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Clinton News Record, 1981-03-05, Page 4PAGE 4 —CLINTON NES -RECORD, THURSDAY, MARCH 5 ,1981 BLUE RIBBON. AV\ ARP. 1980 The Offeteat 11 ereffe¢awi is 'infiltrated oaf% litooseThe of P.D. flee ri. ClWttaR. lafntorfo. OTheeMe. Pliff 11&. TolsifThfaft ge frocriptioa Sweet Canelo -4..3f Sr. Cif free - •14.9. p,r yoor u.S.de. fs forefeet -10.0106 Per r®er le Fp reetsteroe es seemed rises moll fay the pest office under The weak nuaTher fW17. The flacias•RoeoaO losorporeftnl In len The Nomas 11;mwrs.Record, founded In 11101. sod rite Clinton Pews fro. foaandoef hi ISO. Total prase rasa &us,• Cka MEMBER JAMES E. FITZGERALD - Editor SHELLEY McPHEE - News Editor GARY amiss - Advertising Manager HEATHER BRANDER - Advertising MARGARET L. 011111- Office Manager MARY ANN GLIDON-Subscriptions MEMBER Display advertising rotes available on request. Ask for Rate Card tlo. 11 effective Oct. 1, .p SlcatLop ? Many parents and taxpayers are shocked this week over the swiftness with which the Huron County Hoard of Education trustees, with constant prod- ding from the administration, decided to close down the machine shop at Central Huron Secondary School. And that's only the start. Many find it incredulous that in a nation such as Canada where a shortage of skilled help exists, and where the provincial government is encouraging ap- prenticeship programs for the trades, that such a thing would happen. They can't understand (and neither can we) why a board with a $26 million dollar budget can't find $50,000 to educate our youth to place where they will be able to find a job on graduation. But we have only ourselves to blame. All those board seats were up for grabs in last fall's election, and with a few exceptions, all were filled by acclamation, un- contested, without a single whimper. Oh, we know, the board can trot out all kinds of statistics, quote enrollment figures, say their hands are tied by an signed agreement with the teachers with 85 per cent of their budget going to salaries, or the grants are down etc., etc., etc., but the basic question everyone is asking is: who the hell is the education system for anyway? The teachers? The administrators? The board members? Or the children? What's the sense in having a bunch of students educated in arts courses if there's no jobs for them? Why are we spending millions of dollars on useless courses that lead to nowhere? It's no wonder the schools are filled with bored kids, sear- ching for an indentity and kicks wherever they can End them. Our own apthy to the whole system is the dame, and now everyone is wondering what can be done. Education is more than just expensive cement block buildings, filled with expensive experts, and ex- pensive xpensive books and the sooner we learn that, the better it will be. by J.F. Widening the gap Bell Canada is again attempting to clob- ber Canada's small and medium-sized enterprises, --.says Roger Worth- Director, public affairs, Canadian Federation of In- dependent ndependent Business. ;The company, which provides telephone service in most of Ontario and Queb, a_,ie. seeking a 30 percent increase in residential rates and a whopping 40 percent increase for businesses. Rate increase approved by the Canadian Radio -Television Commission for this Mtge territory are generally used as bench marks for rate hikes in other provinces, so all Canadians will eventually be affected by the decision. While the CRTC will have to decide whether Bell's overall request is justified, the telephone company can't seem to back away from an unfair policy that is costing independent businesses millions of dollars per year. That policy: Bell already charges small and medium-sized enterprises more than three times the residential rate. Now the company is seeking to extend the rate differential by increasing business rates 40percent vs. 30 percent for residen- tial users. In countries such as Sweden, Greece and Norway, there is no rate differential. British businesses pay only 18 percent more than householders, and the rate dif- ferential in they U.S. is decidedly lower than the 200 - 300 percent or more charged in Canada. At a rate hearing last spring, Bell sought a 23 percent increase for residential users, and 35 percent for businesses. Following objections from groups such as the 57,000 - member Canadian Federation of Indepen- dent Business, the CRTC allowed a 13.per- cent increase for each group. Instead of attempting to widen the gap between residential rates and those charg- ed to small and medium-sized businesses, - Bell should be moving in the opposite direction. It's high time the CRTC took a long hard look at this unfair situation, says Mr. Wor- th. write letters Winter spring C remembering our past 5YEARSAGO March 4,1976 Ontario Health Minster Frank MitLer said _ Wednesday morning that he will not close the Clinton Public Hospital if the other hospitals in Huron agree to take budget cuts. • The worst ice storm in about 10 years has . crippled a large part of southwestern Ontario. Hyrdo was out in all areas of southern Huron County and north Middlesex County on Wednesday morning. Mary Smith was one of the helpers who made -pancakes at The Guatemalan Relief Fund breakfast held last Sunday at St. Joseph's Church basement. More than 250 people attended and over $600 was raised. • 10 YEARS AGO March 11, 1971 For the second time this winter, cHuron County was practically crippled by a violent winter storm that dumped at least 12 inches of snow on the area in two days. The new,storm brought the total of snowfall in the area this winter to over 100 inches, not as much as in the hard-hit areas such as Londorrand Montreal. 25 YEARS AGO March 8, 1956 To further organize a local of the Ontario Farmers' Union in Goderich Township, by Alison. Lobb a look through the news -record files upwards of 300 farmers and wives attended a, meeting in the Clinton town hall Tuesday evening. Edgar Rathwell acted as chairman. It will only—Tie five weelt lsovrirritil-atl-of-as--- will be trying to memorize new telephone numbers for all our regular calls. The switch - over to dial will take place on April 15, and .4111,Ver,thats.novheerfutSvoise wiil, p.,hear.:d saying, "Number please?" We'll have. the dubious pleasure of listening to the grind of the busy signal, or the. happy sound that our call is going'through. Modern times are here for Clinton and district . Only 12 years old and in Grade 7, Miss Bonnie Hamilton showed her abilities in spelling to good advantage in Stratford on Tuesday evening when she spelled her way to the top of the zone finals of the Ontario Spelling Bee in competition with a group of 16 girls - all of whom were in Grade 8. Bonnie is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John R. Hamilton and the pupil of Miss Edna , Jamieson at thf Clinton Public School. 50 YEARS AGO March 5, 1931 The McCormick -Deering people held a tractor school in the town hall yesterday for the benefit of their patrons and friends, when a large number of farmers came out. to get what instruction they could on the operation of this handy agricultural tool. In the af- ternoon fternoon movingpictures were shown of the "Romance of the Reaper," showing the advancement from the early days in the reaping of grain. Other news and comic pictures were shown making a pleasing af- ternoon's entertainment. Owing to the weather we have been having lately and the diligence of the roadmen, most of the roads in the Holmesville vicinty have been cleared and are open to motor traffic. Since the paving of the King's Highway No. 8 and the keeping of it clear all . winter for motor traffic, the incentive to open other roads early is greater. Mr..T. Miller of Londesboro has been busy supplying his many customers with coal. The roads are about the main source of conversation in Auburn these days, with so sugar and spice dispensed by bill smiley Winter words Winter in this country is nothing to write home about. Especially if your home is California, or Texas, or Florida. We had a visitor this week from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He had never seen snow before. He couldn't believe how we surviv- ed--- ___ Had a ride with a cab driver about a - week ago. He was from the West Indies. It was one of those comparatively mild days, about sixteen Fahrenheit. It had been away below zero for about a week. As a good Canadian, I commented on the weather. "Nice to see the cold spell over." His response, "Mon, I am freezing to death. I been freezing to death since I come to this ?&!? country two years ago." The vast majority of Canadians hate winter, with a deep unrestrained violence. They hate struggling into boots and over- coats and cars that won't start and the town snowplow, which fills their driveway just after it has been shovelled, and getting up in the dark to go to work, and having something like a sauna bath in overheated stores, and shivering and shuddering waiting for a bits or street car. Some people like it, the imbeciles: skiers, curlers, ice fishermen and small children, and misanthropes of all varieties. I don't like to make a special case, but I think winter affects that fairly large seg- ment of our population involved in the educational process even more deeply than all the other winter -haters. It is a grinding, wearing, tearing process for teachers, students, custodians, bus drivers and even the ladies who dish up the grub in the cafeteria. If the human body reaches its lowest point at around four airs, education reaches its lowest point in the long Jan.- Feb. haul. There's nary a holiday in those two months. Christmas vacation is but a merriory, and the March break is so far off you wonder if you're going to make it without going goofy or slitting your wrists. From January to March, teachers are either catching or getting the flu. One head -cold is followed by another. It seems that a third of the staff — the smart ones who don't stagger in to work half alive — are home sick. That means more work for the dumb ones, like me, who stagger in to work half-dead. We have to cover for them, which means your couple of spare periods, normally us- ed to mark papers, plan lessons and try to get over the chaos of the last class, go out the window. We hate the one at home in bed, or sitting up, drinking lemonade and rum and watching TV. It's even harder on the students. Many of them stay up until midnight watching the box, get up in the dark at some ungodly hour, stand in a blizzard for ten minutes waiting for a bus, and drive twenty miles toward something that bores them out of their skulls. Others, living in town, walk anywhere from half a mile to a mile and a half, half - frozen heads ,bared to the elements and throats unscarved, as is the way of youth. it's no wonder they are tired out, surly, insolent and groan loudly when they are asked to do some work. They are bound to be resentful when some stupid teacher says they're going to have a test tomorrow and they missed the entire week when that work was taught because they were in bed withthe 'flu. -And the kids are sick. The sniffling, nose -blowing and coughing drown out the teacher's voice, already enfeebled by another sore throat. Custodians, or janitors= as they used to be called, have all the problems of teachers, but must mop up every day the ocean of snow and salt and sand tracked onto their pristine linoleum by teachers and students. School bus drivers also have all the aches of rising at an unearthly hour, get- ting the old bus started and warmed up, coping with a group of unruly kids just coming alive, and fighting their way through drifts and blizzards and freezing rain and stupid drivers who stall in the middle of the highway, or go into a skid right in front of the bus. Even the cafeteria ladies have to punch their way through drifts, batteries that won't kick over, icy roads. frozen french Turn to page 5 • odds n ends Mixed bag Carl Sandburg described fog poetically: "The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbour and city on silent haunches and then, moves on." The February fog sat on - its haunches over Southwestern Ontario for a long time. I woke up at my parents' farm one Satur- day morning and wondered what was wrong. Then I realized that blue thing out- side the window was sky. I hadn't seen it for a week. Further investigation showed the neighbours, their houses and their barns hadn't moved away, after all. Few people saw the fog in the im- aginative way Carl Sandburg did. Most were too busy trying to stay on the right side of the road. Then the rain came and people were oc- cupied pulling their boots out of sucking mud, watching for washouts and listening to river ice crack and water roar. It was hard to believe that just two weeks earlier, Mr. Ground Hog had been snowed in and unable to, make his annual r1 Pipeline needed Dear Editor: As Reeve of the Township of Stanley, I feel it my responsibility to respond to what the writer interprets as Lampoonery (the pipe dream). Being Reeve of such an awful municipality is no mean task. Devising ways of increasing taxes for its citizens and insuring that our neighbours also par- ticipate in these deceptive schemes becomes tremendously time consuming. Surely anyone reading the article men- tioned knows that both Bayfield and Stanley are represented by honourable people duly elected by their constituents. When democratically elected people are petitioned to act on a given cause, a response by council is justified. So it is with the proposed pipeline. Farmers and residents along Highway 21 corridor re- mind us of their need for portable water. Common sense tells us that if a pipeline is installed, the need to have Bayfield par- ticipate in the early studies are completed and appropriation of.sabshdy_do1 bytale_ Ministry are committed, only Hien will we know the feasibility of its further con- struction. For a community to grow and develop it must have services, water not being among the least of these. Might I point out some of the areas Stanley Township has in- deed co-operatively shared in programs with Bayfield: For many years in co- operation with the Bayfield Agricultural Society and its fall fair; Stanley Township turning over its 1967 Centennial grant to the Bayfield arena and more recently in the expansion of their present facilities; currently our mutual interest in the Bayfield Fire Area Board. Blatant scathing attacks on our past and assertive inferences about the future do nothing for the harmonious working together of our two municipalities. Might I suggest the author of Lampoonery pull his head out of the sand and begin living in 1981, time has a way of passing us by. Be a part of today, so you can tell your children about yesterday, tomorrow when history can, more accurately epitomize the out- come of our, deliberations. 'many pitch holes. Some have them counted from their gates to the village, and from the station some say there is over 100. However, Respectfully, Paul Steckle, Reeve • Stanley Township jail for 10 days: If Edison perfects the electric light, his fame and fortune will excel that of the lucky - the cars -are going .-through-to_Goderich,rso_.it___ _man who..first."struck..oiL" but the man who won't be long now. first struck Yellow Oil as a remedy, for ex - We, citizens of the community of Varna, ternal and internal use, was a more fortunate certainly "rise to bless" one of our own boys. individual than either. Yellow Oil is par Dr. Lloyd A. Moffatt, who left this neigh- excellence the rememdy for Pain, Lameness, borhood as a lad, made good in the city and Rheumatism, Croup, Deafness, Burns, Frost 'returned a few years later to glorify the old. Bites, Stiff Joints, and all flesh, wounds. Any homestead, do his part to put our community medicine dealer can furnish it. on the map: We not only feel proud to think There is some talk of the Grangers building that our neighborhood owns one of the most a hotel in Varna to sell "Grangers Whiskey," beautiful and best farms in the Province, but as the members cannot pay 5 cents to Mr. every citizen, rich a poor alike, is at all time Joslin for whiskey, when they can get other extended the hospitality of that home, and goods so cheap. They cannot all do without both 'our local churches, have been made Paddies eye water. welcome to hold their annual garden parties The assesors are on the warpath. Try and on its spacious lawns since the improvements be ,away from home, if possible, your family, were made some years ago. of course can give all the information 75 YEARS AGO required. March 9, 1906 in Bayfield T.J. Marks is about starting a Two smooth-toungued gentlemen have brickyard this coming summer. He is.going to been lately canvassing in Tuckersmith, in run it on a large scale. Come for brick. behalf of the Co-operative Mercantile Association. They obtained a number of members at $20 each. They claim they will buy machinery, binder -twine etc., and deliver them ata very cheap rate. They have no plant, so how they fair education can compete with good, honest businessmen is a mystery best known to themselves. Our, well-to-do farmers seem to be a good target for fakes. It is best to give such strangers a good wide berth,. 100 YEARS AGO March 4, 1881 Mr, Thos. Jackson, representing the Clinton Town Council, and Mr. William White, purchased at Hamilton last week two handsome chandeliers for the town hall, each to hold 12 lamps, also two street lamps for the front of the hall, and side lamps for the stage, On Saturday last, a book agent named McCormick, was arrested and brought before the Mayor on the charge of attempting to kiss a young lady, whom on entering to sell the book, he found to be alone. He was fined by the Mayor in default of which he was sent to Fight for appearance. Some people turned black and blue from pinching themselves to make sure they weren't dreaming and to remind themselves it was still mid -winter. Indeed it was too early to start thinking about "Putting Winter to Bed", as Edwin John Pratt suggested. "Old Winter with an angry frown Restationed on his head his crown, And grew more obdurate, As rumours every day had flown From some officials near the throne That he might abdicate. Fixing his ravels with his eyes. He thumped his chest and slapped his thighs, And ground his Arctic heel, Splintering the dais, just to show Thathe was lord of ice and snow, With sinews of wrought steel." When the snowflakes came back to cover the mud, they were big, fluffy and swirl- ing. I felt as thotigh I was driving through a pillow fight - perhaps a dispute between the Jolly Green Giant and Mrs. Giant. As suddenly as the mini -storm started it stopped. The feathery flakes were washed down by moist air arid hardened by dropp- ing temperatures. The streets became temporary ice rinks again and the sanders were put back on the roads. Although the sun shone the next day and the temperature rose, most of us took the broil(' aunt that we still have the long winter month of March ahead of us. We'd better enjoy this respite while it lasts. March may give Old Man Winter a tussle for his crown, but usually it takes April to put the season in its place. Edwin John Pratt goes on in his poem to describe how April settles winter down for his summer sleep and gives him a warn- ing. "For eight months now without demur. You give your promise not to stir, And not to roar or wail, Or send your north wind with its snow, Or yet the east whose vapours blow Their shuddering sleet and hail. So help you then for evermore - If you so much as cough or snore, My seven younger sisters, Who follow after me in urn, Are under strict coni l nd to burn Your body up with b rs. 'Of Autumn, too, you ust beware, For if you rise to scent he air, Our Indian -summer maid Will plague you past what you endure, Until you think your temperature One hundred Centigrade.' " The mention of spring and summer gives us something predictable to look forward to, as we wander through the mixed bag of weather tricks March is sure to bring. Dear Editor, For some months, there has been some concern about the availability of courses presented at the high school level in Huron County. . For sometime, it has been apparent that the declining enrolment is a countywide factor. For a much longer time there has been apathy regarding our educational system. There is a feeling "what can we do about it" that the situation is out of our hands. Are you concerned? Do you care about the quality of our childrens' education? Do you think there is a possibility that if we work together, a trend can be reversed, or stopped? Yesterday (Monday, March 2) a 'beginning was made when concerned people attended a board of education meeting, to hear that the machine shop class at CHSS will be cut. There is a need for parents of all school levels in Huron County to meet and discuss their concerns and frustrations, not only about programs affecting their own children, but to look ahead to see where education is heading. A meeting is planned of all people, parents in particular, in the auditorium of the Clinton Public School on Monday, March 9at8pm Sincerely Mildred McAdam and Mary Hearn Congratulations Dear Editor: I would like to congratulate the Senior Redmen and the Grads who played an ex- cellent game of basketball on Friday night at C.H.S.S. It was a see -saw battle all the way with the Grads coming out on top 59-58. I am sure I speak for the 300 plus, who attended the game, that they should play the best two out of three. They would have a full house the next game. At 'this time I should mention the coaches Mr. Reedy and Mr. Clynick who did an out, standing job. Betty MacDonald, Clinton /) 1)