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Times-Advocate, 1983-04-20, Page 4Page 4 Times -Advocate, April 20, 1983 Ames - Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1924 dvocate. Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873 Published by J.W. Eedy Publications limited LORNE EEDY Publisher JIM BECKETT Advertising Manager BILL BATTEN Editor HARRY DEVRIES Composition Manager ROSS HAUGH Assistant Editor DICK JONGKIND Business Manager Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. Phone 235-1331 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $21.00 Per year; U.S.A. $56.00 - C.W.N.A., O.C.N.A. CLASS 'A' and 'ABC' A Let's keep it rolling The recent release of unemployment figures across the nation suggests that there is still a long way to go to achieve any dramatic economic recovery, but there was certainly more than a glimmer of hope in news contained in last week's edition of this newspaper. There was an announcement of a large, modern facility for Canadian Tire; sod turnings for a new senior citizen housing facility in Hensall and the new office to be shared by the Ausab!e-Bayfield Conserva- tion Authority and Usborne Township; plus the open- ing of Kenpal Farms Products Incorporated in the va- cant structure previously occupied byEastonManufac- turing on Highway 4 in the Centralia area. Added to the recent good news regarding Hughes Columbia and Northlander Industries, there is every indication that the area economy is rebounding significantly. The private investment, in particular, indicates a considerable amount of faith in an economic turn- around as well as in this area in particular to generate returns on- that investment. Those in charge of public funds are in a rather more delicate position. On one hand, they are expected to hold the line, while on the other, they must recognize that not spending money adds to the economic and employment problems. Consumer confidence is one of the basic re- quirements for an improvement in the economic situa- tion, and hi,pefully area consumers will take their lead from those who are investing in the future of this area and will do what they can to stimulate employment and confidence. Confidence, similar to doom and gloom, is con- tagious, and hopefully the rash of good news will continue. Food for thought By W. Roger Worth Canada is the bread basket of the world. Canadians have heard that phrase so often, they seem to take it for granted that our farmers rate among the finest anywhere. Yet the nation's food producers have very real pro- blems that are little understood by ordinary Canadians. Consider what's happening at the present time. With spring planting just around the corner, many farmers are scurrying to.banks, seeking loans to pay for the fertilizer, seed and other necessities. In the fall, when the crop is harvested, the farmer sells the com- modity, pays off the bank loan (including the interest), retains whatever is left to cover wages and other costs and ( hopefully) earns a fair return on a heavy investment. That's the way the system is supposed to work, but relatively low food prices and high interest rates in re- cent years have cut profits and, in somecases,have resulted in very real losses. Yet the hardy farmer persists, even when govern- ments add uncertainties such as proposed massive changes in the freight rate system that may or may not be costly to producers. Our fishermen are in the same leaky boat. With the low prices they are offered for their products, the fishermen are having difficulty surviving. In fact, things are so bad, it now Seems clear that governments will be forced to spend hundreds of million of dollars to bail out the industry in Atlantic Canad The winners in this high-cost, low -price equation, of course, are the nation's consumers. While Canadians spend about 23 percent of disposable income on food, West Germans lay out more than 30 percent and the Japanese payout awhopping35 percent or so of their income on food. It's true, farming and fishing are generally con- sidered risky businesses where producers can earn big returns if everything goes according to plan. But in many cases, producers haven't been winners in the 1980s. Aside from economics, what's important, but lit- tle noticed by Canadians, is the fact that as a country we are indeed self-sufficient in food. And for that, we can thank our farmers and fishermen. Whatever their problems, they always seem to meet our demands for foodstuffs with lots left over to sell to other countries. They deserve to be treated with respect. Here's chance to eclipse Local Mutual Life Assurance agent George Godbolt dropped off a news release this week explaining the unusual circumstances surrounding a cheque recently. cashed by the Waterloo head office. ' The cheque had been written in 1916 to a Robert G. Sparrow of Wolesley, Saskat- chewan. Ile had been given the cheque in the amount of $293.0.2 for the cash value of his life insurance policy and for reasons unknown now, never cashed it. His survivors discovered the cheque in 1982 and Mutual Life decided to cash it. despite the fact it was 65 years stale - dated. They also computed the interest on the cheque over the 66 years since it was ,written and gave the descendants 83,467.22. While it makes an interesting story, it is obviously one of those which do not oc- cur for most of us. We all write cheques and hope that the recipient somehow forgets to cash it, but that never happens. in fact, now that financial institutions are using computers, it seems that some cheques get cashed even before the ink is dry, especially those you're hoping won't get through the books until you get there to cover the amount with a deposit. It appears al times as though com- puters work through the night and even over the weekend in -clearing cheques, even those from a considerable distance. The computer in charge of deposits, of course, works at half the speed. Inview of the great interest these days in establishing records or making it into the Guinness book, the writer has decid- ed that it would be a great idea for all those receiving cheques from him in the next few months to set them aside in a safe place where they will be found at a later date --like 67 years from now Then their survivors can attempt to cash those cheques, get their names in the BATT'N AROUND with the editor newspaper and eclipse the record for presenting stale -dated cheques. ,Hopefully, they'll all respond to the challenge in the interest of•estahlishing a new record! it certainly sounds like a great idea to me! . * * * it may not be a record, but a news item in the daily the other day noted that a wedding ring was found in Nebraska, after being lost some 55 yeas ago. Seems the original owner had been but- chering one day in 1927 or 1928 on the family farm when she noticed her gold wedding band was missing. Despite a thorough search, it was never found. it was uncovered in a field recently by a farmer and was said to he just like new. The interesting point of the story is not the finding of the ring, but rather the loca- tion of the incident. it was in Exeter, Nebraska. a record A search through my trusty atlas had never before indicated there was a namesake to this community in Nebraska, although there are duplicates in New Hampshire, California, Penn- sylvania and of course, England. Many residents of this community have visited in Exeter. England, and there has been some official communication bet- ween here and there in the past. A few months ago, the writer had the opportunity of visiting the Exeter in New Hampshire along with a minor hockey team. The hospitality extended the local contingent was excellent and resulted in the rec director of the community visiting here some time later. However, i have never come across anyone who has ever indicated having visited our namesake in any of the other three states aforementioned, or coming across others which may not be included on official road maps or atlases. So, in the interest of trying to establish some contact with those communities, I sent a letter to each of them last week in an effort to find out something about them. Whether they'll reach their intend- ed destination or elicit some response re- mains to be seen, hut hopefully someone will answer. At any rate, it is a topic with which I have some fascination, and will keep you informed if some information does come from the namesakes that have been contacted. if there is anyone who has visited those in Nebraska, California or Pennsylvania, I would appreciate hearing from you. "Of course powerful interests are behind each PC leadership candidate — they're married, aren't they?" Humans get short end of stick • Humans, though not as tenacious and purposeful as the ant, nor as busy as the bee, have much in common with them. Ants, or course, can't swim. Or they can, but they can't hold their noses when they go under, so they drown. Who'd want to be an ant? Bees, on the other hand, can fly, and we can't. But they are unable ,to jump, even to a cdnclusion, and we can, so that evens out. We don't have the singlemindedness of ants. They know where they are going, or what they are do- ing. We don't. We go wandering about and get squashed. They do too, of course, but at least they were headed somewhere. Bees bumble, but never on the scale that we do. They zero in on a flower. We stagger into a cactus. They go, "Vroom, vroom!" We flood our motors and go, "Ka- whuck, ka-whunch. ka-a-a-glunk!" There are other similarities and dif- ferences, none of which prove that humans are superior. Ants don't have sexual hang-ups. They know that they are workers, •or soldiers or whatever. Humans don't, half the time, know whether they are punched; bored, or kicked in with a frozen boot. Bees also know who and where they are. Like us, they have a Queen. but theirs doesn't have to con- sult the Labour Part before. deciding what to do about unemployment. She wipes out the workers. That automatically creates now jobs. Imagine a world in which bees had unemploy- ment insurance. You'd not only have a bee in your bonnet, but a bee in your bum, your brain and your bra. Unlike us, ants don't worry about their ants. We have poor aunts who must be kept under cover, rich ants who must be toadied . � :.: �,t 5��. 3:� •ham Ja` We wake up in the same cell, after nightmares about being in a cell, and proceed to a smaller cell where we peer at ourselves, shake our heads gloomily and remove various normal blessings. Can you image • Sugar and Spice' Dispensed By Smiley to, and crazy aunts who threaten to come and stay with us. Bees don't bother much about other bees. They just buzz about, sucking honey. What a life. They have no rotten kids, frigid wives, drunken husbands. goofy grandchildren, aged parents. So far, it looks as though we've got the short end of the stick, and the ants and the bees are in clover. But there's one thing that dragsthem down to our level. We all live in cells. You didn't know this`' You say humans have free will? You think we can call the shots, be masters of our own good and evil. live as long as we like, go to heaven 'or hell, decide what to have for dinner? Nonsense. You are sit- ting in a cell as you read this. I am sitting in a cell as I write it. Maybe your cell has a refrigerator and an electric stove, and mine has an ashtray and a filing cabinet. But they are cells. At night, we move from the TV cell to the cell with the platform where we, for no reason, expect to go to sleep. a bee shaving his God- given whiskers? Then we romp down through a vertical cell with no windows to another cell with orange juice and coffee. Ants and bees get spilled sugar and honey. No coffee, no tea. no caffeine problems. Neatt, we leave this cell for a mobile one, with FM radio, window wipers, and automatic knees, legs, windows. Meanwhile, the ants and the bees go about their business. getting ex- ercise, fresh air and a keen curiosity about what's going to happen today. We know nothing ne‘c is going to happen today. We go to a big cell, where ladies type in a little cell within a bigger cell. We pick up our little cellular pieces from the ladies and go off to our individual cells, where we spend the entire day convincing other people that they should be happy to even have a cell. Sometimes we are hap- • py. We go to •t big cell and browse around, humming and snuffling things and touching the un- touchables. But it ends all too soon. We are brought to a tiny cell, where a young'woman punches out some tentacles that drag us hack to the big cell. where the Queen Bee in- forms us that we -have no taste. no common. sense. and less intelligence than a bee or an ant. While this tirade is tak- ing.place, wl at are the ant and the bee doingb lilting, stinging? No; they are an - ting around and beeing around, with no sense whatever that they are the lowest of the low, dumb slobs, cretins. The words don't mean anything to them. Some day, humans will rise to the level of the ant and the bee. They will ac- cept their cells, instead of trying to kick the sides out of them. They will do what they are supposed to do, without a lot of ifs, ants and bees. Someday. humans will stop gossiping about each other. Ants don't. Some- day humans will stop stinging each other. Bees don't, except when you bug them. . Someday humans will stop asking. "Why?" The word is not in the vocabulary of ants and bees. But humans must have a care. If they don't, the theme song of the Twenty- first Century might well be, "My cell is your cell. Your cell is my cell And our cell is our cell..." On, the other hand; perhaps we are not lost in the cells. Ants can multip- ly, but they can't divide. Bees can buzz, but they can't beam. Maybe there's a future for us, if we can just gel out of those c•e 11.,. One last comment on trip One last column about travelling in the U.S.A., Florida in particular. We had heard a variety of dif- ferent comments about the new addition to Walt Disney World, the EPCOT Centre, some of them not so favourable. One person told us that it was just a bunch of restaurants and shops from countries around the world. Not so. This place ranks high on my list of recom- mended places to go. I won't spoil your fun by describing the different places within it but I will say that the tradition that Walt Disney started in his Disney World of high quality animation and spectacular educational showpieces has not been put to shame in this place. plan on getting to the cen- t found myself gasping at tre about 3 o'clock in the some of the special effects afternoon. By that time all y,Y Perspectives By Syd Fletcher that I saw, ranging from life-size moving dinosaurs to a robot that played the hand -bells, and a theatre that actually moves you from one place to another instead of bringing the stage to you. One other thing. If you don't want to stand for long periods of time in line I would suggest that you of the people who are worn out from standing in line and bucking crowds all day are leaving the place in droves. By the time 5 O'clock comes around the lines are down to quite reasonable lengths and by 7 o'clock you can prac- ticially walk into any at- traction at your leisure. i don't think that Disney World or the Epcot Centre are places tor really small children. Many of the ex- hibits are quite intense (that's the word the Disney people use themselves). For exam- ple, one 3-D movie in the Kodak building had very realistic monsters and witches coming right out of the screen. Also, the distances involved are quite lengthy sometimes and very little ones seem- ed to find it very fatiguing. We found the food in both the Magic Kingdom and the Epcot Centre to be reasonably priced and of quite good quality. If you can make it down there I know you'll thoroughly enjoy the place.