The Brussels Post, 1972-10-18, Page 2October is bulb planting time
Sugar and Spice
by Bill Smiley.
It takes some people a long time to
realize that they are completely dispen-
sable. I realized it years ago, but keep
forgetting until something jolts me.
Today it's the mother and father of all
colds. I haven't missed a day's work in
about three years, at times tottering off
to the job with one foot in the grave.
For some reason, I had the conceit
to imagine that the entire English depart-
ment, if not the whole school system, would
crack, crumble and collapse if I weren't
there.
Common sense tells me that if I were
ill for a month, nobody would know the
difference, and that if I dropped dead
this moment the human race would not
falter for a second in its pursuit of folly,
happiness and all the other things that make
it tick.
So, here I am surrounded by soggy
kleenex, coughing up chunks of lung, and
sweating like a mule-skinner every time I
do anything mord vigorous than blink my
eyes.
But it's not all bad. My wife is dancing
attendance on me, something she rarely
does because I'm almost never ill. I have
a good, foolish detective story which I'd
normally never have time to read.
And perhaps most important of all, I
have this lazy, hazy feeling that I have
stopped the world and got off, even if only
for twenty-four hours.
My wife has just forced on me, quite
against my will, a large libation of hot
water, lemon, sugar and some sort of
cough medicine with the odd name of
Teachers' Highland Cream. It makes me
sweat, but certainly eases the cough. In
fact, it makes life look almost rosy. I
hope she doesn't run out of lemons. And
stuff.
Isn't it a pity, though, that we go
through life, or the biggest part of it, with
this feeling that we're so important, when
we're less than ants on the face of the
earth?
Businessmen flog themselves daily to
meet the competition. Executives and
lawyers drag home their brief cases.
Doctors burn themselves out in twenty
years of inordinately long hours. Tea-
chers develop ulcers or quietly go mad.
Why don't we all relax a little more
often and let the earth take a few spins
without us?
Perhaps the most guilty of all are
politicians. Right now the country re-
sembles a disturbed bee-hive as our
politicians hdrtle about, every one of
them convinced that his constituency, his
party, and his country will go to the
dogs if he, personally, is not elected.
God forbid, but what would actually
happen if Trudeau, Stanfield, Lewis and
Caouette had a four-way air collision,
which is not an impossibility at the
rate they're• haring about their home-
land?
Would we just have to throw up our
hands and sell the country to the highest
bidder? Fat chance. There'd be enough
power-hungry men and women, or just
plain idiots, to fill their shoes before
the bits were picked up.
Nobody is irreplaceable. The sky
didn't fall in when the British kicked their
great war-time leader, Winston Churchill,
out of office. The States didn't disin-
tegrate after the deaths of Lincoln, Roose-
velt, Kennedy. When Joe Stalin finally
expired, Russia didn't exactly hit the skids.
It seems that the only way to stay
off that treadmill of feeling indispensable
is to be poor. The fewer our possessions,
the freer we are to step off the merry-
go-round, take a look at the wonderful
world we live in, and realize that we
are about as individually important as
grains of sand.
I have a fellow just like that sitting
downstairs talking to his mother. He
drifted in this morning from Montreal.
He's off to Alaska to spread the Baha'i
faith.
How is he going to get there? Well,
if he can .get to Penticton by Friday,
he'll catch a ride north with some friends.
I point out that there is no way, short of
flying, or getting to Penticton in two
days. Oh , well, he may hitch-hike, going
through northern Saskatchewan. (He got
the hint that I wasn't going to loan him air
fare.)
What was he going to take? Well, he
has a sleeping bag and a sweater and
jeans and boots, and it's only about three
thousand miles
'
so there's no problem.
He's been to Mexico, New Orleans,
New York and across Canada from coast
to coast. His total assets are those
listed above. Physical, that is. On the
other hand, he's completely bilingual and
has an education no university could pro-
vide.
Best of all, he knows clearly that he
is not indispensable.
WWMWW
1117;
tassels Post
°ONTARIO,
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1972
lzD
Serf/till; Brussels and the surrounding community
Published each WedneSday -afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
1)3' 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.
Solving the litter problem
The futility of attempting to
solve the litter problem by fines
or appeals to reason is emphasized
in a recent. United Church "Un-
churched Editorial".
Ontario's Environment Department
recently announced it would spend
$150,000 on advertising to get
people to pick up their litter.
Shortly afterward the Consumers
Association of Canada criticized
this method of controlling litter
and asked for legislation instead.
However, unless the legislation was
'enforced it wouldn't work either.
Unless some attempt is made to
enforce legislation by authorities
such as the police or by citizens
groups through protest, the problem
will continue.
We have highway signs now read-
ing "$50.00 Fine for Dumping Trash"
or some other such warning. Does it
stop people from dumping trash?
Obviously not.
If money was spent on co-operat-
ive programs with industry to re-
cycle tin cans, bottles and paper,
,offering some benefit to the public
for collecting these and turning
them in at government supported de-
pots in turn, to be transported to
industry, this service would benefit
everyone, the church paper suggests.
Without intelligent planning to
follow up litter collection, although
unsightly, it might just as well lie
on the camp ground, the park, or the
ravine to be recycled eventually by
Nature. The problem is disposal.
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