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The Brussels Post, 1979-06-13, Page 2DRUM LS OPITASI 10. WEDNESDAY,, JUNE 13, 1979 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community. Published each Wednesday afternoon at, Brussels, Ontario By McLean. Bros. Publishers Limited, Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Pat Langlois - Advertising Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $10.00 a Year. Others $20.00 a Year. Single. Copies 25 cents each. '.'e'ltill.711131114111r;;;"it' s•"• Behind the scenes Brussels Post by Keith Roulston We can all change things Strange, isn't it, how soon the crises of today fade in the changing world of tomorrow. It seems only a short time ago that we were in the midst of one of the most violent periods of North American history, partic- ularly south of the border. Rioting was sweeping through the black ghettos of the U.S. It seemed the country was on a verge of collapse. The violence came frighten- ingly close for us here in southern Ontario in the summer of 1967 when the tales of Detroit being aflame came northward. Detroit: that was almost Canada. I remembered, as I heard those stories, having visited relatives in Windsor and having gone down to the riverfront and looked across the narrow strip of water at another country. Now it seemed like another world. And yet it was uncomfort- able too. Would that river be a wide enough moat to stop the violence frog crossing the border as so many other American trends had? I remember too visiting other relatives a couple of years later and driving through Detroit from the Windsor tunnel heading for a green suburbs beyond the blight of downtown. The signs of the riot were still there, burned buildings and empty, weedy lots in the middle of the city where buildings had stood only a couple of years later. What stores were left were shuttered this Sunday morning with huge iron grates to keep out intruders. That's the image many of us have held of Detroit in the last decade: the Detroit of the riots; the Detroit of Murder City where two people died every day at the hands of others. What brought all this to mind for me recently was a spate of stories on the new image of Detroit. The new Detroit is a city with a downtown area that is once again becoming an exciting place, not a place abandoned by all but those too poor to move out to the suburbs. It's a city where the crime rate has been dropping dramat- ically. The new Detroit is symbolized by Renaissance Centre, a huge downtown redevelopment with an apt name. It was hoped that the act of faith of building a huge new downtown development would bring a renaissance to downtown. That is exactly what it has done. The man generally credited for the building of the centre is Henry Ford 11, the man at the top of the industry that made Detroit well known around the world. Ford was persuaded by those concerned about the future of the city that some dynamic symbol of faith in the city was needed. Ford decided to spearhead that act of faith and put his money and his influence behind the building of the Renaissance Center. There were many who said the attempt was doomed to failure. Just building buildings wasn't enough, they said. The Center would have to be an armed camp in the middle of enemy territory. People would have to work there perhaps, but they'd escape as soon as possible back to the safe suburbs. But the faith shown by Ford and the others seems to have been justified. The Center has inspired others to reconsider downtown Detroit. By this act of faith in their city, Henry Ford and the others around him may have saved their city. In a place as big as Detroit only a Henry Ford can make that kind of impact on his community. Ordinary people in cities can't have much effect on the future of their community. All they can hope to do is vote on election day and not throw their gum wrappers on the street. The thing I've always found exciting about small town life however is that you don't have to be a Henry Ford to have a real effect on your community. In a small town or village any citizen with good ideas and a reasonable amount of drive can accomplish good things. We've seen it in recent years where school teachers and plumbers and other ordinary people have seen things that need to be done and organized and got those things done. We've seen historic buildings saved from the wreckers hammer and restored to let us see a bit of history. We've seen farmers markets started. We've seen day care centres or centres for helping the elderly. We've seen parks built or funds started to help the unfortunate or the handicapped. The opportunity is there in a small town for each of us to contribute. The responsib- ility is there for each of us to make our contribution. We can't sit back like we would in a city and say that there's nothing we can do to make our community a better place. We know there is a way we can contribute. We can have an idea and organize others who support that idea to get things done, or we can join a service group or a church group or other community organizations. Each of us has the potential to bring changes. We may never even have a small portion of Henry Ford's money, but we can have just as much influence in our own community. The buck stops here Judging from comments made at the BBA meeting on. Wednesday night some local people had lots to say about the fact that the BBA lost money on its Carnival Days. It seems as if instead of acting constructively and helping the BBA out when they needed it, some people in the community took the destructive route, criticizing the BBA and making comments on what should have been done instead. BBA members who had tried to help make Carnival Days a success were upset about the criticism and well they should be. They tried to promote the community by putting their best efforts into that weekend and as these things usually go, that small group was criticized for losing money instead of being praised for the big job they attempted with a small number of people. The BBA was trying to raise money for street signs for the village, an impossible task considering the small support it, got from local people. People from the BBA who did lend a helping hand and local people who did show up to support the events deserve a pat on the back for their participation. It's so much easier to sit back and criticize the other guy, than it is to lend a helping hand and see what it's like to wear the shoe on the other foot. The lack of involvement complained about at the meeting wasn't just lack of involvement in Carnival Days but about the lack of input that the BBA gets back from the people in the community. To think that there were only nine in attendance at last week's meeting is rather shocking. We know Brussels is a small village, but there are certainly more than nine businessmen here. People often wonder how they can keep their small communities alive and growing. Community involvement is the answer. The buck stops here. Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley One of the best ways I koow to knook the mortar out from between the bricks of your marriage - to uncernent things - is to join your spouse in cleaning up the basement, arc. Take your pick. One's as bad as the other. My wife's been tall .g about cleaning 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 cerdfled cheque for five bucks. That may seem a little expensive. but it takes a mighty lot of subterfuges to et through 15 years. But nemesis is unavoidable. It came last week in the farm of an ad in the local paper stating that the town trucks would pick up household junk on the following Thursda.y. It caused a lot of deep thinking in our town. What st -tortes household junk? Some chaps I know sat there, pretending to watts TV, while their dark and secret minds conjured visions of chloroforming the, old woman, putting her in a green gaxe bag, and sticking her out by the curb on Thursday. rm happy to say that nothing of the. sort occurred to me tit says him). But the notice ad draw a deep and anguished groan, right from the heels. I knew what was coming „ I thought I might be able, to stall her uatil the. Wednesday evening before, when we could lug a few things out of the jungle that 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 sacred- ness, 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 go lubs. walked to the car. and driven off. I wish I bad that kind of guts. But. I knew I'd come home to a living martyr and six months of sheer held. I went. Down. That's when I began to envy those lucky devils who have converted their basements into rec rooms. If you have one of those, you don't unpack 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 spider- webs and other assoned dirt: that I mind. First job I ever had was: cleaning out Latrines, and I, have no dignity when it comes to dirt. What gets me is the 'd"Inue- We were, in l000 diffezent recant, she in the '01-ace Where the cal tank is, and the Chr runs tree stands, ared the paint pots, all with a hitde them, arid the old tiro= and cymbals set and son Hugh's pots and pans and 013shes, frno the -time he was hatchiri,g and a Int of interesting artifsez Cleaning 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 without: 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," 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, and 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 around the door: "You're not going to throw out that perfectly good chttnk of linoleum! We might need it to patch the kitchen floor!" Me, sotto vote: "Why don't you make a hAira. i out' of it, you great seamstress, you?" Me, alarmed: "Hey, you're not going to throw out that gunny sack? I had that in Normandy in '44!" She: "It has a bole in it and stinks of up mould. And what about these old med- als?" 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 without being sunk, a third for staying alive on wartime rations, known as the Spam medal, 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 painting fences, if we had a fences 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 a bagful of mouldy, green love letters, 30y ears old. She doesn't know it, but I'm going to get up at five on Thursday morning, sneak thein out, and bury them among the junk. I simply couldn't stand hearing what a chunip I was in those days: