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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1980-09-04, Page 2Since 11160,.Set41.011 019 Qorein'pnity Pkor Published at SEAPORTIII, ONTARIO every Thursday Me by McLEANDROS:rftIBLISHERS LTD. , ANDREW Y,•111cLEAN,•Publishelt " • SUSAN VorflITE, gcliter ALICE GIB% News Editor Member Canadian Commintity,Newspaper Association • Ontario Weelay Newspaper Association and Audit Bureau of Circulation • S,ubscription Rates; Canada On advance) $14.00 a Year Outside Canada (in advance) 530.00 a Year SINGLE COPIES -35 CENTS EACH Second Class Mail Registration Number 0696 Telephone 527-0240 nil SEAFORTH, ONTARIO, SEPTEMBER 4, 1980 ---We ean continue The Marathon of Hope is ovet•;Terry Fox, the lone runner who has inspired us all for several weeks, has gone home to battle the disease that originally inspired his run. Cancer, the potential killer that strikes thousands 4�f Canadians annually, Prought the young man's courageous run to a 'sudden and sobering halt in Thunder- Bay, heartbreakingly soon after passing the halfway mark. In a time when heroes seem to be in short supply, Terry Fox has become a hero. Here's a man who decided to challenge himself, and In doing so, challenged all of us to realize the bravery of the human spirit. While our government leaders are debating the issues that divide us In this country, Terry Fox has demonstrated that feelings for our fellow men arid their suffering, will always unite us. Now that Terry is going to fight an even more private and critical personal battle with lung cancer, we must carry on the goals of his Marathon of Hope. Not, perhaps, by physically continuing the cross - Canada run, but by Continuing the battle against cancer. Researchers are on the brink of finding new answers in the fight against the disease - but they need additional funds to continue the fight.-Butmoney- isn't the only answer, we can -takoilme-to- reacrm-ore. about the disease ourselves, to be aware of the early warning signs and treatments, so cancer doesn't seem to be an unbeatable foe when it strikes close to home_ We can also be more understanding and caring when faced with those close to us who are caught up in a personal war with the disease. Terry Fox hasn't only brought Canadians together, and shown us that this country still breeds heroes. He's also thrown a challenge at us we can't ignore. The Cancer Society's slogan says, "Cancer can be beaten!" Let's show Terry Fox and ourselves, that it can bel Vandalism Vandalism. It's petty, small time crime that seems to be of little consequence, but 3udden1y the costs of this pointless activity begin to mount. In recent months most media have in some way investigated the vast expense to taxpayers caused by vandalism. The results are startling. One of the problems with this type of crime is that each case is a small, Isolated event, often insignificant on its own, but a big player in a much larger drama. In Seaforth we may not face the problem to 'Vie extent that other municipalities do. At the same t)mo, we are in no way free of it. Recently new picnic tables were placed in Victoria Park, an Invitation for townsfolk and visitors, to spend some time in the attractive setting. Unfortunately, the tables were also an invitation to vandals, and they struck quickly, carving out their marks. Why do they do it? it may stem from a genuine desire to damage private and public property, but that is unlikely. More plausible Is that it Is just a thoughtless result of boredom. Even more important than discovering the reasons for vandalism is determining a way to stop IL It's almost impos.sible. The end result is that individuals, both on their own property and through taxes, who have paid and worked for a pleasant home and town, must turn around and pay again to clean up vandalism's damage. The final cost is an unnecessary burden we all have to bear; unnecessary because there is absblutely no reason for it. Our acts need a little forethought before they are performed. A little thought oasts nothing in time, but saves good money that could be put to better use. A waste of energy It was Tuesday. July 15. It had to be the hottest. or at least the muggiest day of the summer to that date. Just before noon we got a telephone call from a conservation -minded citizen. Had we been into a local institution that morning, she wondered No we hadn't been. She said we ought to make a point to go The caller had just returned from the place in question and was boiling—and it had nothing to do with the muggy weather. nothong much anyway Inside, she noted, was like an iceberg compared to the weather outside. It couldn't be more than 60 or 65 degrees on the temperature scale most of us are stiff most comfortable with. She was Shivering and so were the workers. Another public building. she said, was the same. She was absolutely right. We hit both buildings during the I uneh hour that day to check out her findings. Shivering was the word for ot and more than one woman employed in the two places had put- a sweater on over her summer dress. Now it takes every bit as much electricity to run air conditioners in the summer heat as it does to runfurnaces in the winter. And keeplee a building at 60 to 65 degrees F. on a day when the terroerature outside is in the 90s, is gr4bably equivalent to keeping a buildong in the high 70s to 80 during -the winter. This kind of business has got to stop. Not only can we not afford to have buildings like the inside of a refrigerator during the hot summer weather, the fractice is downright unhealthy. It's a wonder the people coming out of such frigid buildings that day weren't dropping like ft ies hunted down by Raid. Somewhere along the line the message is not getting through It's sweaters in the winter, not the summer. Summer is for our bare skin and tans. Let our own air-cxmdltioning units—our Sweat glands, etc take care of the heat. Since We no longer have windows in our offices and places of business that can beqpened to let in the fresh air, we can't do away with air conditioning entirely—got to move that stale air around somehow—but we can sure cut back on our use of it. We need more people like Olive Moore. (The Listowel Banner). . - - SEPTEMBER 1880 A middle aged well-to-do farmer from near Blyth named Robert Hay, while trying to get on,a train missed his hold and fell one foot getting beneath the wheels. The foot was amputated. He died on Wednesday. One night last vveek some parties visited the homesteads of Rebert Beatty and Robert Scott of the 5th and 4th concessions respectively, in McKillop, and took with them a large quantity of baeon, butter, eggs, preserves and a good-snit/The above named gentlemen have a good suspicion of who the guilty parties are. 0 Harvest is pretty well over and some farmers are finished sowing fall wheat in August. W.G. Duff has been re-engaged for next . year as teacher in the Roxboro school McKillop at his former salary- of-$510-per— annum. SEPTEMBER 1,1905 The Goderich elevator 'whic as destroy- ed by fire a short time ago is t e rebuilt by the origional company. 20 tickets were sold in Blyth last Thursday for the first Manitoba excursion and all have good positions awaiting them. In theyears,-.0gcfroe Mrs. Joh e Grieve of MeKillop was the fortunate holder of the•ticket which drew the $5 prize at the summer carniyal last week. About 1:30 o'clock Saturday morning the fire alarm was sounded, and when sleepy citizens turned out and got their eyes rubbed open they discovered a .lurid light in the eastern part of town: It was soon learned that the cause was a fire in the large bard belonging to George Turnbull on the old Coleman farm. Contractor Gutteridge has a gang of men afw-orrat-the-abuttments-for the -new -bridge -- in Bayfield. Harvesting is now finished in this vicinity and as the farmers,glanee at their full barns bursting with grain, they can assure themselves that neither famine nor want will molest them during the coming winter. SEPTEMBER 5, 1930 Last Friday night while returning from Grand 14end, Elzar MouSseati, Zurich had the misfortune to run into a bunch of cattle which had strayed onto the road. One of the animals jumped up onto the auto which resulted that the front part of the car was badly damaged. We have heard a lot about large tomatoes and have seen a few but William Hartry, Seaforth, brought one into the Expositor office weighing 1 lb. 14 oz. It measured 171/2 inches in circumference and 31/2 inches deep. -The---school-Jaell_having_heen_silea for some eight weeks has gone on duty.again and its familiar ding dong remind us that the fall term has started. The farmers are all busily engaged at the beans, it being ideal weather for drying them. The campers from the different lake resorts are returning to their homes and businesses and other duties, will now be the order of the day. ' SEPTAMBER 9,1055 Flarne roaring through a saw mill owned by Alpx Mitchel], six miles north of Dublin, Logan twp, Tuesday, completely destroyed the large frame structure, which had been a land mark in thp area for years. Some 3,000 district residents enjoyed the carefully prepared baked beans that featur- ed the second annual bean festival originat- ed ahd sponsored by the Hensel! Kinsmen Preliminary registrations at ,Seaforth schools revealed a record attendance as classrooms opened on Tuesday. Mother's home cooked meals and a soft bed are a lot to be thankful for, Phillip Genuenharsit,_13 year old_son_of Mrs. Douglass Gemienhardt, Bayfield _ learned this during the past ° weekend when he became lost in the dense bushland of the Bluewater highway near Bayfield. Seaforth Fire Chief John F. Scott, was successful in winning a valuable wrist watch in a contest conducted in connection with the C.N.E. last week. Chips on the shoulders of Canadians There's a line in the play, The Life That Jack Built, that says it well. Commenting on the great painter Emily Carr, another painter says he pictures her getting up in the morning, having breakfast, putting a pile of chips of her shoulder and going out ato face -the world. Life isnever.soloatgb,, he says that you can't make it tougher. That image came to mind the other day when I read a letter to the editor in Today Magazine. The writer was one of several - who protested an article in the magazine on Lily Schreyer, Canada's first lady, which they considered "a hatchet job". While other correspondents from Winnipeg, - Toronto, Fredericton and Ottawa were content to simply blame -the writer from the ' article for the injustice, the letter writer from Victoria had to see it as anotner instance of the eastern ploy against western Canada. "No doubt eastern sophisticated readers will have enjoyed Charlotte Gray's slick hatchet job. but to me the story brought home one point: the gulf between eastern and western Canada Is too wade to bridge." (I like the subtle use of a capital on Western Canada while eastern Canada goes without.) It seems there are _a lot of Canadians hobbling aroung lopsided from the pile of chips on their shoulders these days. It's for sure Western Canadians don't face an Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston energy crisis for example because if they do run out of oil they caralways burn the wood piles on their shoulders to be kept warm for a year or two. , Now don't get me wrong. I do believe that people in the West do have grievances. From the days the first white skinned settlers moved west there have been injustices: injustices due to ignorance on the part of the easterners; injustices due to lack of communications; injustices because of easterners being too wrapped up in their own concerns to even look west; and - injustices because of the power of eastern businessmen who wanted to make as much money as they could whether selling or buying in the west. Yet through all the ' ' have-not" years the westerners were still known for their hospitality. Easterners visiting the prairies whether tourists or migrant farm workers came back talking about the warmth of the people. Now the have not years are over. Westerners with their wealth of resources will soon see the rest of ihe country dependent on them, not just for wheat and dl, but for the very business investment they have looked to Toronto and Montreal Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley for in the past. But instead of gractously accepting their new position of power, many westerners seem in want to carry ohn feeling hard used. There have been more bitter complaints, more demands for justice in the last two years than in thea-wo decades before. For many in the west it seems not good enough to have the power they so long resented the east having, but they must get revenge, rub the noses of all the easterners in it. Not that au uns -chip of the shoulder" stuff comes ftom the west. It apparently has infested the country. Everybody is being !lard used by everybody else. .Quebec, of course has been getting _mileages for the last twe decades from the injustices of the century before. On the other hand many Ontarians are so paranoid about the power of Quebec that every time soineone from Quebec is made a cabinet rainister they think it's another step to the "French" taking over Canada. Nova Scotians of course have been carrying large timbers on their shoulders for nearly a century now. Nova Scotia was in the position of Ontario about the time of Confederation. Fueled by the lumber industry, ship building, maritime trade and fishing, Nova Scotia was the old power, the old money in the new country. But the world was changing. Canada didn't have so much lumber to ship to Britain anymore and it wasn't going via the wooden sailing ships the Nova Scotians were so expert in building. The power and the wealth shifted west and some Neva Scotians still haven't been convinced that it would have happened whether they had been Confed- eration or not. And of course since Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949 somehow all the problems of poverty and lost job opportunities that had plagued the colony for a hundred years before became the fault of the• mainlanders. There is some truth in all the complaints. Injustices do exist in Canads. We here in Huron County have our grievances against the government in Toronto. The politicians there don't understand us. The big businesses here see us as a place to buy produce cheap and sell manufactured equipment expensive. But the point is that no one has ever gained much from carrying/a pile of chips m their shoulder. The people Who succeed In the world are those who circumvent the hardships to get on with the job. It would be nice to see Canadians stop feuding and get OQ with making this abetter country. Backyard bonanza at Smiley home NO ESSAY this week. No controlled. dear. coherent, concise evaluation of some piece of trivia. as is my wont. it's quite difficult to keep one's brains unscrambled in a summer like this. One day you are gasping around like a newly -caught fish. trying to extract enough oxygen from the humidity to remain alive. Next day you are pounded on the head • yes. hail - or you do down to the basement and there's a foot of water in it. First couple of tirries, I mopped it up. Now. we just stay out of the basement until the infoee swimming -pool has dried up, by evaporation. Once again. we have discussed at great length. what to do about the "patio." We call it that for want of a better word We have two French doors leading onto the patio. The patio is a pile of rocks. ranging from three pounds to two hundred pounds It has no known purpose that we've ever been able to discover. It has no geometric re any other kind of design. It looks like something a cross-eyed architect. well inte the grape. assembled one night with the ad of a bulldozer and a couple of bibulous, but mighty strong companions. in the belief that he was re-creating the Pantheon. in Rome And if you walk up the back path at night. with no lights on. one of the protruding rocks can taive a hell of a rip on the shin Scattered among he patio rocks are bricks and half -bricks. pulled from the wall of the house by a vine that is a herbivorous Incredible Hulk. By day. it is a thing of beauty. making the old house look like earnethina mat of a book of Georgian prints elf stately homes. It must be at night that it turns into a monster. snatching bricks with its octopus - like tentacle'and stuffing them into its voracious maw. except for those that dribble ow of the corner of its mouth onto the patio. And let's not speak of nights. Four 'mornings: in a row I went out for my post-prandial coffee and morning paper. Four mottlings in a row. I dashed back into the house. white-faced. shouting things like: "Call the cops. Get the fire brigade. The Vandals are here. and maybe the Goths. The Martians have landed. Gimme some brandy. Now my back lawn is not exactlypristine and perfect. a classic greensward. Let's say you couldn't bowl on it, unless you were using square bowling balls.- It has its little ups and downs. like the rest of us. Some almost of ski -hill potentiality. But it's mine, and I like it How would you like to go out and discover that a herd of elephants had been grazing on your back lawn. during the mail hours? There were divots there that Jack Nicklaus couldn't make with a nine iron. There were hales that looked as though they'd been made by Mighty Mole There was turf and grass and dung all over the place. It looked tike a used car lot from which all the cars had been lifted byi.a mighty magnet. Second time I saw it. I was cooler. Elephants make bigger droppings than that, and there's been no -news report of a band of rogue elephants 1 figured it was horses. But then 1 thought. horses eat grass. they don't kick hetes in it Third morning. I knew it was the dogs next door. a couple of beautiful Pinch- vourrnan Dobers or something. But they're perfectly trained and kept. in at night. Finally. I knew. It a. as a kid I'd failed last June, getting back at me in some twisted fashion. . I rapidly ran through the group, mentally. and came up „against a brick wail. They were all too lazy to do such a prodigious amount of damage. Next. we thought of coons. There are some around. But no self-respecting coon is going to be out there digging like a dingbat when all he has to do is whip the top off the To the editor: The vandals (SOB s) are hacking up 2 new tables that the Town has just placed in the /Zak 3,4 days ago What about an ad asking for information • re. those responsible for this datnage-reward offered. take care of the expense. a How about it? Dr. Chas. Toll garbage pail and regale himself,, on watermelon rinds and tag -ends of pizza. Fifth night. we left on the outside light and 1 sat up all night with a brick in one hand and a hockey stick in the other. Nothing happened except that i fell asleep about two a.m. and dropped the brick on my bare foot. Finally. as I should have done in the first place, I brought my neighbour, a man on eminent good sense and wide knowledge, over to view the vandalism. He looked at me pityingly, as he so often does. But he's not brutal. He fed me gently but accurately, as a seeing -eye dog does with a blind prson. "You've haTAyQur I wn sprinkler 007 Quite a biti" "Well. sure. My grandsons turned it on back in July. I turned the tap off, but not the main valve. its in the cellar. But there's been just a little trickle coming out of it for the last month." "Skunks,''he stated succinctly. "The water brought up those white grubsand the skunks went after them." I wanted to give him an argument but 1 couldn't find a thing to say. If it wouldn't be a rotten pun, I might admit I felt a bit sheepish. Sheep weft the only animals I hadn't thought of. Anyway, the water is turned off and the skunks are off to ravage some other plot. I karned something. an achievem these days. And 1 have one more mark on the lenghty tally my grandboys must answer to one day. Expositor asks: • What do you think of a block parent program? Seaforth is about\ to embark on a Block Parent Progarm with the co-operation of the Seaforth police department and the Seaforth Optimist Club. This week Expos- itor Asks decided to find out what local people thougt of the idea. "Well. I guess it would be a very good idea. I don't see why it wouldn't be." said Mamie Ross of M High St.. in Seaforth. Marjory Shera of 14 Chalk St.. Seaforth said: "I think it's a great idea for the safety of the children. If you have a sign in the window children know where they can come *hen they're in distress." "I think it would be very good," said Seaforth, rtClhara Pretty of 106-50 Market St., She said she has a daughter in London (where there is a Block Parent Program) and children do come to her daughter's house so she thinks it's a good Mea. Joyce Ribey of 85 Goderich St. W.. Seaforth said: "1 thio k it would be terrific. I have small children and I would like to know that there's that kind of program and I would like to be part of it." "I figure it's a pretty good idea, mainly for the children's sake," Staid Agnes Scartow of 15 Railway St„ in Seaforth. Not all children are close to home when they need help. It's some place to go." She agreed that although the Seaforth isn't a large population -area the block parents is a good idea, because the children have some place to turn. Don Pletsch of 17 Spading St., Seaforth said. "I think it's a good idea. I don't know if it's as necessary in Seaforth as it is in some of the larger cities, but ifs good for kids to have somplace to go if they do run into problems." Mrs. Ken Rodney of 10 Silvercreek Crescent said, "I think it's a great. I just don't know how it would apply to 'Seaforth." She said she didn't know if they would have the same problems here that they do in larger centres, but added that it was probably better to get started before those problems did happen. "I'm all in favour of it and I would .support it. I think it's a good idea if you start it before the problems arise. It goes back to the old community way of doing things," she said.