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The Citizen, 1992-01-08, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8,1992. Editorials Do something! It's a long time since a new year has been greeted with such a lack of hope as is present as 1992 opens in Canada. A recent survey showed that 90 per cent of Canadians felt things - were going to get worse this year. Given that 78,000 jobs were lost in 1991 in Metropolitan Toronto alone, the idea that 1992 could be worse is frightening. But the signs of economic collapse have been frightening. December saw several major clothing-store chains go bankrupt and rumours within the retail industry say many more are likely to follow when the traditional sales doldrums of January and February occur. Given all the black news, it's easy to get so depressed that one wants to retreat, to find some warm, secure place and just curl up and wait for the economic storm to end. But that attitude can only make things worse. If everybody thinks bad times are ahead, then bad times will be ahead. Whenever things look blackest, the best thing to do is act...take any kind of action but act. Doing things helps stave off the depression that can come from seemingly hopeless situations. Citizens of Huron County took action in the pre-Christmas period. By the hundreds, they found ways to try to help those who were going to suffer most this Christmas, giving to the Christmas Bureau, the Salvation Army and the United Way. This kind of community action is needed as well in other areas. We need people to put their heads together to find new, innovative ways to keep their communities alive. We need new ways of promoting our communities, new ways to stimulate business, new ways of finding ways to serve the needs of our people at a price we can afford. We need to find private, individual ways to act and we need to find community ways to act. We can't stand still or we will be swept under by despair. We must rekindle the dogged pioneer spirit that brought people through hardship, to this land in the first place and built the rich society we now enjoy. No matter how hard things might get, we must fight back. A lost opportunity The new year almost sneaked in last week with little to indicate it was the 125th since Canada's confederation in 1867. At about the time Canada needed something to cheer about most, our federal government has decided to let a landmark year go by without much celebration. Perhaps the government has some common sense reasons for missing this opportunity to give the country something to celebrate. No doubt government spending restrictions are part of the reason. When you're concerned, above all, with cutting the deficit, probably the idea of encouraging people to blow money on fireworks and community projects doesn't sound wise. Perhaps too there was a worry about a backlash among nationalists in Quebec if federal dollars were being spent to promote Canadian nationalist sentiments. Still, its too bad the government hadn't been less timid. Anyone who can remember what the Centennial Celebrations of 1967 did for Canada could wish that we could recapture even a quarter of that spirit in 1992. Probably never has government money been spent so well as in that year when thousands of community projects got off the ground thanks to the seed money the government provided. Given the economic realities of 1992, and the fact it's only a celebration of a quarter century, perhaps the grants could have been smaller, but they might still have stimulated activities in communities across the country. But something has to be done to make Canadians feel good about themselves again: to make them see the vastness and the beauty of their land and to celebrate our diversity of ethnic background, not see it as a problem. Centennial Year made Canadians prouder than they have ever been before to be part of such a rich and spectacular country. It got us travelling in our country as never before, got us seeing how the other 90 per cent lived. A little imagination could have gone a long way on the government's part, to spur the country into a celebration. Since the government has missed this golden opportunity, it’s to be hoped that each community will find a way to celebrate on its own. We need to feel good about ourselves again. Letter from the Editor ‘Good old days’ left something to be desired One of the major faults Canadi­ ans suffer from is a collective bad memory. Maybe if we remembered more, we'd complain less. We have a tendency to remember the "good old days" when things were better, generally forgetting what was bad in the good old days. We're feeling pretty sorry for our­ selves these days. Some people would have you believe that we're severely over-taxed and would be far better off going back to the wonderful old days when you got to keep more of what you earned. Other people complain that they just can't live in the manner to which they have become accus­ tomed, that through international forces and too much government, our standard of living is slipping. In my other career as a play­ wright, I've been working lately on a play that takes place in the late 1950's. It's caused me to search my memory banks about what it was really like to live back then. It makes the 1990's, even with our problems, look pretty good. By Keith Roulston Too many taxes today? Well, think back to the way things were more than 30 years ago. Many towns around here had gravel streets. I remember when I moved to Clinton in 1970, there were only two paved streets that weren't provincial highways going through town. The street lights were so poor in our comer of town I thought I was back on the farm some nights when I looked out the front win­ dow. Like to go back to that? Like to give up our bright lights and pavement to save taxes? Playing sports in those bams they called arenas back then was a hobby only for the daring. One could freeze off tender parts of the anatomy changing your clothes in the dressing room of many local arenas. If somebody, back then, could have shown us pictures of the arenas people would be playing in today, we would have thought they were joking. It was much the same with sum­ mer sports: the brightly lit ball dia­ monds with the neat grass and taught fences that are in every ham­ let today, would have been a dream for the best of teams in those days. (Nobody would ever imagine how many adults would one day be playing oldtimer ball, hockey and broomball, either). Think of the roads we had back then. Not only did we have more snow in winters back then, but we had one grader in the township I grew up in. It could take a long , time to open all the roads after a big storm. Today, if the concession isn't as clean as a city street within an hour or so after a storm, we start looking up the reeve's telephone number. Speaking of city streets, remem­ ber what main street in any town looked like in winter? The banks got bigger and the road got narrow­ er and the sidewalks pretty well disappeared. Every now and then the banks might get hauled away, but never as often as they do now. How about highways? I remem­ ber long waits at one-lane bridges on provincial highways while you waited for the traffic to stop com­ ing the other direction. Cars used to overheat going up some of the high hills there used to be before roads were levelled out. Nobody likes to be sick but you'd like it even less back then. For one thing, you might be broke before you got better in those days before OHIP. For another, even the most modem hospital then would hardly Continued on page 8 CitizenTheNorthHuron P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. N0M1H0 Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont. NOG 1 HO Phone 887-9114 FAX 887-9021 The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $20.50/year ($19.16 plus $1.34 G.S.T.) for local; $19.16 + $1.66 for each month after March 31/92 + G.S.T. for local letter carrier . in Goderich, Hanover, Listowel, etc. and out-of-area (40 miles from Brussels); $60.00/year for U.S.A, and Foreign. Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited. Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 4 p.m. - Blyth. We are not responsible for unsolicited newscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copywright. Editor & Publisher, Keith Roulston Sales Representatives, Sue Wilson and Jeannette McNeil Assistant Editor, Bonnie Gropp Publications Mail Registration No. 6968 Serving Blyth, Brussels, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and the surrounding townships.