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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1983-07-06, Page 2Iie • - lith #86O Serving She,.omtt►uhl fy;IITSt lncorporatlnp B1711s'eI9 'Ml)ST foun ded 1672' 12 Maln St. 527-0240 Published at SEAFORTH, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning goon White, Managing Bilker Jocelyn/A. Shrier, pUbliaher Member Canadian G mmunity Newspaper, Association, Ontario Gtommunity Newspaper Association. and Audit Bureau of Cfrculatjpn A member of the Qntario Press Council Subscription rates: Canada S17.75 a year (in advance) outside Canada $50. a year (In advance) Single Copies - 50 cents each SEAFORTH, ONTARIO, WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1983 Second class mall registration number 0498 Letters welcome, here are ground rules Study after study of newspapers has shown that letters to' the editor are among the most, if not the most, widely read sections in the paper. Perhaps that's because that section is reserved for members of the public to have their say...to be critical or grouchy if that's called for, to share information with other readers or to be generous with compliments and praise. Letters aren't written by newspaper staff; they are written by you and readers like you. Some experts think that what appears in the letters to the editor columns is a pretty good indication of what the public feels strongly about. A sort of barometer of public opinion. People, especially those,in a small town, are reluctant to go public with an opinion, unless it's something they are certain needs to be said. The Expositor's policy on letters to the editor is fairly simple it's the same one we've followed for years. We welcome letters to the a itor on all subjects of community concern. We'll print them, subject to editing for length, good taste and of course libel law. And while we'd prefer that you sign your own name to letters to the editor you write (and naturally, signed letters have more credibility with readers) you can use a pen name for publication if you insist on that. However, the editor has to k,low your identity and will reveal that identity to any reader W119:Atnterested enough in the issue to call and ask. That's a small point but a vital one. If a letter names names or in some way is critical of people or institutions in the area, the writer must be accountable for her or his comments. A letter signed with a pen name has nowhere near the influence of a signed letter. And that's easy to understand. If you've ever received an unsigned letter, probably you tossed it in the waste basket. If you care enough about something to write a letter to the editor, why not make your comments more credible by signing them? -S.W. 130 •111@ (AIWA? Spectator critical of game and umpires Tuesday evening was 'Play Ball ' night in Seaforth. What could have been a real interesting and good game turned out to be a bad scene. It takes players (9) to field a team and usuall, f:j, '1 ^ nnn sly number of fans to make a game. All this was in place and the game was progressing quite well with the score .1 close .ell ,,, uu play had a player from Clinton use some uncomplimentary remarks and he was tossed out of the game. i believe this is right, as the umpires need to keep control of the game. Soon after there were a number of calls on the bases that were, to my Opinion hasty and possibly not too fair.On the last call of the game on first base the Clinton player again questioned the umpire's call and was perturbed to the point of using bad language and immediately thrown out of the game. This left Clinton with not enough players to field a team, of course Seaforth won the game. My feeling is while umpires' jobs seem to be thankless one should not act as though there is not time enough to 'complete the game in a proper manner. I realize that because these young players are at the age where they are very aggresive and easily irritated the umpires have a big and responsible job. I doubt if the base ump did his job as well as 1 am sure he is capable of. Ken Keller Goderich Blinding rumors -un founded 1 had a patient in the office yesterday expressing fears re the enclosed and could not convince her otherwise. Perhaps third party reassurance will relieve these fears. 1 hope this may be of interest to your concerned public. Yours truly J.E. Longstaff There is no truth to reports that electrical arcs and sparks can seriously damage the eyes of contact lens wearers, says the Ontario Association of Optometrists. Rumours based on two false reports of workers supposedly blinded as a result of electrical mishaps have been circulating throughout the country and have needlessly alarmed many workers, safety directors, and school shop teachers, said Dr. Joseph Mittelman, President of the Ontario Associa- tion of Optometrists. Safety directors at the two companies involved, Duquesne Electric and United Parcel Service, both in Pittsburgh. Pa., have denied that such incidents or injuries ever occurred to any of their employees. The false safety alert, whose source has not been determined, describes two workers who supposedly had contact lenses adhere to their corneas as a result of exposure to electrical sparks and arcs. in the first alleged instance. the worker threw an electrical switch into a closed position. producing a short-lived sparking In the second case. the worker supposedly flipped open nis wetutng sow. w u-ttt, position the welding rod, and while doing so. lnsdvertantly struck the metal to be welded. producing an are. According to the taise report, the spark and arc generated microwaves that instantly dried up the fluid between the eye and the lens, causing the cornea to be bonded to the lens. The alert said the workers felt no pain • and did not know the injury occurred until they tried to remove the lenses later. Dr. Mittleman said the heat from a Hcldwg arc ur electrical spark is not neat,} intense enough to dry up the eye's tear fluid. Nor could a contact lens concentrate rays to intensify the heat. "Any high school physics book will show that lenses in the ophthalmic power range, which- contact lenses are, could never concentrate rays so close to the surface, especially since most contact lens wearers are nearsighted and wear concave lenses which disperse rather than concentrate light or heat waves," he said. Although this type of injury is physically impossible, Dr. Mittelman said welding does not pose other dangers to the eyes: "A welder who is not wearing tinted welder's goggles when he strikes the arc will probably develop a condition called photo- keratitis from exposure to the untraviolet radiation in the arc. Photokeratitis is usually a temporary condition involving eye redness, sensitivity to light, a sensation of a foreign body in the eyes, and excessive tears. It rarely causes permanent damage, but can be very painful for six to twenty-four hours", Dr. Mittelman said. Another danger he noted is that hot welding sparks can burn unprotected eyes as well as the skin. He cautioned the "welders or anyone who may be exposed to a welding flash or arc should wear appropriate goggles over their contact lenses. The eye protection required by the Occupational Safety and Health Act. for welding, brazing and soldering, is the same with or withour contacts". This protection however, is needed to ,peevent injury from ultraviolet light and hot flying sparks. There is no danger that the welding arc will bond ■ contact lens to the eye, Dr. Mittelman said, Qpilngon own • Enjoyl,np.A cool treat on a hot day la Krlata Graidanus, left;Katen carrell, centre; Gerd CO'Dwyer, top right; and 10tt011,photo, Darlane Calhoun, !,,ftand.AngoleAeld, ,_.; (Phojosby aarinkj: Time is no barrier to A visit with old friends sets you straight. Old friends accept you, warts and all. Old friends know what shaped you. and, they make allowances. They've shared triumphs with you; they've shared. fears too. • , And, if you're really lucky, after a short time with old friends, there's an ease;, a sense of belonging, although you haven't seen each other for years. It's 18 years since we were together at college. Small town girls, away from home intoxicated with the big city, with what we were learning and who we were meeting. Oh, we've seen each other once in awhile since. For a few minutes. We send Christmas cards too so we have a rough idea about how each of us has spent the last 18 years. But last week was the first time we'd made a conscious effort to get together, in a city that wasn't too far for any of us, and talk. It took a couple of months and several letters and phone calls to arrange. But, miraculously, we all turned up at the same restaurant and at approximately the same time. friendship ScNil@�'1nirteac)gay by Sul©eil Whitt@ 9t' A*r1 GE'OF7f'WO:,, The. ,five of us are probably as good a sample, as any of what's become of women who grew up in small towns in the sixties. We all have kids...an average of two each. e all working now outside the home. two of u part-time. We've had one divorce and one separation. Two of us live in cities, the other three in the country or small towns, Photos of kids winged their way around the table. The mother of one who's soon leaving home for college compared notes with one who has a pre-schooler. One learned, the other remembered. Talk of husbands also entered the picture, although not as much as they all like to think. (See you Monday morning?, joked one husband as his wife left, for the Friday lunch reunion.) Some of the talk was about parents, and about how, whether we live close to them or not, it's time for us to take some responsibil, sty for them. e tables are turning, the balance of powe shifting, and we look to ourselves,not our arents, when we're in need. That's a contras from liege days. Our rents proba thought it would never en. 'worked hard, all of them. Because they're of an age that values work above all else, we're proud that they're also allowing themselves to enjoy life a little now. SUPPORT There was talk about people we knew and where are they now? About our jobs and how .we got into the, for some of us, work that's totally unrelated 'to what we studied back then. We shared career strategies, self-im- ' provemert tips. "You can do it," was heard often in support of each other's bright ideas.. There was some talk about heartbreaks too arida feel ingahat these women you:hevef 1, gee,, :Widerstand_ and - care about ,what happens to each other. 'We didn't agree all the time, we've chosen very different lives but we all hugged when we left. We talked about real things throughout lunch and for most of the afternoon. That's a rare enough experience for anyone. Not much social chit-chat but lots of laughter and a few tears. We had such a good time that it was: infectious. Restaurant personnel kept walk- ing by -our table, lurking behind a nearby doorway, listening and laughing with us, (Or, 1 don't know, maybe they just wanted us out of there so they could go home.) For a look at who you are, and where you've been try an afternoon with old friends. it'll make you feel great about where you're going This five decided to make that lunch an annual event. Anniversary speeches and praise never change Canadians have just lived through another anniversary of the founding of their country complete with the usual overdose of self-con- gratulatory speeches even while critics say we shouldn't be celebrating with so many people facing the hardship of unemployment. Every year the speeches sound the same, full of praise for the country's great "potential", full of talk of our accomplish- ments. They remind us of the great technological advances that have taken place in Canada, from Bell's work on the telephone to the Canada Arm on the space shuttle. There's a desperateness to our attempts to prove to ourselves that our country really has done something worthwhile in 116 years. iN PEACE But at the same time we tend to skip over the greatest accomplishment of all because we take it for granted. Out greatest accomplishment is that we have been able to Dohtind t l@ gc@n@o by In{c it i ilii Moodzgat bring people together from all over the world to live in peace beside each other. We have been able for the most part to have people leave their old hatreds and animosities on the foreign shore and give themselves to a new life of peaceful co -existence in Canada. This has not been an easy accomplishment. The decision of the original provinces to join together, for instance, was prompted by attacks of the Fenians, fanatical Irish nationalists living in the U.S. who wanted to drive Britain out of Ireland by capturing and holding Canada ransom. There were suppor- ters of the movement in Canada too, although not as many as the Fenians thought. They found that out when they attacked in the late Let Yanks test giggaQ and opic@ by ONO Slips dl@p i am a very divided character. That used to be called mixed-up. This week, 1 had planned to come out flatly and make a lot of new enemies and new friends by taking a stand on the Cruise missile and, maybe a little shot at abortion. But my Cruise thing got all mixed up with the Fourth St. Fusiliers fighting town hall, tl)itd 1 made one remark at a dinner party which began such en abortion fight between two old friends, that I got scared and retreated into my carapace to write about something we all agree on: the weather. The weather is lousy. You can write that at almost any time of the year in Canada and Make friends. It's too hot or too cold. There's too Muck rain or not enough. There was no 611 and now there's no spring O.K. That dispenses` with the weather. Now, I was going to say that we should lest the Cruise missiles hi Canada, which the U.S. is gain 'to ask us to do, despite all the mealy -i evasions of our P.M. and -etre Foreign affairs man, MacBachin, perhaps the only man in the government who can out -mealy the P.M. My argument was to go something like Ibis. After all, we are a member of NATO to 1860's from across the U.S. border. On the other side of the coin there was a time, when the Orange Day celebrations on July 12 were more than a slightly sad reminder of past hatreds. Catholics had reason to fear the day in places like Toronto early in the century and deaths actually occurred. TENSION Each new wave of immigration brought tension to Canada. The Scots looked down on the Irish who came over from the potato famine in the middle 1800's and posted signs in the park that no dogs or Irish were allowed. The same signs later appeared for other immigrants. The Chinese, the Ukranians. the monsters which we provide planes that crash, tanks that you couldn't sell to Afghanistan, rusty, obsolete ships, and as little of our national budget as possible. But if you belong to a military alliance, you belong or get out. You can't be a little bit pregnant. So let's give the Yanks something we have lots of—wide, open spaces— and let them test their little monsters. Then the local town engineer came up, with a plan to rebuild my street, and 1 swung right around. His plan included cutting down a dozen magnificent maples (the press report said 'removing several old trees"; would you say a dozen was several?, and removing a sidewalk where many children The hell with it, I said. Let the Yanks use their own wide open spaces to test missiles; and let the town engineer cut down all the trees around his own lot. I was equally prepared to leap fearlessly Into the abortion fray: abortion is necessary, but not necessarily abortion. We had some -people in for a roast beef dinner the other. ,nig. t, and I clonally retold a snippet from a move! I'd read, In which a hunter shoots a pregnant anteldpe, tears out the fetus, and -eats It raw, claiming, "it's the best part of The meat." Next thing I ktlew I was sitting between Iwo ladles, Makin like a tennis spectator as the abortion ball flew back and forth between them until the only thing i could offer was some rare roast beef. So. I'll have to push those topics off for a bit until I am not emotionally involved. Anyway, it's nicer to deal with people than Please turn to page 3 Boat People. all have suffered discrimina- tion. Today we see discrimination still against East Indians. We see cases too of the Sikhs bringing their old battles from India and trying to continue them here. Yet within a generation they too will likely have tired of old hatreds of half -way around the world and bcsontc part of the ue% country. We have somehow pulled off a miracle in Canada. While hundreds of unofficial wars rage around the world. while Irish kill Irish and Jew and Arab battle, we have been able to bring individuals from nearly all these warring countries together to live side by side in peace. These people have built a country that doesn't want to build wealth or power, through military might. Sure we aren't perfect. Sure we must continually remind ourselves that there are racists and bigots here, as that incident in Alberta of the teacher who taught that the Holocaust was a myth. shows. But we have shown that there is a hope still in the world that people of different nationalities of different races, from different economic backgrounds can live together. That is an accomplishment that should be trumpeted around the world. No other country can boast that. Murphy makes TV debut_ Just a note of thanks for again providing me with a story for "Report from the Country." That recount of the misfortunes of "Murphy" the sad eyed mongrel who had his tongue trapped in between the hinged Bd, and the jagged rim, of a salmon can will form part of the presentation scheduled for the late Saturday night news round -up July' 9. Modern, motorized, or hand -operated cn openers with rotary cutting wheels have largely replaced the old lever -type, with a blade resembling a plowshare in miniature. The older openers, the only type available when 1 was a boy, caused many injuries to scavenging wild creatures. In my birthplace, Sudbury, there were many seagulls who fed at the . n dump, and com w ed a few air -miles t. Lake Ramsey. ome of these birds would ge - . • . . - :. , . ' , cans, even as Murphy had the ,.ngue caugh . unlike Murphy, the Gulls had no humans to turn to for assistance. They flew off, settled on the lake, and the can filled with water. The bird could not fly with the additional weight of the water -filled can. They fluttered and struggled until the leg was severed. There were, it seemed; /More one -legged gulls sunning on the rocks of Lake Ramsey than there were bi-peds. But to them, it did not seem a great handicap.. So thanks for keeping The Expositor coming to me. Thanks too for sending m mind down memory lane, back to boyhood, and a nostalgic picture of one legged sea -gulls sunning on the rocks. Yours faithfully, Arthur Carr, CKCO-ms's Country Editor.