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The Brussels Post, 1980-12-17, Page 2Box 50, Brussels, Ontario NOG 1110 EST, "P oBrusselsPest' BRUSSELS DINT. l Established' 1872 519-8877 0641 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community Published at BRUSSELS,'.ONTARIO every Wednesday morning by McLean Bros, Publishers Limited A Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher Evelyn Kennedy, Editor Pat Lang lois, Advertising Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly NeWspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of Circulation. Subscription rates: Canada $12 a year (in advanOe)• .outside Canada $25 a year (in advance) Single copies - 30 cents each rar and spice. By,B111:50:01ey.; Someone's out to get me there like 'a big dtimmy Without my seat-belt fastened, I didn't' have enough brains to step out of the car and lie like a trooper that I'd had it fastened. My wife. went slightly out of her mind and ordered aluminum storm windows for the 'whole house. The money, we spent will neverl „„be recovered 'by the oil we save. And I have, ten huge, wooden storm windows sitting in my tool shed, Which Ill probably-have to pay, somebody to cart away. Then she left me, my wife. Not:; for good,, just"for two weeks to visit my, daughter in. Moosonee. Thanks. again to the postal service, the colninn I wrote about her being away appeared three weeks after shell got back', confabulating, a lot of peopip who kept saying,:,'`I hear you're going to Meosdnee.'': Next, an old veteran of English. Staff had another attack of angina and decided to:. pack.it in. This, meant an entire.re-arranging .of -English classes, about ,as simple as sticking•yoUr finger in ,a2 chain saw. My English ' department, , has been decimated; by the 'flu, Nobody knows whois teaching what, when or why, -.Then I get the greate,st mother of a head-and-chest cold that anybody his 'suffered ;since ; the , Middle Ages. biotics don't touch it. ., - We go on another mission, of mercy: to see grandad, who is 88, and a little frail, but full of beans. My wife gets a horrible cell:1, the kind that makes her ugly as a "Gila "monster, emotionally, arid I get a Seized-up knee. j WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1980 We'll miss Wayne Wayne .Lowe recently submitted his resignation from the• chairmanship of the recreation board to Brussels council. Thefesignation is' effective'January 1, 1981, although at present, council', has, neither accepted nor rejected it. His absence, from the 'bOard will certainly be noticed as his contributions to both the arena and the ball park are immeasureable: ' Among the things he is noted for is marking the ice for hockey and other 'sports at the arena, marking the diamond for ball tournaments and making sure thegraS's i8".but for ball tournaments. Certainly 'there are very fewii peonle^like Waylievi,ho would volunteer so much of • their time for so little monetary reward. Wayne was always at the arena or ball park when somebody needed him, and he did a lot to help out with recreation without being asked or told. However, eight years is a long time to be on a board, where your assistance is needed on a. lot of nights and weekends and to have people calling on you at all hours with their problems. If he really doesn't feel he can take the pressures.this job brings anymore, then ,*council should• let him go willingly. There is no doubt that Wa0e would willingly offer his help to the person, who takes over this job. If however, he is willing to stay on, if a little of the pressure, was taken away from him, then the community should voluntarily offer its service to help in whatever ways it' can so that he will stay, because it will be unfortunate if the arena has to lose a man of his calibre. No matter what Wayne Lowe decideslo do, it is hoped that the community will show its appreciation of him in some way, because there is no doubt that he, deserves it. Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error the advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for but the balance Of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. While every effort will be made to ensure they are handled with care, the publishers cannot be responsible for , the return of unsolicited manuscripts or photos. Ever have the feeling that someone is Out to get you? Society, or God, or Somebody? When I was an airman, an intrepid fighter pilot, I was quiite superstitious. I knew that bad things came in,three's. And they aid.* Two times I came back to my squadron badly shot up. The third time I was shots dovin. There were three guys in my tent in Normandy, July of 1944. The three of us were shot down (two killed) in three weeks. But I'm „beginning to think that three is not the only bad number. Seven and nine are.' no-hell either. '• „, Right 'nevi; I'm abOut the seven Stage. . When I hit nine, I'll be writing you from that Great Typewriter in the Sky. It all began last sununer. Ona fine, sunny day in August, someone lifted my wallet while I was on a visit of mercy: seeing my kid brother and trying to assure ,him,that he still had' a •few years, despitea spine.',fusion, several yards Of• intestine removed, and a head condition that was driving him blind. Not ,long after; the` Infernal Revenue people :told me. I owed, thein eight hundred bucks. We're still battling hack and forth, but since the post office needs three .or four weeks to get a letter from me,to them, and them .to ,me., we, have a Mexican standoff. ut I know who's going to win..And it, ain't me. They have the computer. .All I have .is honesty, decency, integrity and, , good citizenship. , Up goes the price of oil and gas. This is not a personal-tragedy, but it doesn't help that Trudeau presents his unbelievable arrogance, and Alberti cuts' back oil production by 15 per cent, and- begins talking seriously about separation. Then the Liberal government, smug in its majority, starts railroading its own version of the Constitution through parliament. I was perfectly "happy, Like most Canadians, to leave that yellowed document in West- minister. Who needs a constitution, when we have no political ties. with Britain? ' But petit Pierre wants a monument. Not a bronze one, or a stone one,' but one in the history books,' which will show that he, almost single-handedly, established a constitution for Canada,-liberally (pardon the expression) sprinkled with things the Liberal Party deems important to its continued existence. Everybody is mad. Me too. Then I'head off to make a speech for an old friend. A bite late because of highway construction, I went over the speed limit, just a little. A cop nailed me, gave me the old siren, and when he came up to me, hit me with $28, not for speeding, but for sitting -I don't know whether or not you know what a seized-up knee is. Imagine your throat seizing up so that you can't speak. Imagine your bowels seizing up so that, you can't. Well, that's what my knee was like. It occurs every few years, but this was the worst. I couldn't get' into the car. I couldn't get out of it. I couldn't climb stairs. ,I - couldn't descend them. bed','I had One fain under the bad knee and shift it, so that I could turn over. It ached like a tooth. , = Oh, I got a lot of sympathy. An old colleague, an old friend, a veteran, said,' "I see you're' practising up for Remembrance Day parade'." Oh well. The knee is some better. I'm still - coughing up stuff that would make you seasick. My wife is actually asking me how I feel, instead of telling me how she feels'''. The new storm windows are on. The Infernal Revenue department is silent. The English department is functioning, sporadically. Maybe there is a God, and he's in Heaven and all's right, Maybe. _______13ehind the scenes by Keith Rouiston Canadians won't risk anything but a lottery ticket . "If I won the lottery.... . " seems to be Canadians' theme song today. Tis country 'surely must have more lotteries per capita than any in the world. In a country famed for being the most insured in the world, buying a lottery ticket seems to be the one chance people are willing to take. Just let somebody strike it rich in a lottery, however, and you're likely to see the true Canadian personality come to light. Give nine out of 10 Canadians a million dollars and you'll see just how conservative we are as a people. They will spend some of the money to buy a more expensive home and fill it with all the nice conveniences and they may travel some, but I'll bet the majority of that money would go into goods safe, Canadian-type long term bonds or other savings accounts. To some people (most likely non- Canadians) a Million dollars could lead to a chance to realize some fantasieS. Think of what you could do with a million dollars if you wanted to make things happen in your community: the businesses you could start, the ideas that could become realities, not just dreaths. But given that million nearly all Canadians immediately become cautious. Why take a chance when the money can earn a nice income in a. bond/ Let other people take the chances. I've always found it hard to figure out just how Canadians became so cautious. We are descended from peoples who took fantastic chances. Our forefathers gave up on the life they knew to come to a land that was like another world. It would be like Canadians today opting to go settle on a moon colony. One hundred and fifty years ago the crossing of the Atlantic ocean was nearly as dangerous and complicated as space travel. The number of people who died on the crowded ships on the way over is appalling. And things weren't much better when they arrived in Canada, a primitive, for ested land with a harsher climate than they were used to. Yet the Scots and the Irish and the English came, and were followed by adventurous souls from nearly every other country on the glebe, all willing to fake a chance that they were going to a better life than they were leaving. FOOLHARDINESS Canadians have become known in some areas for almost foolhardiness. Canadian soldiers were usually successful because they Were a little reckless, willing to take -chances' other soldiers weren't. Canadians have becathe famous in one of the world'S Most dangerous sports, downhill ski racing, because they, are Willing, to take chances others aren't: t They're been nicknamed "The Crazy Canucks". Our hockey players have always been known for their willingness to take chances, not for their ability to follow a system as many of the European teams do. Why then with all this background of willingness to take chances is it that the only gamble Canadians are willing to make today is on lottery tickets? Whatever the reason, it's .costing us in terms of our eoonomy ana in terms of wasting the talent of many of our fellow Canadians. A successful society is one that makes use' of all its resources. We in. Canada haven't had to do that over the years. We have been a nation with an incredible amount of natural resources.. But we are as a nation like the farmer who owned more land than he knew what to do With so instead of farming it, he sold off a few acres every time he needed some money. The problem was that after a few years of selling he found out that he no longer ha. d more land than he could manage, he didn't even have enough land left to make a living farming anymore. We've beeri content to sell our birthright in Canada. We've let the British, the Americans, the Japanese, the Germans, take their turn at developing our resources. We didn't take the chances so we got a comfortable living but not the full benefit of our natural gifts. Today we are' running out of the resources, the foreign developers will look elsewhere and what are we left with? We could have been left'with more if we' had used a little foresight. We could have been like the Arab countries, like Alberta's today, and made sure We put away some of our money for the day when the resources ran out. We, could have been like the German's and Japanese who didn't have so many resources in the first place but made use of the biggest resource they had: the inventive minds of their people. But managers have been rewarded in Canada, not creators. As CBC television Showed Sunday night, about the only way for a Canadian inventor to get somewhere is to take his invention elsewhere. We've made a comfortable liViag without having to deal with these funny, eccentric, wierd people who create things so why should we have to put up with them. If they want to play their little games let them play them elsewhere. I'm afraid We may have played that game too long. Now when we need their invention's to keep us wealthy, We May .no longer have the inventor's because we Weren't willing to take a chance' on them.