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Times-Advocate, 1979-06-13, Page 4ige 4 Times-Advocate, June 13, 1979 Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 imes - Advocate 4 NWT0I U«4*M Wmc« M?)ftWES r SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND C.W.N.A., O.W.N.A. CLASS 'A' and ABC Published by J. W. Eedy Publications Limited LORNE EEDY. PUBLISHER Amalgamated 1924 Editor — Bill Batten Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett Composition Manager — Harry DeVries Business Manager —T..................... Phone 235-1331 (♦CNA SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $11,00 Per Year; USA $22.001 DickJongkind Published Each Wednesday Morning fpCpPTlfn 1331 at Exeter, Ontario UqUQlHLJ Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 HUI RIBBON AMARO 19/4 —--------------------------------------------- o ■» I M t O IM j Danger lurks DOLLAR Commuting can add to price of your home By Alan Gunn, CA you will be buying a new car every two years or so instead of every four years. With such sustained driving you will also run into extra costs for repairs, maintenance and tune-ups, It has been suggested that it is dangerous to leave Exeter even for a week. The danger is that you may not recognize the town when you return due to the many changes which are tak­ ing place at a mind-boggling pace. This is particulary evident on the Main St., where over the past few months, new stores have sprung up and others have had a face-lift, and the end is not yet in sight. It’s doubtful that there’s another community in Ontario experiencing such dramatic changes and one can only imagine the bewilderment that must be experienced by former residents who are paying visits after an absence of a few years. The commercial development in­ dicates the community has fostered considerable faith among developers and investors and certainly the con­ sumer will benefit markedly as the in­ creased competition must spur service and selection. While consumers in many com­ munities of this size find it necessary to head for larger shopping centres, area residents will be spared that fate. With the price of gasoline creeping skyward, that is a benefit that in itself is quite sizeable. BATT’N AROUND ..........with the editor The book debate continues Growth continues The Canada Safety Council notes an increase of 23% in deaths attributed to swimming accidents in the latest available national drowning statistics. A total of 184 deaths resulted from swimming in 1977 and the Council urges all swimmers to keep this fact in mind and heed basic safety rules. Learning'to swim is the first prac­ tical step towards water safely. En­ quire about swimming courses in the neighbourhood. Even good swimmers know their limitations and don’t take risks. Swimming areas should be chosen carefully. Before wading, swimming or diving in an unfamiliar place find out the depth of the water and whether there are hidden rocks, strong currents or sudden drop-offs. Observe and obey all warning signs. Swimmers and non-swimmers alike should never be alone in the water. Swim with a partner, preferably one skilled in lifesaving. Non­ swimmers should confine bathing to shallow, safe waters. Even a good swimmer should swim reasonable close to shore. If the water is cool, wade in slowly then splash water onto your body gradually. Swimming in the dark is dangerous; you can’t see or be seen. You can swim after a light snack but swimming after a full meal may cause ■exhaustion and nausea. Keep a constant eye on children, even in a wading pool because kids love the water and frequently become reckless. Set a good example by always being safety conscious near a body of water, no matter how small. deeded litre? If anyone thought the recent policy announced by the Huron Board of Education for the choosing on books on the English courses was going to end the controversy over those books, he/she was obviously mistaken. Judging from last week’s board meeting, the controversy will wage on for some time yet. It is interesting to note that several board members were even confused about the new policy. Some thought they had another month or so to read through the novels before any decision was to be made. However, it is apparent that whatever books are chosen, the deci­ sion will not meet favor with everyone. As we understand it, the new policy still provides an opportunity for students to be assigned alternatives if they find the original choice offensive. So why all the hullabaloo? Let them choose alternatives if they so desire! One of the great problems in any democracy is that it too often bows to the wishes of the out-spoken minority. Lloyd Barth may want to think he represents 80 percent of the parents in Huron, but he’s obviously lost touch with reality to suggest that in fact he does. Eighty percent of the parents in Huron don’t know what books are on the course of study and probably have no intention of finding out, much less taking the time to read them. Most would share the position taken by Separate School representative Eugene Frayne when he said ”if anyone thinks I’m going to sit down and read 22 books between now and next month, you can forget it”. * * * Speaking of books, most authors have a penchant for dedicating their offerings to someone. Most of these dedications are usually short and prosaic — “To Emily” for example. Occasionally a writer will have a lit­ tle fun with his words. Franklin P. Adams offered one of his books with this touching tribute: “To my loving wife, but for whose constant interrup­ tions this book would have been written in half the time”. * * * Revenue Canada doesn’t usually come across as a soft-hearted cupid, but the agency has, it its own charming way, brought a couple in Dundas to the verge of matrimony. The pair have been living together for five years. He is unemployed and the woman in the case claimed him as a dependent in making out her income tax return. Revenue Canada disallowed her claim because they were not married, and when he tried to get legal aid he was turned down because his com­ panion’s income was too high. In other words, he is not a dependent for income tax purposes, but he is one for deciding legal aid eligibility. The couple now plan to get married so that he can legally become a dependent. ★ * * Bilingualism continues to be a topic of debate across this country, and many opponents on both sides of the fence have been heard to grumble that “nobody is going to jam another language down my throat”. However, too few apparently stop to consider that they are more bilingual then they would care to admit. We par­ ticularly enjoyed this account of an English-speaking Canadian heading out for a dinner. “Filled with joie de vivre our en­ tourage descended en masse on a cafe in a cul de sac nearby. I noted with a feeling of deja vu that the bistro would be an ideal place for a rendez-vous and a tete a tete with one’s petite ami. My expense account allowed for carte blanche, so we summoned the maitre d’hotel and the sommelier and, ordering a la carte, decided on hors’d’oeuvres, escargots and bouilla- basse, followed by ragout and coq au vin. For dessert we enjoyed mousse and petit fours, cafe au lait and liquers. We said adieu to the other bon vivants, called for l’addition and left a pourboirTor the garcon. ' ★ , * * Thanks to Carlton Cards, we’re reminded that this Sunday is father’s day. The card company sends out a press release espousing the fine quality and taste of their greeting cards for most special occasions throughout the year and they usually include a sample. However, if you think the editor has a free supply of greeting cards for those special occasions, we hasten to add that Carlton Cards have a unique way of ensuring that they don’t pass out any freebies. For instance, we can think of only a handful of our counterparts in the media who would be able to use this year’s father’s day sample. It is head­ ed up “to my godfather on father’s day”. That may be okay for Marlon Bran­ do, but it doesn’t work for too many others! It must be discouraging for members of town council to feel forced to consider an anti-loitering by-law for Mitchell A quiet town, touted as a “pleasant place to live,” has gradually become a place where police must be given special powers to deal with public mischief and nuisances. And that is sad. But Mitchell’s not unique is its problems with groups of idle youth who make small-town life a little less than pleasant for most of its residents. It’s happening elsewhere and other towns are taking similar steps to curb what general lawlessness they can. We laud council for risking un­ popularity with some people by trying to clamp down on late-night prowling and vandalism. It is necessary. No minority group has the right to disturb the community at will. Maybe after the first few $100 anti-loitering fines have been handed out, the streets of Mitchell will once again become avenues where people can stroll freely without harass­ ment or trepidation. Mitchell Advocate How to destroy a marriage Perspectives There were three things unusual about Bob. The first one was that he was seventeen years old. Now I grant you there are lots of seventeen year olds around, most of them as cocksure and ready to take on the world as all the ones you know, but not too many of them are in the eighth grade. Now back in my Dad’s day that was a com­ mon occurrence, The boys came to school in the winter and worked the land the rest of the year thus stretching out their years-of education. In my little school though, seventeen years old was almost as old as the grade 1 teacher. The second unusual thing was that he had been in seventeen different schools. There were so many places written on his record card that somebody had tacked on another piece of cardboard to handle them. And he wasn’t even in high school yet! With all his travelling around Bob had picked up a certain degree of wordly wisdom and sophistication. This 'sophistication’ coupled with his third feature, a natural ability to play the electric guitar led ninety percent of the girls in his class to fall madly in love with him. When he played the old 'auctioneer* song the girls rolled their eyes and practically swooned. Elvis had nothing at all on Bob. Naturally enough Bob was smart enough to parcel his affection out in various directions causing a fair amount of rivalry. It all came to a head, literally, about two weeks after his arrival, right at the end of lunch hour when I heard this tremendous howling noise. A fight! I burst into the classroom and found two girls just being pulled apart by some wiser classmates. The one girl’s hair was bleached blonde and was teased up in huge beehive style. Believe it or not a good chunk of that teased hair was on the other girl’s green mohair sweater. It turned out that the girls were fighting over custody of Bob who wasn’t particularly interested in either one, yet didn’t mind being fought over either. About that time I decided that an eighteenth school probably wouldn’t hurt old Bob at all and that if anybody needed a good guitar player up there in secondary school, I would certainly help him right along in that direction. One of the best ways I know to knock the mortar out from between the bricks of your marriage — to uncement things — is to join your spouse in cleaning up the basement/attic. Take your pick. One’s as bad as the other. My wife’s been talking about clean­ ing up our basement for approximately 15 years. I have avoided it by resorting to a number of subterfuges that I will gladly send you on receipt of a certified cheque for five bucks. That may seem a little expensive, but it takes a mighty lot of subterfuges to get through 15 years. But nemesis is unavoidable. It came last week in the form of an ad. in the local paper stating that the town trucks would pick up household junk on the following Thursday. It caused a lot of deep thinking in our town. What constitutes household junk? Some chaps I know sat there, pretending to watch TV, while their dark and secret minds conjured visions of chloroforming the old woman, put­ ting her in a green garbage bag, and sticking her out by the curb on Thurs­ day. I’m happy to say that nothing of the sort occurred to me (it says here). But the notice did draw a deep and anguish ed groan, right from the heels. I knew what was coming. I thought Tmight be able to stall her until the Wednesday evening before, when we could lug a few things out of thejunglethat lies below, and leave the rest to rot, as it has been doing for 15 years. But it was not to be. With complete disregard for my feelings about the sacredness, the almost holiness, of weekends, she dragged me down into the underworld, on a perfect day for playing golf, pointed, and coldly said: "Let’s go.” Oh, I could have sneered, picked up my golf clubs, walked to the car, and driven off. I wish I had that kind of guts. But I knew I’d come home to a living martyr and six months of sheer hell. I went. Down. That’s when I began to envy those lucky devils who have con­ verted their basements into rec rooms. If you have one of those, you don’t un­ pack a box, remove the contents, and happily hurl the container down the cellar steps. You get rid of it in some seemly fashion. It’s not the grubbing through spiderwebs and other assorted dirt that I mind. First job I ever had was clean­ ing out latrines, and I have no dignity when it comes to dirt. What gets me is the dialogue. We were in two different rooms, she in the place where the oil tank is, and the Christmas tree stands, and the paint pots, all with a little in them, and the old drum and cymbals set, and son Hugh’s pots and pans and dishes, from the time he was batching, and a lot of interesting artifacts like that. I was out in the main cellar, where we normally shovel a path from the bottom of the steps to the furnace, the washer and dryer. It was full of wet cardboard boxes, pieces of linoleum, ancient lamps without shades, ancient shades without lamps, mildewed purses and gunny sacks and jackets, warped curtain rods, ski poles with out handles, skis with the harness missing, various pieces of torn plastic, great heaps' of old sheets, kept for dusting rags, and similar fascinating items. She hollers: "Bill, I think there’s enough green here to touch up the woodwork.” I have just lifted an anonymous box full of dirt from when the furnace was cleaned out. The bottom has dropped out,tand I am contemplating a one-foot mound of furnace excrement on the floor. Me: "That’s great. Shove it* uh* that’s fine, dear.” She appearing round the door: “You’re not going to throw that perfectly good chunk of linoleum! We might need it to patch the kitchen floor!” Me, sotto voce: “Why don’t you make a bikini out of it, you great seamstress, you?” Me, alarmed: “Hey, you’re not going to throw out that gunnv sack? I had that in Normandy in ’44 ? ” She: “It has a hole in it and stinks of mould. And what about these old medals?” Old medals, my foot. They are precious. They are not exactly the V.C. and the D.S.O. As a matter of fact, one is for joining up, another for getting across the ocean with being sunk, a third for staying alive on war­ time rations, known as the Spam medal4, and the fourth for getting home alive. But the grandboys like to play with them. And on it goes. We fight over every item, for sentimental or practical reasons. I hate to see a perfectly good breadbox go out, even though it has no handle and doesn’t match the kitchen. She gets upset when I want to discard the third-last vacuum cleaner we had, .because it has the propensity of being a great spray-painting weapon for pain­ ting fences, if we had a fence and she could find a bottle exactly the size of the one that is missing. Like marriage in general, we give a little here, take a little there, and both wind up furious and exhausted, When it was all over, there wasn’t much left but h bagful of mouldy, green love letters, 30 years old. She doesn’t know it, but I’m going to get Up at five on Thursday morning, sneak them out, and bury them among the junk. I simply couldn’t stand hear­ ing what a chump I was in those days. How far do you live from your place of work? Twenty-five miles? Fifty miles? Do you drive those distances every day merely because your home is cheaper than a similar place that is much closer to your place of work? If so, perhaps you should conside moving to that closer place. It might cost less than you think in relation to what you are paying now. In fact, in the long run it might even be cheaper. Let us look at the real costs of commuting long distances -- say 50 miles General financial advice by members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario. each way. Driving 100 miles per day puts an extra 24,000 miles per year on your car in a 48-working- week year. At 20 miles per gallon and $1 per gallon, that amounts to 81,200 in gasoline costs alone. If you use your car at a normal rate for other purposes, you might put 35,000 miles on it per year. After two years with such high mileage your 87,000 car will be worth only about 83,700. It will have de­ preciated by 83,300, or 81,650 per year. A similar car driven' 15,000 miles per year will depreciate over four years by about 84,200, or 81,050 per year. The difference in depreciation costs is 8600 per year -- although it will normally be higher because Add another 8300 per yer. Commuting over long distances, then, costs you about 82,100 - for de­ preciation, gas and repairs. Now consider this: at a mortgage interest rate of 12 per cent over 25 years, every extra 810,000 of mortgage principal costs 8103.19 per month in re­ payments, or 81,238 per year. If you add your additional commuting costs to your present mortgage payments, you could afford to buy a house closer to your place of work that is 817,000 more expensive than your present home. Then consider the hidden costs of commuting. If you can attach a dollar figure to your time -■ say 85 per hour -- you might spend as much as 81,800 worth of time on the highway every year. And will you need a second family car? One last point: if you move at least 25 miles closer to your place of work, most of your moving ex­ penses are tax-deductible, including some of the cost of selling your old home and buying the new one. For most people, this cuts the cost of moving by about 30 to 40 per cent. Mr. Gunn is with Winspear Higgins Steven- Son & Co., Toronto. r -------------------------------------------- ■ memory Icinsj , 55 Years Ago Rev. R,E. Southcott of Gowganda, Northern Ontario, is spending his holidays at his home in town. At least three town children have been suc­ cessful in winning a big “mamma doll” in the Advertiser contest. The winners are Jean Walper, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Walper; Jennie Passmore, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Passmore and Helen Penhale, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L.J. Penhale. Messrs. R.G. Seldon, J.A. Stewart, George E. Anderson and William Rivers were in London this week attending the Thistle Club Scotch doubles. Warren the little son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred May had a narrow escape from being poisoned on Wednesday morning last. He and little Jean McEwen were out playing together and getting hold of some toadstools he ate a portion of one, thinking it was a mushroom. A physician was called and administered proper an­ tidotes and the little lad was soon himself again. 30 Years Ago At the laying of the cor­ nerstone of the new Exeter District High School Wed­ nesday afternoon R.N. Creech realized the crowning achievement of his long years of service as a member of the Exeter Board of Education. Town council approved the final plans and tender forms for the William Street storm sewer. Clerk C.V. Pickard was instructed to call for tenders. Grading for the site of the $25,000 new community centre in Hensail is being done this week. Lucan rfigh School graduated its final class this spring and now Lucan pupils will travel to the new East Middlesex Collegiate at Arva. 20 Years Ago Four Scouts from Exeter, Doug Jermyn, Jim Sweitzer, Doug Hodgson and Dale Turvey, were among the 25 honoured at a- Queen’s Scout recognition service for the Bluewater region at Harriston Friday night. Grand Bend Lions Club has completed arrangements to present TV songstress, Joyce Hahn, as the feature attraction at its annual ball to be held in July. Exeter Girl Guides paid tribute to a sister, 12-year- old Lynne Harper of Clinton, Saturday afternoon by forming a guard of honor for the funeral procession which passed through Main street on its way to burial service at Port Stanley. The Clinton Girl Guide’s body was found in a woodlot near RCAF Station, Clinton. Council passed a bylaw exemption Exeter Legion’s Memorial Hall from all taxes except those for school and local improvement purposes for a period of 10 years. 15 Years Ago Ed Brady, Exeter, recently won the western jumping class at the South­ western Ontario Hor­ semanship Club horse show at St. Thomas. Canvassers will be calling on residents in the district next week in connection with the upcoming mass TB survey. Several lads from SHDHS walked out of school after exams Monday and im­ mediately headed for another school term--at the Conservation School being staged by the Ausable River Conservation Authority at Camp Sylvan. Mr. and Mrs. Lee Learn and Fred and Mrs. Norah Taylor flew from Malton airport Thursday for a ten- day visit in England and on to Germany.