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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1979-10-11, Page 2one Since 1860', Serving theC°ommunity First Published atSEAFORTH. ..ONTARiO every Thursdalr Mf ning; by'McLEANORQS. BLISHERS:LTO,. ANDREW Y. McLEAN, Publisher SUSAN WHITE, Editor ALICE GIBE, News Edito..r Member Canadian Community Newspaper Associaton Ontario Weekly Newspaper Associaton andAudit Bureau of Circulation Subscription Rates: Canada tin, adv anse) $13.00 a• Year OatstdeCanada tin •ad'ance),$25.OQa Year SINGLE COPIES30CENTS EACH Second, Class Mail Registration Number 0696 Telephone 527-0240; SEAFORTH, ONTARIO, OCTOBER 11', 1979, Is it a doss? A Should Canadians really regret the fact our government has lost the $1.5 'billion nuclear reactor sale to, Argentina? Both former .Liberal minister Allan MacEachen and Ross Campbell, chairman. of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, says yes, but when we examine the issue In moral terms, we can't help questioning their <response. Argentina, a South American nation which is one of the most politically Volatile states on that continent, has already refused to sign a nuclear nonproliferation treaty. That's a pretty fair warning that the military dictators may be using a nuclear reactor as a defense weapon, as, much as a means of producing nuclear energy to be used by the country's citizens, Canadians should remember that another Third World country, India, has.already purchased one of our reactors, only to use the nuclear technology to produce an atomic bomb. Pakistan, a neighbouring country, and sometime enemy of India, will have the technology available to create their own bomb by. the end of the year. Before. Canada sells any more CAN DU reactors, we must have some strong nuclear safeguards in effect. Both the. Liberals and Conservatives have advocated this, a fact Mr, MacEachen shouldn't forget. Unfortunately, Canada's hesitation in selling the reactor won't prevent Argentina from obtaining nuclear capabilities. instead, .the: West Germans and Swiss have already combined to offer' an alternative -more expensive, but a reactor that doesn't require the. stringent safeguards of the Canadian model. It's too easy for people like Mr. MacEachen or Mr. Campbell to look only at the $1.5 billion sale Canada's lost, without taking'a hard look at our responsibility in the sale. Argentina, as External Affairs Minister Flora MacDonald . recently pointed out in the United Nations, has already demonstrated a lack of concern for the human rights of its own citizens. How can we believe that this same lack of concern might not be demonstrated in, the country's use of nuclear power? How ironic if a nuclear war broke out someday -not between' the Y• super powers like Russia and the Western nations, but between underdeveloped nations who bought their reactors from us Sugar end spice By BiI) Smiley. Rolling with the punches Some people, like me, believe in rolling with theo unches, rather than sticking`ut' P our chins to show how many we can absorb. I havefound that, in general, if I. avoid trouble, trouble avoids me. If I know that someain in the arm has p s been trying to get me on the phone, I also know immediately that he or she wants me to do something that I don't want to do. Therefore, I:take the phone off the hook and leave it off until the pain has :found. some other sucker. Another invention of mine to stay out of trouble is patented as Nega-Prod. This is short for Negative Production. The theory is simple. The more you produce, the .more problems you have, whether it is children, manufactured goods, or farm products. The more children you have, the more emotional and economic problems you create for yourself. The .more goods you produce, the more you have to hustle to find customers and meet ,payrolls. The more farm stuff you raise, whether it's beef or beans, the greater your chance' of being caught in a glut en the market: ' Our great national railways caught on to this years ago. When they had lots of passengers, they had lots of problems. People wanted comfort, cleanliness; decent meals, and some assurance that they would get where they were going on time. There was much more money to be made, . and fewer problems, by transporting wheat and. lumber and cattle. So the railways began. treating people like cattle. Passenger trains became un- comfortable and dirty. Quality of the food dropped, like a stone.. And they never arrived on time. Presto. End of problems. No more passengers. So the railways were able to cut off non-paying passenger lines, get rid of all those superfluous things like station agents and telegraphers and train conduct- ors, and concentrate on taking from one point to anothdehings that paid their way and didn't talk back: newsprint, coal, oil, wheat. Perhaps this is the answer for our provincial governments, which are quickly and quietly building massive mountains of debt for future taxpayers. Perhaps they should just stop building. highways, and repairing those already in existence. We'd all be sore as hell for a while, but as the roads got worse and worse, most of us would stop driving our cars. The governments would save millions of dollars now spent on highways, and they could fire two-thirds of the highway cops. I don't quite see how the governments could use Nega•Prod to get out of the liquor business which hi h certainly reduces lent of problems. The boze trade is so profitable thatasking government to abandon it would be like asking a. millionaire to forsake his country estate for a run-down farm. Perhaps if they had a Free Booze Day, once a week, every week, say on a Saturday, it would solve a number of problems. It would certainly reduce the surplus population. This, in turn, would cut down, drastically, the unemployment fig- ures. Should the provincial governments find that Nega-Prod is all I've suggested, some of it , might spill over into the federal government, usually the last to catchon to what the country really needs. Instead of the manna and honey flowing from Ottawa in theform of baby bonuses and pensions, we might get some terse manifestoes: "People who havemore than one and a half children will be sent to jail for four years. • Note: separate jails." "'Persons who plan to liveP ast 65 and claim a pension will be subject to an open. season each year, from October 1 to Thanksgiving "Day; Shotguns and bicycle chains only "All veterans of all Wars may claim. participation by reason of insanity, ' and may apply to Ottawa for immediate euthenisation." These might seem slightly Draconian measures, but they sure would put an to a lot of our problems and troubles. Think of what they would do for such sinful activities as sex, growing old; and hanging around the Legion Hall, playing checkers. But we must also think of the economic benefits" With a plug put into that river of paper money flowing from Ottawa, taxes would d p„ inflation would vanish and • undoubte v separatism would �i P m o wither on the vine. PL would ould be lined up six deep. at the U.S. border trying to get across, and that would solve, in one swell Poop, our unemployment difficulties. We could go back to being hewers of water and carriers' of wood, which was our manifest destiny before the politicians got into the act. Fishermen or lumberjacks, in short, which most of the rest of the world thinks we are anyway, Nega-Prod may seem a bit lofty and abstract at first glance, but it works. i know from personal experience. Every time I try to make something, or fix something, it costs ine a lot of money, and I get into a lot of trouble. So, i have a policyof never trying to fix something or make something. It's a lot less trouble to put up signs: "Beware of falling brick • Not of re '"lite for s ivf`"'i $pons: o r on picnic table." And so on. OCTOBER 10d11 1879 Frank Kitty of Hullet met with a painful, accident on the High School ground of Clinton. A football match was in progress, when one of the players accidentally jumped, on Kitty's leg, cutting the cords and this has. since confined him to bed. The; new curling, rink isnow in course of eret:tton and when, completed it will be the best establyshnlent of its kind to this part Qf Messrs, A,Y, McDougal, and D.D, Wilson; are doing • a large businessin buying and shipping apples. 1.rthur Wanless of Stanley has disposed of his steam engine andthreshing machine. Mrs. D.D. Rose was crossing the railway track when the wheel of the vehicle got caught in the track, bringing it to sudden( stop. Mrs. Rose's arm was broken when she was thrown out of the vehicle and Miss Rose. a passenger also had her arm broken. OCTOBER 14th, 1904 The excitement of another electionis now on at Walton though the battle will be short. It is expected that Dr. McDonald will address the election in the workmen's hall .in Walton. As a result of the recent severe frosts, some farmers report serousinjury, to the marigold crop. A very distressing and painful accident happened to Nelson, son of Robert Reid. He was,going to school and while playing along side of a wagon, laden v; ith cedar posts he fell under the wagorffhe wheel passed over his leg, breaking both bones and making "a. cut about six inches long. 1 Harry Mcardle Jr. of Beechwood has secured a good position in Detroit. Wm. McDonald of Kippen has sold hist heavy team of horses to a buyer from Ailsa Craig. Those with sugar beets at Kippen are now having them harvested.. Beattie Bros. of Bruc field, who have been carrying on a general store business for some time have disposed of their business. to J, T. Re. Wm Midi Queen of Brucefield arrived home' from Edinburg Scotland and has engaged with James McDermid for the winter, The frame work of the new Methodist Church parsonage is being rapidly pushed forward. The Robert Bell Engine and Thresher Co,. of this town have just shipped a large high pressure stationary boiler, to Galt. During the electrical storm on Friday evening a valuable team of heavy, draught horses belonging to. Wrn. White. of Hensall was killed by lightening. The farmers are busy securing their apple crop tOich is quite large in the Hensall vicinity. Geo. McMann of:town has left to complete his course in Dentistry at the Chicago College. OCTOBER 11th, 1929 A very pleasant evening was spent at the home of Mr.' and 'Mrs. John McLean, of Tuckersmith, when a large number of the parents and pupils of S.S..6 Hibbert, met in honor of Miss Grace McLean, a bride -elect. An address was read by Wm. Kaj'and little' Marian and Agnes Scott presented their ex -teacher with a silver sandwich tray, silver cream and sugar set and a cut: glass bowl. Mrs. N.L. Carter of Constance was a most successful exhibitor at the fall fairs this season. Mrs. Robert Kirkby of Walton, who has been suffering with a sore thumb for sometime from the effects of blood poisoning underwentan operation and had the thumb Something to say by Susan White At the first superficial glance, there didn't seem to be a whole lot to be thankful for over Thanksgiving week- end. The weather, to start with, was lousy. The cold driving rain sent shivers of foreboding about the long winter to come throughout my body. Our big plans to clean up the garden and the yard were thwarted. And the furniture refinishing chores we had scheduled hadto be moved to the confining clammy basement, when I'.d had visions of getting a little sun and fresh air while I. sanded: away on the cherry cupboard • that was supposed to be in its. placeof honour in the dining room years ago. No, there was no sun and.. the air wa a might too fresh, and wet on Thanksgiving weekend for my tastes...' And, like many other women, I, spent a lot of my A lot time . over Thanksgiving. weekend cooking and cleaning up the kitchen. And keeping. our daughter occupied during what she regarded as a three day sentence served inside the house. She's the original fresh air kid and quickly gets boredwith the indoor pleasures, her crayons, her shelf in the dining room and emptying mother's kitchen cupboards.. No; complaints, not thanks - came too quickly to my mind when I surveyed the week- end's activities. How soon we forget how. lucky we are. All it took to bring me around to the realization that my complaints are meagre was :a • glance at _ Tuesday morning's paper when I. came into work. There on page three was a photo of two mothers with their starving children, refugees Odds n' ends by Elaine Townshend. to from Cambodia who were about to be turned away from Thailand which till recently has provided refuge of a sort for people who are fleeing disease and starvation in that war torn country. The eyes of those kids haunt me. How 'would you like to be the mother of a child who is literally wasting away in front ofyour eyes? One of the children had the big belly, that's the first sign. of severe malnutrition. Anotherchild, in her or his IJe hin d the scenes mother's . arms,was as thin as a concentration camp by Keith ROulston victim and almost certainly won't live long. All of the children in the photo, and they can be multiplied by thousands in Cambodia, will;' have suffered the brain amputated at the first joint.. Mr.,and Mrs. John Marshall', are settled in; their new home just south of Walton. Farmers, and gardeners as well, are taking advantage of the present fine weather ,to finish, up the .outside work and to 8et in good shape for winter. "Oliver Pete" owned by Leonard Guy has had a very successful season on the racing circuits. Qut, of 21 starts, he has won seven firsts, two; Seconds, three thirds and one fourth, and. has, never been, oytside the money. The Wolverton Flour Mill here which has, been undergoing extensive improvements is now in operation and on Tuesday' turned' out 200 barrels of flour in 10 hours. J. M. Eckert of McKillop has been confinedto his home with an attack of pleurisy but expects soon: to be out with his threshing outfit again, Miss Margaret Cleary R,N. left for Rochester to resume her duties in one of the hospitals in that city. Mrs. J.W. Free of town won the silver cup at Brussels Fair for the best loaf of homemade bread. This is the second year in succession that Mrs. Free has won the prize at Brussels. , OCTOBER 15th, 1954 Like his father before him, John McGavin, son of Mr. and: Mrs. Gordon McGavin McKillop has a way with a plow, Twenty-five years. ago, McGavin Senior was a Canadian champion, and at the north Huron match in Goderich Township, son John entered the senior class and took first place in the glass. Although he is young enough to have competed in the Junior class, he was able to earn a place on the two main, teams representing Burnt,. ;at 'the international' snatch at Breslaw. A champion many times, James Hogg. McKillop farmer, didn't compete in the north Huron plowing match. Instead he helped coach some of the younger .com- petitors and showed some fine points to John Alexander, R.R. 4 Walton, who placed second in the green class. Paying a ,surprise visit, some forty relatives of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Richard- son of the Mill road helped mark their '25th wedding anniversary, Mr, and Mrs. Irwin Trewartha, of McKillop entertained 40 of their friends, the occasion; being, their 25th Wedding anniver- sary. Russell Bolton read an, address and! Harold Pryce and Joseph Little presented them with a large bevelled glass mirror. Miss Betty Blue, of Egmondville hasleft for Peterborough to attend Eastern Pente- cost Bible College. Rev, John B. Fox, minister. of. Carmel Presbyterian Church Hensall, has accepted a call; to Sandwich West. As far as we in town are concerned; it doesn't matter, much whetherr it rains or not. Certainly continued rain is unpleasant and probably prevents us clearing up odd jobs around the yard. But the down pours don't really bother us, not as the farmer. Excessive rainsmean the difference be - tween good harvests and bad ones or for that matter, no harvest at all, The Seaforth Women's Institute met in the Community Centre when a memorial service intionor of a departed member, Mrs. Paul Doig, was conducted by the president, Mrs. Elmer Cameron. thankful potential, should they be lucky enough to live until their country's fortunes improve. Those, children and their mothers have almost nothing to be thankful for. They are victims • of politicial and economic squabbles over which they have no control. 'Ake misery is suffered by the children of the boat people, the Palestinians, and by most poor people in the world's developing countries. Their lives are not im- proving: In fact well known humanitarian Dr. Lotta Hitschmanova of the. Unitarian;Service Committee (who spoke to students at 'SDHS a year or so' ago) says she was shocked on a recent trip to Africa to realize that the standardof living for, some ordinary people had. actually gone backwards over the last few years, Terrific news, huh? Face to face with the kind for of agony that photo on the. newspaper page represents, I realize that my. Thanksgiving,and likely yours, was a weekend in paradise in comparison. But that recognition does absolutely nothing for those starving children and their mothers and fathers. I know now how lucky we Canadians are. You do too. But what are' we going to do about the rest of the world? What's most I1,i9!1I? damage that results from' The price of' gold has been setting prolonged starvation and will never reach their : full The fluhugsu;rikes This week I dedicate this space to all my comrades, who are shivering under ten wool. blankets with heatinBpads at their feet and their heads g8 hanging over'the edges of their beds just above pails: The flu bug has struck. I've heard people talk about the flu season I'm not sure whether this is in season, but who cares? As far as each of us is concerned, it's an epidemic of one and that's serious enough for us. Does this sound familiar?. Rolling over is an ordeal for your aching muscles and joints; Gettingup seems out of the question , but sometimes you have no choice" Through the day and night, you wear a path from the bedroom to the bath- room. Sometimes moving faster than other times; sometimes not moving fast enough: You crawl back into bed feeling ex- hausted. Sometimes during the day, for a change, of scene, you move to comfortable couch taking your blankets, kleenex and pail with rth you. You watch TV or listen to some music trying to take 'your mindoff your churning stomach. You: drift in and. out of sleep" The phone rings: "Will I or won't I?" you ask yourself. You decide you'd better. But by the time you pick up the receiver, the caller hangs up. You drag "yourself back to the couch. Half an hour later the phone ringsB again, Oh to heck withitl" you. mumble, You bury your head under the covers. Time passes slowly and you growrest- less. Maybe your stomach would feel better if you had something to eat, you rea- son. Nothing goes better on an upset stomach than a nice hot bowl of soup with crackers or a slice of plain toast. Your stomach says no, but your mind, even thoughit's foggy, thinks it knows better. If no one is around or if you can't con anyone into.. serving you in bed, you limp feebly to the kitchen and do it yourself. It takes three times longer than it ordinarily would. The can opener won't work; you drop the spoon; you turn on the . >A wrong burner and wonder why the darned` soup isn't heating. You rest several times, leaning on the. cupboard or saggingon a chair. Finally you sit down at the table in front of a steaming bowl.' You look at the soup. Your stomach says it doesn't want it, but your common sense persists•You force the liquid past the lump in your throat, and you keep telling yourself it tastes good. You dump ;the dirty dishes into the sink tnd head for the couch. Suddenly you make udetour as your stomach tells you, in .no ncertain terms, it didn't want -that soup. At night you drift off to sfe p, assuring yourself that your flu is the twenty-four' hour variety and in the morning you'll feel as good as new. If you don't feel any better next morning, you wonder how long this can go .. on. You're not even sure you can survive another day like the last one. I don't want to discourage my fellow sufferers any more than 1 want to discour- age myself, but I can't help remembering my brother-in-law had the flu for two weeks. Usually when asked how- he Is, he replies, "60/40". During the flu seige, he described his condition as 10/90. And now we know what he meant. Advertising Is accepted on the condltlon'that In the event of a typographlcal error the advertising space occupied by the errorteous (tem, together with reasonable sfrowantii for signature, will net bri eftergied for but advertisement wilt cines of the t 1 be 1 the hal paid for ' P al lhs' applicable rate. , While every effort will be mode to insure they are handfed with care, the publisher, cannel be responsible for the return of utbolkited manuscripts or photos, record high, prices lately but there is one commodity even more precious that's virtually ignored these days. It's called' wisdom. • Have you ever stopped to think you just. don't hear much about wisdom any more? When was the last time you heard someone referred to as a wise man? A person might be called smart or he might be called' well-educated but the word wise has, virtually passed from our vocabulary. But wisdom is something quite different than intelligence. It is something that isn't as easily gained as education. Over the years I've met many intelligent people, people who could learn quickly, who could tell, you how a computer worked or speak several languages but who were not wise. I've' met many people with College educations Who were anything but wise. Wisdom is something that many be. obtained by someone without a high degree' of education. Usually a wise person is intelligent but 'an intelligent person isn't necessarily wise. . Perhaps there are several reasons for wisdom being almost ignored in our time. One reason is perhaps that wisdom is traditionally associated with life experience. Wise men (or women) have generally been thoughtof as old men. Wisdom came from taking a detached view of what was .going on around you, of being able to see beyond ther particular to the general. Some people had this ability to see things over thelong term better than others and a she t grew older y and experienced more, they became wiser. They knew that the problems of today were just part of a larger pattern. But today of course the emphasis is on youth, not ` age. We're concerned with chance with "progress''. Old people aren't people to be held in high regard because of their accumulated knowledge of living. They are instead people with old fashioned ideas, people caught in a time warp, still living in an age before the latest technological changes. They're obsolete human beings. Similarly we don't hear much about wisdom because we're in a scientific age. We like to be able to measure everything and you just can't measure wisdofn. It isn't an absolute. You can't teach wisdom in a university course and grade your students on ;how much they have learned. You can't have' a specialist in wisdom with fancy gr do es and; a guarantee he 11 have a good income for the ;rest of fits life by sharingchis wisdom with others. Probably the downgrading of religion also has a lot to do with the fact wisdom is seldom • mentioned these days. Nearly • all religions have a large dose of wisdom involved. The Christian' religion is based on long centuries of accumulated wisdom of both Christians and Jews. The far Eastern religions of. India and China also depend on the musings of wise old men. They give an overview of life, life not bogge d down in the problems of day to day existence. Yet one of the greatest gaps in modern life Is the lack of wisdom and the lack of respect for wisdom. We're assaulted with information on every subject under the sun. No generation of mankindhas ever has access to as much knowledge: But what is knowledge in itself: Knowledge is only the raw material for us to make decision s and confronted with, so much information, how ' • do we choose? Well there are plenty of people willing to tell us. If we have more informationthan. ever before, we also have more "experts" than ever before, In the newspaperor on television we have columnists ready to tell us how they thinkwe should interpret the news. We have experts to tell us how to choose a house, how to decorate a house how to fix the plumbing, how to fix a car how to cook marvellous food even how to jazz up our sex lives. We have experts telling us this food is safe to eat only to heart some other expert telling us that it isn't. We have people telling us that we must make the water, and air purer only to hear others tell us that if we do we'll have to take a reduction in our living. standard. We have experts on everything. P ryth ng: And in case all these experts just get you more mixed up, you can go to an expert psychiatrist to get you straightened out. But what we really need in this confusing world is not more information but more wisdom'. WC need wisdom to make sense out of our complicated modern world. We need people who can look beyond the a w Y day to day orries and realize that in 50 most of our "problems" Years from now P will only be trivia of history: We need people who can show us that the problems we are having are part of the eternal struggles of the human race. We need people to remind us that things runthi 8 ' : to cycles and that if we're worried for instance abot too much freedom,,: in sex today then likely 50 years from nowt pendulum will likely go the opposite wa to too much, repression no matter what: th `'ex erts"' toteP thin tn'1 tell us.We need Wisdo to tti� ut all a in perspective, � Wec need to res' • t ore wisdom to 04 r: vocabulary and venerate the wise pe rsolti again. It would' add so much peace to war lives if We dId, •