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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1978-10-12, Page 19r sykeEJi:PVE! Talk about a Thanksgiving surprise. The people of the Collingwood area in Ontario celebrated the holiday weekend with a little cold turkey. The cold turkey came in the form of an abundant snowfall in that area early Sunday morning that dumped as much as five inches in a small area, near the city. • The snowfall disrupted power service in the .community for up to as much as seven hours and many housewives had to abandon turkey stuffing operations and ‘settle for the relaxed atmosphere of a restaurant. Youngsters enjoyed the first snow but the Ontario Provincial ,Police were forced to close a highway for a couple of hours as motorists were also caught unaware. Unfortunately most drivers have difficulty relating to the first snow of the season and it requires a few sessions before winter driving skills are perfected. And not one driver was reported to have had snow tires on his car, which is perfectly understandable. The only people ‘}rho have snow tires on their car at the beginning of October are guilty of leaving them' on all summer. This weekend, while munching lustily on a leg of turkey at a traditional, Thanksgiving dinner with the family, someone mentioned ,hearing on the radio that somewhere in Ontario there was a freak snowstorm that dumped five inches of snow on the ground, disrupted power and generally turned things into a chaotic mess. Now generally I am optimistic of nature but as soon as I heard the report there were groans of discomfort. Naturally d figured if snow fell from the heavens it could undoubtedly land on Goderich, For some reason we are just - fortunate in that regard. The news report struck a responsive chord in my imagination- and I knew -1 - could, play up the stories to relatives. My hyped up sagas of winter life in the northern wilderness of Goderich leave unknowing relatives shaking their heads in amazement. In fact 1 am sure they are convinced that Goderich is .as close to the perma frost line as any Eskimo settlement. And so I explained that my trip horr'e would probably be made through raging blizzards,, howling winds and treacherous road conditions. Nothing e4.1• 1 out "of the ordinary for a hearty erner. Continuing with an air of non- chalance,, .1 added, that 'any the trine I reached the linnits of Goderich several cross-eounU'y skiers, snowmobiles and snowslloers .would aot the countryside enlo ang their Werite_wi•1'ltex.so_orts. . But there was bitter disappointment as I pulled into Goderich Monday af- ternoon. The 'sun .was shining, there wasn't a snowflake to be found anywhere,' power lines were intact and I didn't pass a single snowmobile. Not that I minded though. Winter will make its presence felt soon enough and those fabricated stories will turn into reality. But at least the stories keep the relatives from visiting. Colborne Country Fair - October 18 and 21 Gt&le.rich: SIGNAL 131, YEAR -41 Mrs. Joan Pope of Goderich is seen here with her menagerie of stuffed animals. She will be selling these hand -made animals at Colborne Township's 13th annual Christmas Country Fair to be held ih Saltford Valley Hall on October 18 and 21. The animal which she is holding in her right hand Is a fictitious creature called a'womble from her native country of England. (Photo by Joanne Buchanan) THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1978 Newcomer surrounds hersel SYJOANNE BUCHANAN Since February, Joan Pope, newcomer to Goderich, has has collected quite a menagerie. She can sit in her home surrounded by a hamster, a rabbit, a squirrel, a panda bear, a donkey, an elephant and a - monkey. These animals, which help make up Mrs. Pope's menagerie, are not real however, as you have probably 'guessed. They are stuffed cloth animals skillfully created by Mrs. Pope in her spare time. She plans to sell them at Colborne Township's 13th annual Christmas Country Fair to be held at Saltford Valley Hall on October 18 and October 21. Mrs. Pope, by the way, is not only a newcomer to Goderich but a newcomer to .Canada as well. In April of last year, she and her husband came to Canada from their native England to visit her sister-in-law: They literally fell in love with Canada, she says. They liked .the distinctive Canadian seasons, the friendly people and just everything about the country, she explains. The Popes went back to England in May of last year and returned as immigrants to Canada that August. Mr. Pope had secured a job for himself here while on holiday which was a big help in weighing the decision to move. Mrs. Pope visited the Christmas Country Fair with her sister-in-law in October last year and —was quite, impressed with the variety of crafts and SECOND SECTION a with a cloth menagerie Talents she saw displayed there. Her sister-in-law knew fair organizer, Mrs. Wilmer Hardy and en- couraged Mrs. Pope to contact her about having a booth there herself this year from which to sell her stuffed animals. Mrs. Pope did just that and has since been busy building up her stock. • Having secured a job as a nurse's aid at Maitland Manor Nursing Home in Goderich, Mrs. Pope -does not have much spare time to work on her animals. But, she admits, that when she does have a spare moment to sit down, she likes to knit, sew and sketch. Sewing was an art Mrs. Pope learned from an early age at school in England. Besides making clothes, one of her specialties is gollywog dolls. The first question a Canadian might ask is, "What on earth is a gollywog GOLLYWOGS Mrs. Pope isn't exactly sure how to explain what a-gollywog is. In England they are as popular as teddy bears and are one of the first toys a child may have to play with. Mrs. Pope herself had one as a child. They are a tradition. The dolls are patterned after the black and white minstrels of England, a group of singing, dancing white men who paint their faces black in somewhat the same fashion as Al Jolson once did. Right now in England there is a television show featuring some black and white minstrels. Without interruption, Mrs. Pope can make one and a half gollywogs a day. She cuts out the doll's pattern from black cloth, stuffs it with foam rubber and sews it together. Using bright. materials, she makes the clothes --including waistcoats, trousers, jackets and bow ties -- separately to dress the form later. The gollywogs feature fur hair and felt facial features. Mrs. Pope has made about seven gollywogs since she started in Febiaary and is finishing off three more, all to be featured at her Country Fair booth. STUFFED ANIMALS When making a stuffed animal, Mrs. Pope likes to choose furs and materials which match the animal in real life. For example, she has just finished designing her own Canadian beaver and has kept it as close to its natural colors as possible. Children seem to like the bright coloured animals best though, she says, so she makes lots of these too. Mrs. Pope brought a lot of materials and patterns from England with her. Making stuffed animals was her hobby there too and she sold them on a custom work basis. It's not really a profitable hobby, she says, just one which -she enjoys. If she can't find a pattern she wants, Mrs. Pope makes her own. One animal, which she has not been able to find a pat- tern ,for .but is determined to make, is .a chipmunk. There is no such animal in England, she says. One stuffed animal featured in Mrs. Pope's menagerie which Canadians have probably never heard of is a womble. In England there is a song and a children's television show about the Wombles of Wimbledon. The wombles are fictitious animals who collect waste and make use of it for their homes, keeping in mind- the ecology, -conscious society of today. The name of the womble in Mrs. Pope's collection is Uncle Bulgaria. But there are four others too. They are named T.obermory, Wellington, Orinoco and Bungo. NO REGRETS Mrs. Pope says she and her husband have neyer had any regrets about moving to Canada. She does not get homesick for her native England but she does miss—her married son and a sister whom she left behind in England. The Popes brought their 10, -year-old son to Canada with them .and their 22 -year-old daughter joined them later. She has since found a job here too and loves Canada as much as her parents. The Popes are used to moving around. Mr. Pope was a boat wright (builder) With the RAF for 22 years and the family lived in Singapore for • two and a ,half years and in Egypt for 18" months. The Pope's daughter lived in South Africa for four years. "Somehow• we always ended up back in the south of England though," says Mrs. Pope. Mrs. Pope says she doesn't mind where she is as long as she is occupied. Her job and her hobby manage to keep her very occupied indeed. She can make a small stuffed animal in half an evening she says and this kind of activity is very relaxing for her. Mrs. Pope loves her job at Maitland Manor and says it is a very good home. Her job as a nurse's aid involves making the residents as comfortable as she' can by trying to understand their position and how they must feel. In England Mrs. Pope is a state enrolled nurse and she is hoping to eventually get her RNA status in Canada. She loves the profession of nursing and became involved in it as young as 13 when she joined the St. John's Ambulance brigade in England. Although Mrs. Pope and her family like living in Goderich and say it is, "a pretty little town," they will be moving to northern Ontario next summer. Mr. Pope bought a piece of land there consisting of 81 acres. He ° is presently clearing some of that land and building a house for his family. He is almost finished with the exterior and will work on the interior this winter. "I admirehim for what he is doing," says Mrs. Pope. "It's a big project for someone who hasn't done it before." Eventually Mrs. Pope hopes that her sister and her sister's husband from England will be able to join them and all work the land together. Her sister's husband loves the land' and everything he plants seems to grow. And her sister doesn't Turn to page :1A • Ever wonder when you drive down a road and see a sign that warns of "Bump" why that sign was there when there was no bump. Ever wonder why there was no sign warning of a bump when you just put your car across the Grand Canyon at 80 kmh. I think it's got something to do with the road maintenance crews that fix municipal and provincial roads in Ontario. The crews consist of a bunch of guys, not all of them thrilled with their work, that' take pride in what they do enoughkto do it well most of the time, but occasionally play a little joke on the motorists they strive to please. I think every,once and a while these guys decide to get back at drivers that year round refuse to slow dowr? when passing road workers, drive dangerousty close to the guys as they workhorns at theLe edge of a road, occasionally l\honk wworkers \ >c nakeoke\\aboutt i ire workers as they drive by the job site. Every now and then the workers make some poor motorists pay for the podr manners of others. There are a variety of tricks the crews play on drivers. They oil the roads and don't spare the oil and any driver having to cross the sticky mess spends his evening trying to get the black grease off his fenders. They put up a bump sign to slow you down and when you don't find the bump you angrily speed up, usually going faster than when you , met the sign originally, and bang, you're in the Grand Canyon. This past weekend I saw perhaps the greatest feat of any road crew I have encountered. These guys were working at a major intersection in a city and were obviously disgusted with both their location and the time of day. 1t was Saturday morning of a long weekend and these guys had obviously been asked, to work tomake the road pakkable f 'wdek�i traffi 1' n T ed y wife sheltie 'out a lA tion) a I road and digging up the roadbed in preparation for a complete resur- facing, .The roadway had been ex- cavated and where the old road stopped and construction started there wasa drop of about a foot and a half. These guys were dumping gravel into the drop to level it off for traffic. , I had to wait for someone near the intersection and out of boredom wat- ched the men working. They began pointing to certain areas of the gaping hole in the road and looking up the street at traffic as it barrelled down on them. A few nods- of the foreman's head, some instructions to the ,man working the loader and the trap was being set. The foreman ordered gravel dumped at the outer edges. of the hole to Make the old pavement and new gravel lev 1. The centre of the hole was left aboua foot lower. The gap in the road was about 30 feet long. The men worked furiously 'foqr rout,half an hour then' began id narefult,Wath , the tr ffic. liht bthstreet prevented .thetraffic from going too fast when it reached the construction. But then it happened. The victim arrived. He had pulled onto the street from a parking lot in a -brand new Thunderbird. He had the sunroof open and was adjusting his radio as he got up a head of speed to cruise on a lovely autumn afternoon. He had the green light and was doing about 70 kmh when he hit the trap. The expression on his face was priceless. The car dove into the trap hit the other side and came out like a rocket. The guy must have figured he had gone over a cliff. His hand came off the radio looking to stabilize the steering wheel which was jumping wildly. As the car came out of the hole the guy left the comfort of his seat and banged his head on the edge of the sun roof. He was out of the trap and back onto solid pavement before •the road workers began'their applau e. Smiling and banging oil �� ther bi the hadk like rem iers o ai c .ampionshi ate', the men"signalled he driver of the' loader for several more buckets of gravel. Th1y smoothed over the hole, packed it down, and still glowing from their morning's work, waved goodbye to one another and went home to enjoy a Thanksgiving weekend. Jerr- seddon P