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The Citizen, 1991-04-03, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 1991. PAGE 5. Making things worse by making them better The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley. Robert Burns Scotland’s finest flower had that at least half right. Mice, 1 can’t speak for, but there’s no doubt homo sapiens is distin­ guished by an unfortunate talent for shooting itself in the foot. Whenever we try to fix things, we usually make them worse. Take the planet. Umpty kazillion years ago, our ancestors came to the ungrunted conclusion that the world was a free salad bar set up exclusively for cavemankind. See some­ thing you like, kill it and eat it. See something you don’t like, throw it into the creek and forget about it. For a few millenia, it wasn’t such a bad arrange­ ment. Then the good things -- such as rare species and clean water, began to disap­ pear. And the bad things - such as garbage and pollution, started piling up. “We’ve got a problem here’’ someone said. The Environmental Movement was born. That should have meant the dawn of a whole new era. It’s been more like the screening of a brand new Three Stoogies movie. Why don’t police get on the job? THE EDITOR, Our family dog, a German shepherd named Sheba, was walking down the sidewalk with my husband last night (March 23). So what, you say? A truck came around the corner and swerved onto the soft shoulder and struck Sheba head-on dragging her 50 ft. trapped underneath the truck, unable to get free until the truck stopped. Six more inches and it would have been my husband. Ten minutes earlier, and it would have been my son. He wanted Blyth has been a great place to live “MOVING ON" Yes indeed, 1 will be sorry to leave, this pretty little town, and the friendly folk, that 1 have come to know. Blyth is not a place, where they 'll allow you to feel down. Least wise, not for long, not with those smiles and kind words they sow. I've experienced first hand, the gaiety that's planted here. The Thresher's Reunion, the fabulous Rutabaga Festival and parade, [That would, by the way, put to shame] those big cities attempt at cheer! Yes, there's a lot of warmth, and just plain good fun, [that'll not soon fade. ] From this person s memories [that I can say for sure!] There 's those beautiful flowers, that the Horticulture Society plant and tend so faithfully, the beauty a real cure, for any doldrums, that would happen, to come my way. occasionally. The beautiful lights, that shone forth, during the Christmas season. I believe, none prettier, have I ever been blessed to gaze upon. Everyone so involved, giving of themselves, for whatever reason. Cheerfully decorating, for Thanksgiving. Valentine s and St. Pat s that just gone. Easter weekend now soon upon, each and all of us. My. it seems that Blyth s always in there, celebrating something so faithfully! The chocolate bunnies are out, most are remembering the death of Jesus, and his resurrection, after having died for our sins, on the cross at Calvary. Yes, I'm sure our Lord and Saviour, smiles down upon Blyth with kindly eyes As we remember with love, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter. God s special days. I 've almost been here a year. How the time does jly. I thank the Lord for the people here, with all their kindly ways Yes. indeed. I will be sorry to leave this pretty little town behind. and the friendly folk I have come to know over this year. My daughter and I would like to thank each and all for being so kind. Special thanks to the tenants at Queen 's Villa Apartments, who have become our family here! May God Bless and Keep you, ail of your days and may Blyth always be known as the friendliest little town in Ontario! (or is that Canada?) Marilyn and Jamella Bent Norwell District Secondary School plans reunion THE EDITOR, Norwell District Secondary School in Palmerston. Ontario will b** celebrating its 50th Anniversary during the weekend of May 24-26. There are many divides and events planned for this wo-i ..nd. Arthur Black■\ Here are some - just some - of the more recent Green Initiatives that have blown up in our faces: Item One: Last year an Argentine ship sank off the coast of Antarctica spilling a < million litres of fuel into the sea. Nfearby are the rookeries for some 20,000 pen­ guins. The ship? Oh, it was full of ecologically sensitive tourists eager to see one of the planets unspoiled natural bastions. No one knows what the long-term effects of the spill will be. Item Two: Two years ago an internation­ al ban on the sale of ivory went into effect. Quickly the elephant population in Zim­ babwean reserves almost doubled to 61.000 beasts. Problem is, that’s about twice as high as the reserves can handle. Experts say the elephants are already destroying their own habitat and invading nearby villages in a desperate search for food. Diagnosis: the same experts predict massive imminent elephant die-offs. Item Three: Environmental authorities in England have done an amazing job of cleaning up the River Thames in a very short time. As a matter of fact, the Thames is now so pristine it’s killing dolphins. The newer, cleaner Thames is attracting sal­ mon for the first time in a century and a half. The salmon in turn are attracting dolphins which have swum as far as 40 miles inland from the ocean. Unfortunate­ ly, these are salt-water, not fresh water dolphins. Some are dying of diseases caused by lengthy exposure to fresh water. to go too. Fortunately for him, it was bedtime. We, my daughter, son and myself, watched from the playroom win­ dow in horror. The man was speeding as he turned the corner. He was all over the road before he hit my dog. He was going to hit someone or something. He stopped the truck, after a minute, and got out. He saw my husband running toward him and sped away. His slurred words were “The mutt’s gonna be OK”. My point is this: after reporting the incident to the Wingham OPP dispatch officer, the officer’s question to me was “what do you expect me to do about it?” Are they not the ones who are here to protect and serve? Why is it that they sit at We are attempting to contact and inform as many former staff and students as possible. Through this letter we wish to issue an invitation to all of these people to assist us in celebrating Norwell’s Anniver­ sary. Some of our ecological blunders are more burlesque than grotesque. Last spring, officials in Riverside County, California dithered over whether to spray malathion to kill the Mediterranean fruit fly that was decimating the fruit crops. Were they worried about the effects of the poison on humans in the area? Nope. They feared the spray might harm an endanger­ ed species of rats living in the area. There’s something sweetly ironic about the image of a rat paying defenceman for a fruit fly. But there’s nothing sweet about the Exxon Valdez spill. Thirty-eight million litres of crude oil sliming the rocks and clotting the beaches of Prince William Sound, Alaska. Exxon Co. was caught black-handed, and it must be said, reacted responsibly, turning out its corporate pockets to the tune of $1 billion U.S. for the clean-up. But an oil spill is not like a coffee splash on the arborite. You can’t just whisk it away; the damage is internal and long-last­ ing. About all you can do is make it look good for the TV cameras. Which they did. The cleaner-uppers captured and cleaned up nearly 200 sea otters. At an estimated cost of $80,000 per otter. The irony is, the sea otter is in no danger of extinction. If they’d let the otters go and ploughed the money into a drunk driving program for captains, Exxon would’ve been further ahead. So would Earth. the edge of town on Monday mornings and expect to catch someone speeding? Why weren’t they here Friday and Saturday •nights, when a lot of people drink and drive? They were no where to be seen. Why does it seem that it’s who you are calling about, not why you are calling that gets their attention. What do I expect them to do about it? Instead of sitting at the ball park for 10 minutes ignoring the speeders and the drunks, they should be stopping them. Instead of coming to town when they feel like it, they should be here when it counts, and get these idiots who think they are above the law. MRS. KAREN COMEAU WALTON Further information on the celebration can be obtained by contacting the school at (519) 343-3107. DOUGALS MORRELL, PALMERSTON, ONT. Letter from the editor A glimpse of the real ‘real world’ BY KEITH ROULSTON I got another lesson in perspective last week. Most of us like to think we live in the “real world” as opposed to the politicians and the academics and people who work for the government but the vast majority of us haven’t the slightest idea of what the “real world” is like. We cry and complain about the abuses and inconveniences in our lives and feel sorry for ourselves to no end. We’re a country of people feeling sorry for ourselves to such an extreme that we are in danger of seeing our country destroyed because of what amounts to petty com­ plaints compared to the really “real world”. 1 spent a couple of days in the hospital last week while doctors removed the gall bladder that had put me in the hospital a few weeks earlier. I had the worry of the uncertainty of the upcoming operation one day, the trauma of the preparation for the operation, the pain and disorientation of the recovery the next. Yet I didn’t dare feel very sorry for myself when 1 looked around at the other three occupants of my hospital room. I knew that, thanks to a miraculous new operation, I’d be out of hospital in a day after the operation and back at work within a week where others in the past had suffered a month of rehabilitation. The others in the room were not so fortunate. They had already been there for some time before I came and seemed likely to be there for some time after I left. Next to me was an older man who had either had a stroke or was suffering the early effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Big and healthy looking, he still needed constant care either by nursing staff or by family members who tried to have one or more members of the family visiting as much of the day as possible. Late at night he had to be tied into his bed to keep him from trying to get out by himself and possibly falling. He would call out for help, sometimes for hours, cursing the nurses when they didn’t give him as much attention as he felt he needed. Across from him was a young teenager, perhaps 14 or 15 years of age. He was having some kind of breathing problem -with a tube going down to his lungs to drain off fluid. He would stare off into space for hours at a time. His doctor had asked a priest to come to see him because he worried the youngster had lost the will to live. Beside him was a man in his 50’s who was back in hospital for the umpteenth time. He suffered from diabetes and as a side effect was having terrible problems with his feet. One foot had already had several toes amputated. Currently he was in following surgery to his other foot and it wasn't healing properly. He wanted to go home but doctors felt he needed more concentrated care than he could get from Homecare and they wanted to put hirn in a nursing home. He complained bitterly that he’d spent the last several summers confined to medical institutions and he just wanted to spend some time at home. That was just our one room. Across the way there was another woman who was suffering from Alzheimers and called out day and night. There were equally sad stories all up and down the halls of this floor and all the other floors of the large hospital. I was impressed again, as I was when I watched my father die several years ago, at the special personality it takes to be a nurse and show compassion to people in suffering. I couldn’t give so much day in and day out and survive. These people live in a world that most of us know about but can happily ignore except when it happens to us or a loved one. It’s the same in so many other things. We can hear statistics about unemploy­ ment but it doesn't mean anything unless it happens to us. We can get pretty smug about people who we can conveniently Continued on page 6