The Citizen, 2002-12-24, Page 5Final Thought
THE CITIZEN, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2002. PAGE 5.
Other Views
You must remember disk
Nothing like the Death of a Giant to kick
the slats out of the media adjective
corral.
Reporters love Big Deaths. When a Trudeau
topples or a Queen Mom passes the papers are
instantly awash in ink. The TV talking heads
wag in stately two-four time; the radio
announcers drone on at great lugubrious
length. Solemn editorials are penned; paeans
from anguished readers speckle the letters to
the editor page.
Quite a chasm between the funereal gushes
the great receive and the seven or eight-line
obligatory obit you and I will rate when we
finally kick - but that's okay. We won't be
around to read it anyway.
But there's a group of humans who really get
shafted when they shuffle off the mortal coil. I
mean the folks who deserve a big tribute but
don't get it.
Sure, the artists who write great books,
compose timeless music and paint master-
pieces deserve praise at their passing. Likewise
for the geniuses who invented penicillin and
smashed the atom.
But what about the others? What about, for
instance, Ed Headrick?
You bet Ed Headrick! Born 1904, died just a
few weeks ago - and hardly a peep in the press
about it.
Oh, he got a reasonably warm couple of
paragraphs in The Globe and Mail. They
mentioned how Ed was a World War II Vet and
how he liked to play the xylophone - but this
was buried in the back pages. •
For my money, Ed's death should have been
a front page, stop the press, banner headlined
feature story. i
Because Ed Headrick invented the Frisbee.
Well, not so much invented, as refined it.
College kids had been flinging paint can lids,
Ernie Eves has been unable to get in the
Christmas spirit — his criticisms of
opponents closing the 2002 sitting of
the legislature in fact were the most bitter from
a premier in years.
The Progressive Conservative premier was
angry and red-faced and reached back more
than 60 years, before he or either of the current
opposition party leaders was born, to get in his
rebukes.
Eves took exception when Liberal leader
Dalton McGuinty suggested he • deliberately
withheld funds for special needs students,
because he found them quickly when a high-
profile report called for them.
Eves snapped he did not need lectures from
McGuinty on special education because 'being
the parent of a former special education
student, I know exactly how difficult it is for
these students' Eves's son, Justin, had a
learning disability.
Eves called McGuinty "Mr. Do Nothing and
his Do Nothing Party."
McGuinty noted the Tories had to fire a
minister for abusing expenses and tried to
sneak through a tax break for wealthy sports
teams, a way for companies to raid surpluses in
pension plans and a 15 per cent raise in nursing
home fees for seniors, all stopped by
opposition protests.
McGuinty suggested the, Tories are not
advancing Ontarians' interests and should step
aside and let his party do it.
Eves retorted 'the Liberals have short
memories' and asked them to recall 'the seven
to nine ministers with conflicts of interest with
their. hands caught in the till'. in David
Peterion's government from 1985-90.-
Eves added Peterson 'had the worst record in
the history of the province, second only to the
Arthur
Black
plastic tops and various and sundry disks since
the 1950s.
(As a matter of fact, the very name Frisbee
comes from an old pie tin that was
manufactured by The Frisbie Baking
Company.) It was a lot of fun but you were
never quite sure what the disk was going to do
once you launched it.
A company named Wham-0 came up with a
patented plastic toy it called The Flying
Saucer. It performed somewhat better and it
looked a lot like a Frisbee except for one tiny
feature: the top was a smooth as a baby's
bottom.
That's where Ed Headrick came in. Back in
1964, Ed discovered that adding a series of
tiny ridges in the form of concentric circles
across the top of the toy stabilized the flight
path. Suddenly it didn't wobble any more.
Hey, presto! The Frisbee was born.
The funny thing about Ed is he really
loved his Frisbee. He went on to invent "Disk
Golf' in which players eschew their irons
and woods in favour of Frisbees which they
fling at targets laid out like the holes at a golf
course.
Ed Headrick not only invented the game, he
excelled at it. He was World Champion. Twice.
Did he take the game and the toy seriously?
You bet. He liked to call his fellow addicts
Frisbyterians.
When he reached his 90s, Ed Headrick sort
abysmal record of the Honorable Mitchell
Hepburn,' Liberal premier from 193442.
Peterson's government lost that many
ministers through varied indiscretions, mostly
because they accepted donations for political
purposes from a lobbyist connected to a
developer who broke many rules. But only
three or four could be said to have come close
to having their hands in the till. One minister's
mother and another's husband both obtained
paid work from the same lobbyist, which put
the ministers under an obligation.
Another minister failed to disclose his
holdings in mining companies while able to
influence government policies on them, and a
fourth's husband, a consultant, advised a
company when it obtained substantial funding
from the province,
Eves reached back a long way to remember
Hepburn and leaped over Tory scandals in the
1950s and 1970s, when they dropped six
ministers for failing to guard against
corruption in handing out highways contracts,
buying stock in a natural gas pipeline company
that might ask them for favours and buying
land whose value could be enhanced by their
decisions.
Eves scoffed accurately that McGuinty
changes his platform constantly and "will soon
be out with draft 17 of his election policy —
of wrote his own obituary. He requested that
his ashes be molded into a limited number of
'memorial flying disks' to be distributed to a
select group of family and friends.
Frisbyterians all, naturally.
But what a way to go! Knowing that, on
any given sunny afternoon, chances are
there's a part of you out there in a park or on a
back lawn sailing through the air from the
fingertips of one friend to the fingertips of
another.
That's better than a five-page obituary.
Better too, than leaving those last minute
arrangements to someone else who turns out to
be not quite as sympathetic as one would like.
I'm reminded., of the telephone call to the
obituary department of a newspaper in Toronto
some years ago.
"How much does it cost to have an obituary
printed?" asked the , caller.
"It's $5 a word, ma'am," said the newspaper
guy.
"Fine," said the woman. "Got a pencil?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Got some paper?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Then take this down: "MacTavish...dead."
The reporter waited for the woman to go on.
Nothing.
"That's it?" he asked.
"That's it," said the woman.
"I'm sorry, I should have told you, ma'am -
there's a five-word minimum."
"Yes, you_should have, young man," snapped
the woman. "Alright, let me think...Got a
pencil?
"Yes, ma'am."
"Got some paper?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Then take this down: MacTavish dead.
Bagpipes for sale."
give me a break!" But Eves also changes his
policies and is a pot calling a kettle black.
Eves jumped on New Democrat leader
Howard Hampton, who charged he will have to
sell part of the hydro transmission network at a
fire sale price, because he needs money to
balance his budget.
The premier sneered the NDP should be the
last to offer economic advice, because it ran
deficits of $10 billion every year it governec.,
from 1990-95 and "ran Ontario into the
ground."
The premier exaggerated, because the ND?
missed a $10 billion deficit one year, and it had
the bad luck to govern in a recession, while the
Tories took over when the economy was
recovering.
Eves repeatedly demanded Liberal Deputy
Leader Sandra Pupatello apologize because
she violated parliamentary convention by
sending a friend's property though an
arrangement the province has with a courier
service, although she paid more than if she had
sent it by normal commercial channels.
This was the most trivial scandal at Queen's
Park since a minister was caught smoking in a
corridor.
But Eves's outburst showed he recognizes
his party is wounded and will leave few stones
unturned to fight back and this will hearten it
more than calls for goodwill to all men.
At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year.
— Thomas Tosser
It's not Rockwell
As you read this, I am officially on
holiday. Technically, however, we all
know the reality.
Visions of my sitting curled up in my cozy
chair, wrapped in my even cozier throw,
taking in the merry twinkle of my Christmas
tree lights while I leisurely sip cocoa and
burrow into the pages tif a lovely festive story
are wonderfully Rockwellian.
And totally, totally erroneous. To paint a
truer picture of my 24 hours leading up to.
Christmas Day you would need Vasily
Kandinsky with his busy bold splashes of
colour rather than the old-fashioned simplicity
Norman Rockwell creates so beautifully.
Because on this day, there is a flurry of
activity. After weeks of festive obligations,
my house must be prepared. There is cleaning
and cooking to be done. There is organizing,
there is planning and plotting. There is the
finishing of last-minute details and catching
up on over-looked necessities.
Rooms must be readied; fridge, cupboards
and, of course, wine shelves stocked.
For as you know, in just a few short hours
family descends, and the special time will be
here ready or not.
A recent survey indicated that the number
one enjoyment of the holiday season is the
time spent with those near and dear to us. The
majority said the best part of Christmas was
to bring as many family members together as
possible under one roof, to enjoy the love
and tradition.
The survey also pointed out, however, that
many people are overly-stressed and
exhausted by the time these get-togethers
happen. They determined that hours are spent
finding each right gift, with the .,earth
resulting in about 20 miles of walking.
Trees and homes to decorate, cards to sign
.and mail, hours of baking, concert rehearsals
and social obligations add to the busyness of
already busy lives. As I mentioned to my
husband =her this season, while scurrying
from one seasonal task to another, it's not like
I needed anything extra to do.
. And yet, for all the hassle, for all the stress
and worry, it's been worth it, While in all
honestly I may not have enjoyed each step as I
was taking it, each one did get me closer to
finishing. There was respite between to
refresh, but also to reflect on what was
accomplished and what yet lay ahead. I
suppose in a way it's like childbirth. All the
pain and effort leads to a wonderful
denouement.
So, now, here I am, one day -away from
Christmas 2002. Many people I know are
working today, so 1 feel fucky that I have the
time at home to prepare. I will be a dervish,
broad sweeping strokes on a Kandinsky
creation. Dust cloth in hand I attack
woodwork and furniture. The vacuum and I
continue our battle against dog hair. Beds are
ready, the turkey is defrosting in the fridge.
The Christmas Eve mealtime preparations will
be completed as will lists for the next day's
caloric line-up.
I will rush past my decorations, hustle
around my twinkling tree, barely noticing their
infusion of colour to the scene,. I will sweat,
fume and worry, casting red hues. And I will
do it all with Christmas music bringing vivid
emotion to the picture.
So it's not Rockwell. But there's no question
the finished result is a work of art.,
A look at Eves' unseasonal attack
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