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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1984-07-04, Page 5• A • • • • • • • • • •• • .,, • • ' .• • . v: • - • ;41 •i PIFITZL)-7717,i71:7•Mnii't • --,-•- ••--, • STAN ' • J, HOWARD AITKN. Ih.or GARY MAIO; .AdO1110. Icto Atitutillfirlur 'Rumor . MARY ANN HOLSAN, cn MEMBER..;" " • r loaihkte, A.' 40000 010..v. • *.k f., efteCflPit,. Ocaber 1, WI. 1,, .• teaches..- des-erve conimendatioti:: • A ZA „„. wouldlike°Monk0C tit*Oe - Bicentennial Committee ._ '004. Recreation ,Jt0.e.forbrlog4,0101r.MOOtiO On the ▪ Move tothe Clinton park. They gave an spite of cold weather and an oremely poor turnout of people didn't 400.',-400 that more 911)09tilrtet;Otrit: ealtvfl! 5,0% nation's6fth e past. Perhaps people haven't realized yetthat' . V1114woRta.0001440141191;swstiob%tiOiquIPtig, Sports Pagering • tells events 1 411114c Kevin Dugnay and his committee are doing an excellent job in PP4.1791"4%tntit' C4;ir:111114:14 th. fiejerVitOts,nd' Mary Marsh in recent years teachers have not enjoyedparticularly good marks from tax- payers, says The Exeter Times -Advocate. They have gen.erally- been viewed as the major, factor in the high cost of education, with their .seemingly endless demands for higher pay. Those who have held that attitude will have tore -assess it in view of the recent announcement pertaining to the elementary teachers, with the Huron -Perth 'separate school system. • • . Recently those same teachers announced they would be "handing back!' three per cent, of their salary increase to the separate school board to help finance needed building projects within the school system. The teachers relincjuished a total of $135,000,in the deal, but the board actually saved considerably more by not having to -debenture .that $135,000 for the building projects. Estimqtes suggest the cost to the. board to repay a debenture would have amounted to about $300 000 in total. The teachers' representative, Terry Craig, said it was a difficult decision for most members, but noted that "teachers are dedicated.to:the system and the kids . and for one year are willing to do that (forego thethree per cent'salary increase). Employees in the private sector have made concessions in the past year or two to protect their jobs, but this may very well be the first time that public sector employees have demonstrated a willingness to become part of the solution to a ,particular problem. . For that, at least, they deserve unqualified commendation. . Museum future is up -to you The Huron County Pioneer Museum is considered to be one of the most • outstanding museums of its kind. Its uniqueness is Iaregly the result of. the dream, enthusiasn and perseverance of its founder, J.H. Neill. Since it first opened in 1951, the museum has been a favorite summer spot for local residents and tourists alike'. In the past 30 years countless numbers of adults and children have visited the huge facility. Now, the future of the museuT is uncertain, The present building is structurally unsaund and extenSive repairs or rebuilding must take place. Huron County ••• • • Clinton ttisideltsays farniJ* 'was Tory victim Huron -Middlesex MPP Jack Riddell sug- gested in the legislature'that failure by the province td provide the emergency assistance desperately needed by a Henseli - area farm resulted in that family being fore - ed out of the Wining business. Riddell saidAhe McGregors - father Bob, - sons Jinn and Grant, and their wives and childrin - did everything they could to hold onto their land, but it was sold to a numbered Canadian company representing , s a foreign investor because they could no longer carry their loan payments at the I 'W bank. He said that the large beef and pork • operation, "happened to expand when in- terest rates were skyrocketing". Hundreds of cases such as the McGregors could be cited throughout Ontario, Riddell commented in an emergency debate spark- ed by Ontario Federation of Agriculture lob- byists descending on MPPs, Tuesday. Farm issues dominated the one-hour question period preceding the debate. The area MPP said no farm family in On- tario was more typical than the McGregors. "Now they're out on the road," he lamented. • Bank of Montreal regional senior vice president Ernie Morel confirmed earlier that the bank has accepted an offer in trust ' on the large livestock operation. Through its receivers, Touche Ross and Co. of London % the bank auctioned off the equipment of McGregor Livestock Inc. at - the farm of -Jim and Betty McGregor oh April 30. The family arranged financing to buy back enough of the equipment to operate the farm and hoped the bank would 'Council is looking. for public opinion before they Make any decisions regarding A feasibility study has been carried out and has asked a number of questrons, such as: What facilities does the museum need° Can it be accommodated on the present site° If not, where will it be built° Should the Huron County Museum exist at0I0 • In an effort to get public opinion a questionnaire was printed in newspapers across Huron County. Courtly Council received five responses. „ County Council is unsure whether peoale were uninformed or simply apathetic If Huron County residents are interested in the future of the Huron County Museum they should attend a public meeting which is being held in Holmesville this Thursday night, July 5 at 8 p.m., Hundred of thousands of dollars of public money may spent on the museum and public opinion is essential. -by S. McPhee Behind The Scenes By Keith Roulston Yesteryears' bravery This ts the time of the year when we wave the flag a little and celebrate the birth of the •Country. But what are we celehrating? For most of us is this any more than one long weekend to spend at the beach? ° Most of us have lost touch with where our , country has come from. Despite modern communications that let us get pictures from the moon, people in the cities knoWless and less about where their food comes from and care even less about what goes on out- • side the metropolitan boundaries. As they do so, they also turn their backs on their history, on the fantastic story of the people who carved this country out of bush. • Around our Muddy Lane Manor it's the • time of year when the grass and weeds in some unused corners get knee high and Ilk- ing out the trusty scythe from its place in the woodshed. As I sweated and strained hack- ing away at the foliage under some trees by our lane the other day I stopped 'for a breather and looked up across a hundred acres of rolling fields and realized- that in 1867 when this country was born, farmers' would be out cutting whole fields of hay with a scythe. Then they'd coil it by hand and eventually pitch it on a wagon by hand, draw it to the barn with the help of horses or oxen, then pitch it into the barn or stack it • outside, again all by sheer muscle -power. They would probably finish getting thea hay in just about in time to start cutting grain with the scythe and cradle. The grain • was then gathered, tied by hand and stook - ed, then pitched on a wagon and taken to the barn where it was flailed until the seed High fashion - Bicenterthitil style „..„ by Shelley McPhee t ar an41 SFoice „ . . separated from the straw. and chaff. That grain had been planted by muscle -power with a team of horses or oxen pulling a single -furrow plow. The farmer • walked miles for each acre plowed. But this was luxurious easy living com- pared to what the pioneers did to get this far. They arrived in Canada and travelled to their land over roads that were mere tracks through the bush. That bush, which they had to clear before they could build a home, let_ alone grow. crops, has been described as having trees so tall that it was eternally dark and damp. There were, centuries of. \undergrowth and vines and old fallen trees. Take an axe and slip a block or wood or chop down a small sapling, Now, imagine setting out to clear a whole fa with ill nothing but an axe and a ' team of o ,with to help haul the logs away., Imagine an of us today being brave enough to even start. ' • But then imagine any of us shipping off in tiny boats over a huge ocean, knowing that the taleS of plague that have gone on ships like this before, leaving behind everything we know to strike out to a new land. It would be akin today to us volunteering to be the first people to colonize the moon, except that we'd go to the moon with the full technological and finaneial support of whole nations on earth. The people struck out on their own in Canada, they built WS country; bit by bit like the chips -flying from -those huge trees as they cut, to be what it IS today. If we could remember this More often, .if we could recapture some Of. their bravery and daring, ours would be a better country. t) What Wealth Garage sales are quite the fad these dayA. Many people make them part of their lives. . They troop around triwnkwatching for ha, made i signs and:, Cheek the ads in' ihe • , classified section. o , Drive around any small, town and yort,v11. see a cluster of cars, in front of a hOuse. "Must be a wedding or a funeral,c:!' you muse. Then you see a pile. of junk With a hoard of human Magpies darting around it, snatching up bits, beating each' other to another heap of rubble, like seagulls diving and screeching fora slice of french -fried spud. It's no wedding. There are no vows ex- cha,nged, except that you takes what you gets,_ "to better Or . for worse." It's no It's a garage sale. This phenomenon resembles a .. atticlt,,sometimes funeral, except for those Who pAy SiIcbuCks- for something that cost three 10 years ago. • e minus the auctioneer. The garage sale allows the proprietor (often abetted by some of his neighbors) to get rid ' of all the useless items overflowing the garage, the tool -shed, the basement and the brings in two or three hun- dred dollars to the vendors, and•the garage - sale groupies go home all excited because they have bought a three-legged chair, a horse-drawn sleigh, an umbrella with only one spoke missing, or six paperback novels for $1. One of my contemporaries, an habituee of these bizarre events, was more than a bit thunderstruck when he found at one sale that lie could buy text -books from our school, duly stamped as such, dirt cheap. He remonstrated with the owners, pointing out that the books belonged to the school and had been stolen by their children, but they'd • havehone of it. They wanted cash. So much for human nature. These were taxpayers who had helped buy the books their kids had Stolen., and now wanted to sell them back to the system so that other kids could steal the books they were still paying taxes for. By Bill Smiley. ..- May I:digress for a moment? Kids do steer books. Regularly: They don't consider it `stealing.ASIust taking sotriethinglrOma big instittitinnL That's not stealing, ,*cer- cling'to about 50 per cent of them. It's la like Dad notdedaring something on his in- come tax or Mom Ordering a dress from Eaton's, wearing it to a. party, then taltingit back to the mail order office and returning it,. claiming it was "too. small" or had smudge marks in the armpits (after she'd discoed in it for four hours.) • • They. wouldn't steal from a friend. They might steal from their parents but they have no compunction about ripping ff departinent store or the government. This is fact, not fancy, as I've learned in discus- -sions-abait-morals Back to the garage sales. There is no sug- gestion of stealing here. Both parties, buyer and seller, are perfectly aware of what's go- ing on. The seller is trying to get rid of something he doeSn't, need. The buyer is buying something he doesn't need. It's a . classic example of our materialistic age. We want to get rid of some of the garbage we've - bought, and the buyer wants to buy some more garbage. The epitome of a garage -sale -groupie would be a person who goes to four garage sales; buys a lot of junk, then has a garage sale to dispose of it, preferably wi a small mark-up. But they're fun. friendo , , who'll. • e a bid on anything, even though he doesn't know what it's fOr, has bought two old-fashioned,horse- drawn sleighs, He has worked onthenrtmtil they are serviceable. All he. needs now is a couple of beasts to haul the things. He'll pro- bably wind up with a camel and a Shetland , pony (and will make a fortune hauling peo- ple around when we un out of gas). Well, I wish I'd had a garage sale thisspr- ing., First, I'd have sold the garage, a venerable institution. None of thiselectrpnic eye, or press a button and the door opens. It has a vast door, weighing about 800 pounds. • aleidoscopQ You 'hoist the door and it slides en pulleys and cables, and at the right moment, on a good day, it stOps-risingjust at the heightto tear off your radio antetur,, The baftge's, filled with sand, aren't quite enougiffroin 'crashing down on your hood, but I've fixed that. To one, I've added an axe -head, to the other, a quart of paint. Perfect balance. A real buy. Behind the garage is a sort of tool shed. I say "sort of", because when I've sailed into the garage on a slippery midLwinter day, I've sometime gone an extra foot and crash- ed into the tool shed, which now leans about accept their bid to buy back the farm itself. '.MOrel said the bank gave Jim and ilettY, MeGregotan opportuoity to meet the offer couplethey,hacireceived,.but the cf1044' to. . . The McGregors have leased the farmfrom the bank for the 1984 growing season and have plantedfeed Crops. • • • ' In the legislature during the .debate, Agriculture Minister Dennis . Timbrell defended his government's policies and said • thousands of farmers have been helped by • such programs as the Ontario farm adjust- • . ment assistance program and the beginning h north egfarmers' prograin. I'll throw in the tool shed with the garage, Timbrell blasted Riddell for blowing the farmbankruptcy situation out of proportion. but not its contentsMigawd, the stuff in "You would have people believe the whole there would bug the eyes of either an anti - 1,1 _ que dealer or a garage-groupie.industryis-going-bankrupt. — I have garden tools intherethat haven't Minister Without Portfolio' Bob Eaton been used since Sir John A. Macdonald's (Middlesex) said the government has wife told him to get, his nose out of that glass helped farmers who had a good chance of a and go out and stir up the garden. ' successful operation. "Those who are good 1 have at least four perfectly good tires for financial managers have made it." a 1947 Dodge. i have enough holy tarpaulin Timbrell noted he had met with the OFA (or is it holey? I've neverknown) to build a and heard its demands for increased linen - i. •• - theatre under the stars. There's a perfectly mai assstance. . a good set 1 of golf clubs, a wee bit rusty. Recoonnendationon extending the farm adjustment assistance program beyond its There's a three-legged garden tool that • Dec. 31 expiry date will be made to cabinet . must have come over with Sampel de Champlain. There's a three -wheeled within two months; he said, offeringno hint dred feetofgardenh that a little tended. He would not reply to demands from adhesiVe would fix. Mel Swart (NDR-Welland-Thorold) that the , And • many more, too miscellaneous to program be expanded to subsidize farmers' ex - lawnmower (mechanic's special). Six hun- ff the program would be expanded .or ex- mention. And that's only the tool shed. In - 1 come right through to the kitchen,Thnbrell reiterated that the federal • 'left by my 'children. The attic is going to - one of government must be"--Trepared to par- ticipate in a national red meat stabilization • these days. How about a copy of program which he has prepared: Any Bhagavadgita, 1,000 pages, at:$1.00? • unilateral emergency assistance on his part • could jeopardize a national plan, he said. Mn, I wish I'd got this idea off the ground However, the minister hinted. he could about two months ago? Anyone interested in take unilateral action if Ottawa does not, an iron Crib, sides go up and down, filled adopt a national stabilization plan before • with $300 worth of broken toys, exotic pain - the House of CominOns adjourns for the tings, some records and a bag of marbles? summer. Federal Agriculture Minister Who needs to retire, With all this wealth " ' Eugene Whelan has given his word there , • lying around? Will be a plan, said Timbrell, but Doug t trates down to a maximum of eight . side the house, there are eight tons of books, per cent from the current 12. Sitting on the front porch on a warm summer's night - ahhh, what pleasure. After a long, trying day, the quiet of night is a welcome friend and the comfortable chaise lounge provides a much appreciated rest. The stillness, the' dim lighted streets and the warm evening air soothes the weary mind and banes. My front porch on a July evening - I wouldn't trade it for anything. . It's true you know, the best things in life come from the smallest things, ,everyday kind of occurrences like...a good cup of coffee in the morning, gift wrapped presents, a cavity -free visit to the dentist, a pen that writes, a smile, a rose bush in bloom, a nil balance statement from Master Card, sleeping in, a good thick book, the changing seagons, Bartliff'S'strawberrypie, a letter from ,an old friend, a picnic, • Christmas life's,little luxuries. • +++ Summer is certainly flying by. Don't 444 - . • • • By St011ey McPhee forget that July 7 is the first Saturday of, the month and that means that the Londesboro Lions Willo4be visiting Clinton for their ' Monthly newspaper pick up. InBayfieldthe village Lions Club willealso be out lookinefor donations. Just tie up your old newspapers and ;put them out by the curb first thing Saturday morning - you'll be helping thetions raise a few dollars. +++ If you want to spend or make a few dollars, the uptoining Flea Market in Clinton will be the place to Visit. The Clinton BIA project will be beid on July 19 fron 2 to 11 p.m., beside the Commercial riders on Albert Street If you're in, crested in settitig up a booth, check in at Shiral's Store. ' Itofessor Harr/ Cintlitibligs of Guelph has been involved in a huge international • CIA" development project. • Prof. Cummings, a Clinton 13oy, the son of Frank Cummings works at the University of Guelph and has been involved in the Canadian International Development Agency. Through the program, the university is working on the largest international project in its history a, $40 million rural development project for Indonesia. Prof.! Cummings has been instrumental in setting up the project and has made a detailed study of Indonesia to. The project will be carried out on the Island of Sulawesi, one of 27 Indonesian provinces. It/is mountainous and fertile with a poPillation of over 11 million on 72,976 square miles. Oops, Ryan Jewitt's namewas left out, cif the graduation photo for the Tuckerinnith Day Nursery in last Week's paper. '• Wiseman (PC -Lanark) irenainded„ the minister that legislation for the plan is not on the federal government's order paper for this session. • . , "If they break their word, if the legisla- tion is not passed, I'm looking at , my op - dons," said Timbrell, quickly. adding, "There's still a good chance." Falls Reserve is a get -away Everyone is welcOme at the Falls Reserve ConservationArea for a weekend of relaxa- tion as well as,a number of interesting ac4 tivities. • On Saturday at 10 a.m. an informative hike will be held along the Maitland River to discuss the native'peoples who.once lived in the valley, On Saturday night at 8:45, come to the pic- nic shelter for an evening of films about native peopleS of the past Children are welcome at the Activity- tre on Sunday morning at 11 for an hour of crafts dealing With Iiidlan lifestyles. • Feel free tq dropiin at the Activity Centre for more inforination or phone 5246429. The Palls is loaded' fiVe Miles east of Goderich on liutOn Canty ticiad 31, V. • ••