Clinton News-Record, 1973-02-15, Page 4"Otis has an energy crisis every time I mention finishing the rumpus room."
Mink and flies
How revolting can man get?
THE CLINTON 4•1EW ERA
Established 1865
Amalgamated
1924
THE HURON NEWS-RECORD
Established 180
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
heart of Huron County
Clinton, Ontario
Population 3.475
rHE,110ME
OF RADAR
IN CANADA
JAMES E. FITZGERALD—Editor
J. HOWARD AITKEN — General Manager
second class mail
regiStration nutnber — 0817
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'Canada, $8,00 per year; U.S.A., $9.50 .
suitable office space is available, This
could solve the problem, although we
doubt the plan would meet with the ap-
proval of the people in Goderich who are
no doubt anxious to keep every industry
they can in their town, It would appear
that Goderich folks would like their
bread buttered on both sides.
Probably the most suitable com-
promise in this dispute would be for the
town of Goderich to buy the old jail
outright from the County of Huron at a
price fair enough that more property
could be purchased on the other side of
the present assessment building. If the
county prefers not to sell the jail, only
lease it to Goderich, then the town could
probably purchase the additional land
necessary for the assessment building
addition and turn it over to Huron.
Somehow or another, though, we feel
the town of Goderich should have to
cough up if they want all the eggs in
their basket.
—from the Zurich Citizens-News
A heated controversey is currently
raging in Huron County as to whether or
not county council should tear down one
of the walls of the former jail to make
room for additional facilities at the
assessment office, Negotiations have
been going on for some time between
the county and the town of Goderich in
connection with leasing the jail facilities
so they could be retained as a historical
site,
There are definitely two sides to this
argument, as there generally is to any
type of disagreement. We will be the first
to agree with the Goderich factions who
wish to preserve the entire jail in its
present state rather than with a wall torn
down, but at the same time we. realize
there must be a suitable alternative of-
fered to county council for assessment
office facilities.
One solution offered by the editor of
the Clinton News Reocrd is to move the
assessment office to Vanastra, formerly
CFB Clinton, where apparently plenty of
Could be the solution
A large portion of the population of
Goderich and many other people in the
county are upset over the decision of
Huron County Council to tear dowp the
walls of the old county jail in Goderich
in order to expand the Regional
Assessment Office.
The county reasons that the walls
must come down or there is a chance
the assessment office might move out of
Huron to Stratford, The other side of the
question is put by the protesters who
see the ancient jail as a landmark which
should besaved. The courfiy has already'
talked about leasitfg the fail folhe'tOWn
of Goderich for a nominal sum so it can
be turned into a museum and outdoor
theatre.
It seems ridiculous of the county to
dangle the museum idea in front of
people's noses then pull it away just
when they are ready to grab it. We would
agree with the editor of the Clinton
News-Record who suggests that the
assessment office be moved, if it needs
more space. He suggested a good site
Tom Wentworth, a fishing
partner of mine, phoned yester-
day and asked if I'd like to take
a look at a recently-opened em-
porium devoted to the hard-
ware of boating, fishing and
hunting. Which, of course, I
would, yes indeed. ,
As we drove into town Tom
began to tell me of his ex-
periences last Friday night
when, it seems, he'd accom-
panied his wife on an afternoon
shopping tour.
"It would be worth your
while, as column material," he
suggested. "You could call it
'A Night in No Man's Land' or
'The Ways of the Female in the
Bazaar' or something. Just
lean up against a post by the
women's hat "counter for 10 to
15 ;minutes. Y!on'il have ''the
raw 'material for a rrionth"iit"'
columns."
"Oh, I've thought about it,
Tom," I said. "Did you notice
any Feelers?"
"Feelers?"
"Yes," I said. "My wife is a
Feeler. She can't bear to walk
down the aisle of a department
store without feeling
everything—you know, cloth or
garments or jewellery or
whatever it is. Sometimes she
feels them good and hard and
sometimes she just touches
them lightly as if to make con-
tact with them. I find it very
mysterious."
"My wife isn't a Feeler,"
Tom said. "I'd call her the un-
decided type. When she's
trying to make up her mind she
gets very sad and worried. Last
Friday night, for instance. She
had to choose between two
blouses. One of these blouses
had a little green stripe in it.
The other blouse had a little
blue stripe in it.
"Well," he went on, "she had
the clerk hold them up and
she'd walk back and tilt her
head this way and that and
then she'd sort of circle them,
like You'd stalk a deer.' It took
her 20 minutes to decide on the
'blue stripe and when we 'got
home she said, 'I should have
got the green'
"You knew she'd say that," I
said.
"Certainly," said Tom.
"My wife is a great pricer,
too," I volunteered. "If she
sees a mink coat or an evening
dress made of solid platinum or
a replica of the Kohinor
diamond she just can't pass by
without going up to a salesgirl
and asking the price. Mind
you, there's not a chance in the
world of her buying the thing.
She knows it. The salesgirl
knows it. But there's a sort of
bond of sympathy between
them"
Tom chuckled in that special
manner of men talking of
women's ways.
"You really ought to make a
study of it," he said. "It would
ring a bell with every male."
"I will, " I promised.
Toni parked the car and we
entered the rod, gun and boat
shop. Tom made for the tackle
counters and I walked over to
one of the outboard cruisers on
display. It was a beautiful
thing, 21 feet, powered by two,
35 horsepower outboards and
.with, bunks forward, for,
Sleeping.
I ran my hand down the
fiberglass, feeling the nice, soft
curve of the bow, and rubbed
the decking with my palm. I
walked over to the salesman.
"How much?" I asked.
"Figures out to around
$4,500, all told," he said. We
smiled fondly at the boat. I
knew I would never buy it. So
did he.
I walked across the shop to
the tackle counters, pausing to
lift out of its rack a glass wand
that would be wonderful for
heavy trout and hefting a pair
of remarkably lightweight chest
waders.
Tom was standing at the
counter examining two wet
flies, a Standard Butcher and a
Bloody Butcher. Both are
identical with silver, tinsel
bodies and black wings, but the
Bloody Butcher has a red tip-
pet. A non-angler could scar-
cely tell them apart.
Tom had the melancholy
look of a man who must make a
grave decision. He held the
flies at arm's length, tilted his
head this way and that and, af-
ter several minutes'
de4eration, selected the StAn-
'411)Int71176P
We wandered around the
shop for maybe a half hour,
fondling sleeping bags and ice
chests and telescopic sights and
trolling plugs and other things
and finally we got into the car
and headed home. We were
half-way there when Tom
looked across at me and shook
his head sadly from side to
side.
"You know," he said, "I
should have got the other fly."
ril;e7
letters
Dear Editor,
This letter is a forerunner to
a sample-type petition which
will he seen in your community
regarding our County's
proposal, to tear down the jail
wall Adjacent to the
Assessment Building in
Goderich to make way for an
addition and parking facilities.
Why concern?
The fort-like structure, which
is situated on valuable land
has been considered "tin-
productive" in the eyes of our
reeves since it lost its last in-
mate a couple of years ago.
Therefore it is now considered
"feasible'' to eat away at the
property for other County pur-
poses,
Should the County go ahead
with its plans it will quite effec-
tively deface the building
which, while over 130 years
old, is also architecturally
unique, structurally sound, and
imposing in nature, The
Ministry of Colleges and
Universities, Historical and
Museums Branch, Archives of
Ontario is interested in seeing
it kept as a museum and feel it
could become. nationally and
internationally noteworthy. Of
course, as such, it would divert
tourist interest to the entire
area.
There are three alternatives
open to Council which will
leave the jail intact. (i) The
acquisition of property to the
West which has not been in-
vestigated as of January 26: (ii)
An addition to the North with
parking option on Gloucester
Terrace. (iii) Huron County
owns the existing building,
There has been considerable
comment regarding over-
crowded County apartments
and Court facilities' unrelated
to the Assessment function,
The County should consider a
new site for a larger
Assessment building and use
the existing site to ,alleviate
crowding in other departments.
The proposed solution not
only destroys the very nature of
a historic landmark, but also
creates additional problems.
No allowance would' be made
for additional parking and the
e (4ei crPm-ef suliketu-
4'et.'''''apOarance —*bard
become even more so.
The jail, as it now stands, is
unique to North America and
has been publicized in both
Weekend magazine and the
British Press. Furthermore, the
oldest Architects' magazine in
Britain has established a fund
to preserve this structure.
Interested persons in the
Clinton area will find petition
forms in Joe Essex's B.P.
Garage, Gord's Pool Room and
Vicki's Snack Bar,
4-04INTON •NEWS.RECOREI, THURSDAY, FRPRUARY 10, 1973
co rumen t
Keep jail walls, but
would be the large modern training cen-
tre at the former CFB Clinton. This
building is in good shape and could hold
not only the assessment office but all
other county branches of government if
needed.
We doubt, however, if anyone in
Goderich, even the most ardent will
back this suggestion. The writers of let-
ters to the editor about the wall all take
pains to point out that the proposed
museum will benefit the whole county,
not just Goderich. The argument is that
anything that bringS money into "'the
.4.4" '615 ti htV'heldgeveryone, However, ,when it
conies to locating something like an
assessment office or a weather station
somewhere else in the county, it seems
many people in Goderich forget this
same line of argument.
When Goderich people take this line
of reasoning, one can not find it hard to
see why people in the rest of the county
find it hard to get worked up over the
whole jail walls controversery
—The Blyth Standard
Sincerely,
Paul Carroll
Syd Lawson
Brian Hall _
Joan Van den Broeck .
Goderich
As many a sage has
remarked, man is a curious
animal. He is the only species
that will kill others of his own
type in either hot or cold blood.
And he is the 'only animal, in-
cluding the much-maligned
hog, that will eat anything and
drink practically anything.
Carnivores eat meat. Her-
bivores eat herbs. A few species
like to vary the diet with some
nice, ripe carrion. But man will
eat anything that grows, walks,
swims or flies, including him-
self, if he's hungry enough.
Thus we have a proliferation
of such delicacies as seal flip-
pers, cod's tongue, canned
snake, fried grasshoppers,
frogs' legs, bees and ants in
chocolate. What other species
could stomach birds' nest soup
or year-old eggs? Not to men-
tion haggis.
Prince Hamlet said: "What a
piece of work is man! how in-
finite in faculties! in form and
moving how express and ad-
mirable! in action how like an
angel, in apprehension how
like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of
animals!"
Man will eat anything from
guts to nuts.
For many, there's nothing
tastier than fried liver, baked
stuffed heart, kidney pie and
almost unbelievable — tripe,
that exotic dish made from the
lining of a cow's stomach, It's
not hard to figure out where
the expression "That's a lot of
tripe" came from,
'those are just a few
categories in the guts depart,
ment. At the other end of the
scale, among the nuts, are such
things as hickory, hazel, chest,
wal, pea and sweetbreads.
No self-respecting goat would
eat and drink some of the
things the "paragon of
animals" stuffs into his
quivering, reluctant stomach.
Dill pickles, kippered herring,
cold tongue, hot curry. Never
mind the juice of fermented
grapes, and cheese crawling
with maggots. No wonder we
smell peculiar to other animals.
Ever noticed how dogs and cats
sniff us and walk away with a
disgusted look?
How cavalierly we treat
those long-suffering stomachs,
of which we are issued only one
for the duration.
Breakfast. What a way to
start a day! A glass of icy
orange juice, followed by
scalding coffee. Then some
cereal, the rougher the better.
Then a few slices off a pig's
bum, accompanied by a couple
of hens' children. Toss in a
couple o,f vitamin pills, with
dear-only-knows what poison's
in them, and we're ready to
face the world, No wonder the
world looks pretty grim.
When I was in prison camp,
there were rats about, The Ger-
mans kept quite a few cats
around to control the rat
population. One day the camp
commander, who had a Sense of
humour, posted a notice in each
barracks: "Anybody caught
eating long-tailed rabbits will
be severly punished." Yep, The
boys were eating the cats.
The French have horsemeat
butcher shops. Some Asians
consider theie's nothing
sweeter than boiled, baked or
fried dog. Some Arabian tribes
cook a whole sheep, and the
most succulent part of the meal
is sucking out the eyes. An
Eastern version of oysters on
the half-shell.
Of course, Canadians would
never touch such things. We
confine ourselves to such treats
as shepherds' pie, consisting of
ground-up- used-up shepherds,
toe nails and all. At least they
seem like toe nails when you
crunch down on one.
This may all seem irrelevant
to the great issues of the day,
and it is. But it's a lot deeper
than it seems at first glance.
I began thinking of man as
guts when somebody told me a
chap had spent 32 days or som-
thing in a cabin up north and
had survived by eating mice. It
was an intriguing thought.
Can't you see him sitting
there, drooling, as he turned a
mouse on a spit? Can you un-
derstand him deciding to have
a cold lunch of haunch of
mouse, with a salad of pine
needles and cedar buds, served
on birch bark?
Can you see him munching a
mouse drumstick for a bed-time
snack?
Or worrying, like any per-
plexed housewife, about
whether to have a rump roast
of mouse, or a standing rib
roast, or hot sliced mouse
tongue?
And deciding the hell with it,
he was going to splurge tonight
and have filet of mouse! It
boggles the mind,
10 YEARS AGO
February 14, 1963
RCAF Clinton's School of In-
structional Technique (SIT)
recently welcomed a new Staff
Instructor, Flight Lieutenant
W. (Bill) Poppenk, CD, for-
merly of Winnipeg.
Following last week's quick
turn of events in Ottawa, the
Huron Progressive Conser-
vative and Liberal Association
have already started in motion
to name their candidates for
the federal election on April 5.
* * s
F/L Allan White, secretary of
Clinton's Lion Club, gave a
talk on Tiger Dunlop, at the
club's meeting Tuesday
evening. F/L White who is not a
native of this area, became in-
terested in Dunlop's history af-
ter reading the book, "The
Tiger of Canada West"
published last year by W.H.
Graham,
***
The speaker referred to "The
Tiger" as "the true builder of
this part of Canada". He
suggested that local persons,
visit the Tiger Dunlop grave
and memorial north of
Goderich.
15 YEARS AGO
February 13, 1958
Mrs. Carman McPherson
will be a guest on, "M'Lady",
CKNX---TV, on Friday,
February 14, to demonstrate
making a pocket luncheon
cloth. This program will be
held at 3:15 pro., and was
recently scheduled to be held
on February 10.
* *
Winds of gale proportions
lasting from Saturday through
until Tuesday, created traffic
problems throughout the area,
Schools were closed in the rural
district, and the collegiate in
Clinton was closed on Monday.
By Tuesday, roads were cleared
up fairly well, and all but two
buses were able to deliver the
students safely to school.
* * *
Confidence men, preying on
the senior citizens who can be
influenced, managed to make
off with at least $425 here last
Thursday after posing as
"government inspectors".
Police are searching for three
men and are hopeful of ap-
prehending' them through the
co-operation of forces in other
towns.
25 YEARS AGO
February 12, 1948
Miss Jean Elliott has accep-
ted a position in the Post Office
made vacant by the resignation
of Mrs, Robbins.
* * *
Laurie Colquhoun, Nanaimo,
B.C., is visiting his brother, K.
W. Colquhoun, and other
relatives and friends in the
area.
* * *
Dr. Harvey F. Potter, only
son of Mr. and Mrs, O.W. Pot-
ter and brother of Mrs. A. E.
Haddy, Clinton was honored
for war service during World
War II.
* * *
Last week in Clinton saw
very unusual weather for this
time of year, Temperatures,
which soared as high as 45
degrees then dropped to the
'teens,
40 YEARS AGO
February 16, 1933
Miss Thelma Cuchnore,
Holmesville, has returned
home from Listowel, where she
spent several weeks With her
sister, mm a Ward,
* * *
At W.T. "O'Neil's Corner
Groceteria: Breakfast bacon, 2
lbs for 25c; Picnic hams 8c per
lb; large oranges 29c a dozen.
* *
The schedule of
redistribution was reported at
Queen's Park. Four seats of
Huron and Bruce are to be
reduced to three.
* * *
Miss Jean Plumsteel, of the
teaching staff of Elora High
School, was a weekend visitor
of the home of her parents.
55 YEARS AGO
February 14, 1918
Clinton presented a holiday
appearance on Saturday and
Monday, observing the
"heatless days". "Old Sol"
tired to do his share by shining
a little stronger, and many
citizens found work to do at
home with leaking roofs, etc.
caused by the sudden, thaw. 7,
* *
There will be no Provincial
election in Ontario until the
war is over and the soldiers
home again. Party strife is to be
laid aside and all vacancies
will be filled without elections. * *
Ford touring cars: $495, Ford
runabouts; $475, Burt Land-
ford, dealer.
* *
C.C.I. Board reorganized for
the coming year, with Rev, J.A.
Robinson elected chairman and
J,E. Treleaven reappointed
secretary-treasurer.
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