The Citizen, 2002-04-03, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2002. PAGE 5.
Other Views
Leave it to Beaver
ust ran into a guy I know down at the
air coffee shop. He was handing out cigars.
"New baby?" I guessed cleverly.
"Yup," said the guy. "Eight-pound baby girl.
We're calling her Charity".
Which would be fine, I guess - if the guy's
last name didn't happen to be Case. Maybe the
nurses will talk them out of it.
Mums and Dads...think long and hard
before you saddle your newborns with
monikers they have to carry for the rest of their
lives.
Keep it in mind that there are two Frank
Zappa offspring who will, 'til they draw their
last breath, answer to 'Moon Unit' and
'Dweezi I ' .
Never forget that there's a university student
in New York whose name is Rosetta Stone.
And a chartered accountant in New Zealand
named Genghis Cohen.
And a Catholic Archbishop in Malta who
answers to Cardinal Sin.
Names are like hand grenades. You never
know when one is going to blow up in your
face. Ask the folks at Beaver College down in
Pennsylvania. It was an innocent-enough name
back in 1853, when the college was founded.
And the institution came by the name honestly
— the college was originally situated in Beaver
County, Pa.
But the college has moved, and so have
the times. Tell someone you're going to
Yale, Harvard, McGill or Simon Fraser and
you get a little respect. Tell them you're
studying at Beaver College and you get
snickers, smirks and remarks like, "You gotta
be kiddin'!"
David Letterman has made fun of Beaver
W
hen I am away from home for any
length of time my family usually
sees to it that I am sent copies of
Canadian newspapers. It is nice to come back
to my temporary abode, prop my feet up and
read what has been going on in Canada during
my absence.
It, is not that I miss our news so much; it is
simply because the foreign newspapers carry
little or no news of Canadian content and,
when they do, it is sometimes rather secondary
in importance.
One thing that can be said about foreign
newspapers; they certainly reflect the shortage
of trees in the country in question. There is no
doubt whatsoever that they are considerably
smaller than large Canadian dailies, being
more along the lines of The Citizen, both in
size of the page and the number of pages_
This means that there are a number of things
that are not to be found; foremost among these
is any news of a specific village or hamlet.
In the weekly newspapers that take my
column, I can be sure to find news of any of the
surrounding communities of any size. There is
a local correspondent whose job it is to provide
the newspaper with news of any activity,
movement, statement, visit, etc. of any
importance.
You can be sure that, on any given week, the
readers are well informed of the comings and
goings of the surrounding district.
You can forget that in Europe! In their
version of the news they simply do not have
room for it in such a small newspaper and the
lack of such news does not seem to bother
anybody to any degree. Anybody I ever talked
to about it sort of shrugged his or her shoulders
and stated that there were simply/too many
such communities to be able to give them
adequate coverage. ,
They are quite right. The population density
in Europe is considerably higher than it is here;
villages are crammed more closely together
and trying to give them all equal billing or even
according to their relative size would take up
far too much space.
Unless the residents of such places commit a
College on Late Night. Howard Stern has
mocked it on his radio program.
Freshman Aimee Drumheller says it's hard.
to live with. She says when friends erupted in
laughter at the mention of her Alma Mater,
"I'd just kind of blow it off. But when they hear
the name, they always want me to get them a
Beaver College T-shirt."
For the beaver, it's been a long, slow slide
down the riverbank. Back in the days before
the big ships full of white strangers came, the
beaver was plentiful — and a kind of living
food bank for the Indians. They knew the
creatures were fat, nutritious and easy to catch.
The white men didn't give a damn about the
meat. They just wanted the hides so they could
send them back to Europe to be turned into
high fashion headgear for style-conscious fops.
And they took the hides by the millions. The
beaver population plummeted close to
extinction.
Fortunately, European haute couture gave a
flip of its frivolous head and poof! — beaver
hats were suddenly out of fashion.
But fate wasn't finished with Castor
Canadensis. The poor little guy, through no
fault of his own, became an involuntary charter
member of scatological slang.
Time was when our national emblem was
Raymond
Canon
The
International
Scene
heinous crime or start a revolution, they are
pretty well ignored.
There is no such thing as comics but there is
generally a cartoonist who puts his or her talent
to work generally on the political scene. Many
of the newspapers do have some political bent
which can soon be gleaned by reading a few of
the editorials and the cartoonist tags along with
his pictorial reflection of the contents of the
editorials. Humour may or may not be
contained in the pictures.
Certainly European readers tend to be as
sports-minded as Canadian ones so you can
count on a generous serving of reports of
recent games, the state of the national team and
the comings and goings of players.
As in Canada there are even newspapers
dedicated wholly to sports. I recall that, when I
was playing hockey in Switzerland, I had the
misfortune to get in an accident (more
precisely I had a building fall on me). In no
time at all the country's sport magazine had a
reporter and a photographer around to the
hospital to interview me and to take a picture of
me.
It looked horrible which is exactly how I felt.
With the smaller size and the capsulated
news, you can at least get through a newspaper
more quickly than you can in Canada. It is also
easier to buy one there since newsstands are far
more prevalent through Europe than they are
here. Along with your favourite newspaper you
can buy a magazine or two since there is a wide
variety of them on sale.
Finally the smaller size lends itself to a
practice which I find attractive. Many
restaurants have a rack on which are hung
wooden rods, to each of which is attached the
just a shy and roly-poly rodent.
Nowadays, as U.S. linguist Reinhold Aman
has noted, "When someone writes about
beavers, one assumes this person is a zoologist,
a Canadian, or works for a porn magazine."
Some critics say we never should have
chosen a beaver for our national emblem, but
let's face it — most of the blue chip beasties
were spoken for.
Britain had the lion, Russia had the bear,
India, the tiger. Our neighbours to the south
had the magnificent bald eagle.
Magnificence, of course, is in the eye of the
beholder. Listen to this description of the bald
eagle:
"...he is a bird of bad moral character...like
those among men who live by sharping and
robbing, he is generally poor, and often very
lousy..."
I didn't say that. Benjamin Franklin did.
The late Robertson Davies opined that
Canada should have chosen the Canadian
lynx. "It is a daring, wily, beautiful animal,
swift and potentially ferocious, tenacious in
defense of what is its own and never caught
asleep."
Bold attempt, Robertson — but try as I
might, I can't picture Canada as daring, wily,
ferocious or particularly swift.
And anyway what exactly is wrong with
celebrating an animal that is quiet, hard-
working, doesn't try to kill and eat its
neighbours, minds its own business and spends
its working hours building homes and creating
new fish habitat?
Sounds like a pretty decent neighbour to me.
Say it loud and say it proud: we come from
beaver country.
latest edition of the most popular newspapers.
There are even a few magazines hung similarly
to add variety.
Having had to eat so often in European
restaurants, I admit to enjoying the meal more
by catching up on the news while waiting for
my meal or even afterwards.
I do, however, try to avoid reading any
articles that are likely to spoil my appetite.
Letter
Letters to the editor are a forum for public
opinion and comment. The views expressed do
not necessarily reflect those of this
publication.
THE EDITOR,
Hats off and sincere thanks to the nine brave
councillors who voted to have the Hugh
Thomas management review take place.
The review provides an avenue for the
ordinary taxpayer like myself to see what
seems to be really happening at county level.
Thomas states that Huron is the only place he
knows of where the minutes of the committee
meetings are printed and distributed before the
meeting even begins and before any vote is
taken. How can this be possible? Who writes
up these minutes? By whose authority'? Why'?
And where does the ultimate responsibility for
this lie?
Can these issues be resolved before the
county loses more good staff? How many have
we lost in the last ten years? And at what cost?
At one time I was a neighbour of Warden
Van Diepenbeek. His reputation was one of
honesty, hardworking, his word was his word
and he kept it. Adam Crosby of The Goderich
Signal-Star quotes him as saying "We're not
sweeping this thing under the carpet, we're
definitely dealing with-it."
Let's support and encourage him to do what
ever is necessary to keep his reputation intact,
and to operate H uron County as a business. At
any cost, let's bring it back to being the best
county in Ontario or Canada for that matter!
Clare Smith,
Coderich, ON.
Bonnie
Gropp
The short of it
No Easter bonnet
/ii my Easter bonnet... A sunny morning,
sprint in the air and a family together,
dressed like they had somewhere special
to go, something special to do. r
Oh, I did used to look so grand heading out
to church as a youngster with my mom, dad
and siblings on Easter Sunday. A new frilly
dress in a bursting-with-springtime pastel
shade, shiny white shoes, natty little gloves,
patent leather purse, and of course, that
delightful straw bonnet with the colour co-
ordinated ribbon.
All my Sunday school friends, looked pretty
much the same, of course, while our parents
too were dressed smartly in their new duds. It
was expected.
I was telling a young person recently about
the tradition of a new Easter outfit, how we
blossomed out in cheery colours to herald the
new season's brightness after months of hiding
behind drab winter's heavy layers. They were
colours to celebrate the day, the joy of the
resurrection.
And there was of course the bonnet. Women
generally wore a hat to church when I was a
youngster, and the new one for Easter was
always the sunniest.
Actually, what one wore to church in those
days was given much consideration, carrying a
lot more weight than it probably should have.
I can recall my mother talking about Mrs. So-
and-So who was, my little ears and even lesser
cattiness tried to understand, apparently more
interested in what everyone was wearing than
in the service. She would, Mom often
grumbled over our Sunday brunch, always be
able to comment on a fashion faux pas, but
seldom had any remark to make on the
minister's words. Those with less money, it
seemed, were particularly easy targets for her
spite.
Though I was young, the message obviously
struck a chord with me. And, when I came of
age in the latter part of the 1960s and early
1970s, when materialism was shunned, I
began to question what had been an accepted
custom.
Church is a place of respect, of worship. But
it is also a place where more than any other,
people should be accepted for who they are.
As my idea of fashion switched from frills to
tie-dye, so too did my belief in how I should
dress for church. I was always respectful, but
• the clothes I chose were more about who I was
than whom others thought I should be.
As a young mom I did outfit my children
each year with a new Easter outfit. When they
were little I admit I exercised a certain power
and opted for the cutesy, dressy styles. But as
my kids reached an age when what they wore
reflected their own personality, I would have
to say their new ensembles were generally far
from traditional. Certainly, I encouraged them
to wear the best of what they had, but
generally the best of what they had was
something they would wear every day.
There are, I am sure those who disagree: I
have overheard shocked whispers in the
church parking lot over someone's attire. But,
I think most recognize the world has changed.
Actually getting people to attend church can
be enough of a challenge, without establishing
a dress code.
I believe in church as a place where you are
able to feel good about yourself, safe within a
community that should not judge you for
entering in blue jeans.
Or for leaving behind that new Easter
bonnet.
Reading the news • oret n style