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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Citizens News, 1969-02-27, Page 2PAGE TWO ZURICH CITIZENS NEWS THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1969 8111 MP AMP We Are Not Magicians That may not be an earth -shaking statement. You probably didn't think we were anyway. But we get that feeling sometimes when something happens, such as an important anniversary for someone or some organization; or an interest- ing or humorous little incident oc- curs in a section of the community; or when someone — particularly one of our young people—achieves some- thing of note either here or abroad; or when someone catches a big fish or grows a big tomato ... and weeks later, we learn about. Trouble is when we do learn about it, we are greeted with the phrase: "Oh, . I thought you'd know all about it". That's where we think people sometimes think we are magicians. It is no help to us, and little corn - fort to you, if you stop one of us on the street and say: "I thought you might have had something in the paper about our installation last month", or "How come you didn't have a picture of that big fish Joe Doakes got a couple of weeks ago .?" or "Pretty nice about Bill Jones' kid :guess you don't like him or you'd have had a story about his promo- tion in the paper". We probably would have had . . had we been told at the time. It is our job to report these things; whether we like somebody or mat is a human frailty we like to keep as deeply submerged as possible. While this newspaper is made up of indi- viduals, it strives to operate in a non -individual manner. We may dis- agree with you or anyone on one sub- ject, but if we find common ground to co-operate on another, believe us, we are ready to do so. We do have regular news sources: council meetings, police reports, civic organization meetings, fire and acci- dent reports, and so on. Harassed by the fact there are only 24 hours in a day our job is made much easier by a regular liaison with such news sources which keeps things coming Do YOU Support Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a small community in On- tario that went by the name of An- drewville. This was a nice little town, filled with nice friendly people, and people in surrounding cities would often be heard to say "Andrewville is a nice little town, and so progressive. If I didn't work in the city, I would love to live there". Several people did move to the • little town and soon stores opened. much to the delight of the citizens -who would no longer have to wait :for the travelling salesman or make the long, journey to the city. The town soon grew until they could rightfully boast a fine busi- ness section consisting of a drug store, some grocery stores, men's and ladies' shops, a school that the chil- dren were proud of, and a newspaper that kept the people up on the local news. Everybody in Andrewville was very happy. As the years passed transportation became faster and the highways im- proved so that driving became a pleasure. People in Andrewville de- cided that it would be nice to get away from the quiet peacefulness of Andrewville and go to the city once a week to do a bit of shopping and for city entertainment. Soon it be- came a habit. The merchants of Andrewville shrugged their shoulders and con- tinued on in their old ways until they checked their books to find their sales had dropped, but what could they do, they couldn't compete with on a routine basis. But as for the untoward incidents, the out - of - the - way happenings whether they be humorous, serious or just plain interesting, we are crippled. Even with a hundred re- porters on the staff, we wouldn't know where to look. Over the past few years we have noticed — and appreciated — an in- creasing awareness of this fact among our readers. More and more people drop in to tell us of something newsworthy, or to ask us to help, or phone when it's a ,"hot" and timely item. This growing interest in your paper is encouraging. For it IS your paper. This, per- haps, could be classed as a trite say- ing, a cliche. Nevertheless it sums up the situation. No newspaper staff, no matter how large or how eager or how dedicated it was, could possibly cover ALL the happenings in a community such as this. That's where you come in. This in a com- munity newspaper. It only reflects what is happening in the area. Not everything you tell us can earn its way into print, the cost of white space being what it is these days. But we would appreciate the opportunity of adjudication. Every reader is a part of this paper. What you know may be of interest to others; what others know may be of interest to you. We have a large number of faith- ful. watchdogs • around town, and we are eternally grateful to them for recognizing that we are only human, and we need a lot of help. And also for recognizing that, in helping us do our job completely and fully, they are helping themselves by helping their own community. We are not magicians. Because of that we need all the assistance we can get. We'll be happy to hear from you at any time. We may not always be able to agree that what you have is real news, but let's give it a whirl anyway ! Your Town? city glamor. In desperation they started cutting down on the variety of their stock and finally had to dis- miss their employees with the excuse that there just wasn't enough busi- ness to' keep them occupied or the merchants couldn't afford them. Slowly the economy of the town decreased. The town could not af- ford to repair roads and sidewalks. The town's newspaper stayed with it for as long as possible but also the merchants refused to advertise, so the owners moved on. Home builders found it unprofit- able to construct new homes in An- drewville because nobody had any money to buy new homes, and not only that, the builders could not get the proper services for these homes. The good people of Andrewville lost all interest in their town, there was no recreation to help pass away their leisure hours, there were very few places left to shop, but then there wasn't anything there to buy. The schools, which in the beginning showed great promise and turned out some very fine people, could no long- er afford good teachers and did not have modern teaching facilities any- way. Slowly Andrewville faded into the sunset and was soon only a memory in the minds of a few merchants who would often say to anybody who would listen, "Andrewville used to be quite a town, if only the people had supported it". Yes, if only that town had been supported . . DO YOU .SUPPORT YOUR TOWN ? — (North Essex News) . Zurich News PRINTED BY SOUTH HURON PUBLISHERS LIMITED, ZURICH HERB TURKHEIM, Publisher 4. E. HUNT, Plant Superntendent Authorized as Second Class Mall, Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash. Member: Canadian Weekly Newspapers Association Member: Ontario Weekly Newspapers Association Subscription Rates: $3.50 per year in advance in Canada; $4.50 in United States and Foreign; single copies 10 cents. The International Scene How to Learn a Foreign Language Perhaps, because of my teaching experience, I get more requests to explain how one should go about learning another language than any other thing. Some people have the idea that there must be an easy way and ask if I would please explain it to them. Of course, the situation is not helped by books which bear the title of "French Made Easy" or "Fluent Spanish in Six Weeks". That is simply mis- leading and right at the start I would like to make it clear that there is no easy road to learning a language — in 30 lessons, six weeks or five records. There are, however, hard ways to learn to speak French or any other foreign language, and most people manage to latch on to one without too much difficulty. To avoid the chance of your doing it the hard way, here are a few pit- falls to avoid. Don't learn long lists of vocabulary; don't spend hours at the grammar; don't look up every word in an 'author's text and then try to learn it! don't ex- pect every language to be formed like English; •don't blame your teacher; don't get .discouraged easily; don't try to memorize countless rules; don't . . . . well, that's about enough don'ts for a while. Now, how about a few "do's". To make it easier for yourself, try learning short lists of words and use each one in a short sen- tence, even if you have to go into a quiet room and talk to yourself, After all, this how people talk — in sentences, not in long vocab lists. If it is a question of learn- ing a verb, use it in the present, past and future together with some idiom or grammar point that you are trying to inaster. Short, fre- quent periods of intensive study like this are far more efficient than long periods -of trying to ab- sorb large quantities of grammar, etc. Think how long it took you to learn your native tongue, before you get too discouraged with try- ing to learn another language. It takes years to learn to speak a language fluently, not six weeks, and a long time to even say simple things correctly. Consider the learning process as a long term process, not just a few months or a year, and the more you practice outside your classroom hours, the From My ' ind ow I feel just terrible. Yes I do. There is much truth in the old saying, "Be sure your sins will find you out". Every day now I'm paying dearly for my lack of wifely concern for my husband. Even before last week's column hit the street telling about my hus- band's tonsillectomy, the poor man had to he rushed back to hospital because •of hemorrhage. You may remember that I had a great time the previous "Window" teasing my "heroic hubby" about the fuss he made over a little thing as minor as •a tonsillectomy. Now I find out that for adults Tonsil- lectomy is nothing to take too lightly. One nurse said disapprovingly, "Mrs. Keller, having one's tonsils out at your husband's age is not child's play. It is serious busi- ness." Now I believe her. When I saw my darling draped over the toilet bleeding and sick, I was ashamed of myself for making light of his condition. Through it all I experienced some firsts — and learned some- thing about myself in the bargain. I had my first opportunity to discover how I would function in a real emergency with no one to Iean on. I'm not calm, cool or collected. I go into .a thousand pieces. I needed direction to do a simple thing like call :the am- bulance! And I had my first ride in an ambulance. It seemed like an eternity from. our house to the hos- pital and still I can hardly re- member what the interior of that vehicle of mercy was like. The memory of our ;two-year-old is much better. .He watched with interest as the stretcher was rolled into the house, daddy was strapped on to it and the whole business was loaded into the white car with the flashing red light. The next day when the crisis had passed, the little fellow showed he had been quite impressed. He told his grandmother, "Daddy was in the •bathroom having a hem- morhage". Daddy might have been having his teeth brushed for all the ex- pression in our little child's voice as he recounted the story. But he hadn't missed a thing. Now his Christmas wagon has be- come an ambulance, the pillows o.ff my bed are stretchers, . the kitchen floor is a hospital ward and our young son is a hem- inorhage victim. Such r e a 1 i s t i c hemmorhaging too ---complete with gagging and spitting and moaning. • Perhaps one good thing has come of it all. Our little lad has no fear whatsoever to go to hos- pital. In fact, he thinks it would be quite a lark. Sust the other night he cried as though his heart would break be- eause we would not promise he could go right then to have his tonsils removed. He had his coat on, just in case we changed our By Shirley Keller minds. But now the mere mention of going to see the doctor brings a huge smile .that would melt a stone. The child's happiest when he's complaining about an ache which travels from his big toe to his ear with alarming speed. As his mother, I can't afford to an- swer his every wail for a doctor's care, nor can I complete'Iy ignore his pleas because they might not all be groundless. I admit I underestimated the suffering my husband endured while undergoing surgery; I'm also ready to concede that I'm not the rock of strength I've always claimed to be; I'm even prepared to listen for the next 100 years to my husband's stories about my heartless attitude toward his peril- ous journey to the jaws of death and back. But how can I cope with a two- year-old hypochondriac who lives to be sick? better, After all, how much tune do you actually get to speak in class? Not very much, I'll bet! With the size of the class, it's just impossible. I've seen hundreds of kids who just gave up because, as they said, they just could not seem to speak French or Spanish and yet when I asked them . how much they did outside the classroom, they just looked sheepish and muttered something that sounded like nothing. Get a good pronunciation as soon as possible. I find that peo- ple who can say things in, a foreign language which can be understood also tend to do better, Those with sloppy speech habits fall easily by the wayside, Listen carefully to your teacher, buy some good rec- ords, but work at it. You inay never lose your accent, but you avoid speaking the language, as the French so aptly say, "like a Spanish cow". If you are studying French, get a pen pal in Quebec and write all your letters in French. Finally, as soon as you can, spend some time with a . French family, and resolve only to speak French. You will have a pretty confused time at first, trying to understand, and to make yourself understood, but at the end of two or three months of concentrated effort, you will be surprised or even astounded, at how well you speak the language. You may wonder, now that I've given you all this advice, whether I apply it in my own family. Well, I go it one better. When my younger son was born six years ago, my wife and I decided to make him completely bilingual. It was not too difficult to pick the languages -the two national lan- guages of Canada. Since the day he came home from the hospital, my wife has spoken nothing but English to him, and I nothing but French. The only thing he knew was that he had to say things one way to father and another way to mother. He had no way of know- ing that this wasn't done in every family. Anyway, he took to it like a fish to water, and at six he is completely bilingual. He wouldn't think of talking English to me or French to my wife. Since I put him to bed most of the time, God has to listen to his prayers in French. I don't think God minds, and Robbie certainly doesn't. I have often felt that if many of our New Canadians would bring up their children the same way, it would be wonderful for the children to be bilingual when they are grown up. You never know when another Ianguage is going to come in handy. Of course, it takes effort, but it's worth it in the end. In the meantime, those of you who have to study a language the hard way, see if you can apply some of my suggestions, and snake it a bit easier on yourself. Business and Professional Directory OPTOMETRISTS J. E. Longstoff OPTOMETRIST SEAFORTH MEDICAL CENTRE 527-1240 Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sat- urday a.m., Thursday evening CLINTON OFFICE 10 Issac Street 482-7010 Monday and Wednesday Call either office for appointment. Norman Martin OPTOMETRIST - Office Hours: 9 -12 A,M, -- 1:30- 6 P.M. Closed all day Wednesday Phone 235-2433 Exeter ACCOUNTANTS Roy N. Bentley PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT GODERICH P.O. Box 478 • Dial 524.9521 HURON and ERIE DEBENTURES CANADA TRUST CERTIFICATES J. W. 1IAIERER Authorized Representative 7%% for 5 Years "4 % for 3 and 4 Years P/4% for 1 and 2 Years Minimum $100 DIAL 236.4346 w– ZURICH FUNERAL DIRECTORS WESTLAKE Funeral Home AMBULANCE and PORTABLE OXYGEN SERVICE DIAL 236-4364 — ZURICH AUCTIONE ERS ALVIN WALPER PROVINCIAL LICENSED AUCTIONEER For your sale, large or small, courteous and efficient serviee at all times. "Service That Satisfies" DIAL 237.3300 — DASHWOOD INSURANCE For Safety .. EVERY FARMER NEEDS Liability Insurance For Information About All Insurance -- Call BERT KLOPP DIAL 2364988 -- ZURICH Representing CO-OPERATORS • INSURANCE ASSOCIATION Robert F. 'Westlake Insurance "Specializing in General Insurante" Phone 236.4391 -.– Zurith