The Brussels Post, 1972-03-29, Page 2ABLP$Hg0
1101.2.
russels Post
Wednesday, March 29, 1972
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community
published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Bros. Publishers,
Evelyn. Kennedy r Editor Tom Haley - Advertising
Member Canadian COmMunity Newspaper Association and.
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association. .
Subscriptions fin advance) Canada $4.00 a year, Others
.$5.00 a year; single Copies 10 cents each.
Second class mail Registration No., 056a.
Telephone 887-6641.
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memorial. There may have
been other casualties in the
picture.
8 3 - Should remember this concert
group since I appear in the
back row. Some Christmas
entertainment and taken in the
concert hall in the old town
hall.
8 5 - S.S.Melville Church in front
of Jas. Hallantyne's home.
Lady in front: Jean Mac-
Laughlin later Mrs. Robt.
Thomson. Lady in rear: Mrs.
Thos. Thomson.
I am enclosing three snapshots I found
in an old album. You mention Walter
Seat in the paper so I thought you might
be interested in his younger days.
3 Mayfair Cburt,
Highland Hills,
Minders, Ont. ThoSaMilir Thomson
This is the pichire
of Walter Scott Mr.
Thompson makes
available.
The St. Mary's Journal Argus
comments that much hue and cry is
raised over housing standards these
days, but in the editorial writer's
opinion gleaned from a lifetime of
observance, the type of housing is
secondary to'the type of people who
occupy the houses.
"There are, perhaps, regretfully,
just as many social tramps living
in $60,000 houses as in $10,000 and
less homes," the Journal Argus says.
"We appear to have lost sight of
the vital fact that it is the 'home'
which counts, not the house."
The fear tha1 appears to haunt
some people that they might be close
to a housing development with
"masses" of people, including a
"swa-rm" of youngsters. is almost
comical. Anyone who has visited
Britain or the continent will vouch
that row housing has been a way of
life. In a given block there could
be several hundred people and they
are a pleasant type of neighborhood.
Small front lawns are well kept,
larger back yards something to be-.
hold. If residents suffered from
this type of environment there was
no indication of it on their faces,
which as a rule were considerably
more cheery than some you can see
every day here.
We agree with the editorial's
point almost one hundred per cent:
"A house is just a house and so long
as that house is neat and tidy and
there is a generous sprinkling of
love and concern dominating life in
the interior, it is a 'home'."
It is the home that counts Brussels. Main Street perhaps sixty years ago. The post card loaned by Calvin Davidson
was sent by Allan Adams to Mr. J. MeArter, H.R. 4, Brussels. As if to indicate that trouble
with telephone lines is not something new the message on the card read "The club is unloading
flour, bran, shorts, middlings and oats today. Please tell Alex McNeil as we cannot get your
line on the phone".
Let's see. The first New Zealander
I ever met was a French teacher called
Jeannie Cameron. I kissed her up in
an apple tree one day. She was twenty-
six, and lonely. I was nineteen - and
nineteen.
She wasn't a New Zealander then. She
was a high school teacher. And I was a
student. In fact, when the word got around
that I was kissing my French teacher up
in an apple tree, it very nearly ruined
me with my fiften-year-old girl friend,
who thought teachers should be seen and
heard, but not touched.
However, that's another story. Jeannie
fell in love with a New Zealand airman,
during the war. His name was Andy.
Said he owned a sheep ranch. But I
reckon he was a shoe clerk.
He was no different from thousands
of Canadian servicemen, who married
lovely little English ducks on the strength
of their big cattle ranch, or gold mine,
back home. The girls came out expecting
The Ponderosa, and found they were the
sole menial on 120 acres of cedar and
rock. Or Johnny didn't happen to own that
gold mine. He just worked in it.
The chaps were not being dishonest.
After all, if yori said to an English girl,
"The old man has 120 acres'', it sounded
as though there must be at least ten ser-
vants. If he said, "I'm a gold miner",
it sounded as though he had a gold mine.
Well, Jeannie went to New Zealand
with Andy, and I hope she slept well,
counting those non-existent sheep as they
leaped over the shoe counter.
The next New Zealanders I met were
in training, in England. They spoke
English, but it was a little different. Once
I asked two of them what they were doing
Early pictures bring memories
411.-.0L11,`
Sir:
Re: some of the pictures lately appear-
ing in "The Post";
Issue Page
4 1 - Excursion to Kincardine.
Waiting for the train to arrive.
Around 1905.
4 2 - Homes of Dr.Holmes, Jas.
Fox, Druggist, Jno. Leckie,
Reeve of Brussels, Homes on
the north bank of the Maitland
6 3 - Why was this building des-
troyed? I secured my 11.8,
Entrance and Junior Matric-
ulation Certificates here.
7 2 - Brussels platoon, 161 Huron
Co., Bn., C.E.F. Officer Com-
manding, Lt.Frank Scott, son
of Pete Scott, blacksmith and
race horse breeder. Frank
or "Tad" as we called him,
was idled in action in France,
He was a lieUtenent in the
47 Bn., C.E.F. See your war
'
that evening. One replied, "We thett
we'd weck ecress a cepple o' peddocks
anev a bayah." Much research divulged
that this meant they thought they would
walk across a couple of paddocks (fields)
and have a beer at the pub."
Then I got to a squadron. Three of
us in a tent. Two Canadians and a New
Zealander. By this time I could talk
New Zealand. Nick was an old guy,
about twenty-five. Good type. Earthy,
practical, realistic. The other Canadian,
Freddy, was nineteen, virginal, idealistic,
and creddlous. I was sort of in between.
Nick used to tell that boy stories that
curdled his blood and even curled my hair
slightly. He told us the biggest lies about
the fish and the deer and the sheep and
the women of New Zealand that I blush,
even now, to think of how I half believed
him.
Freddy was sold and we formed a
syndicate, then and there, to go to N. Z.
after the war and get rich in two years.
The syndicate was rather shattered when
Nick and Freddy were killed in one week,
and I was shot down the next.
In prison camp, I knew another Newzie.
He was a squadron leader. Everybody
else thought he was around the bend, but
I knew he was just another Newzie. He'd
come to my room in barracks every so
often and bellow, "Smiley, do you know
where I can buy a truck in Canader?"
His plan, after release, was not to go back
to N. Z. by ship, with the others, but to
head for Canada, and drive across the
country by truck. It's quite possible that
he planned to drive it right across the
Pacific, too, but I couldn't remember
a single truck dealer, so I don't know what
happened.
This seems like a long preamble to
something, and it is. Writing a column is
one of the loneliest jobs in the world. Once
in a while, shouting into the void, you
hear an echo. It warms the heart. Such
is this, from Auckland, New Zealand.
"Thank you, dear Bill Smiley, for your
delightful column. Here I am, 7,000
mile8 from home and I felt that my little
world was crumbling around me. We are
gradually losing everything and at present
may lose our house as we try to make a
go of it in New Zealand."
"As usually happens at times like
these, minor problems seem major also
and it seems impOssible to hold your
head up ,in a positive manner. So this
is where I was last night when the States-
man arrived from Bowmanville and I
flipped it open to your column . . . and
read about 'men and weather make miS-
takes'. well., I nearly died laughing.
Arid it felt so good to laugh . . .
"Well, to make a long story short,
it was with a much lighter heart that I
swung out into the balmy night to put
the milk bottles out. Things didn't seem
to be so bad after all. And I was still
chuckling' so much that I suddenly realized
that my head was high, my stride confident
and the night sky down here is really
beautiful and God iS up there... how had I
forgotten? Just to be able to laugh again
at something. It really does do good like
medicine." Thank you, dear lady.
Sugar and Spice
by Bill Smiley
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