Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1983-02-02, Page 2Tiuron iOr Since 1860, Serving the Community first Incorporating BrUtis iIs PQtit (frunded,1872 12 Main St. 527-0240 Published at SEAFORTH, ONTARIO every Wednesday afternoon by Signal -Star Publishing Limited Jocelyn A. Shrler, Publisher Susan White, Editor H.W. (Herb) Turkhelm, Advertising Manager Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Community Newspaper Association and Audit Bureau of Circulation A member of the Ontario Press Council Subscription rates: Canada -St 7.75 a year (In advance) outside Canada S50. a year (In advance) Single Copies - 50 cents each SEAFORTH, 'ONTARIO, FEBRUARY 2, 1983 Second class mall registration number 0696 opfinfloot The poor country Like a lot of Canadians we watched in horror and fascination Friday night as one of the country's three major political parties tried hard to self-destruct. And did it in public, in front of TV cameras which beamed the whole thing nation wide as it happened. First there was Joe Clark's stirring speech and the loud support it seemed to generate from delegates at the Progressive Conservative convention. Hmmm, we thought, the man sounds like a leader. His call to Conservatives to stop fighting among themselves and get on with fighting the party in power, made sense to many Canadians. In fact, it's what Canadians who see our country's problem as lack of economic leadership, and lack of concern for unemployment and the ordinary Canadian would like to see the Conservative party do. We're convinced that few Canadian voters care two hoots about the ideological struggles inside the PC party or whether or not Joe Clark. Iooks like a wimp. They want a party and a leader which offer policies and alternatives to the current mess in Ottawa. For awhile on Friday night, and interviews with a delighted Flora MacDonald and a bitter leader of anti -Clark forces reinforced the feeling, it looked as if the PCs might pull it off. And go forward united and strong to the real business of fighting an election and forging policies Canadians could believe in and vote for. The polls Say they could have won, and we. agree. But that wasn't to be. The Canadian Conservatives aren't used to being 'in power. They definitely haven't adopted the Liberal knack of compromise, cort'ipromise at almost any price, that has kept that party in power. "Maybe deep down they don't want to govern. Maybe they're afraid, to govern," a Liberal who viewed the weekend fiasco opined. Could be, could be. At any rate, the federal PCs will now spend the next six months pulling some phantom leader out of the closet, instead of using the time to develop coherent policies to benefit Canada. And they might win too. That depends on how utterly disgusted Canadians get with the present government. But we think there's little doubt that they had more chance of forming the next government if they had united behind Joe Clark, the hard working leader they already had. Instead it's squabble time again. The Conservatives will be poorer for Friday night's decision. But the real problem is, so will the country.' -SW Healthy in Huron? Seaforth man is Ontario's fastest skater in 1883 FEBRUARY3,1883 This winter, Mr. Samuel Hopkins of Morris township has hauled over 200,000 feet of pine and hemlock logs to McDonald's mill at Walton, and is not near through yet. At a skating tournament in London, W.D. Dawson of Seaforth won the championship cup as the fastest skater. He won the five mile race by three quarters of a mite. He is now the champion skater of Ontario. A writ has been served upon town authorities in the Van Egmond case. Council decided to defend the suit. The case will be tried at the Spring Assizes. JANUARY 31;1908 A large barn in Harpurhey belonging to the Knox estate was destroyed by fire. Stored in the barn was a large quantity of wood and A lot of us think. that one of the most sensible ways to ensure healthy and relatively stress -free life is to mdve to the country. We've even gloated a bit, those of us who live in small towns and rural areas, and basked in a warm, self-satisfied glow when city friends envy our slow paced life and the healthy country air we breath. Well the gloating has stopped with the recent release of a comparison of death rates here in Huron County with rates in the province as a whole. Put simply, Huron is not a very good place to live if a ripe old, accident and disease free age is your goal. The statistics, as several Huron county counciliors remarked when MOH Harry Cieslar released them, are shocking. If y uu live in Huron County you have a significantly higher chance of dying -a-cancer or of heart disease than in the province as a whole. You're twice as likely to die of pneumonia or flu here. The most depressing statistics, and the ones that confirm the communi(y-wide concern about a rash of teenage deaths here during the summer of 1981, are those about accidental death. Huron's rate is double that of Ontario's, while more than twice as many people here die (per capita) in motor vehicle accidents as are killed in the entire province. Why? We aren't sure but we believe every thoughtful resident should be looking at their own lives perhaps for some answers. The MOH and county councillors had a few ideas. We smoke more than the provincial average here in Huron. We may drink more, and booze has a lot to do with motor vehicle accidents. The fact that more of our county's population is elderly than in the province as a whole may have something to do with the doubled flu and pneumonia death rates, though the MOH has doubtful about that. Farming is a hazardous occupation; perhaps that accounts for some of the accidental death boom. One thing is certain. The figures do not reflect a prosperous, healthy place, a place to raise your kids, secure in the knowledge that they're getting an excellent start in life. Instead they point to a county with a problem...especially because we have twice as many deaths in the preventable categories. Perhaps, as Dr. Cieslar convinced Huron County Council, a health educator here is the place to start. We hope plans include vis is to our schools, churches and clubs to help us take a hard look at our livi g habits and suggestions on getting healthier. A search for possible environmental causes that may be boosting cancer and heart disease rates here is also called for. Most of us want to live long and live healthy. We'd like to do so while remaining in Huron County. As things stand at present, that's a contradiction in terms. -SW The snowman s time He stands alone. looking forlorn. He knows his time in his snowy domain is running nut. Just twenty-four hours earlier he cut a handsome figure on the front lawn of 222 Maple Street. It seemed as though all the kids in the neighbourhood had worked on him. When they finished, they stood back and admired him. He could tell by their grins they were pleased. His figure was well rounded; his coat was sparkling white, and chunks of shiny black coal made four buttons in the front. Coal was hard to come by these days, but some enterprising youngster found enough. Someone raided their mother's sewing basket and came up with two huge blue buttons for his eyes. A wizened carrot made a perfectly good nose. and a piece of red plastic probably from some, broken tov made his mouth. He didn't have any cars. but it didn't matter. A little girl put a pair of bright green muffs where his ears should have been. h llw yvcao cvOw@ coal. The origin of the blaze is a mystery as there had been no fire about the place. This has been ,the coldest and stormiest week of the seaso. A lot of snow has fallen and county roads are in poor shape. Mr. W. Winter, employed with Kennedy Bros., butchers, dislocated his shoulder when a quarter of beef he was taking down fell on him. A dispatch from Galt says "A resident of Manitoba, Robert Habkirk, created excite- ment. He stands six feet, eight inches and weighs 280 pounds. His fbrmer home was near Brussels." FEBRUARY 3,1933 A great many farmers are taking advant- age of the mild weather to do some ploughing. Ploughing in the district consti- tutes a record. The mild weather has also resulted in no hockey being played due to lack of ice. The saws and belts which were stolen from the Canadian Furniture Factory in Seaforth were recovered in London. Two Woodstock men were arrested for the crime. Patients in Scott's Memorial Hospital were surprised to see a redheaded woodpecker in a tree near the hospital: Woodpecker's hi February unusual in Huron County. JANUARY 31.1958 A door in a large trailer van accidently opened, spilling about five ton of grain along Goderich Street in Seaforth. The truck, operated by Snyder Transport of Baden, was hauling grain from Goderich. Arrangements ate being made to re -open the Queen's Grill. Established in the former dining room of the Queen's Hotel, it opened over a year ago and closed after several weeks of operation. A proposed telephone rate increase for Seaforth telephone users will be delayed • pending bearings of appeal from• munieipali- ties. , - The perfect parent gets lots of advice Never in history has so much advice been available on how to be the perfect parent. So how can I be such a dud? There is nothing like taking your holidays when the kids are on vacation from school, in the middle of winter, when the kids can't get outside and you can't take some inexpensive vacation like a camping trip to Point Farms, to make you realize what a total failure you are as a parent, 1 mean instead of the peace on - earth, goodwill towards men during the holiday season, our house was like a cross between a Middle East war zone and a psycho ward. 1 was once going to be a perfect parent. It all seemed so easy back then. it was like the word was handed down from on high on stone tablets. The psychology prof back in university days made it all so simple. Why hadn't my parent's thought of all those things. Of course they didn't have the experience of a higher education .and they didn't seem to appreciate either when i went home on weekends and tried to tell them all they'd done wrong in my upbringing according to the latest fashionable psychological theories. Of course the only time 1 was really a perfect parent was before our first child was born, well maybe for the first few months too before the un -cooperative little monster .etarte.j.messing up all the perfect plans. By the time the child was two, 1 capitulated and went back to my parents plan: lust try to get through the 'day without losing your sanity or b}y KcAth 6°30AgitisMw doing grievous bodily harm to your little darling. Once you become an imperfect parent you wince when you get a visit from a perfect parent. These usually are old friends or relatives who don't have children yet. Often these are career -oriented friends who don't plan to have children at all but they know that if they did, they would certainly not have little monsters like yours. Worse still are the couples who glowingly have just announced they are expecting their first born. They have, of course, already read half the books on child-rearing available thrdugh the local public library, they've been toklasses and they have the perfect path to perfect adulthood all mapped out for their precious child. They look knowingly when they see your , child upset a flower pot into the acquarium and say that his is the third rebellion phase as spoken by Dr. Sylvia Vernspaaker in chapter seven of her book "blow to Raise the Perfect Citizen Who May Become Prime Minister After He's Earned His First Billion." They then look aghast when you grab the kid by the. scruff of the neck and lock him in the closet. Dr. Verspaaker would be appalled. The one comforting tnittg about couples like this is you know they'll get theirs a couple of years down the road. Most sickening are those people who have children and still are the perfect parents. You know the kind: their kids were all toilet trained (without a trauma that will stay with them the rest of their lives) by the time they were 14 months. The children were reading War and Peace by the time they started kindergarten and has mastered the theory of relativity by grade two. If things continue to go as planned they will enter university at 12 and be called to the bar by the time they're old enough to go into one. These parents, of course, have one daughter and one son, spaced exactly two years apart because they read in a book somewhere that this is the best spacing for proper bonding without creating too much competition. And they have never so much as slapped their childrens' fingers. 1 guess that's the final one that proves what an unfit parent 1 am. 1 mean i've listened to those people who think you should be arrested if you ever, ever, ever, physically punish a child. You're as bad as a child -beater if you do. Worse, you're showing your lack of intelligence. An adult should be 1 able to outsmart a child to`do what is required without resorting to violence. I think the people who say that are chi{dless psychology professors who should be penalized by having a flock of kids to raise themselves. I'm not completely stupid. i have outsmart- ed one of my kids once or twice. If I had one child and had nothing else to dd but putting all my concentration on trying to o tsmart her I might even come a little closer to erfection. But I've got four kids and also have Work to do and I'm sorry, but I can't juggle it all and be the perfect parent. 1 find it hard enough to keep track of what phase of development each is going through (if you've got four kids at any given time at (east two of them will be in a difficult or rebellious stage). And when you're expected to be. the arbiter of continuous squabbles between four children, you need the wisdom of Soloman to even try to be consistent in your judgements. My only hope is that modern technology may come to the rescue. Perhaps those home computers they're telling us about will change our lives and do something for us. At least it could- help me keep track of which child is in "terrible twos" and which is having an early teenage hormone change. it might do more in designing a program on how to outsmart your seven-year-old. Say, sounds like there might be commer- cial potential there. Outsmarting your seven-year-old has to be far more -challenging than beating off an alien attack. It could become the latest video game craze. Cheer up, at least you're alive , millions aren't Cheer up! You're alive, aren't you? As we sail dauntlessly (or creep carefully) into 1983, being alive is the name of the game. Millions and millions arena you know. Think of your dead friends and even more deeply, of your dead enemies. This should cheer you up. Your dead friends, relatives, former mistresses. bosom companions who are planted are flitting` about in Elysium, pinching the bottoms of succuli and incubi, is running out Oddo [endo b}7 C U© ®4owinewowd A brown fedora was cocked jauntily on his head, and a red woollen scarf was wound round his neck. Someone stuck a corn cob pipe in his mouth and a broom handle in the ground beside him. The broom handle looked like a fine walking cane. He stood straight and proud in the shadow of the house all afternoon. One by one the kids wandered off. but he could still feel the admiring glances of people as they drove by. During The night. the street light illumi- nated him. He thought of it as his spot lights. The frosty night froze him solid. and for awhile, he had hopes of lasting a long time. The morning sky was cloudy, but he could J 2ggao and 2poco feel the temperature slowly rising. Icicles began dripping from the eaves of the house. Snow began slipping away. He could see muddy patches on the lawn. and he could feel himself slipping, too. The kids seemed to sense the inevitable as they walked past him on their way back to school after lunch. The afternoon went quickly. His walking stick fell over, and there was no one to pick it up for him. One of his buttons dropped off, and his pipe hung at a dangerous angle. His coat began to look gray. His fedora sagged to the back of his head. On her way home from school, a little girl tried to replace the hat, but it wouldn't stay. He felt half his original size, and he sensed that he was leaning dangerously to the right. A cold night would give him a reprieve but he knew it would only be temporary. His brief fling would soon be over, and he would become just another casualty of the mild winter. by BE m fl yj and slugging down the ambrosia. Your .enemies, rot them, are shovelling coal as fast as they can. And serves them right. Imagine the chagrin of a wife -beater when his assistant. a mere embezzler, 1coesn't get up there with his wheel-barro of oal, and Old Nick nods, and Beelzebub gives the wife -beater six licks on his burning bum. So that's all settled. Here you are alive and well except for your arthritis, acne. heart murmurs and knotted bowels, and you're afraid to face another year. Best way to face another year is calmly, secure in the knowledge that it won't be good, but couldn't be worse than last year. Maybe a nuclear war will start, but you still have to put out the garbage. Maybe you've lost your job, and there is no garbage, because you've eaten every can, bottle and carton. Maybe you'll lose a loved lone, and think your grief is as deep as the ocean, but then catch yourself picking your nose or smelling your armpits. Whatever 'the new year brings, we can be certain about a few things: more taxes; parents/kids who don't understand you; an increase in the cost of living; emanations of hot air and no light from Ottawa; teeth growing browner; hair growing scantier, and, as always, constipation, whether physical or mental or emotional. But that's just living. It happened to the Greeks, the Romans, and the British. The only ones left who are constipated in all three areas are the Brits, but that isn't their fault. They're just more modern. Despite your problems, you are a survivor. If you aren't, you shouldn't be reading this. Asa survivor, you still have flesh and spirit together in the one vessel. And that's the name of the game. when you are tackling a new year. Don't be fearful. Be cheerful. Above all, don't feel guilty. if you're an old -age pensioner, with a private income of eighty thousand.a year, don't let your hand tremble when you cash your old -age pension. Sign your cheque with flourish. If you're a student, don't feel guilty if you got straight "Fs" on your Christmas report. It's probably because you come from a broken home, or because your teacahers have a built-in antipathy toward free spirits. Just think positively. "F" stands for fantastic. If you're a wife, don't feel depressed because your husband prefers to spend all his evenings, 'alone, at the Legion Hall. Think positively. He's probably destroying his liver, and you'll soon be on your own, to look for a man with a little fire and less smoke. if you're an aged. don't be down because nobody Fomes to visit you. Call in your lawyer, make a new will. and cut everyone of them out, down to the last third -cousin. Leave it all to Billy Grabbem or Rex Humbug. Either will waft you up there on wings of pure plastic. If you're too fat, don't, sweat. Of if you sweat, don't fast. Just sail in the chocolate cake and ice-cream, flip a buttock in the divil's face and go to your grace a happy glutton. if life prevents you with a serious problem, which you can't possibly face, dont face it. Run away. Take a trip. it'll be all blown over when you get back. if you find yourself so upset about the world, the state of the country, or the latest idiocy of the town council, and you start biting your nails, no sweat. Start biting your toe -nails, instead. This will take your mind off your troubles, increase your agility, and give you another taste in your mouth, aside from' the bitter one. if you are so depressed that there seems only one way out — suicide — do it properly. Don't throw yourself under the wheels of a train, or off a bridge, or cut your wrist, or shoot a hole in your head. Throw yourself under a live body, or jump off a two -foot bridge, or just nick your wrists, or put a hole in your big toe. You'll get far more attention than if you did it neatly. People like botched jobs. That's why they hire plumbers and painters. There. Feeling better? This little treatise is not the only way to get through '83,— you could win a lottery—but it should help. Just remember, a human being is neither flesh nor spirit. It is both. Just keep body and soul together for another year, and you can laugh at life. And death.