The Brussels Post, 1972-03-01, Page 2,000001111111"1111%\m,
472
Brussels Post
opiTAajo .,..•
March 1, 1972
. „.
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community
publiShed each Wednesday afternoon. at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Bros, Publishers, Limited.
Evelyn Kennedy , Editor TQUI Haley Advertising
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association.
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $4.00 a year, Others,
$5,00 a year, Single CopieS 10 cents. each.
Second class mail Registration No, 0562,
Telephone 887-6641.
Salt and The Earth
As winter moves into its final
weeks and a warmer sun assists in
melting ice from the roads we per-
haps aren't as conscious of salt
and the increasing part it plays in
our winter travel as, we were earlier
in the year.
Salt'is an interesting chemical.
We can:t live without it but in un-
limited quantities it can poison us.
Nor can we drink salt water and
here is the rub. Increasingly we
learn excess salt is being reported
in drinking wells in various parts
of the States. In some cases pri-
vate wells have had to be abandoned.
The reason is the vast increase
in the use of salt as a deicer on
roads. Across the border about six
million tons of salt were applied
to the nations roads in 1970 - an
increase of 1800 per cent since
1940.
Cars, of course, can go faster
on icy roads that have been salted
and at such faster speeds salt
makes the road safer.
But if the problems salt create
continue to multiply perhaps there
will have to be a reassessment of
the benefits of speed as opposed to
the loss of pure water, the -death
of roadside vegetation and trees,
the corrosion of cars and concrete
road structures and the threat to
wild life which flow from the•salt
we apply to our roads.
We will have to ask ourselves
whether the convenience of speed is
worth the threat to the environment,
Near Brussels Feb. 1947
Enjoys The Post
Sir:
My sister, Margaret Hawkeshaw, sent
me a copy of the "new" Brussels Post.
Congratulations! It is much more informa-
tive.
I can identify most of the men in the
picture on page 6, February 2. On the
bench: Walter (Whitey) Lowry, I do not
know the next one, Jack Currie (butcher),
Glen Armstrong (drug store) Art Smith.
In front: my cousin, Dolph Coates, from
London, Ont. and my brother Scott (Mick)
Ament. In back row: I do not remember
the tall one. The other is Cline Scott. I
am not sure but the one reclining I
believe was the lawyer, Monteith. The
other may have been a lawyer also.
I believe it was taken on the bowling
green. What they are "pretending" I
do not know but my brothers, when
growing up, were always getting pictures
taken of the gang imitating something.
Scott is now 80 and lives at 11
Mercia St., Trenton. To my knowledge
he is the only one of thesemen living.
I am coming to Brussels in March
for a visit.
Laura G, Kidd
Box 487
SIOUX Lookout, Ont.
Well, what do you think of the CBC's
widely-touted Jalna series? Please don't
answer that aloud. There are ladies
present.
Ah, with what hopc.s we looked forward
to a truly brilliant, all-Canadian grand
slam in the world of television. All-Canad-
ian cast, all-Canadian material, and a
decent budget. .
It would astonish the world, dazzle
the screen, and all of the world's great
networks would beat a path to the CBC
door, clutching millions of pounds, francs,
dollars and lira, begging and pleading for
the right to reproduce it.
So much for hopes. The result merely
showsthat you can have on hand cham-
pagne, caviar and filet mignon, but if
the cook doesn't know what he's doing,
it ends up as watery, limp and lukewarm
hash.
we have the champagne in the shape
of gorgeous sets. we have the caviar in
a collection of first-rate actors. And we
have the filet in the rare beef of the
original Jalna novels.
But what emerges on the screen is
the most ham-fisted, club-footed,
distorted, downright dog of a series anyone
could dream up. Or nightmare up.
The 'champagne has been watered, the
caviar has been fired from a shot-gun,
and the rare beef has been minced into
hamburg.
I warned the CBC, before the series
began, that I would roast it if it weren't
at least reasonably good. It's not even
reasonably bad. Can you roast hash?
I watched the first episode with a
mixture of disbelief and horror. The
second was a little better, and hope sprang
eternal. The flame was quickly smothered
by the succeeding wet blankets.
1 thought I knew the Jalria novels
inside out. But the series i s so baffling
that, were it not for the names of the
charaCters, I'd be willing to admit that
it was the Bobbsey Twins series I was
thinking of.
The most coherent parts of the
Sunday night show are the commercials,
But even here you have to keep a wary
eye, because you're not quite sure they
aren't part of the plot, so dense and
unwieldy is the latter.
Those faint screams you hear from
your set are not static. They are Miss
Maze de la Roche, author of the novels,
shrieking epithets at the CBC, the direc-
tor, and everyone else connected with
the mutilation of her manuscripts.
Perhaps the most appalling aspect
of the whole dreary business is that the
CBC has actually sold the series to some
retarded British network, on the under-
standing that it (the CBC) will produce
another 13 episodes in the series.
This is not just flogging a dead horse.
It is giving castor Oil to someone who
is dying of dysentery.
You may have picked up the mis-
conception that I don't like the Jalna
series. Quite wrong. I love it, It's
the best comedy-mystery hour on the air.
Mind you, the comedy is of the black
variety. It's rather like making jokes as
the British Empire, on which the sun
never set,• sinks slowly into the sunset.
But the mystery, though there is ob-
viously no solution, is fascinating. Sort-
ing out the characters alone is more
fun than reading a Russian novel.
Who is married to whom? Why? When?
Which are brothers, which cousins? Is
Aennie's Second wife Eden's first mis-
tress? When iS Rennie going to get a
new nightie-gown?
The ramifications are endless. And
hopeless. It's a soap opera with a schizo-
phrenic at the helm.
I wish they'd sell the dam' estate
and put Gran in a nursing home, and give
Ed. Sullivan a ring.
Sugar and Spice
by Bill Smiley