Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Citizens News, 1973-10-11, Page 4PAGE 4 ZURICH CITIZENS NEWS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1973 We had a casual drink togeth- er, and he was friendly. I swiftly learned that he was 58 (he looked 42), had been in the Cameron Highlanders, was a retired Brigadier, had been with British intelligence, "But we mustn't talk about that, of course." That's when I began to susp- ect. When he told me he spoke Hungarian, Roumanian and Pol- ish without an accent, my susp- icions deepened. When I said, in my blunt Canadian way, "How come?" he answered airily, "Part of the job, old bay." When I asked his name, he said, "Just call me Cameron, " It seemed he was the Lord of Lochiel, and he muttered about the Camerons and their feuds with the McDonalds and others. He hacl an unnerving habit of drinking six Pernods while I was worrying through two half pints. Then he'd get quite stoned and mumble on and on, "I'm as drunk as a lord. But of course, I am a lord, so it's all right." We parted after several en- counters, and I asked for his address. He wrote down, "Cam- eron" and an address in Edin- (Continued on page 5) The st• Irvin rich! One of our school teachers in the distant past had a little story that is worth remembering today. It had to do with the un- happy orphan who was given grudging shelter by a woman who had a large family of her own children. Food was not scarce but the mother made sure that her brood got the best --the orphan was left so subsist on the peelings and the water in which the foods were cooked. The punch line revealed that the neglected child grew up with a healthy body and a keen mind, while the pampered kids turned out to be flabby slobs with no stamina. An exaggeration, perhaps, but an illustration of a fate that many of us have inherited in an age of soft living when our parents could afford to give us nothing but "the best." Nutritionists are now warning that we may well be starving ourselves into ill health because we eat only those foods which are refined to the point of near worthlessness. Examples are white flour foods from which the wheat germ and other vital food elements have been removed. Foods so loaded with preservatives that the important vitamins have been neutralized There is much evidence to indicate that even the whole grains and meats we consume have been so altered by the use of chemicals on the farm that they no longer supply the nutrit- ion which once fostered a race of hardy pioneers. If you have ever looked at the suits of armor in a museum you will have realized that the big men of the Middle Ages were five-foot runts. The average height of army recruits in England increased by two or three inches between 1914 and 1939. More and better food was the reason for that sort of physical development. We have long since mastered the prob- lem of providing adequate amounts of food, but now we may be in danger of sacrificing most of the benefits because we insist on catering to the demands of our appetites for the sweet, the bland and the easy -to -chew foods. More detailed knowledge of nutrition on the part of those who prepare meals might well be the key to better health. (Mt. Forest Confederate) oteI y e dog pounds! Under the heading of the "Well I'll be damned" column is a ruling by the provincial government demanding dog pounds be the next thing to palacial for strays and muts no one wants. • This carne to light at the September session of township council, when the cle44' reported a provincial government insp- ector ruled the dog pound the township patronizes does not measure up to regulations. Obviously, this was pretty unnerving stuff to council and the pound operator who considered facilities quite good for a few stray dogs which only have a few days to live unless their owners or others come along and bail them out by paying their keep. Most dogs caught and retained there are those which have been obtained from city pounds by hunters who want a dog they hope is smart enough to startle some game in its sniffing meangerings. Most often the dogs are left in the township because hunters no longer require them and because they present a problem in keeping them until the next hunting trip. When it is considered many dogs are kept in doghouses with- out floors, and the doorway open to all kinds of weather, are fed table scraps, or whatever, it is difficult to understand why the government has gone soft headed over a few stray dogs and demands almost motel type facilities. Obviously, the government wants to be kind to the dogs which come one day closer to their final end each day they are retained. Maybe it's because some softheaded civil servants, who own lap dogs, demand that all dogs all experience home and apartment style living. But forcing the township or the poundkeeper into keeping $8, 000 or $10, 000 to be eligible to keep a few stray dogs is asking a little too much. If pound keepers want to spend the money and go into the dog boarding business, that is different, but when the new "homes" the government demands for strays, almost have to be palacial, that is bordering on lunacy, and no doubt will result in more stray dogs being shot on sight than boarded. ZURICH Citizens NEWS PRINTED BY SOUTH HURON PUBLISHERS LIMITED, ZURICH HERB TURKHEIM, Publisher Second Class Mail Registration Number 1385 4 1 Member: 11111 Canadian Weekly Newspapers Association 3' Ontario Weekly Newspapers Association 4'411 Subscription Rates: $5.00 per year in advance in Canada; $6.00 In United States and Foreign; single copies 15¢ A BOB, A BARMAID AND A BRIGADIER Last week I was talking of the fun of meeting people when you are travelling. It's not that your friends at home are dull. They're probably more inter- esting than some of the types with whom you become bosom buddies on short acquaintance. But the people you meet on holiday are a refreshing affirm- ation that the earth contains an infinite variety of creatures of the human species. This week I'd like to finish these thoughts by introducing you to three greatly different people we met in England; a Bob, a Barmaid, and a Brigadier Hurtling from Edinburgh to Chester on a train, we picked up at the ancient and bloody old city of Carlisle, near the Scottish border, an addition to our compartment. I didn't mean that Carlisle is bloody in the sense of bloody awful. But it did change hands several times in the bloouy bord- er wars. And it was then: that William Wallace, theJreat Scots rebel, was put on public view in a cage, before he was hanged, drawn and quartered, and his parts.affixed on various pikepoles about the city, as a lesson to the Scots "rebels, " in the fourteenth century. Anyway, Bob Mitchell proved an agreeable travelling comp- anion. Ile was interested, interesting, and affable. We'd been in the same war, he on corvettes in the navy, I in the air force. We nattered about taxes, housing costs, com- parative incomes. As we rattled through the Lakes District, he went to pains to point out things and sights of interest. He suggested a good restaurant in London. A veritable gentleman, in this age of boors. He proved this when we stop- ped to change for Chester. I started wrestling with our lug- gage and an incipient coronary. Before I could say, "Bob Mit- chell, " he had whipped the two big suitcases off the overhead rack, nipped out and put them on the platform. You'd have to be a basket case for this to hap- pen to you in Canada. During our earlier conversat- ion, he told me he had a cousin in Neepawa, Man. I told him my column was in the Neepawa Press. So here's his message to his cousin: "Ask if Fred Crook remembers his visits to the Roman Wall area of Cumberland and Northumberland and his walks along the beach at South- borune." There you are, Fred Crook. The Barmaid, I'd been telling my wife for years about the bar- maids of Britain. They are NOT the busty, blowsy barmaids of fiction. But they are a breed of their own, with their, 'Wot'll it be, ducks?" and "Ta, luv." Ta means thanks. But they seemed to be a van- ishing breed, supplanted by young women with too much make-up, wearing slacks and a bored expression. I was beginning to despair of finding a real English barmaid But we did. She was Heather, in the Tudor, Westminster Hot- el, Chester. She was 100 per cent proof of everything I'd been telling the Old Lady. She ran that bar like the ring- master of a three-ring circus. Excellent service, a joke or a personal word for all the regul- ars, No play for tips. Peanuts or potato chips for anyone who looked as though he needed it. And all the time humming a song, pirouetting behind the bar, actually enjoying life. A delight ful person. And nobody, but nobody, got out of line in that pub. It was not a matter of rules, or threats, but of personality. Then there was the Brigadier. He was another kettle of fish, a horse of a differnet colour, or, rather, of a number of different colours, like a chameleon. He was either a Scottish lord or the biggest liar in London, and I lean toward the latter. .5.11111.0.4 Business OPTOMETRISTS d fessL , 4 Did c 1 1 E. Longstaff OPTOMETRIST SEAFORTH MEDICAL CENTRE 527-1240 Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sat- urday a.m., Thursday evening CLINTON OFFICE 0 Issac Street 482.7010 Monday and Wednesday Call either office for appointment. Norman Ni + rtin OPTOMETRIST Office Hours: 9-12 A,M. — 1:30-0 P.=w. Closed all day Saturday Phone 2332433 Exeter • INSURANCES • Robe ,a Fa ''1`'Y esti h 1sur!I nce "Special).: Gea1erel Insuraonc ° Phone 2364391 — Zurich AI +> '" ' " WHITING LICENSED AUCTIONEER et, APPRAISER Prompt, Courteous, Efficient ANY - TYPE, ANY SIZE, ANYWHERE We give complete sale service. PROFIT BY EXPERIENCE Phony ,Collect 233.1964 EXETER TEL. 236-6070 AUCTIONEERS PERCY 1NRIGHT LICENSED AUCTIONEER Kippen, Ont. Auction Sale Service that is most efficient and courteous. CALL THE WRIGHT AUCTIONEER Telephone Hensel) (519)262-5515 D & J RIDDELL AUCTION SERVICES * Licensed Auctioneers and Appraisers * Complete Auction Service * Sales Large or small, any type, anywhere * Reasonable — Two for the price of one for. Let our exprarience be your reward. Phone Collect 'Doug' 'Jack' 237-3576 237-3431 Hugh Tom FILSON and ROBSON AUCTIONEERS 20 years' experience of complete sole service Provincially licensed. Conduct sales of any kind, any -place. To' insure success of your sale. or appraisal Phone Collect . '666.0833 666-1967 teed Trost Ceri ificctes 1 year 8 1/2% 2,3 & 4 years8 3/4% 5 years 9 el. W. IXARERIIR .. ZU6tICH PHONE 236-4340 GERALD L. MERNER CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT 10 GREEN ACRES GRAND BEND, DNYARID BOX 278 GRAND BEND, ONT.