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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1990-09-05, Page 2f Huron xpositor SINCE 1160, SERVING THE COMMUNITY loserperetins The •rwtasls Pest hobnobbed In isssinrth, Ontario awry Wednesday Morning so ara$KI. d....r.1 tw....a►.r t1la uses aosNiT . Illi« NEWS STAN: Pads 1Mlot, 3..Nm O:t.rtr ADVtRTISIN4: T.trrt-arww Dais C ASSIDhao$. simaca1r'►ION$ ACCOUNTING: Put Ar iso Masao Maim* Limits hansoms •%.mb.r CanMINan Community N.wst,uper Assoc Ontario Coominestilly Newspaper Association Oniony Press Council Commonwealth Press unman wit.rnotmanol Press Institute subscrietton Rates Consider '22 00 a year ,n sonans Senior Citizens '11.00 a neer ,n advance Outside Cando '46.00 a year in 'advance Single Copies IQ cents each �► Second class moil registration Number 0090 WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1990 llitorlallefid awinoss OMips - 10 Main Street. Seaforth Telephone 13 11) 327-0240 foo 327-0242 Mailing A/rrws . P.O. aoa N. S oo orth. Ontario. NOK 1 WO Remember Fox in the summer of 1980, a young man with a heart tull of courage, a dream and an artificial leg 'Fox-trotted' his way across hall of the nation to raise money for Cancer research. The cancer that claimed his leg at the age of 19 made its way to his lungs, and after 144 days and 5,565 kilometres - running an average of a marathon a day, 26 miles, from St. John's, New- foundland to Thunder Bay - Terrence Stanley Fox, Terry Fox, was forced to abandon his Marathon of Hope. Cancer claimed Terry Fox's lite on June 28, 1981. But he is still as large as life in the memory of a nation who watched him cross Canada with his familiar hop, skip and jump. Terry touched us all. From the beginning, Terry had stressed that his Marathon of Hope was not intended as a hero's trek. Finding a cure for cancer was the ultimate goal, and raising money to that end was the Marathon's aim. Terry Fox established himself as a national folk hero in three short months, but more importantly, his dream is being realized. To date, the annual Terry Fox run has raised over $82 million for cancer research. In Ontario alone, over 100,000 participants in the 1989 Terry Fox Run raised $2.67 million, a 28% increase over 1988. This year marks the 10th anniversary of both the Run and Terry's Marathon of Hope, and provincial organizers have set a goal of $3 million. You can do your part. On September 16, the Seaforth and area Terry Fox Run will leave from the Van Egmond House at 10 a.m. Pledge sheets for the 10 -kilometre walk-run-ride-a-thon can be picked up at the Town Hall, the Post office, the Recreation office or any Seaforth bank. Remember Terry. Tell your kids about Terry. And help keep his dream alive and growing. P.E. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Wouldn't have moved to Seaforth Dear Editor: My wife and I moved from a suburb of Toronto to Seaforth, a pretty little town 40 kilometres west of Stratford, in July 1988. We had no way of knowing in April 1988, when we bought our interesting old house, what would happen in slightly less than two years; that a majority (6 to 3) of the Seaforth Town Council would declare Seaforth "English Only" in March 1990, two months after Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay and the reaction their decisions provoked when those cities declared themsel- ves to be "English Only." Had we known, we would not have moved to Seaforth. On August 24, 1990, I wrote to the Office of the Premier of Ontario to request a list of all the municipalities in Ontario which have declared themselves "English Only", and to state that I approve of tax money spent on French lan- guage services in those areas of Ontario with sufficiently large French speaking populations to justify this expenditure. RURAL ROOTS by Jeanne Kirkby it. I Paul Copeland What's in a billion? How big is a billion? After using up quite a bit of tape on my adding machine, I can tell you that one billion seconds would equal 31.7 years. Also, in metric, I calculate that one billion centimetres would give you 537.63 round trips from here to Miami. These kind of figures give me the shakes! The Provincial Budget of April 24th stated that the total provincial revenue projected in 1990 would be $44.536 billion. This is money collected from all sources; the taxpayer; federal government payments; lottery, licenses, liquor and everything else. Last spring, Ontario's total projected spending for 1990 was $44.506 billion. The amount tagged for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food (OMAF) was $534 million. Don't get the wrong impression! This does not go to the farmer. My gosh, if that amount went to 72,000 Ontario farmers we would each get $7416.66 and I'm sure 1 would have noticed. This budget also provides services and support to the food processing industry which employs 80,000 workers in Ontario. And it funds the large OMAF facility, paying for their computers, publications, inspec- tions, research testing and buildings, et cetera, et cetera, as well as the facilities and salaries of all their employees in Toronto, Guelph, and in each county. How much goes to actual farm programs? An almost constant 1.496 of their total expenditure over the last five years, according to the OFA. And this includes the funds of the Farm Tax Rebate Program, which 1 would argue is not expenditure. Without this, the amount committed to farm programs has been less than 1%. of their total revenue. By comparison Quebec, with fewer farmers, spends 3 - 4 % of their total revenue on agricultural programs. Do we have a problem or what? The world of the 1990's is turning out to be Nigger and wider than i ever thought it could be. Lately we feel threatened on all sides by world forces that we can't control or ignore. The trade war between the heavily subsidized Americans and even heavier price supports of the European Common Market has dropped our commodity prices to record lows, just when our interest rates are hitting record highs. The Gatt talks loom over our supply management programs, and the federal government seems powerless. Free Trade with the USA is costing us joys. markets, and viability as an industry. ('an we ever win a trade Thea to page 17A • Freedom means having something to to Ln a rood -about way 1 diacovaed avb�oodutiappeals to U. I amnt wiles 1 was travoltiag in a poor cowry. As 1 travelled in Ecuador I net people so poor they didn't have a sucrc (doiltr) hill to their name. Thou church collection plates were slightly covered at the bottom by coins. All they had to spend were coins, nu mmol how hard they warted and saved thou earnings. Even a working couple didn't have many ancros to rub together and their double income wasia't enough to buy any luxuries, let alone neces- sities. In the city of Quito it was a dif - fetcnt story. Sucres were abundant for some people as was evidenced by the sights of shopping malls, Alfa Romeo suns and brick houses with crushed glass em- bedded into the tops of fortress -like walls surrounding the houses. 1 was working with poor people in a coastal village on a church missionary project and came into little contact with the wealthy types. Wig avavaoa 1 waited wig 1 ootid feel their despair with the wintry 'a position and their polemist an that they probably neva leave their awful situations. The 'Nubians v 't even the making of the poor pooped. yet they were forced to ti v with than. Despise how hale nosey 1 had with me or in the bank in Canada, 1 could sill feel very money -rich compared io thes, people. 1 had a ticket out of the country. I could leave it all behind and return to my home, and problems, in Canada. To me tine aneaning of freedom became the ability to get out 01 xxneplace 1 wouidn t want w be in Most of the people l met didn't have this freedom. In a country that has such awful economic problems many of dna people didn't have the freedom to have a choice in what they would have for dinner. If the problems with their government and economy wouldn't get belts, many of them would Wee to leave their country. That freedom was denied JUST THINKING by Sudan Oxford thus because they didn't have the money to buy a uc:kct out. They seared destined to live in a country where things could dctrnurute even mon and they would have to bear the brunt of u. Now, no matter where 1 go, 1 feel a great same of freedom knowing that 1 can get out. Even my Visa card gives roc a fooling of freedoms. In a punch 1 can use it almost anywhere to buy a ticket to get the hock out of somewhere I wouldn't want to stay. It's reassuring to know that the Canadian government will help me get out of a country that is having terrible problems, even if it to getting on an American plane to be airlifted out of a country in an extreme emergency. But it is sad to think of all the people that can't leave because they don't have the freedom to earn real money for a ticket out. The people 1 met wart working and working very hard. I watched poor people moving goods fru merchants by pulling the boxes with ropes up steep streets. There were many people who had been forked out of the countryside and into the city to work at whatever demeaning, hard labour work they could find for a few hours. The local hospital in the town of Esmeraldas was considered very dirty by the standards of the mis- sionaries, yet there were people lined up outside hoping for a few free moments from a doctor. Some of them would resume their wait the next day. Things like that make me glad 1 live in a country that isn't so bad off. I'll take pinball, thanks ` I'll put up with it, I'll accept it as a fact of life in the '90's, and I may even get in on it once in a while. But I'll be darned if I'll ever admit that I enjoy it. By now, the `N' word is entrenched in the North American vocabulary. Nintendo. I used to think that PacMan and Donkey Kong were nasty fads, and I never envisioned the wave of video - fanaticism cresting menacingly behind these harmless little diver- sions. Video -lore and Nintendo is such a fact of life now that I really don't think I'd look twice if I saw Super Mario sitting at the table beside me in some do -nut shop enjoying a coffee and a cruller. It would just be one more step in global Nintendo takeover. Right from the beginning, I've harboured a healthy disdain for video terminals. As a teenager, 1 was dated by my fair share of "empty helmets", as my dad fondly called them, who felt that dinner and a romantic evening at the video arcade would win my heart. They'd be bashing away at the Space In- vaders controls and yammering about neutron bombers, eyes glazed, while I stood by and thought fondly about root canal surgery. In an attempt to be accommodating one time, I mentioned something about pinball. My would-be suitor gave me a blank look, blinked once or twice and mouthed "pinball... pin- ball..?" before turning back to his electron blaster. Be still, my foolish heart. Video is a heck of a lot more than Space Invaders and Pac things now, though. Nintendo is almost eerie. It thinks, talks and takes great delight in cleaning your clock when you challenge it. I fully expect to watch the screen and see one of the characters draw breath, or dash off to a bathroom off -screen somewhere. Take Nintendo baseball, for instance. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been watching my fnend pit his Nintendo all-stars against the computer's ball club. A friend of his was thoughtless enough to leave a Nintendo machine at the apartment a couple of weeks, and hes been obliged to play with it. Can't let dust settle on ROUGH NOTES by Paula Elliott any of the the working parts, don't ya know. After a lot of heartbreak and fist -shaking, he's managed to build his team into a squad of "lesser deities" through a complicated process of winning, accumulating cash for each win and paying out money to power his players up. "This guy's one of my power hitters," I was assured as a mustachioed dot configuration stepped up to the plate. "Now, THIS guy can't hit, but he's a powerful, powerful outfielder," I also learned of another player. "Are you bored?", I was asked at the top of the 14th inning in a chair -gripper of a match the other evening. ` Of course not," I replied, thumbing through a two-week old T.V. guide. He offered to let me make up my own Nintendo team, but I graciously declined. I'm a J sore loser, and those machines can sense fear. I gave in at a weak moment last week, though, and tried my hand at Nintendo Winter Games. After a few rousing renditions of each player's national anthem, the com- puter Olympians go head-to-head or head -to -terminal in a variety of winter sports. I managed to get my little dude to execute a stunning backflip-frontflip-twist combination in the ski-jumping competition, and I was preuy smug about the whole thing. But I got an even bigger kick out of letting the characters wipe out and seeing what kind of noises they made when they hit the snow. They were almost as neat as the noises that the Frogger makes when he gets hit by a semi. Maybe these games are kind of fun, after all. Seaforth boasts two champs at 1940 CNE SEPTEMBER 5, 1890 Mr. John Fairley, of the Post office grocery, can grow good plums as well as dispense cheap groceries. He has left with us a sample of those grown in his gar- den, one of which measure 6 inches one way, and 64 inches the other. They are, also, as good as they are Targe. Mr. David Sproat has sold his residence in Egmondville to Mr. M. Chesney, for the sum of $ 1,200. It is a nice, comfortable home. At the Caledonian Games in Minneapolis last week Mr. W.D. Stewart, son of Mr. Alexander Stewart of this town, won a $50 gold medal for a 100 -yard foot race and a $25 silver medal for a hurdle race. He is a resident of St. Paul, where he has a responsible and lucrative situation, and is another Seaforth boy who is doing credit to his native town. A football match was played last Tuesday evening in Tuckersmith on Mr. Archibald's field between the Moonlight Buffers, of the brickyard corner, and the Mill Road boys. The game was keenly contested. and it almost seemed that the Mill Road would take everything, but the tide turned and the Buffers came out victorious one game to none. There are 33 lady electors in Grey Township: 18 Smiths, 17 McDonalds, 15 Stewarts and 158 Macs are found on the voters' list. Scotland is well represented in Grey. IN THE YEARS AGONE from the Expositor Archives devoured. The cold rains drove the hoppers away and the vegetation is now all the most ardent would SEPTEMBER 3, 1915 desire. There was a severe frost on Mon- Mr. Smith, a horse buyer who has day night, but there was nothing been here for some time, shipped much that it could injure. 28 horses by express Thursday Mr. Walter Murray, who designed afternoon. There were shipped to and did the work in connection with Montreal and are destined for the the addition to the verandah on Dr. old country. The express charges Burrows' residence, has completed for this one car amounted to SI72. his work and it is a credit to his taste at well as to his skill as a workman. People have been complaining bitterly of the unusually wet weather in August This, it is said, was the wettest August for 70 years. But it is now said by those who pmfes.s to know that the wet has saved us from a worse fate. Had it not been for the wet the country would have been overrun by grasshoppers, so that every green thing would have been SEPTEMBER 6, 1940 With so many of our boys now in training or overseas, the public should know that special effort is being made by the Post Office Department to serve these men. Postmaster C.P. Sills announced this week. Special parcel post rates are given overseas troops so that comforts right from home may reach them promptly and in good condition. Miss Doris Ferguson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G.D. Ferguson, com- peting in music competitions at the Canadian National Exhibition last week, was awarded third prize in vocal class for girls under 13. Miss Ferguson was also nominated to appear in the special $500 scholar- ship competition. The congregation of Duff's United Church in Walton will ob- serve the 75th anniversary of the founding of the church on Septem- ber 8 and 15. Fred Harburn. Cromarty, this week won the Dominion singles horseshoe pitching championship at the Canadian National Exhibition. He defeated last year's champion 50-49. Mr. Harburn has been pitching horseshoes since he was a child. SEPTEMBER 9, 1965 McKillop Council gave approval Turn to page 17A • a