and meditate on our sins, and perhaps You will stop the sluice and turn on the juice. Personally, I've slipped a bit, and I don't deny it. Oh, I haven't lusted after my neigh- bor's wife, I haven't stolen anything except that pumpkin out .at Foster's Farm the other day, as a Hallowe'en treat for my grandsons, and I haven't murdered anything larger than a mosquito for years. -I haven't borne false witness, except to the Department of Revenue, which doesn't count. Maybe I haven't honored my father and my mother, but there wasn't much point, since they've been with You for years. Well, that takes care, rather roughly, of the Commandments. But what about the Seven Deadly Sins. Maybe that's a horse of a different hue. Let's see. What are they? Oh, yes, I remember what the rector said one day in church. Pale Gas, Now, I am not suggesting for one moment that the rector was emitting from the pulpit colorless hot air. No, it was his way of remembering the Seven Deadly Sins. This "might be useful. for my readers, if they are still with me, contemplating their navels and wondering wherein they have erred and are like lost sheep. Wet lost sheep. PALE GAS. P for pride; A for Anger; L for lust; E for Envy; G for Gluttony; A for avarice; S for Sloth. Now if we can just prove that we are scot free on those counts, I don't think, God, that you have any right to go on watering us like so much asparagus. I can vouch for myself, and I'm sure for most of my readers, if I deny the first sin, Pride. What is there to be prideful about when you haven't done anything to be proud of? Does it count if you're proud of your kids for coming first in the music festival or growing the biggest squash for the Fall Fair? Anger? No way. Well, maybe a little peevishness, like that litany of damnation hurled at the turkey in the blue Pontiac who tried to cut in front of you in traffic. Or a , few barks at the old lady once in a while when she presents you with a $60 long- distance phone.. hill. Or a slight, scream of rage at the kids when they calmly say they are quitting school and going to Europe to find themselves. But real anger? A firm "no". there. Lust? Most of us over the age of 30 don't even remember what it means. A fig for lust. Or 'a fig -leaf, if you want to be prim about it. Envy? Not a chance. Not among me and my readers, at any rate. Oh, we may turn a little green when we see someone smarter, more handsome, better dressed, or richer than we, but there is assuredly no envy involved. We enjoy being stupid, ,ugly, shabby and poor. Gluttony? Out of the question. What do you think we"are, pigs? Oh, there might be the odd one of us who has one or two or three over the eight when it comes to drinks. And I did hear that a few of my readers had to be hoisted from the table to the chesterfield by a block and tackle after Thanksgiving dinner. But you'll find a few bad apples in every barrel. And by the way, McIntosh apples are only $6 a bushel this year, and you can get through a bushel, the pair of you in about three nights before the TV set. Avarice? Ridiculous! There isn't an avaricious soul in this fine land of ours. Except the doctors, maybe. And the businessmen. And the lawyersand the teachers and the union workers and the dentists and the politicians and the civil servants. But I can't think of one avaricious three-year-old. ' As for Sloth, you can scratch that one off the Canadian list right now. Migosh, you'd think we were lazy or something. 'It's common knowledge that the gross national product of this country is only slightly behind that of 14 other developed nations and well ahead. of one of them. Lazy bedamned. Well, God, I think you've got Yourrsignals crossed somewhere, and it's time 'you stopped wetting on us from a great height. Knock it off. We are beginning to get peed off as well as peed on, and if You aren't careful, we might all go to the Devil. I wonder if the rector was right about that Pale Gas? Maybe the letters stand for: Promiscuous; Asinine; Lazy; Epicurean; Greedy; Apathetic; Silly. Boy, if they do, we're in trouble. and I apologize, God. 3 ,,...„,,,;:iiii„.:\.„, x.war„, , ,,,:.....w... ...1...:,.;:.,,• .,.r .,;`;;::;sir/, "You fool -- you mean to tell me you've been exchanging.. our perfectly good counterfeit dollars for Canadian dollars?" Odds 'n' ends - by Elaine Townshend Why wear a Poppy? When I was attending elementary school, November 11 was a day on which we could put our books away a few minutes early. The teacher read to us or we recited "In Flanders Fields." I memorized the poem but gave little thought to what it meant. I wore .the poppy Mom gave me, because it was pretty and because everyone else had one. How could a 1:' -year-old member of the post-war generation 'understand the purpose of Remembrance Day or the significance of the poppy? War was something shown in the movies. I watched the hero, a young, rugged, good-looking soldier. risking his life to save his comrades and winning battle after battle almost single- handedly. He lost some of his buddies, and sometimes he lost his life: That made me feel sad, but I reminded myself it was only a story. How 'could I realize that, not so many years before, the atrocities of war were real and they happened to real people? The only prisoner of war camp I saw was the one on TV run by "Hogan's Heroes." Colonel Hogan and his. American, English and French cohorts manipulated the gruff but lovable German commandant and the Sergeant, Who saw nothing, "Nothing!" The results were hilarious. How could a young television viewer know the difference between this fantasy and harsh reality? The truth came to me slowly. My "mother talked about the sugar sub- stitutes they used when sugar was rationed during the second World War. Dad was a, dairy farmer; he and Mom made their own butter and traded it for sugar. My grandfather talked about his younger brother, who went overseas and never returned. He recalled the crews of the sinking of the ship, the hope that his brother had survived and the slow, painful acceptance that he had not. Grandpa often mentioned the Japanese man, who came to work for him after the war. "Dick," as he was nicknamed, hada prosperous business on the west coast before the war. After the bombing of Pearl Harbour•, "Dick ' his family and all otht Japanese Canadians were rounded up and shipped to inland camps, that had previously served as P.O.W . camps. Their property was confiscated, and when the war ended, they had nothing. A German Canadian related that, as a young girl, she lost her parents, her brothers and sisters and her•home. She fled to West Germany, having time to gather only her hank -notes. In West Germany, she was told they were worthless. - War left its mark .on all people. Canadian soldiers fought to protect the freedom of their country and their loved ones. Many never returned; otherscame back bearing' physical and emotional scars that would remain with them for the rest of their lives. I am 'grateful that my generation has been spared the tragedies of a World War, but I think it is imperative thatwe understand what our parents and our grandparents went through. On this Remembrance Day, I wear a poppy to show respect and. gratitude. From our early files . • • • • • • 5 YEARS AGO November 9, 1972 --- Repairmen from Bell Telephone worked for seven hours last Thursday . night splicing a cable that was severed when workmen were excavating a hole for a sewer at the Huron County board of education's new building on Albert Street in Clinton, The break put 75 phones, out of service in northeast ' Clinton and customers were still experiencing difficulties with their phones on Sunday. The main feeder cable to Blyth and Wingham was missed by inches. More than 50 people en- joyed an evening recently in Bayfield when Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Poth showed their slides of a trip to the Fiji Islands and Hawaii. Dr. R.B. Treleaven used the new .$54,000 X -Ray unit at the Clinton Public Hospital on patient Eric Collins. The unit, built in Holland, is the best in South -Western Ontario and patients wilt no longer have to go to London to get X -Rays taken. The unit was paid for out of hospital funds, donations and bequests. Karen Tyndall was chosen princess of the Western Ontario Zone of the Hereford Breeders Association at their annual banquet in Harriston recently. She will compete in the all Ontario finals to he held in Peterborough on. January 20. Karen is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs Kent Tyndall, RR 4, Clinton. The Ausable-Bayfield Conservation Authority has received final approval and a grant of $5,700 from the province for the establish- ment of a park on the Bayfield River, east of High- way 4 at the Ci-inton town limits. ry The Authority had pur- chased the 12• acres from Maynard Corrie last August and a SWEEP crew spent a couple of weeks in the new park cleaning it up for° seeding next spring. This year, the Students Council executive at CHSS includes: Gary Cummings, president; Peter Walden, vice-president; Sandra Graham, secretary; Sally Walden, treasurer. R The council has sponsored three dances with bands named "Fludd", "Bramble," and "Steel River" and more dances are expected in the near future. Red and blue jackets, crests and tee-shirts are being sold to sponsor school spirit. - 10 YEARS AGO November 9, 1967 Mrs. Myrtle Robinson, proprietor of the Albion Hotel, petitioned the Bayfield Council to request the Liquor Control Board to authorize a plebiscite; she requested that the vote be taken to ascertain the views of the electorate as she wishes to serve drinks with meals. A women wearing a nun's habit and claiming to be "Greek Orthodox" reportedly made the rounds of Clinton stores last Saturday but had little success in soliciting funds for the "St. Anthony's Boys Town of Canada for Homeless Boys." Among those contacted in town 'were Pickett and Campbell, Anstett Jewellers, Lovetts Specialties and McEwans Book Store. According to Miss Sadie Lovett, "This person dressed as a nun came into the store and asked for a donation for a boys home. I had heard that nuns always travel in pairs. This lady was alone and I was immediately suspicious," Miss Lovett said she refused the woman money and she immediately left. John Anstett said he grew suspicious of the woman when she told him she was "Greek Orthodox", "We don't have Greek Orthodox around here," said Anstett, "and I told her that I donated locally." News of the woman's ac- tivities came to light following a report of an arrest in Seaforth of a woman claiming to be a nun. The woman was arrested in Seaforth on a theft charge after she had been soliciting funds for a boys home. Students at CHSS took part in 0 tree planting ceremony on the grounds of the school last Friday. Helping in the planting were Cheryl Clark, Donna' Hoggart, Janette Marill, Nancy Pickett, Pat Ball, Joe Milner, Denis Fleischauer, Paul Swan, Steve Kennedy, Dave Car- michael and Terry Sewell, The Clinton Ministerial Association enlisted the support of some 250 children from the district on Hallowe'en night to gather aid for sick and starving children supported by the United Nations. 25 YEARS AGO November 13, 1952 Clinton Public Hospital will hold its graduation service on December 5, in the Ontario Street United Church with Miss Edna.. McDonald and Miss Irene Howatt, both of Blyth, as graduates. According to Miss A.B. Sinclair superintendent of the hospital, these graduate nurses, who have trained at the hospital for the past three years, will be the last class to graduate from the hospital. Mervyn Lohh, Goderich Township farmer who has been a patient in Victoria Hospital, London, since June 11, as a result of a tractor accident, returned home on November- 3. A walking cast and crutches allow him a measure of freedom. During the summer his ncighhours found time to care for Mer'vyn's harvest, threshing and silo filling. November 10 held a special thrill, He was able to see the whole season's plowing completed in a few hours by 17 neighbours. Among those turning up with tractors and ploughs were William Jenkins, Graydon Neal, Allan Neal, Charles_ Merrill, Harold Lobb, Clayton Ellis, R.G. Smith, Clarence Ball, Harry Watkins, Grant Snell„ William Lovett, Irvine Tehbutt, William Lobb, Stewart Farquhar, Morgan Jones, W,R, Lobb, William Reuger, I)on Jervis, Leslie Pearson, Robin Thompson and Carman Tebhutt. 50 YEARS AGO November 10, 1927 The marriage took place on Saturday afternoon at the home of Mr. and Mrs. J.G. Chowen, Townshend Street, of their daughter;' Elizabeth Dorothy and Mr. Franklin Fingland BA LLB, Toronto, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Fingland of Londesboro. What you.. think Challenge Dear Editor: A highly controversi4l book published in England challenges (along with many 0 others) the traditional Church teaching that Jesus is God. Entitled "The Myth of God Incarnate", the book's authors, seven noted British theologians, argue that Jesus was not God in human form but "a man approved by God" for a special purpose. "There is actually nothing new about the central themes of this book" says John Hicks the book's editor, who is professor of Theology o Birmingham University. "That the historical Jesus did not present Himself as God incarnate is accepted by all (theologians) . . . Christian laymen today are not fully aware of it." Jesus, says Hick, "did not teach the doctrine of the trinity." In a section of the hook, Frances Young, lec- turer of Birmingham University, suggested that the doctrine of the in- carnation of Christ was adopted by the early church through r fusion of pagan and Jewish traditions. Though the theologians who wrote this book do not present Jesus Christ as the Bible does, as truly 'the Son of God', they have drawn at- tention to the falseness of the Trinity doctrine, as taught by Christendom's churches. Jesus himself never claimed to he God but said: "The Father is greater than I am." (John 14:28) see also Luke 1:35 and John 20:17. Since Jesus stated "And this is life eternal, that they KNOW THEE the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom THOU hast sent." What hope for eternal life lies in only recognizing Jesus? John 17:3 RSV In all sincerity,R C.F. Barney, Clinton. News -Record readers aro encouraged to express their;' opinions in letters to thee' editor, however, such opinions do not necessarily represent, the opinions of the News: Record. ' - Pseudonyms may be used by letter writers, but no letter will be published unless it can • be verified by phone. - The 'ceremony was per- formed by Rev. J.E. Hogg, assisted by the Rev. W, Fingland of Mimico, brother of the bridegroom and was witnessed by about 40 guests, relatives and intimate friends Df the two families. The Brussels Post is complaining bitterly that the account for printing in the past election has not been paid. The account should be placed in "other hands for collection." John Leith was driving his car from Auburn to Blyth on Friday when there was a flock of chickens on the road and to escape them, he turned out and went into the ditch and through a wire fence. The car turned over a couple of times and was damaged considerably; -jut luckily, he .escaped with only a few cuts. A dance was held in the town hall on Monday evening, the Harold Skinner Blue Water Orchestra supplying the music. 0 0 0 The schools reopened on Tuesday after the Thanksgiving holidays. Playing at the Star Theatre - Bebe Daniels in "A Kiss In A Taxi". A man - a miss -acab- .a kiss - began a feast of fun like this. Admission 25c and A 15c. Member, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association The Clinton News -Record Is published eaFh Thursday at P.O. Box 30, Clinton, Ontario, Canada, NOM 1LO. It Is registered as second class mall by the post office under the permit number 0317. The NeWs-Record Incorporated In 1924 the Huron News•Rocord, founded In 1331, and The Clinton Now Fro, founded in 1363. Total press run 3,300. Clinton NewsReco 1 *CNA Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association rr' General Manager • J. Howard Aitken Editor • James E. Fitzgerald Advertising Director • Gory L. Hoist News editor • Shelley McPhee Office Manager • Margaret Bibb ' rt Circulation. Freda McLeod, Accounting • Marian W11I6ori Subscription Rates: Canada •'13 per year U.S.A. •'17.00 Other •'23.00 singlet Copy • 30' rote,' 0