The Brussels Post, 1980-11-12, Page 2c"•••;'' • . •
Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Pat Langlois - Advertising
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
' Ontario Weekly Newspaper ASsociation
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $12 a year
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1980
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community:
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
By McLean Bros, Publishers Limited
It starts at home
Police and fire departments must shudder everytime .Hallowe'en
rolls around. Extra men are put on to keep a watch out for any serious
vandalism, but unfortunately, these people can't be everywhere at
once, so much vandalism can't be prevented.
Such basically harmless pranks as soaping windows, throwing eggs
and smashing 'pumpkins on the sidewalk are something that people
could probably cope with, but setting fires, painting other people's
property with spray bombs and, puncturing tires on cars are definitely
malicious acts. Another Unfortunate thing about vandalism is that it
happens not just on Hallowe'en but all year round:
What feeling of satisfaction it gives these mischief makers in
destroying the property of other people is unknown. If they should get
caught, they face penalties which probably aren't severe enough to
make up for the damage they've done and all too often aren't enforced
anyway:
Sometimes when the polide catch these vandals, , parents will not
punish their children but seem to think the vandalism was a big joke.
How can the vandalism problems, ever be cured when parents
convey such an attitude? It only encourages children to do more of the
same. Proper discipline should start in the home: Then maybe there
wouldn't be so many of these problems.
To the editor:
Arnold Darrock Challenge
Trophy wanted
I trust you will give this consideration and
your readers will assist me in my attempt to
located the above-mentioned trophy. ,
In the period from 1948-1960, this trophy
was emblematic of championship play for
those clubs that were then members of the
Inter-County Hockey League.
Some of the communities or teams
involved were: Gorrie, Ayton, Fordwich,
Belmore, Stone School, Clifford; Tiviotdale,
Drayton, Brussels and possibly Milverton.
If anyone can provide me with any
information as to the whereabouts• of the
trophy, it would be very much appreciated.
Hugh Hodges
272 Albert St.
Clinton, Ont.
With Remembrance Day this ,week it
seems to Me that we should be thinking
about not only the people whit died in past
wars but in preventing the deaths of
in future wars,
We are entering another of those
periodic times of great international
tension. The election of Ronald Reagan as
president of the United States, a president
dedicated to recapturing his country's past
glories, adds a little , extra -tension to a
World already nervous about its future.
Preventing war is something easier said
than done, of course. Only in hind sight can
we be so smug, as to say that if this or that
had been done war could have been
prevented. In the hectic pace of day to day
world events such absolutes are few and
far between. International diplomacy is a
very inexact art.
These thoughts came to mind just prior
to Remembrance Day as I was reading
Lester B, Pearson's memoirs. Pearson was
the second in command at Canada House,
the Canadian embassy in London, England
in those ;days leading up . to the Second
World War. As one of the senior men in the
Canadian external, affairs department lie
participated in many of the international
conferences during the 1930's that at-
tempted to head off the coming. conflict.
HARD TO 'KNOW
While he was decisively critical of the
actions of the Canadian government• of
William Lyon MacKenzie King during the
period (much less so of the. Conservative
government of R.B. Bennett) Pearson
admits that even being there first hand, it
was hard . to know what was the proper-
course of action. It wasn't until about the
time of the Munich •meeting when British.
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain utter-
ed the infamous phrase about having
secured "Peace in our time" that people
like Pearson became sure that, war was
inevitable. He *as, for instance, home in
Canada on vacatiOn in the summer of 1939
when Hitler began to make noises about
his interests in Poland.
He decided he 'should rush . back to
England because he was sure war was on
the way and he would be needed at his job.
Both his senior at the Department of
External Affairs Dr. Skelton, and the Prime
Minister more or less humoured him be
telling him, to go if he wished but they
were sure there would be no war. He was
back in London only 'a matter of days (and
he flew over) when the war came.
Nowadays, of course, it's hard to find
anyone who didn't know war was inevit-
able. Read the books and you will wonder if
only the leaders of countries were stupid
enough not to see they had to stand tip to
Hitler earlier. All the, ordinary people, it
seems, knew from the early thirties on, that
they, had to stand up to Hitler. It wasn't so,
of course. The majority of people didn't
want a war. They ' still remembered,
remembered the slaughter of the war that
was to end all wars just a few years earlier.
They wanted, to avoid another one, at -all
costs,
A TOUGH STAND
Certainly there were .warning voices.
Winston . Churchill *anted a tough stand
much earlier. But in understanding thelact
people ignored Churchill we have to look at
our own times. Somebody is always
advocating a tough stand. Batty Goldwater
wanted the Americans to ,use the atomic
bomb in Vietnam. Undoubtedly there were
those who would have used it in Iran, Only
in hindsight can we tell the people vvith a
clear vision of the future from the
warmongers. '
This history• is important in looking at
current conditions in the world. There are
many similaritiet to the pre-War period of
the .1930's. We are in economic trouble.
Many countries have become increasingly
isolationist. And now we have military
expansion, going on in Europe and Asia. .,
The Soviets earlier walked into Afghani-
stan. Now they are making noises about
quelling reform in Poland the way they,did
in Hungary and Czechoslovakia: There is
tension in the critical Middle Eastern
section of the world.
There 'is no clearly right or wrong thing
to do right now. Should we be aiming at
detente, at new peace initiatives, as some
people say? Are we being played for
suckers by a wiley Soviet leadership who
still have designs on taking over the world
as other say? Should we be arming
ourselves to the teeth?
Should we be thinking now 'of a nuclear
war, not as something that' is unthinkable
anymore but as something that could be
won? For the ordinary, citizen it's pretty
hard to tell what is the right action'. At
times like this it is pretty hard to make
democracy work properly. We've just seen
an example of that in the U.S.. where a
citizenry, with their pride hurt, has given a
landslide election victory. to a • politician
who made things black and white for them
again, who offered renewed glories for
us can only sit back and pray
their ecroensntteryf .
that they have made the right decision. We
can only pray that the leadership of the
most poWerful nations in the world will use
sane, cool thinking to keep us from killing
millions of people uselessly.
The wife's tour and launching the Titanic
It's like being a shipyards worker at the
launching of the Titanic. Or an usher at a
Hollywood premiere. Or a nurse at the birth
of a baby. You are part of it all, but an
insignificant one, compared to the central
drama.
My wife is going all the way to Mcosonee
to visit her daughter and grandboys for two
weeks, and I •feel about as important in the
entire tour de force as the people mentioned
above.
I'm quite sure that Scott's preparations for
getting to the South Pole didn't cause nearly
as much fuss in Britain as have my wife's for
getting to Moosonee, in bur house.
Mind you, it's not just like jumping on a
bus and going to the City for a day or two.
Getting to ,Moosonee is only slightly less
difficult than getting to the Galapagos
Islands.
You can fly, of course, for an arni and a
leg. It's cheaper to fly to England, and back
than to Moosonee and' back. And to catch
your plane, you have to be'there 'at some
unearthly hour like 6:30 41,m,
That Meant, for us, getting up at 5 a,m.,
driving 160 miles round trip, and being at
work at nine.
Or she could take a cab to the airport, for
$55.60, Add that to the airfare; going and
earning, and you could fly to Hawaii,whieh
would make a lot more sente, this time of
year.
Or she could go down the night
before, spend $35.00 fel' a hotel room and
then take a cab to the airport, for $10.00.
blasted plane gets in around 7:30 at night,
and if , you'll just turn all the driving time,
and cab-fare and stuff around, it's the same
deal. Cs By Bill Smiley weeks,
Getting
as she relentlessly tore apart every
this out of the way took about two
suggestion I made. She decided to go by
Plus a couple of meals. It still conies out to train. This is a little cheaper, but just as
about $55.00. complicated.
These are some of the alternatives I put Again', she'd have to go the city to catch
forward. I'm no skinflint. But my wife is, in the train, travel overnight; change at
some respects. When I go to the city atone, I Cochrane, spend two or three hours in that
take cabs everywhere. When she gees alone, salubrious restort, in the fall, doing
she takes the subway, or walks. lord-only-knows-what; before boarding the
I said, in some respects. She'll save Polar Bear • Express and a journey of
string, bargain for prices in the supermarket anywhere from four to six hours to
like ah Oriental cook, abhors wastage of Moosonee. -
three cents worth of food. The Express is probably the last ,of its
But then she'll hit me with Something that: kind in Canada. It stops in the middle of
nowhere to avoid hitting a moose, to pick up
a trapper, or to drop supplies for a,,
prospector. That's why it doesn't •run right to
the minute.
Alternative: The train' 'she's td catch stops
at some god-forsaken junction, out in the
middle of nowhere, forty miles froth here. At
11:30 p.m. That was, her final decision, It
would save the time and money of going to
the city and catching it there.
But she didn't want me to drive her, and
get home at 1 a.m. She knows how I hate
night driving, and figured I'd go off the road
if she weren't there to shriek, "There's the
sign for the turnoff!," which I had seen five
seconds earlier.
01, Get a cab. Thirty4iVe bucks. Too
much. A week after the final decision, I've
hired a student to drive •Iler to the junction.
Only fifteen bucks. Then he wanted to. take
his girlfriend. Then my wife 8vantedlo know
if I were coming; to say goodbye -at the
junction.• Holy. Old Moses! Or Holy. Old
Home Week.
Those were only the travel details. The
others are too numerous and 'miscellaneous
to mention. Sher had to iron two weeks
supply of clean shirts for me. Had 'to buy
presents for the boys. First presents were
useless and I had to take, them back, as
usual, and get the refund.
Should she wear a trench-coat with
sweater under, or winter coat with boots? If
it were piercing cold in the true north, she'd
freeze in a trench-coat. If it happened to be
Indian Summer, she's swelter in a winter
coat.
And on, and on, and on. She bought three
months supply, of meat and it's all in the
freezer, so I won't Starve: LusnatIly dine on a
couple 'of' eggs of Some taittage, or beans,
when she's away. •
I know, sincerely, that she eXpeets to come
hemp and find the, house burned to the
ground, and•rne either in jail or the mental
health centre, as we euphemistically call the
loony bin nowadays:
Migawd, I could get ready and made a trip
to Outer Mongolia with one,tenth of the
fluster.
But when I think of the phone bills from
Moosonee, every night, checking on me, My
blood rent cold,
Sugar and
keeps me staggering for a week. One day,
when I was a student, and our total income ;
was• around $100 a Month, she blurted,
father fearfully, I must admit; •that She had
bought a new sewing machine. There went a
month's income. It didn't upset me, 'really, „
because I've never been mach interested in
money.
However, it did plant a little seed of •
something in my Mind, so that, when I came ,
home one day arid she announced she'd
bought a grand piano, for approximatley one
year's income, at the time, I was not bowled
over, just slightly stunned. I digress.
Anyway, she wasn't going to pay that kind
of money to get to Moosonee and back. The
return trip, by air, is just as bad, That