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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1986-07-02, Page 244X rositor -4C* p SINCE 1860, SERVING THE COMMUNITY FIRST BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1985 Incorporating iBrussels Post 10 Main Street 527-0240 Published in SEAFORTH, ONTARIO Every Wednesday morning ED BYRSKI, General Manager HEATHER MCILWRAITH, Editor The Expositor Is brought to you each week by the efforts of: Pat Armes, Bessie Broome, Marlene Charters, Joan Gulchelear, Anne Huff, Joanne Jewitt, Dianne McGrath, Lois McLlwaln, Bob McMillan, Cathy Melatly and Patrick taaftte. Member Canadian Community Newspaper Assoc. Ontario Community Newspaper Association Ontario Press Council Commonwealth Press Union International Press Institute Subscription rates: Canada $20.00 a year, In advance Ib! Outside Canada $60.00 a year, In advance Single Copies - 50 centseach. SEAFORTH, ONTARIO, WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1986 Second class mail registration Number 0696 cn Refreshing note OPINION Fire calls sometimes alarming The average weekly newspaper reporter is required to perform any number of unique tasks in the course Of putting out a broadsheet or tabloid each week. While these tasks may differ slightly from paper to.paper, according to the character of the town, it is this variety that makes the. job interesting at times. One of the least likeable jobs is answering the summons of the fire alarm in order to provide news photographs of the local fire department in action. Every time that alarm goes off, you know there is a good chance the blaze will be a serious one, causing substantial property, loss, or worse, for a nearby family. So, it is with no enthusiasm at all the reporter ventures forth on this type of assignment. Fortunately,,rpost calls are of a less serious nature: a grass fire, a fender bender, that sort of thing. However, even these calls can be a plague to newshounds, if the timing is way off. Because of the location of the newspaper office in town and the extreme volume of the local fire alarm, it is almost impossible for reporters, or anyone else for that matter to fail to hear the alarm. So, unlike most publications I have toiled at, we cover most of the calls. This is particularly irritating on Tuesday afternoons when, in the middle of a weekly paste up session, a reporter must scramble to collect the camera equipment, get the car started.and get down to the fire hall before all the trucks are gone. Some of my first efforts to "scramble" for a call proved fruitless. As local firefighters FROM THIS ANGLE by by Patrick Raftis waste no time in getting mobile, I missed them altogether. However, with practice, I have reached the point where my response time" is almost as good as that of some firefighters. Sometimes getting to the scene is half the battle. At one recent blaze, my car overheated so severely I had to park a block from the fire in order to be sure some overzealous firefighter wouldn't accidently hose down my steaming car, rather than a burning building. The worst kind of call of course, is the midnight variety. I well remember the first such late night sounding of the alarm after I moved here. Securely under the covers and soundly asleep, I at first took the strange wailing sound to be an unwelcome part of my dreams. When I awoke to discover this was 'not the case, I immediately began making excuses for not chasing after this particular photo opportunity. Perhaps my co-workers would believe me if I told them I hadn't heard the alarm, I thought, as I covered my ears with my pillow to protect them from the screaming noise? Then again, perhaps not? Car trouble? I had the flu? Out of town? Washing my hair? None of these sounded like anything more than the lame excuses they were. Then I began to think what a dereliction of duty it would be, should it turn out the entire Main Street was on fire and I lay stubbornly in my bed and missed the whole thing. At this point, it occurred to me I would be unlikely to completely miss the burning of Main Street, since my apartment is located there. Hmmm! Maybe I'd best get moving after all. On this occasion, the blaze turned out to be nowhere near main street. in fact, when I reached the firehall, I was puzzled when I saw the trucks heading east on Birch Street, away from the populated part of Seaforth. Confused, I followed them right down to the dump, where the standard garbage -burning ceremonies were taking place. Seems someone had mistaken this flaming refuse for a fire in the Industrial Park area. While I was glad to see the only danger here was to old bread wrappers and banana peels, I had to wonder if watching garbage burn at midnight was a suitable occupation for either myself or the local fire department. Do you suppose Carl Bernstein started this way? It is refreshing to note that after years of inflated government expenses finally the average cost of operating federal minister's offices has declined. In a report released recently by the Treasury Board of Canada the average cost of operating the office of a federal Cabinet minister In the fiscal year 1985-86 was down eight per cent, or $90.000 from the 1984-85 levels. The report also Indicated the number of people working in those offices has gone down as well. This decline represents a reversal of the trend of a few years ago when costs in this area were Increasing over 10 per cent per year. In December 1984, for example, the estimated salary costs alone for 1984-85 was $736,000 per ministerial office. The salary expenses for 1985-86, on the other hand, averaged $632,000 per office - a reduction of nine per cent. Part of the reason for this decline is the Introduction by the government of a new policy limiting the number of departmental person -Years that can be used to supplement ministerial staff in ministers' offices. Asia result, the number of person-years of the average office has dropped 7 per cent over two years, from 23 person-years in 1983-84 to 19 person-years In 1985-86. The total cost, therefore, of running Cabinet offices In 1985-86, including administrative cost and the salaries of both ministerial staff and departmental employees working in the ministers' offices, amounts to $42.9 mililon. So, In a year when Prime Minister Mulroney, as head of the federal government, has himself been discovered spending such exorbitant amounts as $.5 million on a weeklong trip to Paris, it Is good to know there are restraints somewhere. It's only unfortunate that, once again, It Is not the ringleader whose expenses are being checked, but rather those of his underlings. Perhaps It is time Mr. Mulroney realizes what's good for the goose, is Just - as good for the gander. There are more unnecessary expenses throughout the government system than in federal ministers' offices. The fat needs to be trimmed from all of them. — H.M. When will we learn? MEDIEVAL TOAST — The Grade 4, 6, 6 and 7 students of St. Patrick's Separate School, Dublin held o medley& dinner last Wednesday afternoon whore they dressed up and feasted on various Drugs, whether hard drugs of the chemical variety or so-called "soft drugs" such as marijuana and alcohol, have been kicking around and messing up lives for as long as anyone can remember. Despite the notoriety gained by the drug-related deaths of celebrities in recent years, many purported experts on the subject still feel wider public education of drug dangers would help to alleviate the problem. However, public attention has been drawn to the situation in so many ways that now, only the most ignorant can profess to be unaware of the dangers involved with artificial intoxicants. The recent cardiac -arrest death of basketball star Ken Bias, chosen second in the NBA draft recently, has once again turned the focus toward drugs in sports. Bias' death, the medical examiners have decided, was trigged by "cocaine intoxication." Coroners have also recently determined that Bias was not likely a previous user of the drug and that he was not intoxicated by other stimulants at the time of his death. It was, perhaps. a one-time involvement which caused his untimely demise. Oddly, this tragedy comes on the heels of an admission by Toronto Maple Leaf defenceman Bole Salming, that he tried cocaine "once" several years ago. While many dismissed Salrning's admission at the time, as the confession of a more mature individual about the experimental urges of his youth, Bias' death emphasizes how much worse the hockey star's experiment could have ended. Too much emphasis is placed on the fact these men are sports stars, when the question of drug use arises, Sias' death Is no more, or less tragic than the overdose of some tenament-dwelling junkie -- only more publicized. It is strange how our attitudes toward drug use vary in conjunction to the occupation of the user. It has long been known that drug use is rampant in the entertainment industry, yet there is little hue and cry calling for a "clean-up" of Hollywood, as there is when professional sports are involved. The answer to the problem of drug abuse in all walks of life is simple common sense. Drugs like "Speed", super amphetamines, are seldom found today among the most hardened of drug abusers, because even the Junkies figured out they were killing too malty people. When people reach the same conclusion about the other illegal substances available today, cocaina and drugs like It will finally disappear as well. — P.R. TO THE EDITOR Woman thanks local ladfor returning son's wallet On June 27, our son lost his wallet containing a sum of money, which he had earned from cutting lawns. He was quite upset when he discovered it was ihissing. We were very surprised, when late Sunday afternoon, we received a call from. Kevin Cooper, of Eg'inondville, saying he had found his wallet. and our son could pick it up at the tasty itoms. Above, Jolene Cronin, loft, Lynn Feeney and Colleen Doloyor toastod tho and of another school year. The three Baderiris are in Grado 8. Names read like a potluck menu What is it about first meetings that petrify one so. 1 mean, what is the big deal anyway about meeting -- HiS friends. Frankly, 1 was beginning to wonder if HE even had any, but unless he dug them up HE prior to our outing Sunday, app does, Oh, he's tossed their names around a lot in the last little while, but since I've never seen any faces to go along with the names, I just figured they were all figments of HiS imagination -- characters he invented to make himself feel loved. After all, names like Senator, Brother, Brother limey, Badger (all the same person) and Weiner, Tucker, Bags, Spud and Juice (to name a few) or whatever other animal, vegetable or mineral happened to come to mind, reeked of suspicion. Who ever heard of friends who sounded more like a potluck dinner than homo sapiens, anyway? So Sunday I was sure, would come and go without any of these characters again being sighted. ` day.I found Well, it was a history making out these people actually do exist, although the how of it all liI�raven't quite figured out as yet. And theyare,`as I was warned, def"mifely a crazy bunds. If someone were to write a book on first impressions, these would definitely be some of the people they shoulc'l;meet. The day started out muuddhs the same as I would have expected. We were driving and HE was late. That really didn't concern me muds since I assumed there was no one to pickup anyway. Then my phone rang, and it was someone wondering when we were Pizza Train, where Kevin works. He would not take a reward, so we would like to thank you Kevin, for being so honest. I know our son was so happy when he got off the phone, fo think someone would return it, especially when there was no address in it, only his school picture with his name on it, So again, thankyou. ,MIS, Dan Birchen RR4, Seaforth SWEATSOCKS by Heather McIlwraith coming. Pretty good cover up, 1 thought. When HEdid arrive we actually did make a pickup stop, and there were people there, whose names amazingly enough, coincided with what I still assumed to be a meal plan of sorts. introductions were made, and then it started -- the questions - and what questions. I never knew so many people could be so interested in -- a closet -- the one apparently where i've spent the majority of my time. Outside of the questions though it Was the antics of these people that kept my attention. We were, of course, driving rn a convertible and with a Senator in the car, that is plain asking for trouble. A representative of the Small People's Republic (or so his card reads) this politician, like all others, wasted no opportunity to campaign. And since convert- ibles provide the best means to do such we soon found ourselves facing stampeding cows, horses and whatever other animal had been incited to riot by the Senator's ramblings. Once at the point of destination the "woman" as we were categorized found it necessary to listen patiently as the guys (dare we call them men?) debated the prowess of various baseball teams. One of two Detroit Tiger fans present (the rest had the good sense to cheer for the Jays) also found it necessary to perform intricate dives (we'll call them flops) into the swimming pool whenever his team performed some out- standing feat (thankfully there weren't too many or we'd still be trying to get the water out of his lungs). This same individual tackled things at the ground level however, with considerably less finesse, falling and even wallowing in the mud on at least one occasion while the boys attempted to make horseshoe pits, then attempting to fly over the handlebars of the wheelbarrow when trying to negotiate a turn when disposing of the sod from the same. He was also one of a pair that managed to perfect a wipe-out that resulted in some damage to the community cooler, and its contents - but that's hardly worth mentioning. There is, of Course, a lot that could be said, since not a moment seemed to go by that someone wasn't doing something crazy. But since space is dictator here those stories will have to wait. What Ido know though is that these people can no longer regale me as the MYSTERY woman, and I unfortunately, can no longer find solace in the fact, that they may be, just possibly, figments of someone else's imagi- nation. You can't go back. NHL draft pick a local first It's been a long time since the town of Seaforth has sent anyone to big time sport. if you don't count Egmondville as a part of our town then we really haven't sent anybody to the pros. Cooney Weiland was born in the village and skated for a number of glorious years in the national hockey league. That is not to say that Seaforth has not produced any quality athletes. On the contrary, this little town has a long storied history in sports. We have had champion soccer teams from the turn of the centum; superb Junior B clubs in the 50s; all Ontario Intermediate B squads of the early 603 and an All -Ontario Junior D hockey title this year. Then you have a world class skater Lloyd Eisler; Canadian High School drampion shotputter John Neilson; pro golfer Ian Doig and C.H. Express, a local broomball team that is one of the finest in the province. The list goes on, These organizations and people are to be congratulated for their wonderful efforts and the awards and rewards they have brought to CORNUCOPIA by Dave Broome thi's community. Isuppose it was just a matter of time before Seaforth shipped someone off to the National Hockey League. Dave Mcl wain, as you know, was selected by the Pittsburgh Penguins in last month's draft and he will attempt, come September, to do what many of us can only dream about; that is, crack the Pens lineup and skate in the National Hockey League this coming winter. You can only pull for the kid and hope he succeeds in his bid to become Seaforth's first NIit. player. And any of you that think the whole thing doesn't seem quite correct please take note. Mc- Ilwain has great speed, clever moves, abundant smarts and a wonderful attitude. He's adding needed beef to his frame and is the son of a man who could certainly play the game. Father Jack was, and is, a terrific hockey player and is his son's biggest supporter. All these people previously mentioned have many things in common. They all have talent and most importantly are, simply, nice people. Today our youth have superior coaching, better facilities and more money to help develop hidden talent. I hope Dave Meliwain makes his dream come true for himself, and for all those that didn't make it. Go get 'em kid. '