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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1981-09-09, Page 4PAGE GE 4 —CLINTON NEWS -RECORD, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 ,1981 w 8h® CIIn4on 1V�aso-8t¢aoad to Publlelc®�1 Asch 14 to lo4®e" 8s c�cand eltaqMe" all ►q 4W® Thursday et P.O. Roc 34. Clinton. Ontario. post offlca under the Porwel9 nu e" r 4418- -.. Canada. NOM 160. Tal.: 112.3413. The tiocriAtecord Incorporated In 1421 the Subscription Rate: Huron Paasrc-Itacovd, founded in 1111, and The Canada •'11.31 Clinton Plow 4rra, founded In 1043. Tote! Press Sr. Citizen • 'U.11 per year run 3.344. U.S.A. & foreign - '31.01 par year em MEMBER JAMES E. FITZGERALD - Editor SHELLEY McPHEE - News Editor GARY HAIST - Advertising Manager HEATHER BRANDER - Advertising, MARGARET L. GIBS - Office Manager MARY ANN GLIDDON-Subscriptions Display advertising rata'sT' evallahb on request. Ask for Rata Card No. 11 effective Oct. 1, 1411. Farmers .need more proof Ontario Hydro's need to build a second major transmission line from its Bruce nuclear generating station has been proven to no one, especially farmers whose land would have to support the grotesque towers used for such lines, says Farrn Update. In the middle of the 1970's, Ontario Hydro also tried to build a second line. Farmers and residents were told if the line were not completed and in place by 1980, the province would probably run short of power. The line was not built, and in 1980, Ontario had a surplus of energy. Hydro spokesmen have informed the public that it hopes to "recommend" one out of six choices by October 30 of this year. Some local farm organizations boycotted mid -summer hearings because farmers did not have time to attend them. The hearings were not re -scheduled. The end of October is hardly a better deadline if Hydro is serious about receiv- ing input from farmers. One farmer told a Farm Update reporter that Hydro's plan to offer six "choices" for the second line is like telling a person he is to be executed and offering six different waysto die. An article in the August 25 issue of the Toronto Star said the city of Toronto decreased its hydro consumption in 1980 by one percent, even though 2,000 new subscribers were added to the system. Property values will almost certainly drop on any farm unlucky enough to be graced by some of the giant 5b0 -kilovolt towers. Of course, there might be more than one red face at Ontario Hydro if the se- cond line from Bruce cannot be justified - what to do with all that power going unused at Bruce? Did some Hydro planner goof? Hydro spokesmen argue that if the energy is not needed by Ontario residents, ,it can always be sold to the United States. But that rationalization is not good enough. R does not justify the desecration of farm land, nor the future inconvenience to farmers, nor the enormous cost of construction. Farm Update suspects a decision on the location of the second line hos already been made somewhere deep within the bowels of Ontario Hydro headquarters in Toronto. The study sessions and hearings are nothing more than an exercise in public relations. Inflation forever? Our existing laws and most labor agreements have all but guaranteed that galloping inflation will be with us forever. Inflation is not,created by those who ask high prices; it is the product of those who pay the high prices with little or no argument, says the Wingham Advance -Times. As long as labor agreements and employment policies contain any, form of escalation clause or indexing, by which wages are guaranteed to increase at the some rate as inflation, prices of goods and services will rise forever. When wages definitely fall short of inflated prices and consumers start to shop around for better savings, then, and only then, will goods avid services begin the long slide back to find a saleable market price. Any person who travelled away from home this summer must have been im- pressed by the vast number of expensive vacation vehicles, trailers and boats swarming along the highways - every one of them drinking up gallons of expen- sive fuel. There is, as yet, no indication that most Canadians are really feeling the pinch. Appliance retailers, car dealers and those who sell the more costly kinds of goods all report very high sales levels. We all cry about inflation and high prices, but we are quite obviously still shelling out our earnings at record rates - because we are, or at least many of us are quite sure that earnings will continue to rise at the same rate as the prices we must pay, concludes the Advance -Times. [sugarand spice Country crises I don't know about you but for me it was some bummer of a summer. Oh, the weather was great, and I hope you and yours had a super holiday. But nothing else was much good, nationally and personally. Now, I'm not going to say one word about the postal strike. If i started to write about it, the paper I'm writing on would go up in flames. I'll just take a positive at- titude and observe that because of the strike. I didn't have to write a column for six weeks. A nice holiday for me, and pro- bably a welcome relief for those who feel forced to read my meanderings every week. Nor will ,i fly into a rage because our members of parliament, just before sneak- ing off for a long holiday in the middle of about 18 crises, voted themselves a whack- ing great increase in salary, pensions and all the gravy that accompanies them. it's a tough job and they deserve every 40 or 50 thousands dollars that go with it. Again, f don't feel incensed that the :'rime Minister should go off to Africa for a holiday while the country is being engulf- ed in unemployment, inflation, separatism, and science -fiction interest rates. 14 l robably enjoyed listening to 'oi-r►e gentle Swahili after months of pot- ting up with the bellowing and ranting of the various opposition parties. I'm sure he came home rested, refresh- ed and just as determined as ever to talk about North• South relationships rather than East-West ones Perhaps i should be furious about the ,1.1y In which Canadians completely ignore the ' iergy crisis. I'm not. \1u.f artrnit I was a bit perplexed when 1 was forced to take to the highways one day and saw literally thousands of cars belting along, just over the, speed limit, rushing from one hot place tuanother. And when I trundle down to the dock, i look at all those big cruisers, nuzzled cheek to cheek and can't help wondering what their owners are going to do with them about five years from now, when they can't even heat their own homes. Visiting friends at a cottage on a big lake up north, I saw dozens of teenagers whizz- ing around in motor boats, going absolute- ly nowhere, just joy -riding. However, all this hedonism, doesn't bother me deeply. There's a certain feel- ing that permeates our society, even though it's seldom expressed by those in- dulging in it. It's quite a bit like the decline of the Roman Empire. People are saying, un- consciously, "To hell with it. Can't cope with inflation so might as well go deeper into debt. The buck is worth, 40 cents. The vandals are coming. Let's live it up before it's too late." It was a feeling that a great many people had during World War 1I. No use worrying about tomorrow because there might not be one. It's a sort of fatalism,that is fatal to the human spirit, which demands constant striving, enduring and suffering in order to make things better. Those latter attributes are going out of style, fairly rapidly. Historians tell us that we study history so that we won't make the mistakes man made in the past. Well, the Roman Empire lasted about a thousand years. Thirgs are quicker these days. Our society looks as though it would last about a hundred. However, "Wotthehell, Archy, Wot- thehell", as Mehitabel the cat used to say to Archie the cockroach in the Don Mar- quis ;mems. I'm no old Roman senator brooding over the decline of.morality, law, order, justice, ready to quietly enter his C� Me and my pal remembering our past 5 YEARS AGO September 16, 1976 The Huron County Historical Society and the Ontario'Heritage Foundation will erect a plaque on September 18th at the site of the former Clinton High School on Princess Street to denoate Clinton as the birthplace of ' Canada's first statistician, Dr. Robert Hamilton ('oats. The 'boys" won't be joining Ida for coffee anymore. For 21 years Ida McClinchey owned Mc('linchey's General Store in Varna and was an institution in that village. The utensils as wll as olher goods from Mc('lin• chey's General Store and lunch counter were sold at an auction sale in Varna on Saturday. September nth. 10 YEARS AGO Septermber 16%1971 The Clinton hire Brigade battled a fire on Saturday night on the farm of Raplh Muller at RR 4, Clinton.. that destroyed a barn and eight heifers housed inside In addition to the building and the livestock lost, the summer's crop of ti,llIMl bales of hay' ' and 2,oIMt hales of straw w ere also lost. A milk cooler was destroyed in the blaze as well • dispensed by bill smiley bath and sal uls wrists when ne could stand it no longer. But I did come close to slitting my wrists a couple of times this sununer. Went to a Saturday wedding on a beautiful ,July day. it was outdoors. Me and the old lady dressed to kill. Bride's parents old friends. Bride a former stu- dent. Many of her guests other former students. Delighted to see and talk with them. Excellent reception afterwards. Dined like Roman senator and his consort. Music. Bride and friends afterwards discovered, the girls like Botticelli crea- tions, Superb. Awoke Sunday morning to scream of horror. Wife had gone to basement to do one of her twice-daily laundries. Thought there must be a rattlesnake. Tottered down. Sewer had backed up. Cellar full of water and stuff. Sublime to ridiculous. Spent all day Sun- day swabbing up, in dirty shorts, sweaty T- shirt. Mopped up4 pails of grunge and threw them in jungle out back. (Should be some great growth there next spring I. Couldn't flush toilets. Plumbers didn't work Mondays. Had to use potty. No relief until Tuesday noon. Twas then i took a long look at wrists, but knew my razor blade was too dull. Had a bad foot, arthritis. Could play only nine holes of golf, in some pain, but game. Fourth time out, made such a bad golf sw- ing, tore muscles in left elbow. End of golf for summer. This time looked at hatchet. Who needs a bum foot and an elbow that feels like a branding iron when I swing? They make artificial ones these days, don't they'? Went to specialist for foot. He took 10 minutes, charge me $47 and didn't even take the foot off. Gave me a prescription for an arch support' Hadn't bothered tell- ing me he head his own price scale. And so it went. by Jim Fitzgerald a look through the news -record files A 1905 steam engine that powered • the Sherlock Manning Piano Factory has been • saved from being turned into scrap by three Clinton men. George Lavis, Murray Draper and Kill Hearn purchased the engine in 1969 and have made a project during the last three years restoring it. The engine was on display recently at the Blyth Pioneer Thresher and Hobby Association Reunion. • 25 YEARS AGO September' 20, 1956 Two young lads investigating things on Vinegar Hill this week will probably remember the place for many a year. They found an old empty 50o gallon gasoline drum • and dropped a match into the opening to see what would happen The drum blew up with a bang mighty enolugh to blow one end out and the boys set out for hone as fast as they could. Neighbors and people a block away said the blast was strong enough to shake their buildings. Work on the new Clinton swimming pool is well underway. although hampered somewhat by Mother Nature. who seems anxious to fill ,the excavation with water, even before the cement forms are in. The new fisherman's dock on the south side of the Hayfield River needs a long -felt need. Hayfield is listed as a port of safety for small craft in a storm. yet. until this dock is completed there was no place hut the piers Nor a yacht to tie up in a storm and then the waves -kept it banging back and forth Charles I, .sinks. 78, prominent resident of Ilensall for over :,o years, and who has been rural mail courier on RR 1. Hensall. for .14 years, is retinng the end of This month-. owing 10 illness. 30 YEARS AGO September 10, 1931 A magistrate's trial was held in Clinton 00 Tuesday arising out of a scrap which oc Thanks to all who helped la curred at a footballomatch, played atPapples ' field. Tuckersm itli Township on Aug. 28th. A great many .witnesses were heard, the trial lasting pretty much all day. Magistrate Andrews reserved his decision for two weeks. The skating rink has again been turned into a cooperage to manufacture barrels in which to pack Huron's big apple crop. 75 YEARS AGO September 14, 1906 • Th€11Brucefield saw mills owned by Henry :Monteith and Alex McBeath are now shut down owing to the prevelance of typhoid lever. Mr. McBeath has returned to his home in Stanley. and is ill with the fever: Mr. Monteith is also ill at his home in New ()Mario. A number of the workmen are also down with the fever. John Gibson.. who was watchman. and who also returned home ill, is now able to be out It is thought that impure water was the cause of the fever. The 27•months-old son of Mr. W.J. Tozer owes its life to the promptness of Engineer - Irwin of the GTR On Monday it strayed away from hone and wandered down the track tow ards'the old salt block. The 5.20 train came along with its usual. speed. when the little tot was noticed on the track. Brakes were applied. and the engine reversed. the engineer at the same moment jumping and running ahead of the engine and snatching the child from the track just as the ponderous -locomotive stopped quite close to the child 100 YEARS AGO September 16, 1881 Mrs .1 Miller of Goderich Township met with a very serious accident on Sunday evening last 11 appears as she was going out to milk the cows, she had to pass a number of horses. and ur doing so. one of them kicked her. breaking three of her ribs. and otherwise ui,lurrng herself as loamakeher recovery doubt fol Dear Editor, August 20th, 1981 is a day that will sort of seem familiar in our lives for some time especially those of us from Exeter, Zurich, Clinton, Seaforth, Blyth and Goderich who attend the . Huron Day Care Centre at Huronview in Clinton. On behalf of these people we express our thanks to doctors, police, nurses, helpers, firemen and ambulance drivers who rendered first aid at Huronview and then took us to the Clinton Hospital where the `nurses and doctors and extra staff worked under pressure to -give assistance to all the injured. This thanks is from all the Thursday group who come to partake of activities. We shall try to return again when we have recovered in health. Yours truly, Vera Thiel, Zurich Education's guards • Dear Editor: A campaign to turn parents across the Province intoeducational "watchdogs is to be launched this week by a Toronto based group, Parents Interested in Education. The campaign is a move to increase the volume of the parent voice in education according to PIE spokesperson, Esther MacPherson, who began the group in Ontario two and a half years ago. PIE is„asking parents to join up as "PIE Watchdogs" in a province -wide promotional campaign starting this week. They aim to recruit parents from as many schoolboard areas as possible during the coming summer break. PIE began their parent's rights work in Ontario in 1979 with exposees of cases of children who had been diagnosed as "hyperactive" and kept on tranquilizing drugs for years. In 1980, the group managed to persuade Peel County school board to drop a controversial test used in their schools called the "Live -or -Die" game in which children were asked to choose from a stereo -typed list of people who should live, and who should be leftto die in a bomb shelter during a nuclear holocaust. "It was a prime example sof psycholgical mumo-jumbo that resulted in nothing except upset for the children and incited prejudice the set list of people gave their socio-economic, religious, racial and sexual backgrounds - it was more the kind of test you'd expect to see in a facist country, not in Canada" said MacPherson. After a year of protest from PIE and other parent's groups, other school boards answered PIE's request to ban the test, and removed it. Amongst these were Hamilton, Elgin and Dufferin County School boards. Metro School board banned the test when Ontario's Minister of Education, Bette Stevenson called the tests "inappropriate" and said alter- natives "can and must be found". PIE researcher Gloria MacTaggartsays she is working on a case of a mother who has been threatened by a local board psychologist to have her eight-year-old son forcibly institutionalized in a psychiatric 'hospital for three years due to some problems in school, "These kinds of cases are frequent across the province, and we hope that by setting up the Watchdog network we can have better representation in local areas and provide more solutions" said MacPherson. PI.E was begun in. 1977 by Scientologist Arda Froese who was joined by other Scientologists in Ontario. The Vancouver - parent became nickname the "Mad ,Mum of North Vancouver" due to her outspoken criticism of modern day classrooms where she claimed more attention was being given to "mickey mouse mind games" than to improving the state of literacy. PIE now has a broad membership of parents from all religious backgrounds "we all share a common concern for the state of public education and a desire to see parents ''1 e involved and their rights protected"'sa`T acPherson. Anyone „ to contact PIE to become a dog or for help can do so by writing to director Joyce Hambley at Apt. 711, 10 Edgecliff Golfway, Don Mills, Ontario M3C-3A3, 1 confess They say confession is good for the soul. I wonder if it works for the stomach as well. I confess. I bought an eight -slice pizza with everything on it and I ate the whole thing - all by myself. Boy, was it good! I did not eat it in one sitting. I'm not that much of a glutton. It lasted through supper the first day; lunch the next and a mid- night snack. 1 had no regrets. Well, maybe I did have one or two regrets by the second night. I confess. I gave my sister a pyrex dish exactly the right size for lasagna. She makes great lasagna. I don't, but I love tc eat it. If that hint isn't brdad.enough, next time 1 visit I'll take a box of noodles. I confess. My nephew gave me a box of chocolates for my birthday. Of course, I ;hared them, but i opened the box after we had eaten a big meal. Not many chocolates were eaten that day. I intended to share them with someone who dropped in to visit, but someone didn't drop in soon enough. I confess. In the last three weeks, I've bought three chocolate bars, and they were not treats for, my young nephew. I confess. In the past three months, I've been deluged by lasagna attacks, pizza attacks, chocolate attacks, strawberry pie. with whipped cream attacks. And I'm not fighting back. My theory is that these cravings are merely fads. Sooner or later I will sicken myself of these treats. (By that time, the landlord will probably have to widen the doors. ) 1 confess. i do not own scales, and I have no intention of buying any. They are very low on my list of priorities. Just think of all the goodies I could buy with that money! Furthermore, I have abandoned the habit of weighing myself on scales that belong to my sister, my mother or my friends. None of them are accurate. Their weights don't vary much, but they are all too heavy. I confess. I'm nearing the end of this column hot only because the space is almost filled but also because I feel another attack coming on, Don't worry. With. my reverse psychology in action, I should have this battle licked in another 20 pounds or so. it's been awhile since I've I auSb'eu Jullleu wag 1 111 ulvuiveu in, so here goes. As you probably know, Sunday, Sep- tember 13 is Terry Fox Marathon of Hope Day in Canada. Ten -kilometre courses (6.2 miles) are being set up in towns and cities across the country. Money raised in pledges will go to the Terry Fox Fund for cancer research. I've been involved in helping to organize a Run in Clinton. Service clubs, sororities and other organizations as well as in- dividuals are working together, but we need your help. Gather up your family or friends, classmates or teammates, neigh-. bouts or co-workers. You can walk, run or jog. Take as little or as much .time as you need. If you can't make the course, perhaps you can sponsor someone else. Registration will be open from 10 am to 2 pm at Central Huron Secondary School, which is the start and finish point. An earlier report in the News -Record cited the Base bine as the route, but the location has been changed to the Bayfield Road to avoid traffic from the race track. Two- thirds of the course is in the country; the otherthird is in town. Sponsor sheets a re available at the Town Hall, Bee kersand CRSS.