The Brussels Post, 1974-01-30, Page 2The
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1974
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean 13ros.Publishers, Limited.
Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Tom Haley - Advertising
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
Ontario Weekly Neivspaper. Association.
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada l $6.00 a year, Others
$8.00 a year, Single Copies 15 cents each.
Second class mail Registration No. 0562.
Telephone 887-6641.
Stop killing wolves
There used to be a bounty on wolves in this
province and every winter we carried reports of
money being paid to successful hunters. About a
year ago Ontario became the last province in Canada
to . recognize that wolves are not a threat to
agriculture or anything else and dropped the bounty.
We are no longer being .paid so much per hide for
killing wolves but two district papers have in the past
two weeks carried pictures of forty and fifty pound
dead wolves and their grinning hunters after they
had been chased into McKillop. In the absence of a
bounty and since wolf .meat is not considered'
especially succulent eating, why are wolves still
being killed?
It seems that in our area wolves are killed for
kicks, or in the sincere belief that they are a threat to
farm livestock.
Unfortimately for him, the wolf has a bad image;
he's a victim of poor public relations. From Little Red
Riding Hood and the big bad wolf to expressions like
"keeping the wolf from the door", we are
bombarded at all ages with anti-wolf propaganda.
Remember how terrified we were when
you-know-who huffed and puffed and,blew two out of
three little pigs' houses down?
When we are children wolves are always the
villians in fairy tales, evil, nasty and dangerous. It's
natural then that most adults feel wolves are fair
game for hunters. We all like Bambi thp deer, but
who cares about killing the big bad wolf?
In fact authorities tell us the wolf's real true
character is the opposite of his bad image. Wolves
are not marauders at all, but peaceful animals who
run away, rather than attack when they are bothered.
Read Farley MOwat's defense of the wolf in many of
his books.
Wolves have a highly developed "family" life.
They look after and train their young, trim the deer
population of its weakest and most unfit members
and leave the rest of the world alone.
We should extend the same privilege to them.
In the days of the early settlers in this part of the
country, with unfenced stock and the deer
disappearing as wild land was gradually brought
under cultivation, the wolf may have been a problem,
occasionally killing livestock.
But nowadays, it's highly unlikely that a poor
wolf would come anywhere near livestock in a fenced
field and certainly not in a barn. A Canadian Society
of Environmental Biologist's report, printed in the
September, 1973 Ontario Naturalist says a majority
of wolf complaints by farmers in the Lake Huron
district are actually caused by wild dogs.
But a farmer who has proof or a suspicion that
wolves are harassing his stock (and we would like to
hear any such information from our readers) need
only contact the Department of Lands and Forests
who can provide all kinds of free assistance in setting
traps and eliminating the threat.
By the way, there is no mention in any of the
current reports of Wolf hunts of the wolves attacking
anything at all --- just a sighting out in the woods and
the chase is on.
What is our excuse for chasing a beautiful and
desperate animal in one case for five and a half
hoUrs, in a car, over two counties` and over thirty
miles until he is exhausted, cornered by dogs and'
shot?
Maybe We Should give this land in which they
once ran free, back to the Wolves sometimes they
seem to have More sense than We do,
101.
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Sugar and Spice
By Bill Smiley
J.101•1.00.11.a.—.0••••••••••••
You'd think the Sinileys could have one
tiny grandchild with no more than the
usual anxiety and expectancy.
No, a chance. They had to turn it, into a
three-ring circus.
Just about the time the wee lad was due
to arrive, I provided the first ring. I racked
up my car. Not seriously. Just enough so it
couldn't be driven. It 'was during the
holidays, and between -these and• relentless
storms, day after day, the repairs took
twice as long as, they would have normally.
No transport. But we had to be there
When his nibs arrived. It's a hundred miles
away. Result was a nightmare of taxis and
buses.
There's nothing more dismal than
riding a bus in mid-winter. It's either a
super-modern one, with the heat turned up
so that you are gasping for breath and
sweating like a wrestler, or it's an
old-timer, with no heat and a draft that
would freeze the brains of a brass monkey
coming in around the window.
There's nothing more frustrating than
waiting for a cab. It's no problem
downtown in the city. You -can flag one
down on the street. But when you are in a
remote suburb, you'd be better off with a
dog team. We waited 55 minutes for a cab
one night, after five phone calls, on each of
which I was assured "He's on the way", a
pure and downright lie.
My daughter, true to family form,
provided ring two of the circus. I'm only
glad I wasn't there, or you'd be reading my
obituary instead of 'a column this week.
She began getting signs that the little
stranger was developing claustrophobia
and wanted to see the light of day. Nothing
violent, but enough to send my wife into
action, with all guns.
"Hang on. We'll be right up." Up
meant up to the university apartment
where she and her husband are living. It's
right out in the country and a brute to get
at, unless you have a car.
My wife commandeered my brother-in-
law, and he drove her there. Naturally, the
young couple doesn't have a car.
Potential Granny dashed into the
building, and was just starting up on the
elevator, when she heard a disembodied
voice asking, "Is there anyone there?"
She was more than a little startled. It
was the Voice of her son-in-law, and it
seemed to be corning out of the walls.
It was. He and my daughter, the
pregnant kid, were stuck in the adjoining
elevator, between floors. They weren't
stuck because she was pregnant, but
because the elevator had ceased to
descend. They'd been on their Way down.
Well, how does that grab you, as
melodrama? It's like 'something you'd see
on one of those Medical series on TV.
If I'd been there, I'd have-fainted dead
away and been carted off. My wife is made
of sterner stuff. She can get hysterical
about a cat crapping on a carpet. But when
it comes down to real trouble, she's right
on.
And my brother-in-law is a great man in
a crisis. He posted my wife where she
could talk to the two kids trapped' in the
elevator. Then . he' rounded up the troop:"-,-
security guards, superintendents, and
electrician. •
They tried everything. A half hour
passed. Nothing. An hour. Nothing
worked. They called the elevator company.
It wasNew Year's Day.' A recorded
message. Tension grew. It was like a wake.
Pregnant woman trapped in stalled.
elevator.
After nearly an hour and a half, my
son-in-law, one of the trappees, had an
idea. There was a small space at the
bottom of their elevator car, but Kim, with
her bulging belly, couldn't get through it.
a There was little more room at the top.
If they could get through, from one
elevator car to the other, maybe...
The rescuers found a panel between the
elevator cars. It was removed. The
electrician was skinny. He was hoisted up
and crawled through the hole. A ladder
was hoisted and passed to hiin. Silence.
' After a few minutes of this, the
rescuers ; started pounding the wall and
shouting. No answer. Panic. They were
just about to call the fire department when
the kids and the electrician walked down
the stairs, into the lobby.
Using the ladder, they had climbed out
of the elevator and crawled through that
just-big-enough hole, onto the second
floor. "
Needless to say, joy r'eigned supreme.
Laughing and hugging and kissing.
Nobody had gone haywire in a nasty
situation. The kids had not panicked. In
fact, Kim sat on the floor and almost went
to sleep. My wife kept her head, through
an hour and a half of mental anguish. My
brother-in-law come out feeling like
Horatius at the bridge.
Well, all turned out fine. But the third
ring of the circus was supplied to my wife.
First day the baby was home, she was
going up to see him, and her own
A young woman had throwri herself in
front of a subway train, and it took thy wife
three hours to get there,
Why can't we- have a grandchild
without all this fooferaw? Oh, Well. At
least, the first time he crosses the border
into the States, when he's about sixteen,•
And one of those snarly U.S. immigration
officers says, "Where were you bolt
won't have to answer, "pub, in an
elevator,' '
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