Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1983-09-07, Page 3i iron(fxpositot---, • . ,' Since t�f)O ervintg 1h GGmmdh,jty first i. ,.. ,, tnoorp irafing Bill'' $4018';'11‘. t, tqunded 1872 . ' :0 Main St u .,. '‘ r ' , 527.0240 PublIsheQ at SEAT ORTH, ON'61RIQ every Wedneaday,morning4. Susan White, (ylanaging Editor Jocelyn A. Shrler, Publisher Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Criteria Community. Newspaper Asitpclatfon and Audit Bureau of Circulation A member of the Ontario Pres i Council Subscription rates: Canada $17.75 a year (In advance) • • outside Canada $50. a year (In advance) Single Copies - 50 cents each FORTH, ONTARIO, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1983 Second class mall registration number 0696 i Lackadaisical drivers 0 Seatbelts save lives, most of us agree. But rnost of us also get lackadaisical and will have to admit that the current crackdown on people in cars who don't use seatbelts is a good idea. Solicitor -general George Taylor said in August that the death of a young Michigan woman driving alone about 7 a,m. on Highway 402 out of Sarnia prompted Ontario to get tough. An investigating OPP officer said the young woman apparently fell asleep at the wheel. "I guarantee you, of she had been wearing a seatbelt, she'd be alive today." Mr. Taylor wants the OPP to get tougher because although seatbelts have been mandatory in the province for more than five years surveys show only about half of drivers wear them. When compulsory seatbelt legislation was adopted in the 70s it was opposed by some people as an infringement of civil rights. After statements from ctYtintless medical and police people who were Litterly convinced that seatbelts save lives, the furor died down somewhat. The public also realized that saying "I have the right to kill myself if I want to by not, wearing a seatbelt," is not only silly, it's misleading. That's because all those who do wear seatbelts have to pay the medical and. social costs when a non -seatbelt wearer is paralyzed for life. It's interesting that although seatbelts aren't mandatory anywhere in the US, Americans not being nearly as accepting of "for your own good" laws as Canadians, a change in attitude is underway. General Motors, the biggest car manufacturer in both our countries, calls mandatory • seatbelt use laws "the quickest, most cost-effective way to reduce deaths on the highways and (which) do not place any additional burden on those who already choose ,to wear their belts." US statistics show half the car occupants who die in crashes would survive if they wore seatbelts. Many Americans want the carnage stopped, and are willing to put up with a law they don't really like if it will help. As for us in Ontario, we've just been getting a little lax about seatbelts. The OPP crackdown is a reminder we've needed. - S.W. Thanks neighbors Photos by Ron W assink Though we sometimes take them for granted, neighbors in a rural. community are people we couldn't do without. Besides being there when times are good to socialize and exchange tips about farming or cooking, they are invaluable when disaster strikes. A good example is the recent barn fire at the farm of the Richard Downey family, of RR5 Seaforth. Neighbors automatically pitched in to help keep livestock out of the burning barn and to load them on trucks to get them out of the way. Some stayed to help firefighters all night, left early in the morning to tend to their own farms and then returned to help with the clean -Up. Others visited through the night with coffee and during the next day with meals since the family would be too busy to worry about food preparation. One farmer added the Downey herd to his, dealing with a cow that calved in all the excitement. Everyone can probably think of his or her own example of a time when neighbors were there to help during a crisis such as an accident, sickness or death. And, as neighbors, we can remember times when we thought nothing of helping out someone in need. As much as he appreciates his neighbors, Richard Downey says that's just the way it works in this community. The neighbors agree. They pitch in without thinking of reward and they know that their neighbors will do the same if needed. "li's such a comfort to think we would get help if anything ever happened to us," says a neighbor of the Downeys. Once in a while, we should all pause to thank our neighbors or give ourselves a pat on the back for being good neighbors. We hope it's a tradition that will continue. - S.H. Not for the fainthearted ,mill in 18 8 3 Fire, a t Brussels Bat 'hey yo©ffi Qg©fi Port Dover public school for the last three l`l'JJl LJ Lt years. ., , SEPTEMBER 11;:1908 Mr. Chitties' A. Hunte':Ilii-Specter for the" Public, Works Department Ottawa,-Wasitt'iti SEPTEMBER 12, 1958 Natural gas will come to Dublin next Tuesday, Union Gas. pffieials announced this . week. A ceremony in`arking'the advent of gas in the Dublin -area,, wit) be held in Mitchell, Tuesday at noon. It will be followed by a reception in the Legion hall. Construction of the 22,000 square foot Seaforth Shoes Limited factory commenced on Tuesday and is expected to be completed by the year's end. The building is of steel construction faced with brick. Lloyd Eisler, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Eisler of Seaforth has completed a course in deep sea diving while stationed at Esquimalt in B.C. Even at the finest of cocktail parties, it's hard to miss the city slicker complaining about the rapidly rising cost of food. "The problem is farmers," says the bank executive's wife. "They're able to go south (or to Hawaii) in winter, buy snowmobiles and speedboats, and I hear they now have air-conditioned tractors. Guess who pays the bill." The senior bureaucrat concurs. The problem, of course, is that the basic complaint is a myth: the price of food grown and raised by the nation's farmers has not risen dramatically, even though producers have been forced to pay high interest rates to help out the banks, and high taxes to support such items as bureaucratic salaries. So much for the city slicker attitudes. What's really been happening down on the farm lately is not unlike what's been happening for years. In spring, farmers tilled \he land and borrowed money to plant crops. Over the summer they've sprayed, irrigated and tended the delicate plants, at the same time spending sleepless nights worrying about too much sun, too much rain and the myriad list of diseases with complicated names that can completely destroy their efforts. This fall they'll worry about a chilling (and killing) early frost, and, most important, the unknown price they'll get for their product. It's not a game for the fainthearted. Hazards in the farming business are unlike those in virtually any other endeavour. Profits can be huge, but they're more likely to be reasonable, non-existent, or, in bad years, farmers have to contend with massive loases to compensate them for their time and trouble. It's true, all smaller businesses face problems related to high interest rates, inflation, government red tape and high taxes. But while some firms depend to a greater or less degree on the weather, food producers are totally dependent on that great unknown. PLEASE SEE FAINTHEARTED ON PAGE 3 SEPTEMBER 8, 1933 Wx►U lk).tt)p,_n>a, °t- �Nilliam Little,,.has The Seaforth and Goderich bions Clubs' been notified of his appointment as assistant will hold their annual crippled children's principal of the Ontario School for the Blind. clinic at the Scott Memorial hospital in at Brantford. Mr. Little has been principal of Seaforth on Wednesday September 20. Byng the well known Collie dog belong- ing to Mrs. Frank Cudmore was found dead Sunday in a pit at Christies slaughter house in Egmondville. The dog had evidently fallen in the pit and was unable to get out. Byng was a general favorite on Main Street and will be greatly missed. PLEASE SEE FIRE ON PAGE 3 SolaAhowg �a ooy Susan White will be back next week Do controlled media make Soviets cynical? The early officialootreactionwin the Korean BohO �d 'ho h gC@n(�0 Union to the shooting down of the u uv Ltl \9' LI Ll `Y t jetliner gives an inkling of what a different world it must be to live in a totalitarian co by/ l Q6i th L°30�nllga@gt iry. While the rest of the world was up in arms, news emanating from Ontario Hydro. Hydro of the country is so vast, is it possible to pullin screaming for explanations, the Soviet news seems to be one of the few Canadian any station from a non-Communist controlled agency Tass was simply telling people back authorities which has a measure of control on country unless with short-wave equipment? home that an unidentified foreign aircraft had the news and when something such as the How do people react when they don't have violated Soviet air space and fighter aircraft Pickering accident happens' it feeds out the real information? Do people still talk about had tried to "assist' the plane to land at the news a spoonful ata time so the accumulated world affairs as we do over every coffee nearest airport. No word of any shooting. dose of bad news won't be large enough to corner in the country? Do they discuss What do you think if you're an ordinary a cause a reaction in the public. politics? If so, what do they say? Do they get citizen of the Soviet Union and you hear a But in the Soviet Union, that kind of control cynical about what they are told just as we do news item like that? Do you believe it? Do you is everywhere, in every facet of life. Here in in Canada about what our government tells us wait for the other shoe to drop? The whole Canada, even if we did have a government about unemployment figures or the need for story to get told? Do you become so cynical that got that kind of information control, we smaller wage settlements? Or do they you don't believe a word you hear anyway? can't shut out the rest of the world. If you've swallow what their government says hook, Probably there are examples of people ever tried to get a local Am -band radio station line and sinker? doing all three of these responses just as we at night and heard it blasted off the air by The thing is, we don't know, just as they have a variety of responses to any news item some U.S. station in Georgia or New York you don't know about us. In many ways, we are here in North America. 1 can imagine, for can see how we can never be isolated. Even in kept from the truth about the ordinary people instance, the cynical response by remember- Nazi Germany the BBC brought the outside of the Soviet Union Mgt as they are kept from ing how 1 feel about any time 1 read or hear world home But in the Soviet Union the size the truth about people in the West: We do not have the chance to, travel and mix with the ordinary people , so we must get our information from the media. On one hand we get what the Soviets' want to tell us about themselves through their state-controlled media, on the other we get, for the most part, what the Americans tell us. And how much of that can we believe either? The U.S. media either seems to take the same kind of knee-jerk reaction against the Soviets we saw from some U.S. government leaders after the Korean incident (right down to it being a Communist plot to get rid of the Congress- man who was head of the anti-Communist John Birch Society). Or we get a view from the opposite extreme that either is so left wing -that it romanticizes Communism or is so aware of the faults'bf the U.S. that it ignores the faults of the Soviets. What we the ordinary people need most in this time of Cold War, is the truth. We need the truth in the West and the Soviet people need the truth. Will we get it before it's too late? trailerpark theRoughingiti'i s frits undaunted. He was g C p going to carry Canada has almost as many square miles of through. parks as it has of parking lots. I am not food or 1 loveparksd l hate parking &D oe @wd kook I went out in the car to pickup some against this. an a something, and suddenly I had one of those lots (somebody got me in one the other day to brilliant ideas that hit a guy twice in a the tune of a busted fender, anonymous, of lifetime. No ideolgue, with one arm, wandering around in the bush. looking for a place to sleep, with two tuckered little guys, each carrying 80 pounds, losing the faith rapidly. I went home and laid it on the line, "You're going to camp in Little Lake, -Park." 1'd checked it out by this time. There were tent sites. running water, toilets, a barbecue. a great view of the lake, and swimming. Hugh, bless him, was going to go through with the original plans. But he put it to a vote. and the boys, bless them, said, "Little Lake Park" which is almost in the middle of town. So they had a great camping trip. Set up tents, gof a fire and had three great days of summer. Gran, who had almost gone catatonic at the first proposal, dragged up some pots and stuff, and we visited them (six blocks away) only three times a day. bringing them only ice, food, charcoal, candles and a few other treats. fourth day it rained. Wet tents, wet sleeping bags. Wet children. Mud. However, after we brought Gran down from the roof, it sorted out. The sun came out, the sleeping bags went over the clothesline, the tents were spread out to dry, the kids clothes were packed. and undaunted Hugh took them off on the bus to sleep at his place to the city. which is just one jump ahead of a leaking tent. course.) We have huge national parlcs, full of mountains and stuff that nobody ever goes near, except a few hardy outdoors weirdos. They're too rough for us ordinary human beans. Then we come down the manageable parks. like Algonquin, where you can canoe and make bonfires, and your chances of death are much less from wolves and bears than they are from stepping on a broken beer bottle. Then we have parkettes, where you can go and bake in the sun and watch your kids trying to break a leg on one of the Star Trek climbing machines or the unbalanced teeter- totters. All of this is, of course, leading some- where. It is leading directly to The Great Camping Trip in the Park. We had our grandboys for two weeks this summer. It was great. They are a little older, a little smarter, and they scarcely break anything any more that is carefully hidden away. They don't even fight any more. Well, only where there is an issue at stake and one of them wants to kill the other with a large stick. compared with But it Was very restful, p other summers. Last year, the total damage was about 5400. This year ft was only about 1 by BE g r @Y 1130. This was somewhat offset financially, bsoared astronomically. Each of thethe fact that the m east more than my wife and 1 put together. Fortunately, they were enrolled in an excellent day camp (guess who paid the fees) and all that was required was to rout them out of bed, make them put on sojne semblance of decent clothes from the warehouse they immediately turned their room into, get their breakfast, make their lunch, have a good dinner ready when they got home from camp, and try to maneuvre them into bed b midnight. Nothing to It. Except washing all their clothes every two days, finding their blasted shoes, which could be in the attic, a closet or the basement, and vacuuming the sand out of their sheets every daWe were rather blithely looking forward to taking them back til their mother after the two weeks, when we learned, with a slight shudder of horror, that their mother had manipulated their Uncle Hugh into taking them on a camping trip for a week, from our place. Hugh came up from the city the week before to have a e grandboys about theirnfwilderness with xp'erf- ence. He was going to take them to an island, on an Indian Reserve, and they were going to live off the land, practically. right in the middle of the bush. He spent all Saturday morning making a list of essentials. The kids watched cartoons on TV. Hugh had a dandy list. Raisins, peanuts. sunflower seeds, and about 140 pounds of canned stew, apples, bread, cutlery, pots, pans, plates, the whole business. It would have taken an coureur de boas canoe to carry the stuff. We held our mum. Next Saturday he appeared all ready for the camping trip. There were only one or two things out of joint. It didn't bother the boys, who were all excited about the camping trip. Hut it bothered me. It seems that 1 was to drive them to the ferry across to the island, about 15 miles. They had one sleeping bag among the three of them. The food hadn't been bought, nor the insect repellent. There were no cooking utensils or cutlery. There was one pup tent, suitable for one. Frantically phoning friends, 1 located another tent that would sleep three, plus more sleeting bags. It was still feasible. I haven t mentioned that Hugh had arrived for the camping trip with one arm in a sling. He'd fallen off his bike in the city and had to hit the emergency ward when he arrived here. Wrist broken or badly sprained. But theirgoing,