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The Brussels Post, 1972-10-04, Page 2OgrItIONMPAPrttetirmecteirl.f.N.101..orldngr# leftwItneit'...teneithrtrIellOVetWehrtteve,e4Prettiro•i","....7. Sugar. mild Spice, by BM Smiley I SerVing Brussels and the surrounding community published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario by McLean Bros. Publishers, Limited. Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Tom 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: WEDNESDAY,. OCTOBER. 4, 1972, " They like the Brussels Post Sir: Now out of honor and respect to "Paul Henderson" it would be so nice if the.. C.N.R. would re-start the pas- senger train thru to Kin- cardine again. Maybe -this idea to the P.M. would rekindle your excellent suggestion of a few weeks ago that Brussels should have public transpor- tation. • The Good Old. Post is just great. Toronto F. J. Williamson Sir: I am writing you to tell you I do enjoy reading your Post very much. I do read the Signal Star each week but I like the Brus- sels _Post because I see all the home news in it. I am sending you a money order for one more year. Mrs. Dorothy Ziegler 267 South St., Goderich,Ont. Sir: So sorry not to have been in Brussels for the Centennial - but I am enjoying the special issue of The Post which Mrs. Leach so kindly sent me, with other Posts . I have read and reread them. Its a very in- teresting paper. I'll go thru them all again to see how that Smiley wedding came off. His is a good column. About the picture of the three Fords, well decor- ated. I'm trying to forget I'm in the one, on the left with white hat. Mrs. Peter Scott at the back with feather in her hat, Vina Bowman, Nellie Fox - and I can't think who is at the wheel. Don't know who the two girls are in front of Jean Thomson. On the other side - Mrs. Ballantyne and Mrs. Gilroy with Barrington. It was the start of "Tag Day" in the first war. I'm not too gi.,Jcl in arithmetic,so I just don't try to figure how many years ago that would be. I should be ready for a wheel chair - but I try not to think of age. Isabel Strachan Scott Box 1113, Picton , Ont. Getting it in the paper a number of thin "Get ting it gs. For an organiz- in the paper" means fund-raising ac- ation pl tivity i anning a an the difference t can me and failure. For an success between er it ca n mean the difference advertis profit a nd loss. For an between as been the victim al who h individu can mean consolation ring it of suffe are informed of the ders who from rea ke sympathy. g and to sufferin But other groups sometimes think "getting it in the paper" will mean disaster, embarrassment or failure. Sometimes they are correct. And sometimes - for the general welfare - it is better that the enterprise should end in failure and disaster. But sometimes these people who do not want to "get it in the paPer" because they fear a setback or con- troversy are wrong. They forget that their biggest enemy - and a news- paper's only enemy - is the rumor. The rumor can be a terrible thing. It can make civic minded intentions look like opportunism. It can cultivate small controversies into massive ones. Eventually it can even tear a community apart.But the worst thing about a rumor is that its victims never get to tell their side. The rumor is a trial without a defence. They forget that there are more ways of hearing about something than reading it in the paper. And they forget too that many of the other ways will make their plans sound worse than they really are. The newspaper will at least try to get the facts and figures - the correct ones - to the people. And the newspaper will print the reasons for the plans and proposals. A ' rumor can't guarantee either - and usually doesn't even care to bother trying. So when you expect a problem or a little controversy, don't be afraid of "getting it in the paper." Att- "'That thing he's speaking through is called a Bull Horn. It's easy to see why." There ,are teachers and, there are teachers. Most of us in the rank and file face from 150 to 200 students every school day. We groan about the size of our classes sigh over the impossibility of giving personal attention to each student, and grumble continually about the amount of marking of papers that we have to do at home. And then, of course, there are the aristocrats among teachers. These are the people with small classes, and not many of them, who teach in an easy atmosphere of freedom. We have one of each type in our family this fall. Your humble servant belongs to the great mass of slaves in the pro- fession, reacting ,like Pavlovian mice to bells subject to the whims of adminis- tration, and bent almost double under a continuali deluge of paper work, ninety per cent of which has nothing to do with the learning situation. My wife has joined the tiny aristocracy. Yep, she's a teach. She has not "got a job", as we ordinary teachers put it. She has .'accepted a position." It fair makes my hear bleed. I come home about four, head straight for the refrigerator, hurl myself into a chair and mutter incantations such as "Oh, boy! Oh, boy! There must be some other way of making a living." She is sitting there, cool, unsullied, ready to regale me with a detailed account of her "day". Some day! She starts as 11.20 a.m., and goes non-stop for thirty-five minutes. She has one class. There are five students in it. Private school. No bells. No hall supervision. No cafeteria supervision. No bus duty. No teams to coach. If she wants to take her class out and sit under a tree, or bring them to our house to listen to records , no problem. If I wanted to take a class out and sit under a tree, I'd have to notify the Governor-General or somebody a month ahead, in triplicate, and then the principal would veto the whole thing, because it might start a. trend. Other classes would be distracted and jealous. Other teachers might want to do the same thing, and the whole system would crumble overnight. If she wants a cigarette or a cup of coffee during her "'teaching day", no problem. She has it. If I want a cigarette somewhere about the middle of teaching four straight periods and 120 students, I have two alternatives.I can go on wanting, or I can spring the half- block to the meh's can, making like a dysentery victim, swallow two drags, choke on them, and make the return dash to confront the next class, red-faced and, coughing. Hardly worth it. That's all rather hard to take. But what really rubs salt in the wound is the homework. She comes home with five little sheets, of paper, and fusses over marking them as though she had just discovered something on a par with, the Dead Sea Scrolls. I come home with an armful of essays, look at her skinny sheaf and in frustration hurl my eight pounds of papers into a corner. They have to be picked up again, but it's worth it. Another thing that gets me: you'd think her miserable little band of five was the only group of students fn the country. She can spend twenty Minutes a day on each of them, telling me what Gordon didn't and what Rick said, and so on, and how she gently led them from the murky valleys into the sun-kissed mountains of beauty and truth. She thinks she's so dam' smart that it's infuriating. For years, I've been the savant in the family. Poem or play, short story or novel, my opinion was the final one, accepted with proper humility. Nolv, she thinks my interpretation is wrong, and hers is right. How's that for sheer ingratitude? It's bad enough when a stranger disputes a chap, but when it's his own flesh and blood - well-she's not quite, but practically = . . . I tell you, I'm not going to take much more of that. At the same time, along with this effrontery, -41seres—a4Mieer—easeigfisy, there's . another irritant. She hasn't slightest scruple about picking my brain whenever she can find anything there pick. And next day tossing an idea out as though she hadn't stolen it twenty- four hours before. There's one other aspect of the situation that has me slighqy alarmed. Her earnings, while not ample,are just enough to screw up my income tax. At the same time, she's spending more than she makes on books, equipment, and new clothes. I wear my old gray' suit five days a week, four weeks a month. But it seems that lady teachers, especially in the aristo- cratic bracket, have to wear something different each day. If this is an example of Women's. Lib, you can call me a male chauvinist pig. Now I know why the peasants stormed the Bastille and lowed off the noodle of Marie Antoinette.