Loading...
Times-Advocate, 1988-06-22, Page 4Page 4 Times -Advocate, June 22, 1988 Times Established 187; Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 192.1 imes ( 4 d.,0ca e Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873 ir Published by J.W. Eedy Publications Limited Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontarip, NOM ISO Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. Phone 519.235-1331 ROSS HAUGH Editor HARR% DFVRIES Composition Manager ►CNA ilich IM BECKETT Publisher b Adsertising Manager DON SMITH Business Manager SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada: $25.00 Per year; U.S.A. $65.00 • A seeping problem A recent court decision which found Hensall farmer Peter Oud guilty of con- taminating a water course in Hay Town- ship leading to Black Creek should serve as a grim reminder to the farming com- munity. Oud allowed rutabagas to rot in his barn during last spring's hot spell. The lea- chate from the rotten vegetables ran into the water course and caused a high con- centration of ammonia which is toxic to fish and aquatic life. There are three major water sheds in Huron County: the Maitland system, the Bayfield system and the Ausauble system, as well as numerous streams which feed directly into Lake Huron. Of these water courses, there is not one which has not been affected at one time or another by agricultural pollution -- manure and fer- tilizer misuse, or occurrences similar to the Oud case. While Ministry of the Environment of- ficials assure us that incidents of agricul- tural pollution are less numerous and not nearly as horrendous as they were 10 years ago in this county, they continue to carry out 12 to 15 investigations per year which lead to charges. Major incidents may well be on the de- crease, but the ministry is unable to abate the release of small amounts of pollutants released over long periods of time. That job must be taken up by each individual farmer. The laughably low fine of $200 which Mr. Oud was assessed should not be taken as the norm. Fines of $1,200 to $1,500 are regularly being handed down and of- fenders can be sent to_prison for a second offence. The destruction of our enviro9ment is no longer being taken lightly. Tourists are people too While we here in Huron county often take the beauty of our countryside for granted, the lush beauty of the county along with the manmade attractions we've been adding over the years attract hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. It's big business and we can all help keep it growing. With the opening of the Blyth Festival this week the tourism season in North Hu- ron really swings into high gear. During the next three months 40,000 people will see plays at the Festival and spread out through the area to eat, shop and look for interesting places to visit. For those in the general public helping promote tourism is easy: it's just being the same friendly, helpful selves we are to our friends and neighbours. - "The example of how ordinary people can accomplish so much in helping create good feelings about the county is demon- strated by the country supper program at the Festival. Throughout more than a dozen years now people from out of the area have been travelling to church base- ments or Women's Institute Ilalls across By Mark Bisset the northern part of the county to get a taste of Huron county hospitality. The church suppers aren't something new to those who live in Huron. The food is the same good, home-cookedfood served in a frjendly manner we're used to at ban- quets served throughout the year. But to visitors from outside rural Onta- rio it's a new experience. They enjoy the cooking and the tasty pies and they espe- cially like the warm way they are treated by the ladies of the groups serving the meals. The Festival's supper program has grown and grown until it reached the limit that local groups could provide. The suppers have become the subject of al- most as much publicity in national media as the festival itself. Tourists have the same feelings and in- terests as we do (we are all, after all, tourists when we go somewhere else for , oUr vacations). Being friendly and help- ful and not trying to "milk" tourists for all they're worth will help keep tourism growing in Huron and benefitting us all. Blyth Citizen Land, our commodity As Canadians we are blessed with one commodity which many countries have a desperate short- age of. That commodity, of course, is land. Out west farms are so big that it would take hours to walk around the perime- ter of one of them. Even here in South-Westem Ontario, the pop- ulation is not very dense in com- parison to many other countries of the world. Lambton County, which has a diagonal distance of almost 90 miles has only a popu- lation of about 100,000 people, hardly elbow to elbow. Consequently, Canadians have a difficult time understanding the struggle in Israel between thc Pa- lestinians and the Jewish people, even though we hear about the constant battles between them al- most every day on the news: people with only stones of sticks in their hands confronting sol - By the Way by/� Syd Fletcher diers with automatic weapons. Children grow up with hate built into their lives right from the start of their lives. Men arc seized and imprisoned without a chance of trial and often are not seen for many months. The issue, of course, comes down to land. Each group claims an historical right to the same little patch of earth and both have a legitimate claim depending on the bias to- ward which you might lean. The ancestors of both groups have lived in the arca at some time or another. Presently the Israelis have the .whip hand. They have the money and the arms to de- fend what they see as their home land. The Palestinians have resorted to terrorism and other nasty acts to make their point. Only whcn people with com- mon sense and respect for the rights of others come into power on both sides will there every be some compromise. THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL It's the best medicine Laughter is the best medicine. That's a familiar saying which will be confirmed by most doc- tors and 'Readers Digest. - If laughter is good for people, then those 120 or so persons at- tending the recent Citizen of the Year awards night held by the Kirkton-Woodharn Optimist Club should be in good mood for awhile. • The recipient of the annual award was 1'tpnc other than Lcon Paul who has been involved in the entertainment field for more than 40 years. A half -page feature :on thc night's activities appears else- where in this issue, but we have a few additional items which may be of interest. The first two winners of the Citizen of the Year award'were Norris Atthill and Bill Waghortt. Nearly all of the K -W resi- dents who took part in the roast mentioned the fact that Lcon Paul has put Kirkton on the map. Well, Lcon can't take all of the credit. Ile is only part of the Paul Brothers and Shirley enter- taining act which has been seen in all parts of Canada and a number of spots in the United States. Along with his wife Shirley and brother Gerald, Lcon is in Frankenmuth, Michigan this week. The Pauls will be at thc Bavarian Inn dining room for 21 shows until Saturday night. Tliis is the fourth year they have pro- vided a full week's entertain- ment at Frankenmuth. Also ap- pearing at the Bavarian Festival this week is singer Glenn Camp- bell. Leon tells,us Campbell will be appearing in a Frankcnmuth out - t From the editor's disk by Ross Haugh door park while they will be -in the dining room of thc' Bavarian Inn which is famous for its chick- en dinners. The Inn owned by the Zander brothers serves 4,000 chicken dinners. on most week- ends. In the article this week we men- tioned that Susan Schaefer would lose games of billiards to Lcon when the chips were' down and money was'on the line. Well, the tables have been turned. Only Friday night, Susan beat Leon fair and square.' We understand the two engage in games similar to those put on by Jackie Gleason and Art Camey in the 1loncymooncrs show on tele- vision many years ago. The Pauls arc the only act wc know of that can do six skits in rapid firc fashion because they wear that many different cos- tumes on top of each other. Our favourite is thc Robin Hood routine , but Lcon says the one that gets the best applause.is thc Astronaut theme. Now, we arc not sure that is true, because Bill Schaefer says Lcon tells him they get "thundering and roaring applause" each time they appear. Our first recollection of Lcon Paul goes back to the Kirkton Garden Party. While he was on the committee for 40 years and in charge of getting the entertain- ment for all but of one of those years, he was a real worrier. He would worry about the weather, the crowd, the entertainers and even the sound system. He was master of ceremonies for the professional show most of the time with brother Gerald han- dling the chore of announcing the amateur acts. - Thc pace for the Paul Brothers and Shirley is not slowing down. They will be appearing four days at the Norfolk County Fair in Simcoc on the Thanksgiving weekend and already have 12 en- gagments for the month of De- cember. i. Although their object in life is to make people laugh, they had an expericuce a couple of weeks ago which was far from being funny. , On the way home from a show in Toronto, they had a flat tirc on Highway 401, near the city. Ac- cording to Lcon, changing a tire with cars whizzing by at high speeds was "scary".`They had very little space between the car and the dividing barrier on the highway to make the change and the boys had Shirley read direc- tions from the jack manual on how to get the car off the ground. To Lcon, Shirley and Gerald, may you have many more years of making your audiences laugh and we hope we will have the op- portunity of being on the receiv- ing end of your homcpsun Cana- dian humour. Time magic One question in the Peter's Point Contest was "Name situations you would like to "hold" or "reverse". This was in reference to a column in which I speculated what would happen if we could do with life what wc do with a video cassette recorder: push the fast -forward button when things arc boring or unpleasant, push "hold" or "pause" when we want to savour a particular moment, and push "rcvcrsc" to relive what was good in the past. The several hundred readers who responded, submitted many very interesting suggestions, comments and fantasies which I promised to share with you. Because some of the comments were of a very personal nature, i thought it better not to publish names. The single most common situation to which readers wanted to rcvcrsdwvas the time whcn thcir children (or grandchildren) were small. "They were so loving and kind and obedient", wrote one woman. "My kids arc now 14 and 12 - I wish they were 2 and newborn again", wrote another. 1 can sympathize with that feeling vcry well, and I remind myself every day that these are "the good old days" right now - to cherish and cnjoy. One mother wanted to rcvcrsc to her child's first day at school, another to the day she brought her baby home from the hospital. Other common reverse situations included: courtship, "the first kiss", taking the marriage vows, thc honeymoon, "the touch of thc hand of a friend", a trip to foreign places. Several widows wished they had a reverse button to bring their husbands back. A mother of a teenager wished she could have used a "hold" button when her son unexpectedly PETER'S POINT • • said "I love you, Mom". The mother of young children wishes she could "hold" the magic moment when the kids are finally in bed after a busy day. A senior citizen wishes she could "hold" her present happy state of good health. Other magic moments to hold: the Olympic torch passing by; the feeling that overcomes a reader who has just finished a good novel; a perfect summer day in early July; graduation night; driving a brand-new car. A farmer would love to rcvcrsc to the days when he was ploughing with a team of horses. Another farmer said he wished he had a hold button when onc of his. cows decided to calve at midnight. "l would have preferred to help the old girl in the morning". And from the ridiculous to the sublime: One reader wishes we all cduld "hold" the present period of relative world peace, another wants to reverse world politics so there wouldn't be famine anywhere. A woman keenly interested in genealogy wishes she had a rcvcrsc button, so that she could talk again to some old folks long gone. A former teacher on the West Coast who hasn't been actively involved in education for years wishes she could be hack in the classroom just once. To he young again ... To be in school again ... To be single again ... To he with my husband again ... But not everybody . is crazy about thc idea of buttons. "1 wouldn't want to be flitting from happy time to happy time," writes onc reader. "I don't want to miss all thc moments in between. i have many fond memories and i want to have more - that means I have to go forward." Another reader summed up her feelings:. "What situations do i want to hold? None. Life must go on. Reverse? None. Who wants to go through all that again?"