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Clinton News-Record, 1971-10-07, Page 4A columnist can't really claim to be close to his readers unless they feel they've the right to abuse him. That's why I'm particularly happy with one of the letters that were waiting for meyesterday. 'A was from a man who is disinterested in the occasional travel pieces I enjoy doing and thinks that I spend too much time away from the realities of life that, in his opinion, should be the meat-and-potatoes of my curious trade. He could be right, at that. "Your repeated forays, which have made you King of the Will 0' the Wisps, strike me as a waste of time," he writes. "You seem to spend your life restlessly searching for the greener pastures on the other side of the hill. Surely you don't believe that a man can come to gripis, with life by rushing over every beckoning horizon?" Naturally, I will take this to heart, but, for the moment, it invites some reflections about travel. On one point only I agree with my correspondent. Travel is no automatic escape. People who try to run away by taking a swift airplane or a slow boat are doomed to disappointment. You cannot run away from yourself which, in the end, is what every escapist has in his mind. But that's a shabby interpretation of the urge to roam. For myself, I like to believe the urge is something finer, that it's bound up with every man's appetite to broaden his interests, to re-examine himself and his ideas in the light of a new landscape and new companions, to look down on hisglobe, as it were, from a height more lofty than his snug back yard. The curse of the world today, it seems to me, is that the mass of people are chained to false concepts and false values determined by the niche they occupy. Travel is the only sure way to their enlightenment. There are two types of men I pity. One is the man who has a burning desire to make these discoveries for himself, but who, for one reason or another, is compelled to stay at home. That's the cruellest form of claustrophobia. I know. I lived with it for many years. I pity more the man who has reached a status where travel is within his means, but prefers to vegetate in his own comfortable precincts. I know many of them. They're lost outside their own well-insulated environment. 'Their sense of importance, their sense of belonging, is jarred by foreign lands and foreign faces. Travel as a steady diet does not appeal to me. 'The older I get the more i recognize the need for having roots. I'm always glad to be home. The wanderers of the world whose pursuit of happiness takes them ever Guest editorial Huron county council is faced with deciding whether or not to accept an offer of the service installations at Canadian Forces Base Clinton. A representative of Crown Assets told council last week that the system, including water, heat and sewer services, was available for $1. providing the county would become responsible for operations. Operation of the services is basic to the continued use of the base. There have been indications of interest by potential users with respect to certain buildings but such arrangements can't be considered unless there is assurance that the services will be continued. It is not possible to operate the services on a piece-meal basis. It has been apparent since the announcement more than two years ago that the base no longer would be required by the department of national defense, that some level of government must become the landlord if continued use of the base was to be practical. There is some doubt, however, that the county is best suited for such responsibility. Council members would require firm commitments for substantial amounts of space over an extended period before becoming involved in what otherwise could be a costly venture. Contributing to the difficulty in making a decision is the lack of knowledge as to the intention of the province. On several occasions it has been indicated provincial facilities such as Conestoga could be accommodated at the base. At other times the province has said it has no interest. It is hard to understand this cat and mouse game in view of uses which the. Ontario government has found for other bases in other parts of Ontario. It is particularly difficult to understand when one considers the commitment Premier Davis made as education minister that Conestoga would serve equally all the people in its four county area. While it is true C...nestoga has a representative in Huron who is doing his best, his hands are tied as long as the government refuses to provide necessary college accommodation. The future of the Clinton base could be solved in minutes if Ontario made good on its assurance of establishing a Conestoga satellite and decided to use CFB Clinton for this purpose. If it has decided against extending Conestoga service to Huron, the Ontario government still could indicate its interest and concern by putting in a bid on the facilities. In view of the apparent demand for costly space in Toronto by rapidly expanding departments of government, there should be no trouble finding a use for Clinton. What, for instance, would be wrong in establishing the department of agriculture at Clinton in an agricultural county such as Huron, rather than in a multi-million dollar skyscraper on some of the most expensive land in Ontario in the heart of Toronto? — Huron Expositer. MISSINIMESSEMBEIMMEgmet etter To the Editor • ,•?•,..m..%„, „ , • . '?.:6"kt'AbkM• The Editor, A few weeks ago a letter appeared in this column drawing attention to some of the deplorable conditions that exist in this town. Something has been done to correct one of these nuisances. I am referring to the high school on Princess Street. As any house-holder can attest, things were completely out of control, with students using adjoining properties to their own advantage, It is pretty discouraging when a resident is trying to keep his property tidy, to have to pick up garbage and butts twice a day, sweep broken glass from sidewalks and roadways, pick up bottles tossed on lawns, as well as have foul mouthed individuals lounging across sidewalks and blocking driveways. It is gratifying to find the students are staying over on the newly installed sidewalk in front of the school and on the side lawn this term. We still have to contend with souped up cars and squealing tires and brakes, but even this shows some improvement. The home owners of the area owe a vote of thanks to the principal of the school, and other parties responsible for encouraging the students to remain on school property, and to the students as well, who are showing a more responsible attitude towards those who are paying for their educational opportunities. Signed, An appreciative resident. The Clinton railway station was a busy place during the war with personnel being shipped in and out for training at the Royal Air Force Radio School. Among the early arrivals were these three men who were to play important roles at the emerging base in 1941: (left to right) "Poke" Pocock, RAF Admin.; Dale Brannon, US. Army Liaison; and Al Diehl, Y.M.C.A. Rolling stone How to escape from firkin your home. I ; THE CLINTON NEW ERA Amalgamated THE HURON NEWS-RECORD Established 1865 1924 Established 1881 Clinton News Record • A member of the'Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) Published every 'Thursday at the heart of Huron County -I Clinton, Ontario Population 3,475 TEE HOME OF RADAR IN 'CANADA KEITH W, HOULSTON Editor .1. 'HOWARD AITKEN — General Manager ""Jaraffassi••••ms•raribimaim- second class mail regisfratiori number — 0817 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: (in advance) Canada, $6.00 per year; U.S.A., $7.50 4 Clinton News-Record, Thursday, October 7, 1971 Editorial cominott Questions without answers !History in pictures While many people speak about the issues of the provincial election coming up on Oct. 21, the results of the election may depend on the answers to three questions: Are the image makers really right in their campaign for Bill Davis? Will the smug, overbearing appearance of Stephen Lewis drive voters away from his New Democratic Party? Has Robert Nixon waited too long before turning on the heat in his election campaign? The answers to these questions won't be known until election night when the results come in, but the answers will either confirm or confound the experts. The slick advertising campaign for Davis may just backfire which would mean the Conservatives are in trouble. They seem to have all their eggs in one basket, Bill Davis'. Most of the advertising doesn't even mention the Conservative Party. Even many cabinet ministers are being billed in their own riding as Davis candidates. But the television and newspaper ads, which have already reached the saturation point two weeks before the election, do not really enhance the image of the man. In most he looks very uncomfortable; like his collar was too tight or he had a rip in the seat of his pants. The attempt to make him look modern and with-it has given him more the appearance of a shaggy dog. It may be that, come election day, the voters will be turned off by the campaign A celebration closing the harvest season, when "all is safely gathered in," traces back to earliest recorded history. Ceremonies under priestly auspices featured sacrifices to the deity or deities worshipped at the times and places involved. Despite moving ever farther from the agriculture-based economy in .which the farmer saw plainly more than his own efforts involved in producing a good crop; despite increasing secularization and fading belief in supernatural powers to which we owe our blessings, we still retain a dim instinct that at Thanksgiving we acknowledge a debt of gratitude, though we are far from certain to whom. On the purely humanistic side, an assertion that we are acknowledging our interdependence on each other, or giving due thanks to those from whom we have received gifts or favors is apt to meet that was supposed to turn them on. Then there is Lewis, who looks like He's the one who has been in power for years, He is a great orater, perhaps better than either of his opponents, but he should stick to radio for his best shots. On television and even in newspaper and magazine pictures, he appears so self-satisfied that one has the urge to belt him in the mouth. Nixon seems to have had much more to do with molding his own campaign than the others, an approach which means he can have a great deal of conviction on the planks .of his platform, but one that could mean the fast boot for him as party leader if his party doesn't do well. After a slow start he has been coming on strong, hitting out at the areas he feels strongly about and the areas that should win popular support—the high cost of education, big government waste, a need to maintain local government autonomy and so on. Billed for so long as "Mr. Niceguy", he has been showing of late that he can dish it out as well as take it and the fact that Davis has been concentrating more of his fire power on the Liberals of late show that Nixon is beginning to pick up. But did he leave it too late? Well, nobody will know until election night. And the way things have been going in recent provincial elections, the answers may not even all be known then. scornful rejoinders from a sceptical younger generation that has only contempt for the architects of this present world of poverty, injustice, pollution and war. Nevertheless, Thanksgiving continues in the autumn calendar, though admittedly degenerated into one of those "long weekends" featuring sports spectaculars and gloomy estimates of the numbers likely to die in traffic accidents—forecasts often exceeded by the facts. In fact, Thanksgiving can only be explained and justified on its original terms, that fact that on his emergence as a perceptive thinking being, Man found himself on a fair, green planet of clean air, pure water and fertile soil, well meriting his gratitude to whatever power or process put him there.—Contributed. onward are almost always lonely men on a long road without an ending. They are not looking for something. They are running away. But the traveller who rides out from his fortress in the interests of exploration and who returns to re-assess his prejudices and to grope ahead a bit for truth is a better man for it, Only recently I wrote of the boobs you meet in travelling, the people who do go out to look, but so well-buckled into their harness of preconceptions that they.re immune to any new experience. These, as I said, are the exceptions. For the most part the tourist is a man to be respected and praised. The point was beautifully made by John Steinbeck in one of the last essays he wrote, "These people are offering the greatest compliment one people can pay another," as he saw it, "Being tourists means that they have the curiosity, the interest and the acumen to leave their own comfortable homes and their own known language and are prepared to learn something outside themselves," That is the real virtue of travel, Indeed, it. could be the saving of our world. I believe that if there could be a free interchange of tourists between the east and the west, an interchange that is now in its beginnings, the tensions might eventually roll away. Thanksgiving more than a long weekend Here's relief for tedious news It is quite an ordeal reading the headlines these days. President Nixon's surcharge has thrown the financial world into a panic of sorts. Telephone rates are up and rail fares are going up. Everybody and his brother is either on strike or threatening to strike. More than one out of every 10 members of the Work force 24 and under is jobless. The government has proved totally incapable of both halting inflation and increasing employment. Welfare costs are soaring. Plants are shutting down. In a boom or bust economic cycle, we certainly don't seem to be headed for a boom. A friend of mine who came to Canada from Germany told me frankly, "In the 18 years I have been in Canada, for the first time I am scared." John Bassett, financier, wheeler-dealer, and imperious owner of the Toronto Telegram, gave that city a rude shock when he announced brusquely that the 95-year-old paper would cease publication because it was losing large sums of money. And there went 1200 jobs. That leaves Toronto, with a 7,opulation creeping up on the two-million mark, with only two papers. Ottawa, an infant comparatively, has two dailies. Is there something rotten in Denmark' Now don't feel sorry for Mr. Bassett. You won't find him on the welfare tolls for a bit yet, even though the Tely was loSing over half a million a year. He otios Toronto Argonauts and !I44, extensive holdings in an audiovisual empire, plus only he and God know what else. But I feel a little guilty when I think of the Telegram going on the rocks. Until just over a year ago, the Telegram Syndicate distributed my column. Then I switched to another syndicate. Is it possible that merely one rat leaving can sink a ship? I lie awake and worry about this at nights. For about 28 seconds. I find that the only way to escape from this pall of gloom and doom is to concentrate on something just as silly as the bickering, whining, recalcitrant, salty, exuberant human race. One of the silliest things in the world is the English language. But it's also fascinating. Especially the slang, which changes almost from day to day. I'm not much interested in the thousands of new words added to the language every year by science, but I have a morbid interest in the abortions that creep into'daily usage. Younger readers may stop here. Their elders, those who have a stomach for it, may continue. Pot example, you take a verb such as "to put' generally meaning to place, Then you toss in a preposition and you have a whole new vocabulary. "You're putting me on." That really means, "You're pulling my leg." Try to explain that to somebody learning English. Why would anybody, except perhaps a eliiropratter, Want to'pull anyone's leg? "You're putting me down" means you are squelchink"the speaker, "You put me off" means that the person addressed is displeasing to you. "Will you put me up?" means you want a free place to sleep, "You're always cutting me up" means that you are criticising the speaker, and is a favourite among teenagers, "Cut me off" refers to anything from a conversation to an allowance. "I really cut him down" means that you reduced somebody, either 'verbally or physically, to your own pigmy proportions, and is usually a prevarication. Or even a lie. The Yanks got in there first with "wise". You take a noun, add "wise" to it, and you have a hermaphrodyte. Can you see the tortured visage of a foreigner, who has learned to speak impecable English, having to cope with something like, "Sales-wise, he's on the ball, but experience-wise, he's just not with it."? And I wonder how the Department of Transport words its advertisements when it is seeking the services of keepers of lighthouses. Who responds if the as simply says, "WANTED— LIGHTHOUSEKEEPERS"? Is the Department swamped with applications from lazy women who want to do only light housekeeping, no scrubbing? Or does it get buckets of mail from little, skinny guys who don't mind a bit of housekeeping on the side? Fair boggles the mind, Next time you're troubled by the headlines, find Something silly, and saves your sanity. 10 YEARS AGO October 5, 1961 Members of the parish of St. Paul's Anglican Church have decided to proceed with the major project of building a new rectory, The present home provided for the rector of the church is about 90 years old. Again the Clinton Hospital Auxiliary is holding a penny sale to raise funds for their work at the hospital, This event has become an annual event„ and each year seems to be more popular than the last, One girl who missed the end of the ball game Sunday was Pat Harland. She was on the grandstand cheering for Clinton's second run of the game, when suddenly the board she was standing on gave way and she plunged 20 feet to the ground. She was uninjured. 15 YEARS AGO October 4, 1956 My, but the Agricultural Office is really having its face lifted, isn't it? Some internal changes also are being completed to help cope with increased work and the need for more space. We saw an 'amusing thing this week. 'Me PVC truck had become mired to the hubs in filled-in excavation in front of RCAF Station "Clinton, Obeying the good comradeship rule which has been made famous by a certain brewery company, the driver of a huge gold transport truck stopped to give aid. We also noted that the 'excavation WAS one made to repair a water Main. 25 YEARS AGO October 10, 1946 Members of an ambitious family of skunks seem to like Clinton, especially the residential section in the vicinity of the Presbyterian and St. Paul's Anglican Church, but it is doubtful if Clintonians reciprocate fully. During the past few days, the skunks seem to be here, there and everywhere in the area east of Albert St., and from Rattenbury St. to Ontario St. It is believed that their home is in the immediate vicinity. A young man, out walking, saw no' less than four of the animals at once, nonchalantly doing nothing and making no fuss about.it. There wasn't a "dirty" one among them he reports. 40 YEARS AGO October 8, 1931 Lawn bowling has been a popular sport this season and now the Club contemplates enlarging the green in order to accommodate another couple of rinks. Work will soon be started so that the green may be in good shape for next spring. Driving along Albert Street on her way to her home at Surnmerbill Tuesday evening, Miss Marion Mason, with several other C.C.I. students, lost the left rear wheel of her car. Fortunately she had been driving slowly and no real 'damage was done. Mr. G. Van Home grew some peaches this summer, 'one of which most have been a large specimen, measuring nine and three-quarter inches 'one way and 10 inches the other. 55 YEARS AGO The Clinton New Era Octcber 5, 1916 General Logan, commander at Camp Borden made the announcement on Sunday that the 161st Battalion, Huron's Own would be one of the battalions from No. 1 Division to proceed overseas and their last leave would be on Thursday, One nice feature about their leave is that the boys will be able to spend Thanksgiving at the "old home," and let it be a joyful one. Now is the season when gunning is on the program. All the advice that has been bestowed on the use or misuse of firearms has not borne as much fruit as it should. The word caution should be printed on a card and attached to the barrel of every gun and if double barrelled the "shooting iron" should be decked with two cards. Damage done by the " d dn' t know -'twas-loaded" weapon has been alarming, Hence any hair-brained individual who points a gun at another, whether in fun or not, should be given six months in the nearest lunatic asylum. 75 YEARS AGO The Huron News-Record October 7, 1896 The nierry-go-round was unfortunate on the second afternoon of the Clinton Show. It refused to go round because the drive shaft of the engine broke and caused other damage. It was repaired and again running Saturday evening. Stakes were pulled Monday and the lads and lasses will enjoy a whirl at Blyth today. The S.A. special meetings were a decided success. The Seraphatic Brass Band from London delighted the citizens on Monday afternoon and evening and proved a drawing card. The officers here are energetic, persistent and progressive. The Cricket Club will tender their first annual dinner at the Hotel Clarendon on Friday, October 16th, which will doubtless be well* patronized. Invitations are out for the event.