The Brussels Post, 1974-10-16, Page 2VERWIED,
CWCui-ATION
Sugar and Spice
By Bill Smiley
Fallen fence
IITAWSPIED
1$12
Brussels Post Post
BRUSSELS
ONTARIO
ry
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 16, 1974
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 A ssociatiqn. and
• . Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association.
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $6.00 a year, Others
OcrNA $8.00 a year, Single Copies 15 cents each.
Second class mail Registration No. 0562.
'Telephone 887-6641.
Read the plan
Enclosed with each copy of the Brussels Post this
week is a copy of the proposed officel plan for our
village. At first glance the plan seems to be a fairly
complicated document, written in language that is
not too easy to follow.
It is also long and covers several full pages. It
would be quite easy for most of our readers to say
"Forget it, I'm not going to read through all THAT"
or "What in the heck is council dreaming up now?"
and simply turn the page.
We urge you, don't do it. Once you get into it and
start thinking about what the language of the plan
',really means, instead of getting caught up in it when
it seems to be double talk, you will discover that the
plan, is important, even interesting reading.
Where else can you find out what the projected
population of Brussels is for 1986? What areas of the
village will have high and low density housing in the
future? What buildings in our village have been
designated historic and what does that mean?
When will agriculture be phased out within the
village limits? There is an exception to this, what is
it? How much water does the village use each day?
All this information and more is contained in this
draft of the official plan. When it is finally adopted it
will affect where you live, shop and work within the
village.
When the zoning by-laws that will eventually be
included in a similar village plan were printed in
another Hurpn County village recently an irate
reader wrote complaining that the regulations were
excessive and that local residents were losing their
freedom of choice.
While reading our copy of the Brussels Plan we
were struck by just the opposite thought. The plan is
very comprehensive.. It delves into and analyzes
every part of life in the village.
But it seems to us that by planning for and figuring
out just what some of the pressures and changes will
be on life here in the future we are adding to our
freedom of choice. Once we have a plan adopted we
can all relax in the realization that the village is safe
from undesirable industry or ugly random housing
development and that we can be assured of orderly
growth.
The plan has had all along and will have more
input from local people. It's not the Huron County
Planning Department's plan or even Council's plan.
It's our plan.
The Wan is only a tool that those who live here can
use to regulate hew they want their village to
develop. The plan is a map; it's our insurance that,,
the things we now like about Brussels will not be
spelled and that the things that need improvement
will be shaped up.
Please read the plan. Keep it for reference, It'S
our future that these paragraphs are talking abbUt.
Whether or not you agree With the plan the Post
urges you to attend the public meeting next Tuesday,
October 22 at the Legion Hall at 8 p.m. The plan can
Only be as good as the thought and discuSsiOn that
you put into it.
Things at last seem to be looking up for
Canadian writers, after generations of
neglect by their own countrymen.
With a few notable exceptions, it used to
be that to be a writer in ,Canada was almost
on a par with being an Untouchable in
India. If you were not openly scorned, you
were quietly ignored, which was worse.
The big publishers, most of them British
or American, with an affiliate in Canada,
shied away from Canadian writers as
though they had the plague, at the same
time fost ering insignificant American and
British writers.
One of the exceptions was Stephen
Leacock, who made a lot of money and
became a well-known character in this
country, after his first book had been
accepted by a British publisher.
Typically, Leacock was ignored, if not
despised, by the people of Orillia, Ont.,
when he was alive. He had a summer home
there. Many Orillians detested him
because he poked wicked fun at some of
their leading citizens in his Mariposa tales.
Not so today. Some sharp people finally
realized that Leacock was commercially
viable as a tourist attraction.
Nowadays you'd think Leacock had
walked down from a mountain with stone
tablets, into .Orillia. It is the in-thing to
belong to the Leacock Society. There is a
Leacock Museum, with a full-time
curator. There is a Leacock annual award
for humour, a Leacock medal, a Leacock
weekend culminating in a huge dinner at
which the saint is paid proper homage. I'll
bet the old guy is doubled up in his graVe,
laughing.
It was all so Canadian, in its approach to
writing, that it would be funny, if it weren't
a little Sad. Canadians are builders. They'll
spend billions on railroads and transconti-
nental highways and canals and dams. But
when it comes to culture, the approach is
always a two-bit one.
A few dedicated souls formed the
Leacock. Society. They had no money. But
every year, they 'd persuade a few people
to act as judges, and these idiots would
pick out the funniest book published in
Canada that year. I know. I was one of
those idiots for about four years, which
gave me some insight into Canadian
humour. Most of the books submitted were
about as funny as a broken leg,
Let's say you are Eric Nicol of Vancouver
(a very funny writer, by the way). This
would be about 15 years ago. You are
informed by wire that you have won the
Leatock Award for Humour and are asked
to attend the Leacock Dinner, receive the
LeacOck Medal (worth about 60 cents in a
pawnshop), and make a witty speech which
will take you hours to write. The dinner is
absolutely free; but you pay your own way
froth and back to Vancouver.
Today of course,, it'S different. The
dinner price has gone up from $2.50
$7.50 and the drinks ,from 45c to whater
I believe that at long last, some brewer I
actually put up $1,000 to go, with
Medal. Big deal.
So much for that. I digress. During I
long, painful aridity of the '20s, '30s a
'40s, the names of Canadian writers we
not exactly household words. • -
A few writers toiled on in the Canadi.
desert. Morley Callaghan, a fine writ
with an international reputation, pluggt
away. When he produced a new novel,
would be avidly snatched up,by as many
six or seven hundred of his fello
countrymen.To make a living, he had to d
hack work in journalism, radio, and lat
TV.
Ironically, Callaghan, at about the age
of 70, was given two whopping great cast
prizes by a brewer and a bank for hi!
contribution to Canadian literature. He wa!
also awarded a Canada Medal a
something like that, which he refused, it
disgust. And good for him.
Then, after the war came, not a spate,
but at least a surge, of new writers, bold
writers: Hugh Garner, Mordechai Richter,
Pierre Berton, Farley MoWat.They knew
they were good, and they demanded
recognition. And money. And they got it,
though it was like prying diamonds out of
rock.
After them came another rash of writers:
Alden Nowlan, Al Purdy, Robert Kroetch,
Margaret Atwood. 'A few courageous
independent publishers gave them a voice.
They sell. Now the younger ones are
coming on, pell-mell. After years in a
cultural desert, oases are springing up
everywhere.
This entire diatribe was triggered by an
announcement sent• out to English
department heads from an outfit called
Platform for the Arts. It will send "poets,
novelists, journalists and playwrights"
right into our classrooms to read and
discuss their works with the students,
Good show.At only $30 each. Yet they can
pay these people $75 a day and expenses,
owing to government grants.
One paragraph in the letter fascina,es
me. "Please indicate whether you would
like a poet, prose writer, or playwright to
visit your school. Choose one, two or all
three separate tours."
Okay, chaps: Send us a poet, and 1 don't
Want Ethel Kartoffeln of Hayfork Centre.
Send a handsome guy with 'a smashing
beard. And one blonde playwright With
large bosoiri. That'll keep the students of
both sexes happy. As tot a j ournalist, send
along any old One: I'll handle him or her. In
btheitsweileetild th yeosttexcdasn,. asncayrweacyely distinguish
Say. At a secOtid look, that whole tout
looks pretty good i SiS per diem and
eitperists. I'm a journalist, of sorts, if 3'04
Wq:intitteoacsiitriettigeh a griddp(ijilt °bni orte ehrtdoit‘
Maybe'
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