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Times-Advocate, 1988-08-24, Page 4Page 4 h Times Advocate, August 24, 1988 Times Established Ili' t Adsucate Established ItitS1 Amalgamated 1924 A imes dvocate Published Each .Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario, NOM 150 Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. Phone 519-235.1331 ROSS HAI. CH tditur CNA CCNA IL BICktff . Publi}her & Athertising Manager HARR, Of RIES DO'. SSW H Composition %tanager Business Manager SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada: $25100 Per year; U.S.A. $65.00 Police citation Residents should be cheered by the On- tario Police Commission's appraisal of the `Exeter police force. Chief. Larry Hardy is to be commended for the job he has done over ,the past four years as the • leader of the department. The Commission carried out an in- depth investigation into the operations of the force and came away with a glowing report which praised.almost every aspect of the often short-staffed department. Only -the station and its aging equip- ment was noted as being in need of im- provement. But even poor equipment has been offset by the substance of the police staff. After the report was presented to the town, councillor Morley Hall called for foot patrols, claiming there is a lack of public contact between citizens and the force. - Councillor Hall obviously disregarded the Commission's comment: "... this force... holds a reasonably good profile in the eyes of the community." • If Hall's primary reason for requesting foot patrols is to enhance public rela- tions, it is unfounded. Officers should spend their time in a way that best serves the public. If that means covering a larg- er area by patrolling the town in cruisers instead of shaking hands and kissing ba- bies; so be it. Good service carries its own -P.R. By Mark Bisset A sad trend When Brian Mulroney and the Pro- gressive Conservative party swept to power in 1984, a number of Canadians were forced to vote against one party, rather than for another. Canadians were frustrated. with the stale Liberal government of Pierre Elli- ott Trudeau -- a government too long in .power, stricken with corruption and in- ternal rot. In order to. remove the Liber- als from office, voters moved as a block into the Conservative camp. Many were unhappy with what they got. Now, after four years of scandal and misgovernment of the blue variety, Ca- nadians -are revealing in the polls they are ready to clip Mulroney's wings, take his huge mandate away and replace it with a minority Conservative govern- ment -- or a different government alto- gether. • But when people now opposed to Mul- roney go to the polls; they will not be voting for John Turner or Ed Broadbent so much as they will be voting against Brian Mulroney. It is a telling trend. It reveals an abso- lute lack of creative leadership in this country. On one front we can choose - Turner, a man who would have done his party a favour by resigning two years ago; a man who really isn't sure where to take the Liberal party, let -alone his country. • On a second front, Broadbent stands ready to steer Canada in a new direction, , but not an original direction. Socialism.-, has been tried elsewhere and has proved to be: faulty. And 'Broadbent may have revealed something of his nature when he began to push party policies from left to centre as his popularity rose. Unless we are presented with intelli- gent, innovative leadership, we are bound to continue placing negative rath- er than positive votes. One is reminded of the story of the lady who bought a cat to get rid of a mouse, a ddg to get rid of the cat and so on until she had an elephant in residence and was forced to .bring back the mouse to scare off the pachyderm. It is a discouraging circle. By ,bark Bisset Home -groan - it's an ill wind that .blows no good. And it's an arid drought that scars all benefit. This .year's unusual lack of rainfall has at least given us a valid ex- - cusc for our unproductive gar- den. Other years we've had no excuse for aur lack of green thumbs, but this time we can self-righteously blame -the weather. Don had to replant most of his initial sowings of peas, beans, carrots and cucumbers. The first seeds just lay in the ground, too parched to sprout. 1 wish some clever plant biol- ogist would explain why weeds in general seem. to thrive under conditions that stunt or kill do-' mcsticatcd plants. A Nobel prize awaits the person who dis- covers how to graft corn stalks onto velvctleaf roots. or makes white pea beans flourish atop.a milkweed base. The one crop that did excep- tionally well in our garden this year was red -root pigwced, thc bane of our horticultural efforts. If that noxious invader were a saleable crop, bon and I would have been millionaires long ago. The stuff can lic dormant in the soil for 85 years, then burst up Reynold's Rap by Yvonne Reynolds like dragon's teeth at thc first touch of the plow or the kiss of a gentle rain. -Our pigwced got so thick Don pulled up a whole row of peas he failed to sec. His explanation is that it serves the peas •right for consorting so intimately with the enemy. Searching for enough green beans for two people for dinner is akin to stalking the jungle in starch of prey. Thc'red of the to- matoes makes that vegetable an easier target, thank goodness. Cantaloupes which should be the size of bowling balls could be uscd for a game of pingpong: Looking at thc dwarf onions makes me cry. in good years, too, our garden is a disaster. Cabbages lose their heads. Baby carrots never grow up. Broccoli that was not ready by day blossoms into use- less yellow flowers by the light of the moon. Beets bleed be- fore they arc harvested. Pota- toes seeking martyrdom skulk right where they know we are going to put in thc shovel. Even thc bugs and beetles boy- cott our acreage. We have two options, as far as I can see. We can offer our gar- den plot to Centralia Colicge of Agricultural Technology for tar- get practice, or we can declare the whole thing a disaster arca, and forbid anyone to approach nearer than two miles to thc site. As a last desperate resort, we could tum it into pasture for our goats. - See you at the vegetable coun- ter. Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873 Published by J.W. Eedy Publications Limited I WAS :tN EDMONTON WHEN ME DEVASTATINCt DISASTER STRUCK • AWFUL 5tGtiT! DAZED MM. WANDERING THE STREETS IN SHOLK .. CRIES OF ANGUISH, MOANING, CURSING THE FATES.. wow! LAST 'EAR'S TORNADO? IrOMMIL WORSE- TXE GRETZKY • TRADE! From up above Don't get excited about the heading on this column. We are talking about "up above" as opposed -to "down under" in reporting our holiday activities last week with visitors from Australia. - We picked Alick and Shirley Obst up in Toronto on Saturday, August 13 and they spent the following week with us before flying to Kentucky for a couple of day s. They then head for Los Angeles and Honolulu be- fore heading back down under. Before visiting in Crediton, they spent 17 days on a bus tour from. Vancouver- to Niagara Falls and back to Toronto. Needless to say they were tired out after the long bus hike and the pace here was slowed down considerably to give them - a chance to rest. Alick, being a former farmer was vcry impressed with the- farm lands in Western Ontario, despite the less than ideal weath- er conditions which have kept the countryside a little browner than usual. - tie enjoyed a tour of thc re- search farm at Centralia College thanks to tour guide Fred Bow- ers. Incidentally_ , the annual Crops Update is being held to- day, Wednesday at the CCAT famL just north of the Crediton road on Concession 3 of Ste- phen township. Everyone is welcome to attend and see 'the variety of crop and herbicide trials. Included in the farm related tours we took were a visit to a farm in Usbome township where canning corn was being picked and then on to the Nabisco plant in Exeter where the corn was headed for processing. fra From the ; editor's disk by Ross Haugh Also on a visit to Godcrich, we were fortunate to see a large lake boat come into. the harbour to pick up grain. from the elevators there. Our visitors were vcry interest- ed in a trek through Mennonite country around Elmira and St. Jacobs and seeing a large number of horse _and buggies tied -up to hitching posts in Elmira. A night_out at the Iluron Coun- try Playhouse to sec Windfall, a trip to sec the kettles at Kettle Point , a vist to a couple of shop- ping malls in London and a tour of Exeter's Main street shops sort of rounded out our in -the -arca trips. One of the first things Alick did wlicn he arrived in Vancouver was to check which way the wa- ter swirled when a Canadian toi- let was flushed. 1 -ie found out what we told him • three years ago was correct when we met on a tour of New Zealand that the Canadian swirl goes in a counter clockwise direction while in Australia the direction is clock- wise. - * * * * We should mention that a regu- lar on our editorial page for al- most 11 years will not fie- seen anymore. Syd Fletcher, a Lamb - ton county elementary school principal has decided to call it quits as far as writing a column is concerned and will tum to other things in his spare time. - For the time being, the space usually filled by Perspectives will be taken over by our three resi- dent reporters Yvonne Reynolds, Mark Bisset and Adrian } lame on a rotating basis. * * * * While this was being written, Tony McQuail dropped in to tell us that Ontario's New Democrat- ic pane leader Bob Rae would be in -Huron this coming Saturday. Rae will visit the Zurich Bean Festival at about 12.30 pni., open the newly renovated office of the Huron -Bruce riding in Dungannon at 3 p.m. and join in on a family potluck picnic at the. McQuail farm, southeast of Lucknow. ' The NDP leader along with his wifc Arlene and their three chil- dren will attend "Fires in the Night" at the Blyth Festival at night. Furry friends When 1 came down to the kitchen early in the morning, my fust reaction was: we've been hit by a burglar. What if he is still in the house? The screen of the kitchen window over the sink had been broken and was hanging down precariously. The fridge door stood wide open. The radio on top of the fridge had been knocked over. Things on top of the <counter were in a- mess. Somebody obviously had come in. But had he left? I checked the VCR it was still there in the playroom. Before I opened the cellar door. I remembered what I had learned from watching TV. I armed 'myself with Elizabeth's crepe pan and, tiptoed over to the door. I carefully reached over to the handle and ripped the door open, ready to clobber the intruder on the head: No one there. I turned on the cellar light and went down the stairs. ready for action. All was quiet. I tried the same manoeuvre with the broom closet and clothes closet doors. I checked if the kids were still in their beds. They were peaceful. Alt outside doors were locked. I went back to the kitchen to examine the evidence more closely. That's when I became convinced that we had been burglarized by a criminal wearing a black mask Over the eyes and a bushy striped tail. His name was Procyon loton, also known as Ringtail Raccoon. • The critter's footprints were all over the counter, the stove and even the walls. How it had managed to open the fridge door was beyond me. Having completed this incredible feat, it must have been exhausted, because nothing was disturbed inside. Maybe the fridge light' PETER'S POINT • • by Peter Hesse' scared it away. Its search for food could have been truly rcwaiding if it had gotten into the fridge and • • the nearby pantry. As it turned out, the only nourishment it found were the heads of Duncan's and Stephanie's apple -face dolls. Their decapitated remains were scattered on the floor. Unfortunately this gruesome discovery was made by Stephanie who had come down to join me. wondering what all the clattering was about. She ran to tell Duncan. and for ten minutes the twins wailed a,heart-breaking lament for the dolls they had worked so hard to create. 1 promised that I'd help to make - new apple faces. We gathered up the little "bodies", the wire granny -glasses, the dress and the apron, the shirt and the pants of the dolls and took them to "the hospital". We got the screen repaired, and the kitchen cleaned up. We were hoping that the offender would be so discouraged by the meagre reward of its raid that it would leave us alone. I refused to borrow a 22 and go "coon hunting". These animals have as much right to live around here as we do. if only we could all learn not to stick our noses into each .other's business. I'm actually very grateful to that raccoon. l have seen evidence of its digestive products all over • 'the lawn, and I think it was very considerate not to go to the bathroom in our kitchen. I am al -so grateful to the bat that suddenly appeared in the - playroom last night while we were watching P i p p i Longstocking with the kids. It is a mystery how it got into the house. it circled the room without bumping into anything. As soon as Elizabeth opened the back door, it said good night and flew out. The kids weren't even hysterical. lust puzzled. Like me.