The Rural Voice, 1978-06, Page 30be known as a regular customer at the bars. He was welcomed
because he could pay but after the fourth child in five years of
marriage and a complete break with his father, Jack went
through a tough time, drinking up every cent the family could
get.
The local gossip used to put his problem down to the fact that
he never had a chance to use his talents. He had been trapped in
a small town and his brain was shrivelling from lack of use.
If he only knew, I thought. If he only knew what things were
like out there, he and all those like him in all the small towns
across the nation. They spoke in derogatory tones about the way
of life in the city, the pollution, the crowds, but everyone of them
was dying to go there. They lived here on the rainbow but they
wanted more than the beauty of the rainbow, they wanted the pot
of gold at the end. And that's where it was, that's where the
money was to be made and everyone knew that money was the
answer to all their problems; money or the kind of job where they
didn't have to get callouses on their hands and could wear clean
clothes.
Why, I wondered, couldn't they realize what they had with
them so close at hand. They had beauty that life was really about
right here, but didn't know it.
A little of the depression of the railway yards and coal heaps
flooded back, but I pushed it aside and went back up to my room.
Things would be better in the morning....
I was up before seven the next morning. One place had been in
my mind all the time I had suffered in my prison in Toronto. I
walked through the long grass, little noticing the dew was
soaking through my shoes until I was down along the little
stream that twisted through the town. That spot just after it
turned around an old willow and tumbled over a small stone dam
was where my thoughts had often visited.
I had often wished the town would do something about that
little stream. Once I even wrote to a town councillor trying to get
him to promote the site as a park. A few others had fought for the
same thing. But council refused to consider it. Too expensive,
YOU NEED A
BREAK. THEY
NEED A JOB.
SEA STUDENT:
THE OPPORTUNITY
OFA SUMMERMIE.
Employment and
Immigration Canada
Bud Cullen, Minister
Emploi et
Immigration Canada
Bud Cullen, Ministre
Call your local Canada Manpower Centre for Students.
Goderich Listowel Stratford
524-7744 ' '922 271-9700
PG. 3u. RUKAL VOILE/JUNE 1978.
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