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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1983-04-20, Page 2Duron ,�:; fxposifior Since 1880, Serving the Community first Incorporating zBrussels Post founded 1872 12, Main St. 527-0240 Published at SEAFORTH, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning Susan White, Managing Editor C.O. "Doug" Worrell, Advertising Manager Jocelyn A. Shrier, Publisher Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Community Newspaper Association and Audit Bureau of Circulation A member of the Ontario Press Council Subscription rates: Canada 517.75 a year (in advance) outside Canada S50. a year (In advance) Single Copies - 50 cents each OpilotOoet SEAFORTH, ONTARIO, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 1983 Spcond class mail registration number 0696 We're getting older 4 The headline says it all, albeit In sensational fashion. A recent front page story in the Toronto Globe and Mail announces "Ontario villages become homes for aged". That conclusion comes from a study a University of Toronto behavioral science professor did in one Southern Ontario township. It wasn't in our area, but we who llve in Huron and Perth, another rural area, know from first hand experience that some of the study's conclusions are correct. In one village 20 per cent of the population is over 65. That's also true In Seaforth, The study documents the problems faced by the rural elderly in areas, like this one, where public transportation is irregular or non-existent and where social services are centralized. There's a need for a network to get the elderly to services where they exist...physiotherapy and occupational therapy for example. We're lucky that many services such ,as these, and meals on wheels exist here, while they don't in the Northumberland County township which was studied. The study found that elderly widows often have the toughest time. They outlive their husbands and then find themselves alone on a farm or in a small village, a long way from the help they need. Rural churches, the researcher says, are the only social organization that could provide a support network for the elderly, but the churches themselves have a shortage of young members. "In our small towns, we have the old looking after the old," Professor Elizabeth Cape is quoted as saying: Other rural organizations, like municipal councils and service clubs, the study says, ten�to be all-male and orientedttoward practical problems and agricultural con erns rather than more abstract social difficulties like loneliness and chronic health needs. These concerns aren't new. Studies in Huron County, for example by the University of Guelph's Rural Development Outreach Project, have documented similar problems here. And local people have taken action to solve them, like Seaforth's long running and successful Meals on Wheels program, the day care centre for the homebound at Huronview, the Town and Country Homemakers and the new pilot project for Meals on Wheels in Brussels. But, as the Globe story points out, the problems faced by the elderly in Ontario's small towns and rural areas are a mirocosm of what is happening to the entire population. Canadians are getting older; there are fewer young people and by 2030, 20 per cent of the whole country will be aged 65'and up. Old age is as inevitable as death and taxes. Planning for the special' needs of the elderly needs the attention of all of us personally, of our councils, our clubs and our business associations now. Urgently, it would seem, in rural Ontario. -S.W. The junk drawer, or room ©ddb un Endo by Eldn4 4o rwzbQwd Every house should have one, and probably does. In some homes. it's one or two drawers! in others, it's a cupboard. In some places. it s a closet. while in many it's a whole room. It's an area in which treasures - or junk. depending upon how youOlook at it - can be stored. The drawer is easy to spot. It's the one in the kitchen with the string hanging out of the corner. Often it's difficult toopen because the hammer handle is wedged at the top. The drawer contains nuts and bolts and screws and hubby's favourite screwdriver. which he can never find. There are rolls of foil and scraps of paper. one kitchen spoon bent out of shape and a knife with a broken handle as well as a doorstop and a glass coaster without a mate. There are tiny shiny metal things and flat round rubber things. Nobody knows what they're for. but they can't be thrown away because they might be important. Cleaning the drawer makes an interesting chore for a rainy afternoon. Contents are dumped onto a newspaper which is spread out on the countertop. Then, items are sorted into piles labelled: Necessity; Unnecessary But Having Potential For Future Use: Purpose Unknown But Looks Come fly with us Interesting; and Probably Useless. Inevitably the countertop is needed before the job is finished, and the quickest way to clear the mess is to throw everything back into the drawer. The storage cupboard is usually the highest one in the kitchen, located above the stove. frig or broom closet. It's the space in which seldom used dishes are crammed. Ir can be a source of embarrassment, if a hostess forgets to retrieve Aunt Martha's gravy boat until two minutes before dinner. While guests watch apprehensively; the hostess climbs atop a stool. jerks open the door and deftly catches a glass that comes tumbling out. Stretching on tiptoes, she feels to the back of the top shelf, which is, of course, where Aunt Martha's gravy boat has been pushed. Clasping the dish gingerly by its handle, she climbs down and hurriedly moves to the sink to "rinse off the dust". Behind the sheepish smile, ,rte's vowing to clean that cupboard tornorebiw. Cleaning the cupboard requires a whole day of washing dishes, scrubbing shelves, replacing shelf paper and rearranging dishes. A final touch might be to stick a sign on the outside of the door: U.F.O. - Unidcntified Falling Objects. Besides a "junk" drawer or cupboard. most houses have a crowded closet or storeroom. but investigating them will just have to wait for another day or week or month. Hired man steals suit in 1883 Ow y@wo agofi* APRIL20, 1883 On arising from a comfortable snooze on Wednesday morning last. John Scott of Hibbert township was surprised to find that his hired man had during the night taken "French leave" accompanied by Mr. Scott's best suit and upon further examination it was found other clothing had apparently gone to look after the missing ones. H. Elder of Blyth, for many years a partner in the firm of Anderson and Elder has accepted a position as bookkeeper of a targe lumbering company in Wisconsin, United States. A game of football for the championship of the Province will be played on the fairgrounds here on Saturday May 26. between the Galt Collegiate Institute Club and the Seaforth High School Club. No fee will be charged for this match and it is hoped a large number will make it convenient to be present. APRiL 24, 1908 A regular mail service has been establish- ed on the Guelph-Goderich branch of the C.P.R. The new service commenced on Monday last and is directly through from Toronto to Goderich. There are two mail trains daily each way. APRiL 21, 1933 Town workmen have been busy the past week digging up sewers on West and Goderich Streets in an effort to alleviate the watery conditions of the roads. The work is under the direction of Chief of Police James V. Ryan. Response to the appeal of the Seaforth Collegiate Alumni Association for funds with which to establish a memorial scholarship have to date been very good. One-third of the amount needed has been subscribed. In connection with the scholarship fund the association is presenting a three act comedy - drama "Climbing Roses" in Cardno's Hall on May 4 and 5. the proceeds of which it is hoped will cover incidental expenses of the fund. The play is being directed by Miss Mabel Turnbull. The cast includes Mary Barber, Helen Lane, Margaret Crich, Reg Grieve, Doreen Hudson, Margaret Cardno, Alice Daly and John Crich, M. Savauge, Wm. Hart, John Frost and Hugh Oke. APRiL 25, 1958 The large accommodation in the Oke block has been decorated and additional tables installed. Business has increased to such an extent that it was found necessary to enlarge facilities. Proprietor was Jack Webb. The barn of Fred Glanville, RR2 Walton was completely destroyed on Monday after- noon. When the fire was discovered by Mrs. Ed Regele at 2:30 the barn was completely in flames. Spray equipment from a nearby farm was brought to put out the fire which had spread to the house. The Seaforth rural fire department was called. but by then the barn was beyond saving. They then took over from the spray outfit and guarded the house against further fire until the flames subsided. Mr. Glanville reported his loss at S14,000, which included a small quantity of hay, grain and straw and some smaller farm equipment, and a swather and wagon owned by Ralph McNichol. Photos by Wassink The days of our lives in 10 years of photos It's like seeing 10 years of your life flash...er, stagger...before your eyes. It's a funny time, a sad time, ultimately a tedious time. What am 1 up to? Putting 10 plus years of SOfnli cAhiing 4O gay family photographs into albums that's what. by Swan V/h611@ It's taking up huge chunks of my time and I accumulates beside my chair. Just why did attempt to remember if cousin Liz's wedding, we think it neeessar,y, ot,the time .to take a was in 1970 or 1973, and then run tb reminisce,k7 icture of the contents of tiieotie'fplate; at with whoever is in the house about aspecially memorable vacation or a really big snow storm. There are hoots of laughter at the sight 'of a pregnant lady six years ago and shots of an, as usual, hilarious family reunion. Photos of a neighbour's wedding bring tears... there's her dad, giving the sort of funny, low-key speech he excelled at....and he died last week. At the same time I'm reading a book of essays about photography that 1 got from a friend for Christmas. It says we assume photos are reality, accurate pictures of events now past. It adds that they aren't of course; photos are filtered through the eyes of whomever snapped the shutter and then again of the viewer. Photos can lie, just like words can, and at best they're a capsule view, a quick impression of what we were doing and approximately how we were feeling when we were captured on film. WASTE They are also damned exPensive. and 1 marvel at the waste as a pile ofcullsand rejcts istmas dinner'on8'°yeat?-Orhatf a roll of clouds from some plane on a long ago flight? And of course every single expression that appeared on the face of the baby eventually born to that pregnant lady is on film for posterity. (I must admit those are the hardest to throw out. There are as many photos of that kid as of all the years before her combined. 1 need an editor.) For simplicity's sake 1 guess, the better half and i decided the photo albums (1'm talking 10 volumes here) would be organized on a chronological basis. That's exhausting and frustrating as an envelope of winter, 1976 photos appears by magic at the bottom of the 1979 pile. Do you pretend winter 1976 did not exist, or do you stick the photos in out of sequence and hope you'll remember why the house looked less finished than it did a couple of pages ago? BY THEMES Now that the job is half done, I've come to the conclusion that year by year is the wrong way to go. instead our photos could have been organized by themes, and i'll do that some day, say if I am bed. ridden ,for a year. The themes spring readily to tattier Coo, 'after several nights and a weekend's 'familiarity with' our photo collection. A big album could be labelled bugs. They fascinate my husband, always have, and we have full colour glossy photos of just about every bug extant in Huron, Perth, and everywhere we've ever gone on vacation. That's another theme album, holidays, and it probably says something about the human condition that those vacation photos are the ones i like the very best. Happy, carefree, away -from -it -all times come flooding back when I pick up an envelope labelled Cape Cod, the cruise. Maine, Vermont, Nova Scotia or even the beach at Lake Huron. THE KID As 1 mentioned above, photos of our daughter would fill several albums and the themes could be subdivided, as in newborn, first step, birthdays, Christmases, and off to school, older brother, the 'dog, could easily fill onh,ialbum too. We have a photo of him lounging on every piece of furniture in the house, lumping for the frisbee, playing catcher on the Beavers' ball team (now you know why we lost) and running for the puck that the better half shoots off the back deck. As for most of•you who take photos, family is a recurring theme in our collection. Lots of weddings and reunions, and meals, always nieals...somebody .carving, somebody pass- ing thc,salt.'everybody generally mugging for the camera. •' THE HOUSE Because we converted an old house that even the racoons had abandoned into a reasonably presentable and liveable house. The House, comes a close second to The Kid in our themes. And the house photos....work bees, wall movings, before and after shots of every room in the place...speak volumes about the blood, sweat and tears (much of it forced labour by family, neighbours and friends) that went into the conversion. By rights if we ever sell the place that particular album should go with the house. Realistically 1 know we'd hate to part with it. As I said. this monumental organizing project is half done. And as much as 1 moan and complain. there'sa part of me that's eager to get dinner over with and plunge back into the photo pile. It's Days ofOur Lives time at our house and I'm glad really that those photos exist, hey prove we did it, lived it. saw it and njoye it all. And survived to tell the tale. The Tory turn to the right is a mistake One of the reasons the Progressive Conservative party has been on the outs in Canadian federal politics for so long is That they always seem to be able to pick the wrong leader at the wrong time. Could they be doing it again? A look at the list of candidates for the P.C. leadership shows that the party certainly seems to be jumping on the right wing bandwagon. The Conservatives have looked across the ocean to Britain and seen the success of Margaret Thatcher, they've looked south and saw the landslide win of Ronald Reagan and they've decided, ap- paiently, that it's time for a move to the right to catch the interest of the Canadian public. Kc:�Bdil G°3ouDg40w Less government, more foreign invest- ment, the return of the death penalty, all these have become issues in the leadership campaign. The thing is, is this really what the public wants, and even if it is now, will it be by the time another election rolls around. Now 1 know that the fashions of California usually take a couple of years to seep north to Canada but by the time an election comes in Canada it will be nearly four years since Ronald Reagan rode the right wing mood to power. Already, in a little more than two years, the bloom seems to be off the rose of right wing thought. Mr. Reagan is deeper in the polls than any president has ever been at the same time of his first term. Across the pond, it took a war over the Falklands Island to win Mrs. Thatcher popularity again. that and an opposition party that's in a total shambles. Even with the Bees bumble, sure, but not the same sagarf and epode by IOD ggmBD*}y Humans, though not as tenacious and purposeful as the ant, nor as busy as the bee, have. much in common with them, Ants, of course, can't swim. Or they can. but they can't hold their noses when they go under, so they drown. Who'd want to be an ant? Bees, on the other hand, can fly, and we can't. But they are unable to jump, even to a conclusion, and we can, so that evens out. We don't have the single-mindedness of ants. They know where they are going. or what they are doing. We don't. We go wandering about and get squashed. They do too, of course, but at least they were headed somewhere. Bees bumble, but never on the scale that we do. They zero in on a flower. We stagger into a cactus. They go. "Br000m, vr000m!" We flood our motors and go, "Ka-whuck, ka-whunck, ka-a-9glunk!" There are other similarities and differences none of which prove that humans are superior. Ants don't have sexual hang-ups. They know that they are workers, or soldiers or whatever. Humans don't, half the time, know whether they are punched, bored, or kicked in with a frozen boot. Bees also know who and where they are. Like us, they have a Queen, but theirs doesn't have to consult the Labour Party before deciding what to do about unemployment. She wipes out the workers. That automatic- ally creates new jobs. Imagine a world in which bees had unemployment insurance. You'd not only have a bee in your bonnet. but a bee in your bum, your brain and your bra. Unlike us, ants don't worry about their ants. We have poor aunts who must be kept under cover, rich aunts who must be toadied to. and crazy aunts who threaten to come and stay with us. Bees don't bother much about other bees. They just buzz about, sucking honey. What a life. They have no rotten kids. frigid wives, drunken husbands, goofy grandchildren, aged parents. So far, it looks as though we've got the short end of the stick, and the ants and the bees are in clover. But there's one thing that drags them down to our level. We all live in cells. You didn't know this? You say humans have free will? You think we can call the shots, be masters of our own destiny, choose between good and evil, live as long as we like, go to heaven or hell, decide what to have for dinner? Nonsense. You are sitting in a cell as you read this. 1 am sitting in a cell as i write it. Maybe your cell has a refrigerator and an electric stove, and mine has an ashtray and a filing cabinet. But they are cells. At night. we move from the TV cell to the cell with the platform where we. for no reason, expect to go to sleep. We wake up in the same cell. after nightmares about being in a cell, and proceed to a smaller cell where we peer at ourselves. shake our heads gloomily and remove various normal blessings. Can you imagine a bee shaving his God-given whiskers? Then we romp down through a vertical cell with no windows to another cell with orange juice and coffee. Ants and bees get spilled sugar and honey. No coffee. no tea, no caffein problems. Next:`Lve leave this cell for a mobile one. with FM radio, window wipers and automatic knees. legs, windows. Meanwhile, the ants and the bees go about their business, getting exercise, fresh air and a keen curiosity about what's going to happen today. We know nothing new is going to happen today. We go to a big cell, where ladies type in a little cell within a bigger cell. We pick up our little cellular pieces from the ladies and go off t9,our individual cells, where we spend the entire day convincing other people that they should be happy to even have a cell. Sometimes we are happy. We go to a big Labour party in a mess, if an election had been held the day before the Falklands was invaded, Mrs. Thatcher ,would likely have been moving out of No. 10 Downing St. about the time the Argentinians moved into Port Stanley. Mr. Reagan too has tried to build his popularity by playing up the threat of the Soviets, realizing that nothing builds unity rm..: than the fear of the unknown outsids enemy. But who will a Conservative leader send us to war against to build support for the right wing policies? The fact remains that while Canadians may talk -a good game about smaller government, etc., they haven't really shown they want it. Joe Clark found Please turn to page 3 way we do cell and browse around, humming and snuffling things and touching the untouch- ables. But it ends all too soon. We are brought to a tiny cell, where a young woman punches out some tentacles that drag us back to the big cell, where the Queen Bee informs us that we have no taste, no common sense While this tirade it taking place. what are the ant and the bee doing? Biting, stinging? No, thcy are anting around and beeing around. with no sense whatever that they are the lowest of the low, dumb slobs. cretins. The words don't mean anything to them. Some day, humans will rise to the level of the ant and the bee. They will accept their cells. instead of trying to kick the sides out of them. They will do what they are supposed to do, without a lot of ifs, ants and bees. Some day, humans will stop gossiping about each other. Ants don't. Some day humans will stop stinging each other. Bees don't, except when you bug them. Someday humans will stop asking, "Why?" The word is not in the vocabulary of ants and bees. But humans must have a care. If they don't. the theme song of the Twenty -First Century might well be, "My cell is your cell. Your cell is my cell. And our cell is our On the other hand, perhaps we are not lost in the cells. Ants can multiply. but they can't divide. Bees can buzz, but they can't beam. Maybe there's a future for us, if we can just get out of those cells.