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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1983-01-05, Page 20PAGE 4--CLINTON NEWS -RECORD, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5, I 198,0.. IIIke CAaneoar ati9ewo-Ptoeerd 1® pet( aoeood weep 9904re tgq of P.O. ®®a E9. CDAroton. OnAerie, tomes. 61119591 DO,®. Tel . 082 .543.3 Su.Alt iarApela;,oe ghee.. Ceteaele . •141r5j9 Sr. Chimeva - '®8- ,ger gavot A9.9.A. 8 fer®9pra pee go-esv av 0o eegtAeatoved es ei see -fl ammo =ea00 bti Abe® poet oaB@Oee evades etre pmvamoe• eemaw0e/a 34397 rase Seomre-ae,eerd ler.. reereeted en 11914 teas rami oro Reeave-Aileraore. 4oaee sed In DC$D. end flee CAOnven Mewl Bae, loteade d Oue HC9e3. Hotel Aeames r on O. da. incorp r ting THE MTH STANDARD SHE J HY Ratc9 OSff - Editor TL(f88PY MARI<I? - Reporter GARY HAIST - Advertising Manager JANICE ALUM - Advertising PEGGY GIB 'y - Office Mia n©ger ROSARY AH &BOLL NRECBK - Subscriptions J. HOWARD AITK - Publisher A MEMBER MEMBER ®lepley advertising rates owOt©bEo on reCooet. AAA let Fate cold Ro. 17 o93octive Oct. i, t®aa TurL'ing point in '83? Peering into the 12 months which lie before us, there are few indicators poin- ting toward great good cheer. Although the financial experts disagree on the precise levels of economic behaviour, none of them are truly optimistic. In fact, most of them are not even sure that the current slump has hit bottom as yet. Those who predict that good times will come bouncing back in the next few months are in a decided minority. It appears probable that economic recovery will be a slow process, spread over several years rather than a few months. In times such as these the residents of smaller communities like ours are for- tunate by comparison with our neighbors in the big cities. We do, of course, have a good many laud -off workers who are going through very anxious times right now, but the cost of survival is considerably lower than in those areas where housing is desperately expensive. The depressing aspect of the whole situation lies in the knowledge that there is little or nothing we can do as individuals to improve the economic climate. Big government has assumed such a pervading role in our society that we have become helpless pawns and financial victims of unwise government investments. The more than $600 million which the Ontario government poured into a minority holding in an oil company would have been better spent on projects which would create gobs, or, for example, to reduce sales tax on the goods we must purchase. On o recent survey the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Develop- ment (OECD) placed Canada at the bottom of the list of 24 member countries, a pretty sad commentary on a nation which is blessed with natural wealth and a very small population to make demands on those tremendous resources. The survey also predicts that Canada's gross national product, which is the most reliable barometer of the economic weather, will climb only 1 .25 per cent in 1983. The OECD says that Canada's Unemployment figure will remain at about 13 per cent, one of the highest rates in the 24 countries surveyed. High levels of taxation, particularly those levied at the point of sale, discourage retail sales of consumer goods, thus lowering demand for workers in the manufacturing sector. For this reason the funds normally available for invest- ment in new equipment and plant expansion have dried up. There will, of course, be an eventual upturn. Cars and clothing do wear out. Families must be fed and housed, so the manufacture and sale of the necessities of life will have to return to normal somewhere down the road. The big question is: how far away is that turning point? — from the Wingham Advance -Times behind the scenes A new Utopia is just around the corner. I know, I know, you've heard it before but this time, the experts assure us, it's the real thing. The latest technological revolu- tion the computer age is upon us and will revolutionize the way we live, the way we learn, the way we shop, the way we get our entertainment. Already computers and their allies the robots have started chang- ing our world. At least part of the current recession is due to the changes being wrought by the microchip. In scenarios that look like those futuristic dreams published in the 1950s (remember how we were all supposed to be going to work in airplanes by 1980?) we are told that two-way television will allow us to tap into central computer banks for anything we want to know. We'll be able to have all the resources of the best reference library in the country at the touch of a finger. We'll be able to shop by computer through our television, seeing what's available from various stores and order by typing a few digits into our personal com- puter. Our banking will all be done by com- puter. Our children will even be able to get their education by computer. Now I don't want anyone to get the idea I'm totally against computers (especially since this will reach you through a com- puterized typesetting machine and I've seen what those little beggars can do when they're out to get you) but I put about as much stock in this new revolution as in those predictions about the glorious 80s we read in the fifties. For one thing, we human beings, despite our various religions that teach that paradise comes only after death, keep thinking that heaven is just one technological breakthrough away. Whenever some new gift of technology comes along, people predict only the great advantages it will bring. They seldom see the price that is paid. And there is a price for everything. We paid the price for nuclear power by now knowing where we're going to get rid of nuclear waste. We paid the price of cheap petroleum and petroleum by-products like plastic with new pollutants that we don't know how to safely destroy. On the other end of the scale, when the petroleum crisis hit, thousands of people looked to woodstoves as some kind of heavenly saviour without realizing that they too p4lute and ran burn your house down as well. So pardon my skepticism about the com- puter age. For one thing, the experts predict an age when we won't have to leave our house at all to do any of the nor- mal things we do now go shopping, go to school, be entertained. even go to work. it will all be right there. Now I'm as much of a stay at home stick-in-the-mud as anybody ( just ask my wife) but i can't ir i- agine a life spent entirely in the house. We went through a revolution similar to this two decades ago with the advent of televi- Only yesterday by Shelley McPhee sion. For a few years everybody stayed home and stared at the box. Movie theatres shut down. Live theatre vanished. The old fashioned neighborliness of card - parties and get togethers tied out. For about 10 years. Then people decided they didn't like being stuck at home all the time and started abandoning their televisions and rediscovering the old joys of getting together with others. The part about working at home will sound attractive to some people, me in- cluded, but a lot of people wouldn't like it once they'd tried it. Just look at the biggest revelation we've seen in the last 20 years: the march out of the home and into the workplace by married women. They didn't go just for the money. They went to meet with other people, to "interface" to use that computer word that's crept into the language. The prediction that I would most like to see come true is that the computer age will bring a return to rural living. It makes sense. If we're all going to work at com- puter terminals anyway, and talk to each other through telephone lines or satellite signals anyway, then you might as well do it in Londesboro as London, in Tiverton as Toronto. Transportation, the key to cen- tralizing in the past, will matter not a whit in the information explosion. Sounds good but I'll believe it when I see it. Somehow no matter what the develop- ment, the forces for centralization seem to be able to turn it to their advantage. For instance, the coming of the railway to rural areas was supposed to bring a boom to local industry because of cheap, easy transportation. At first it was, but within two or three decades the cheap transportation of the railways began to destroy local industries which had once supplied local markets but now couldn't stand the competition from larger city - based plants. The thing the experts ignore is that it is not generally in the interest of big govern- ment and big business to have us living all over the country in unorganized units. Cities are nice and neat and easy to con- trol. We've seen the provincial govern- ment come up with its regional govern- ment plans, its county school boards and regional health counrits sn it tout(( nave fewer units to have to deal with. I hope I'm wrong on this one; but there's a suspicion that 20 years from now the computer will just have super -efficiently allowed the big to get bigger, both in terms of government, business and population centres. And there's one more thing against the glorious new computer age. A little thing called cost. in an experimental hookup with the all -Canadian Telidon system was set up awhile back. The cost was $75 for the hookup, $60 a month rental and five cents per minute user fee. When computers put us all out of work will we have the money to pas that cost' A retiring writer PEOPLE keep on asking me, "But what will you do when you retire?" It's always asked in the same, rather petulant way, suggesting that I will immediately become senile, iiie of sheer boredom, or succumb instantly to some unknown disease. These ideas are gross canards, im- planted in people whose retirement is far in the future, often by .Jewish writers who have an overwhelming sense of guilt because they put their old man in a nursing home when he interfered with their lifestyle. They didn't dare try to put their mothers away. In the first place, it's none of their business. Maybe I'll grow a beard, get drunk for three months, take a 20 -year-old mistress, never wear a tie again, and write dirty poetry. Maybe I'll turn into a clay -footed pillar ,1 of the community, serving on committees, running raffles, trying to teach young hoods that a past participle is more impor- tant than a past bank holdup, and attemp- ting to beat the toughest game in town - Death. Maybe I'll cultivate my own garden, as Voltaire suggested. Perhaps I'll do all the things my mother tried ( tried is the key word) to prevent me from doing: swimm- ing on Sunday, hanging around the poolroom, drinking anything but tea (she had a few drunken uncles). Maybe I'll kick up my heels entirely: go around barefoot; use a lot of four-letter words; never change my underwear; leave my wife in pitiable financial cir- cumstances; buy a raincoat and go flashing in the park. Before you call in the Mounties, take a deep breath. I'm not likely to do any of those things, or only a few. It happens in novels, but not often in real life. i'll pro- bably just go on being Bill Smiley: confus- ed, angry, happy, lazy, hopeful, pessimistic, sweet, sour, greedy, generous, stupid about some things, bright about others, a good grandfather, a lousy husband, a so-so father, an illiterate scholar, an observer of the trivial — you name it; I've got it. The possibilities of retirement, of course, are boundless, and fascinating. My wife is scared stiff, because I'm difficult enough to dominate on weekends, let alone the forever that is retirement. On the very rare occasions when we ex- change heated words (three or four times a week ), I have the trump card. I merely say, "O.K. You take your blank house and your blank car and your blank blank bank account (that requires a careful tongue) and I'll take my pension and move into a boarding house." That usually makes her trot out into the kitchen and start making a pumpkin pie or something. She knows the boarding-house is right across the street, and all I'd have to do is pack a bag and my typewriter, and there I'd be, 50 yards away, watching as she sank it'ito genteel poverty, unable to pay the gas bill, the taxes, the plumbers and electricians and TV repairmen and all the other ghouls who haunt us. But I think she's planning counter- measures. It's a bit like the Russian KGB and the U.S. CIA. We respect each other, but we plot. She's been buying tools hand over fist, and can repair practically everything except her husband. She's talk- ing about taking some music pupils again (a secret source of income?) Well, to get back to retiring. When I look across the street at my neighbor, cutting grass or shovelling snow, or patching his roof, i don't worry about dropping dead three weeks after I retire. He quit teaching about 20 years ago and could probably wrestle me to the ground with both hands the readers Santa had f Dear Editor: I would like to take this opportunity t thank the people of Clinton and surroun ding area for requesting me to play Sant. Claus for them. Between the businesses and all th, people who had parties for the relative. and children it was a real honor to haul some little boy or girl come and tell ma what they wanted for Christmas. Between all the dolls and race car sets and vide( games .I'm quite sure they all had a prettt good Christmas. I never promise anything for the little people but tell them, I'll set what Santa can do. There was one tittle girl that really got tc me though. I asked her what she would like for Christmas. Her reply was, bring me a daddy, Santa. Well, the cat sort of caught my tongue but I told her I'd see what I could do. Well 1 hope this little girl will get her wish, if not this past Christmas hopefully by next Christmas since Christmas is truly a family affair. ,. Well thanks again and we'll see y'ou all next year. Ho! Ho! Ho! Yours truly, Santa Claus Thanks for the Christmas issue flet( eietuncl Ills Baca. Another neighbor climbs high ladders and fixes things while I cower at the foot, holding the ladder. He's retired. Another plays golf while I sit on the back lawn, con- templating the birds and my arthritic foot. He's retired. Another retired teacher, two blocks away, skis in the Alps for four mon- ths in the winter while I plod thrugh the snow to teach, for the 22nd time, that Macbeth would have been a pretty decent sort if his wife hadn't been so greedy. And, of course, what it all boils down to is that I'm not even retiring, which con- founds mine enemies and friends alike. I am merely ceasing the teaching of school. When the war ended, I retired from be- ing a fighter pilot. When I'd had enough, I retired from the weekly newspaper business. Now that I've had a bellyful of teaching, and all the trivia that goes with it, I am not retiring, but beginning a new career. I plan to write. Not letters, which I never seem able to get around to. Not Harlequin Romances, though I think I could rattle off some good ones, if my sE Ise of humor didn't get in the way. Not great fiction, dealing with little people re -discovering great truths, sprinkled with symbolism and sensitivity. Not penetrating poetry, though I can rattle off a pretty dang good poem, on order. No. None of that derivative stuff for me. I'm going to write the messages on greeting cards. I hear there's good money in it, and any idiot could improve on what is now offered. The difference is that mine will be personalized. And they will be twenty bucks a throw. How about this for a sympathy card, on the death of a loved one'. Sorry I couldn't be with you when I knew you had a special yen For more hi-jinks with good old Dave With Abner cooling in the grave. Dear Editor and Staff of the News -Record: We want to take this opportunity to thank you for the fine service, so gracious- ly given, when, at the eleventh hour, just before the Christmas issue went to print, we brought in an addition to be placed in the church page regarding the Christmas Eve services. Also, we'd like to voice our appreciation of each issue of the News -Record that we've enjoyed since moving to the town of Clinton - and most particularly the recent Christmas one with the emphasis given to the real meaning of the Christmas season: Sincerely, Rev. James and Elaine Bechtel News -Record wedding policy Signal -Star Publishing community weekly newspapers have recently revised their wedding policy, making some changes that will enable editors to provide wedding coverage that will satisfy readers while still fulfilling space allocation and time factors of the newspaper. A Report of Wedding form is now available at the News -Record office. We are pleased to include FREE OF CHARGE your wedding photo and a brief wedding story from the facts r• guested on this sheet. Simply fill in this form and return it with your wedding photo within eight weeks of your wedding. A late fee of $15 will be charged for this service AFI'ER EIGHT WEEKS from the date of your wedding. This charge is made in an attempt to keep all the news in our paper current. You may wish to have published a more complete wedding writeup.containinga description of dresses, decorations, music etc. This is still possible at a flat fee of $25. As well, you are required to supply your own written story of the event and a photo. While every effort will be made to publish your story exactly as submitted, the editor reserves the right to edit the copy as necessary. A late fee of $10 will be charged in addition to the $25 AFTER EIGHT WEEKS from the date of your wedding. Included on the writeup form are: When and where the wedding took place, minister, groom's name and add, ass, groom's parents and address, bride's name and address, bride's parents and ad- dress, matron( maid) of honour and ad- dress, bridesmaids and addresses, flowergirl and address, ringbearer and ad- dress, groomsman( best man ) and ad- dress, ushers and addresses, location of reception, wedding trip, residence of bridal couple: if photograph included, name of photographer. The News -Record is also allowing for the organist and singers where space is available. Help us avoid embarrassing errors by kindly printing the names of people and places, as these are often unfamiliar and difficult to make out if not plain. Thank you. o s I sees Confusing language Newcomers must have a difficult time learning the English language. Sometimes it's confusing for those of us who have spoken the language all our lives. For example, many words have two, three or more different meanings. Most of the meanings are legitimate, but to top them off, we invent slang meanings. we can bounce a ball that's made of rubber We can also bounce a cheque that's made of paper. We can "have a hall" while bouncing a hall; that is, we can have a good time There is the ball of our foot, and the hall diamond. The latter diamond is not the j wel but rather the field where baseball is pyed. There are three bases in the game of. baseball - four if you count home base which is more commonly referred to as home plate and must riot be confused with the plate we eat upon in our home The base is at the bottom of many things, and when considering morals, "base" means the lowest of low. An army has a base of operations: gossip is based on baseless information; and most houses have a basement. ('hanging the subject, let's look at the little word card. There are 52 cards in a deck, and a card game can be played almost anywhere - on the deck of a ship or on the deck of your house. if a game gets too serious, one angry player might deck another. A card can also mean a silly person - one who's a real cut-up A weaver cards wool before spinning. Greeting cards are sent to friends and relatives on special occasions A score card keeps track of points made in several different games. A cardboard box holds many things Returning to the game of cards, cutting the deck does not require a knife, and a jack knife cuts many things, Mit not the trick that jack knifed on slippery A steak knife cuts a steak; a stake driver drives a stake into the ground. To drive a stake into the ground does not require steering; rather it requires strength to pound the stake down. (Until recently nails were sold by the pound. The steering referred to above is what one does when driving a vehicle and has no relationship to the steer from which the original steak came A gambler can have a lot of money at stake in a horse rare or a card game. A rare horse can have a lot of money riding on it as well as the jockey The jockey mounts his hors' and then ie (keys his mount into position among the other horses on the rare track, which is not the same track that the train runs on A train runs, a person runs. a refrigerator runs: water runs; and so does a stocking ( onfused° Me, too But, that's our English lesson for today Two towns get planning grants Community planning study grants have leen awarded to the Goderich and Seafnr- th, (laude Bennett, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing announced today. The grants will assist the towns to prepare a new comprehensive zoning bylaw. Godench will receive 810,300 and a 815,000 grant will be given to Seaforth. Community planning study grants are designed to encourage municipalities to review and update their planning pre grams. zoning bylaws and other planninc documents. They may also be used for .spec tai studies on local issues such as lakeshnrc development or commercial development along highways, and for enerc, conserving planning measures -01