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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1984-11-07, Page 4(THL BLYTH STANDARD) 1it9.M!lvs. 10.40.T.004•2 +A! #tb 9lepr row 444 1. of 4 0:00000iroltoOsoisfid of* milai Ta h 1124 fL *iron Nti Ira 191110 Tht Oates Mrs, 1.04,0ed Iw 104%, Y.W lar• tncorpcirating Jo HOWARD AITKEN - Publisher SHELLEY ?MPHEE - Editor GARY HAIST = Advertising Manager MARY ANN HOLLENIECK 4 Office Manager MEMBER Olsslsv sdverslslvq antes available oo reviese1. Ash fsr Rats Cara. No. 14 01%441 we OdolioYr 1, 144.1. A MEMBER Accomplishments of youth The stylized green clover leaf, representing Head, Heart, Hands and Health,is a symbol that many of us remember and still support. The motto, "Learn to do by doing," taught us to sew and cook, care to calves and poultry, gave us'friends and confidence. The Canadian 4-H movement has played a vital role in our communities for decades, and successfully continues to do so. November 5-11 is National 4-H Week, a time to recognize this worthwhile program. 4-H. is an educational program aimed at developing rural young people as responsible members of society, while involving them in a range of projects from handicrafts and agriculture, to conservation and computer skills. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food program involves more than 57,000 young people in Canada and 15,000 volunteer leaders. Locally, Huron County is an ac- tive 4-H community. It offers dozens of clubs' and involves hundreds of area teenagers. 4-H means learning. It helps develop self-confidence and leadership skills. It teaches responsibility, how to work with others, and offers friendship. In 1984 the focus of National 4-H Week is the young people themselves. This week will be an opportunity for 4-H members to look ahead to 1985, which has •been proclaimed International Youth Year by the United Nations. In a recent meeting with national youth -serving agencies' representatives, the Minister of Youth, The Honourable Andree Champagne stated, "I want Interna- tional Youth Year to emphasize the wonderful things that young people do; there has been too much emphasis on the problems of youth. All of us need to work with them to integrate their concerns and interests with those of other groups; we, and they, need action, not more research and study and statistics. Both 4-H Week and the upcoming International Youth Year remind us of the value and the accomplishments of youth. -by S. McPhee Behind The Scenes By Keith Roulston Spectator events? —the new chief of staff.. to the finance ministerwas making his first report to his boss. "Sir," he said, trying to sound as im- pressive as his newly acquired title, "I think the Ottawa mandarins in our department have begun to come to terms with the new realities. They seem to have abandoned their silly Liberal ideas and come up with policies that will help us stay in power as long as the Grits by spending less, getting more and appearing to do a lot for the liberals and appearing to do nothing tor the conservatives who want less government. "For instance, we've had an ingenious new proposal that will save money, generate revenue and kill, if you'll excuse the puri, all the fuss about capital punish- ment. As you know, these 25 -year sentences for murder are costing us a fortune. As well, and I know this isn't our, department but we've got to keep the next election in mind, the people have . been really upset lately about the police killings and want us to bring back the noose. Well it seems to me we can save a lot of money and make pe p1e happy by bringing back capital punishment. But that's not the really exciting part of the pro- posal. "Now as you know, people are 'arguing the deterrent value of capital punishment but how much value is the deterrent if nobody really sees, it. Well one of the 'deputy ministers came up with an ingenious solu- tion that will make the deterrent work bet- ter and generate revenue too. He suggested we go back to public hangings. They used to be big spectator events back when society worked better. We mild rent a stadium (he suggested Maple Leaf Gardens but we could make more if we rented the dome in Van- couver and keep our western roots as well) ",,,t'° and sell tickets. We could lump a few hang - ings together on one tarn with a little enter- tainment in between and get $25 a ' ticket. With concessions, the bar and parking, we should be able to take in a cool $3 million gross. "Then there's the potential of pay-TV. I mean everybody is so hung up on violence on television these days, we could give them the real thing. "It'.s a great idea but the big problemmay be getting enough "attractions" to supply the demand, especially if this deterrence stuff works. We may have to make not pay- ing your taxes a capital offence. "Oh and the boys have been working so hard they've come up with an idea that we can't use ourselves, • but maybe Mr. Mulroney, in his good neighbour policy, could pass along to Mr. Reagan. "Our man was looking at the fact that ABC television was willing to pay $700 million for the rights to the next Olympic games in Korea. He was also listening to all the rigamarole they had to come up with because the, press` was unhappy be- ing invited along on that little" trip to Grenada last year. "So he figured, if ABC would pay $700 million for the Olympics, how much would they pay for exclusive coverage of a war? He figures Mr. Reagan couldnegotiate an agreement with the TV networks that one of them gets exclusive rights to go along the next time the army goes on one of these little clean up missions to throw out Commies (say Nicaragua once the election's over). The war would have to be fought in prime time, . of course, but if you do things right, .you should actually make money at war. Imagine how popular that would make Mr. Reagan, able to have his wars and cut the deficit at the same time. "The world will soon be a better place." No big :sales pitches or giant bargains, could convince me. I saved lots of money on a recent shopping excursion - just becausei of thelitting rooms.' Now, I love shopping, it's my favorite pastime, but my most recent shopping was almost ruined by fitting rooms. City clothing shops are missing a most in3- portant marketing strategy with their crap- py change rooms. It's enough to turn the most avid shopper away. Trying on clothes in a city store is a test of nerves, endurance and patience. All of this for a simple pair of black dress pants? Shopping, I have come to realize is a series of tests. It begins when you enter the store. The shopper must manoeuvre her way through dozens of racks, jammed together sardines in a tin. Then, past teenage girls gooing over the yellow and pink plaid skirts, abandoned baby carriages and dismal looking husbands and boyfriends in waiting. Once this has been accomplished the shop- per must wade through piles of tacky and trendy clothes, in hopes of finding the black pant rack. Often she fails. Black it seems is not a basic color in many shops, yet racks are filled with an endless variety rainbow hued choices. With perseverance the shopper can pass the second test. The black pant rack can be located, usually behind the winter - coats, purses and clearance tables. Yet here the shopper faces another monumental deci- sion. There are pants with cuffs, pants with belts, 'pants with pleats, pants with buttons. There are wool pants and polyester blends, dry cleanables and wash and wears. There are more than half -a -dozen sizes to choose from and every style fits differently. (But who, may I ask, wears size 3? ) Then come the saleswomen, they flock to perspective buyers like pigeons to a french fry. Avoiding them is next to impossible, but the onslaught can be delayed if you appear slightly nonchalant about your shopping. Wander around a bit, look things over, but remember, as soon as you pick up a hanger, you're committed to the fitting rooms. Ah yes, the fitting rooms - the final con- Remembrance Day poem shared Dear Editor: As Remembrance Day draws near, I thought I would send you a poem I wrote in 1982 after being in Europe. at the I %was inspired for it after being Canadia! Military Cemetery at 'Groesbeek in Holland, seeing on one of the monuments the name of the son of one of the senior men I was with on the Fire Department. The son. was killed in the last few weeks of the war. I was at Groesbeek with David Kennedy, a Clinton native, who now lives in Holland and who I visited with in Holland. We were boyhood friends in Clinton and met often around the bakery that was in Clinton in the 1930s. The second stanza of the poem is in memory of the German military crosses I saw in Germany, and as the poem says, many were so young, only in their teens. Crosses Row on Row There are crosses row on row, By Shelley McPhee frontation. Here you'll find the fitting room matron, that gloomly looking woman, sit- ting behind aHimalayan sized pile of clothing, The key to completing this important test, is knowing the pass words,""How many?" and being able to comply with it. The shop- per won't have a hope, if she's got more than three items. Fitting room matrons will give you a se- cond chance, however. They permit shop- pers to give up some of their items it order to abide with the three limit regulations. It may losing that one pair of pants that will fit, but that's a gamble the shopper has to take. Successful completion of this test awards the shopper with a yellow plastic token and admittance to the fitting room. There is no mistaking the fitting room. These are the little cubicles, covered with curtains that gape open four inches on either side. The interior of the fitting room is covered in ominous shoplifting warnings and posters of smiling models. The focal point of this dimly lit closet. is one smudged, full length mirror. Most fitting rooms have one hook, and a chair (if you're real lucky). If you're one of those shoppers who's fortunate to have a hook and a chair, chances are you'll have no problems in the fitting room. This usually means that you've got a generous sized fit- ting room and enough space to hang your clothes. It's the one -hook fitting rooms that really unnerve shoppers. There's no choice here, your purse, shoes, coat and clothes you had on are relegated to a pile in a one corner. Any other shopping bags are stuffed in another, and the items to try on get the hook. Hangers get fumbled, sleeves get tangled and labels fall off all in this process. Walls get kicked, hair gets flattened and seams start splitting as the shopper battles her way into size 9 pants in the size 2 fitting room. This is no time to panic. The shopper must feign an air of confidence and gaiety when the curtain unexpectedly flies open and a nosy saleswoman asks, "How we doing in here? Need another size?" '.A Don't let this salesperson con you into another style. And don't believe her when she tells you how nice those pants look on you, even when they show every lilmp and bump. Even when the zipper won't do up! A smart shopper can eventually beat the gaa through experience and pers ranee. Better yet, stick with last year's les and forget the new pair of black pants! + + + The best way to shop is to get something for free. That rarely happens, but at the Clinton Town Hall Heritage Days, there were some lucky winners. Mary Marsh of Clinton guessed the closest number of pieces in the quilt. There were 2138, and her guess was 2140. Mary won a copy of the 1879 Beldon Illustrated Atlas of Huron County. The "Guess what it is" contest, was a carpet stretcher. Seven correctly guessed, their names were put in a hat and Brock Olde of Clinton was selected as the winner of the book, The Settlement of Huron County, by James Scott. Other correct answers were given by: Gwen Johnston, Joesph Boland, Evelyn Olde, Tom McMahon, Bill Holland and Nan- cy McKenzie, all of Clinton. Another Clintonian, Marilyn Tyndall knew what a shoe bottom dispenser was, and won two Clinton History books. + + + Town Hall re -opening festivities may be over, but the steering committee is still looking for your comments. Be sure to fill in the evaluation forms, found in the back of the events booklet, and take it to the recrea- tion offices or the town hall. + + + The next Clinton downtown event also pro- mises to be an exciting one. Local mer- chants will kick off the Christmas season on November 16 with a tree lighting ceremony at Library Park, extended shopping hours and lots of hot chocolate. November 17 will be Clinton's Bicenten- nial Festival. We'll have more details next week, but one special guest will be the cur- rent reigning Miss Canada. In many lands across the seas, Each cross for one against the foe, The price to pay for•strife to flee. There are crosses of those that were the foe, Of many so young when death they met, For loved ones it also was grief they had to go, Because of leaders with strong opinions set. In this world today with its strife, If 'only the nations' leaders would realize, That our days on earth for our life, Are short compared to eternity's size. So in these troubled times a faith let's hold, To bear the cdst of nations' greed, And may we in our hearts be sold, More love for mankind we badly need. Ys truly, Norman Elliott, ,.Toronto. Addition to federal fundin Flora MacDonald, Federal Minister of Employment and Immigration, recently an- nounced the addition bf further federal fun- ding to the Canada Works Program. As a result of this increase, Murray Car- diff, the Member of Parliament for Huron - Bruce, is pleased to announce that the riding will receive $100,000 for job creation pro- grams. Mr. Cardiff welcomes the opportuni- ty to increase employment in the riding and urges his constituents to take note of the pro- ject application deadline. Application kits for Canada Works will be available in all Canada Employment Cen- tres and Regional Employment Develop- ment branch offices by mid-October. The deadline for submission of project applica- tions is November 16,1984. Camouflage agar and Spice Somebody hates me ' LET'S see. What's new today? Ah. College teachers going on strike. Librarians coming off strike. Auto workers going on strike. U.S. won't help with acid rain. Police demand return of capital punishment. Russians ac- cuse U.S. of non-cooperation in their new "peace" overtures. Man stabs woman 48 times and is sentenced to three months. Well, the magnificence of the world is un- folding in its accustomed manner. But all is not lost. A black bishop from South Africa has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Eugene Whelan has not been sent to Italy. (Not because he couldn't speak Italian, which he couldn't, not to mention English, but because he was a Liberal. ) It must be giving Joe Clark, who has been stabbed in the back so often it's become a minor irritation, and has had his heart cut out and thrown to the wolves, a great deal of satisfaction to be the ropeman on the guillotine. Feel some pity for poor old Eugene, and poor old Bryce Mackasey, who didn't get to go to that villa in Portugal. One of two things happened. Either"they had too much pride to scuttle into a judgeship or the Senate, or they were too greedy to settle 'for something so small and so sordid. Your guess. You may, believably, wonder what all that leads to. We shall see. It's extremely difficult today to be an alert, aware, compassionate person when policemen are shot like rabbits, there is war all over the world, children are starving, men beat up their women, and you haven't. even got your leaves raked. As a sad, sad result, we are inclined to turn in upon ourselves, to blot out the horror and the violence and the brutality of, society, and to lock ourselves into a little cupboard composed of money and "things" and "relay tions," hoping the nasties will go away. They won't. By Perhaps our wincing and flinching are an example of the human spirit trying to stay alive in a time when the brutishness of the Middle Ages looks like a Sunday School pic- nic, in comparison. Perhaps it's something older than that: a retreat to the family, the cave, the tribe, when the earth shook and the great beasts howled their final agony. And man whimpered. Hey, that's pretty good, eh? Don't worry. I'm not going to go on like a guru. I'm just trying to establish the fact, which every reader knows, that our own af- fairs become more imporant than a train wreck in Italy, a flood in India, or an out- break of the dire rear in Hayfork Centre. To, get to the point, the Mulrooneys are after me. Not Brian and Mila, bless their hearts. They, can take a joke. They wouldn't try to rub me out. I don't think. No, it's the double oo Mulrooneys that are upset. I made an unfortunate remark in a column about "Mulrooney" sounding as though it was the other side of the tracks. It was about as funny as an old rubber 'boot. But I did applaud the lady Mita, for many aspects of her character. • Now this. In my old paper, where I was editor, appears this scurilous bit: "Re Bill Smiley's column. So far as Mila Mulroney and a 'name sounding from the wrong side of the tracks' is served up by ' 'Mr. Constant Mouth, 1944, Bill Smiley (ex- naxi war camp nightmare)'; "A Mulrooney myself, I ponder "constant - mouth's deeds of heroism or heroism/not. "And do not make sport of his torture, nor judge his (imprisoned utterings) he now sings: `fell well' or "He that cannot praise."' It is signed: "Barbara Mulrooney, Clan Mulrooney, 3-dimensional writer -poet, - ar- by Anne Narejko Bill Smiley tist humanitarian." What in the name of whatever is a three- dimensional writer? Anyway, there were a lot of ... and ...'s in the published letter, sug- gesting it was originally libellous or worse. Just don't plant a bomb in my bathroom, or I'll have the whole lot of the Smileys down on yiz Mulrooneys and we lived on the other side of the tracks, too. When we felt like it. But closer to home, somebody hates me„ It's sort of nice. I'm sick of being a good, gentle, kind man like Bill Davis, Prime Minister of Ontario, who was also described as shifty, ambiguous, 'slippery, ruthless and so on. Media tripe. A man ' from a neighboring township, wrote me a hate letter this fall. It was sup- posed to be witty, but devolved into sheer malice. It was an attack on teachers. I'll quote only bits. Most of it is libel. "Wil- ly, you remind me of the provincial handle on the thundermug — always there but never in... You, along with that effete corps of over -rated and over -paid so-called teachers, are always articulating some complaint about municipal, provincial and federal legislature." I won't bore you with the rest of it, because it is boring. It suggests that none of us has the guts to tackle the establishment, or run for office. , Robert S. O'Neill, I was a town councillor when you were wetting your Pampers. I have been challenging the Establishment for years, in this column and face to face. I have been president of a large tourist association. President of a publishers' association. Treasurer of the local Red Cross; Member of the Library Board. Member of the Church Board. I am tired. Of you and the Mulrooneys. Get stuffed, both of you.