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The Brussels Post, 1981-08-26, Page 21872 4Brusseis Post BRUSSELS ONT. Established 1872 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community Published at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning by McLean Bros, Publishers-Limited Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher Evelyn Kennedy, Editor Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of Circulation. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1981 Authorized as second class mail by Canada Post Office. Registration Number 0562. Box 50, Brussels, Ontario NOG iHo Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston Opinions fourth generation, having been born with an inquisitive nature and the ability to ask questions from ,childhood, had a very good idea of our family history from the be- ginning of "Fairview Farm", the Golley homestead; for" aver the years I had listened to many tales and in later years had made notes as I compiled the family tree. • Great grandfather Joseph Golley and his wife Margaret married in the Guleph area in the early 1840's. Both famil- ies had emigrated from Bel- fast, Ireland earlier, Around 1846, they took up farming in the Lucan area, an Irish settlement where the famous Black Donnellys came later, In 1854, Joseph decided to move further north' where land was cheaper, and con sequently purchased lots, 1 and 2' in Morris township along a trail that was later to be No. 4 Highway. At the land office in Goderich, he pur- chased 100 acres first of the forested land. Before leaving the office door, he decided it waS cheap, so he turned around, went back and bought the adjoining lot, making the 200 acre farm, intact to this day. Cash, paid in British sterling is quoted on the original, deed in possession of-Clarence Gol- ley, the present owner. Since then the farm has passed from generation to generat- ion. In 1856, the family moved to their new land with only 50 acres partially cleared and a log house and, barn already constructed, The family of Jim (my grandfather) Joe, Please torn to page 3 For those who have come to hate the opinions expressed in this column this week there is a special treat: several opinions to hate not just one. We spent some time away from home on the weekend which gave some opportunities to observe human nature. What is itabout a sign that makes people do just the opposite to what the sign says? You've seen it before: the wet paint sign that makes everybody touch the paint just to see if the sign really means what it says. We saw several instances on the weekend of this perversity of mankind. You see it every time there's a traffic tie-up of course. There's always some guy who goes Out on the shoulder of the road, drives past all the other cars backed up and somehow thinks the traffic jam is for everybody else but him. He, of course, gets stuck out on the shoulder -when he reaches the point where the backup starts and then gets angry because people won't let 'him back in the regular lane when the traffic starts to move. Likewise on the weekend we were at a restaurant • and took a youngster to . the washroom. There was a sign on the door asking patience while the attendant cleaned the rest room. The line began to form •while more and more people waited but just about everyone who Came along would ignore the people lined right up to the washroom door and go to the head of the line as if everyone else in line was too stupid to know you had to push to open the door. After they read the sign each was reasonable and went back to the •end of the line but each had to read the sign for himself. A DETOUR Likewise later in the weekend we stayed at a house that was the last one on a street which was under construction. A detour sign blocked the road nearly half a mile back, directing traffic around the construction but a good number of motorists seemed to think this was another stupid government plot just to inconvenience them.personally. The result was a weekend of watching people come down the street to, the construction equip- ment, turn around and go back. After watching several hundred cars turn id her driveway, the owner of the house finally built a barricade across it. ***** Spent some time at a party at which almost inevitably people began to compare cars and gas. mileage. Several smiled smugly at what great gas mileages they got since they had sabotaged the•pollution control equipment on their cars: another of those needless government interferences` in their lives. L Wonder,, what do the same people who take out their pollution control equipment to get a few extra miles per gallon have to say about acid rain drifting over from the U.S. Do they ever complain that the government' should do something to stop the pulp and paper company from polluting their favourite fishing stream? *am The paradox of Pierre Trudeau was evident again on sitting down to read a Saturday paper. On the front page of the feature section was an article on the "UN's love affair with Trudeau" saying that it would be unrequited love because, although many at the UN would love to have Trudeau as its next Secretary-General it won't come to pass because as a citizen of a NATO country he Would never win approval from the Soviet Union witkits veto powers. THEY RUN,THE COUNTRY Inside 'the paper the letters to the editor showed the kind of opinion of Trudeau we've come more to take for granted in the last decade. One writer said Trudeau was putting Canada in a mess because it was part of his longterm plan since he knows if you ruined a country you could then do anything you want with it. Another called for Trudeau to abdicate and the people of Canada to buy him a one-way ticket to the third world country of his choice before calling in the leaders of the postal workers and air traffic controllers to take over the government because they run the country anyway. Another called for impeachment (even though there is no provision in Canada). How can one man be so, respected as one of the world's greatest leaders and so despised and hated to the point of paranoia at the same time? ***** Many of those Candians who say the country is going to hell in a wheelbarrow (pushed by Pierre Trudeau) look fondly southward and wish we had a man like Ronald Reagan. Whey can't we get someone with the guts to cut government spending, they ask. Reagan has made big news with his plans to cut $32 billion from Federal expenditures. Gaining less publicity is his plan to spend $200 billion in additional defence budgets. From an economic point of view, a deficit is a- deficit so before. Canadians get too much in .love with Reagan economics, maybe they should wait and see the proof of the pudding. Many also like Reagan's get-tough attitude with the Russians and perhaps they're right. It's hard to know which side to believe on the issue of supposed Russsian superiority. One could feel a little more comfortable with Reagan's "we're just doing what we have to do" words, however, 'if there wasn't so much glee expressed over something like the shooting down of tyvo Libyan jets last week. The elevation of the Amelrican pilots to national heros and, flying them, home to meet the president shows the Vietnam war and the Iranian hostage crisis may be over but the wounds are still deep enough the U.S. seems to haVe a need to prove it's not going to be pushed around, Life might be uncomfortable in a world with a giant looking 'for revenge. If this column appears in your local paper with a black border around it, you can shed a silent tear, or *a noisy one if you'd rather. The black border will mean this is the last column you will every read by Bill Smiley. It will mean that he has a brand new set of wings, and is swooping and gliding about withthe cherubim and seraphim. Or that he has a brand new coal shovel, and is shovelling away with the in. cubi and succubi of the other place. It will mean that he has succumbed, simply succembed, to a combination of playing three roles at once: Head of the English 'Depart- ment, a German general, and A Man Called Trepid. Head of the Eng. Dept. in June is enough to whiten the hair of a new-born black baby. First, there is the administrivia, about 10 memos a day: Please have inventory -completed by yesterday (60,000 books); Your list of books for rebinds his not been submitted, it was due last Friday) You have not completed the inventory of the class- rooms in yoUr department (as though somebody had walked off with six desks and a waste-basket since last June); Where were you when the emergency meeting of departments heads concerning gum-chewing by custodians was held? Where do you hide every time you are paged? When will you have your course outlines ready, or are you going to use the .same old ones, merely changing the year? And so on. That I can handle. I usually stagger through and collapse in a lawn chair the day after graduation. But this year another ingredient was tossed into •the mire in which I wallow each June. It was known as Operation Get Kim-and-the- kids home from Mooseonee. With complete disregard for my advancing debilitation, she blithely suggested that I hire a U-HaUl trailer, drive 500 miles, load her stuff - including a piano - into it, and drive home, with her and kids in the back of our car, no doubt sleeping. The piano weighs only 700 pounds. I can lift 25 without throwing my back out. I wouldn't drive 500 miles in a day to see Cleopatra kissing Joe Stalin. That was out, and even my wife agreed that there comes a point. As far as' I was concerned, she could hitch-hike, including the 300 miles from Mooseonee to Cochrane, which contains no road. But I had to think of the Boys, perhaps being carried off and dumped into James B by mosquitoes, or eaten to the bone by black-flies. So I swung into action, with BY DOROTHY (GOLLEY) THORNTON I had decided that today when I dusted the • living- room I must do the pictiire frames. With the cloth in my hand I touched the picture and as if by magic, my memory tried to fathom the significance' of those six generations in the picture. I remembered the day Dad had gathered the pictures together to give to the photographer salesman who had called at the door. He specialized in blending pic- tures into a group. How else could we have stx generat- ions in the one picture? Joseph, James, Robert, Clarence, Barry and Michael all with the same surname but also with the coincidence of deep blue. eyes, I, from'my position in the my calipers,,my maps; my calculator, and my wife shouting at me to tell her not to sell her toaster, and to sell h ar ironing board, because we have lost her other toaster, and we have an ironing board, an extra one, that almost works. She hired-a box-car from Mooseonee to Cochrane. A mere $380. Still 500 miles to go. I dropped' a few hints around the staff room, cheerily describing my problem. • Two friends of mine, who are entirely out of their minds, announced they'd go and get her and the kids and the stuff: "No problem. We'll drive up Staurday, pick up the stuff, turn around and drive home." "What about the piano?" "No problem. We'll take turns sleeping." As far as they were concerned, it was a mere jaunt. As far as Kini was concerned, during '$80 worth of lorig-distance, no problem. As far as I was concerned, it was a logistical nightmare. Supposing my friends got to Cochrane on a Saturday afternoon, and the freightyards were closed for the weekend, and they all bumped into that old malicious bureaucracry: "Sorry, we close at noon on Saturday. Nope there's nothing I can do. Just hafta wait till Monday." In some, countries you can bribe officals, but not in this one. Suppose all the U-Hauls were taken for that particular date. Supoose the furniture stor- age place had no room when they got here. Suppose the wife of one of my friends broke a leg, and the other friend slipped a disc before they started, Suppose the Boys had scarlet fever when they arrived in,Cochrance and the whole expedition had to be quarantined for three weeks. Now I know how a general feels when he's planning an operation,. Do all the taper-work, get everything set, and then some idiot shoots his foot off with an automatic pistol, and,he is your key man for'the whole works. At times I felt like General Rommel. The trip was laid on. The freight yards would be open (according to, Kim, whose Intelligence Service I trust as far as I eould kick a jeep), the U-Haul was reserved. At others I felt like General Scheisskopf. The storage place gave me the gears and demanded a financial rip-off. Kim calmly said she'd meet my friends in the Cochrane station at 4:30 I've been there. You could not find your Dudley in the Cochrane station.' Anyway, the green flares have gone up, the Operation is launched, and I am crouched at home, feeling Trepid, which I presume is the opposite of Intrepid (meaning fearless). Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley A man called Trepid. Concerned? Write a etter to the editor _today Golley farm: 127 years in family