Clinton News-Record, 1980-11-08, Page 21The Pe�ple'sS.miley is a favorite
By Earl McRae
of "Today"'magazine
When 'I meet him at the school
where he teaches English, the
Storyteller doesn't disappoint; he
the viii c -T dfe breVer ete ri
tidy, middle-class, conservative town
I've ever visited. He suggests more
innocent, unassuming times in his
plain and sensible raincoat, his pork-
pie hat propped precisely on the top of
his head, his narrow, slightly loosened
tie. He recently turned in his '67
D9dge for a '72 Ford, which he calls
the Heap. His mouth is permanently
set on the cusp of a joke, and the
humor, when it comes, is droll and
mostly self -deprecating. He's small
and wiry, with red, razor -glistened
jowls that give up the scent of after-
shave, and his white hair is short,
neat and finely sliced, proof that the
neighborhood barbershop is not yet
extinct.
"Reminds me of a story," he says
when I suggest' lunch at a German
restaurant on the outskirts of town.
"Did a column on the- war -- oh, \this
was years ago and to, make a.
'particular point I used the word
`Daps.' Totally in context, of course.
But I got a nasty letter from the editor
of the paper in Taber, Alberta. Called
me a racist and said his paper was
seriously considering dropping my
column forevermore. The guy hap-
pened to be Japanese.
"Well, I wasn't going to take it
sitting down, so I wrote a followup
column saying he'd taken it the wrong
way, that I was a veteran myself and,
hell, we used to call the Germans
Huns, Krauts and Jerries; we didn't
discriminate. Next thing I know, I get
a letter from the Japanese guy's boss
telling me. That's it, the column is
definitely being killed. The guy
happened to be German."
The Storyteller chuckles to himself.
"I was going to write another column
sayings Look,, dammit, we Canadians
were called Unfelts and
Can -
. then I thought, if the German guy's
boss is a Canadian who writes back
and says, We're not only dropping the
column, we're suing, too, then I'd
have lost all faith in people's ability to
recognize humor and not take
themselves so seriously." He shrugs.
"So I didn't."
"They cancelled it." The
Storyteller grins. At 59, Bill Smiley of
Midland, Ontario has much to grin
about. For 25 years his pungent wit
and wisdom has been appearing in
dozens (10 dozen at last count) of
weekly newspapers across Canada.
Out there: the real Canada — the
prairies and farmlands and fishing
villages. His weekly column, the most
popular and successful in the country,
is distributed by Argyle Com-
munications Inc,.,.. and costs the paper
$3.50 a time. Smiley's share is $1.80,
Argyle's $1.70. It doesn;t sound like
much, and it isn't: it pays Smiley a
little more than $10,000 a year.
"You have to realize," says Ray
Arevle. "that we're dealing with a lot
4•
of papers with limited- financial
resources. We used to charge only 50
cents a column. I personally feel Bill's
column is worth considerably more,
but Bill prefers the exposure to the
money." -O top of his column fee-Ye--
earns
ee eearns $30,000 as head of the English
department at Midland Secondary
School. So he's doing just fine.
"Couldn't make it to work this
mottling. Managed to get the old '67
Dodge started, barrelled through a
drift onto the road, couldn't make the
hill, backed down, got stuck while
turning, was pushed out, went the
long way around, drove fora bit in
pure whiteouts, finally put my tail
between my legs, or came to my
senses, crept home, rammed the old
buggy into a drift, and dived into the
house:"
From . a Smiley bad -weather
column. Bill Smiley wasborn in
Ottawa, one of five children (three
boys and two girls) ; the familymoved
to Perth, Ont. when he was 2. His
father owned a shoe store, but the
business failed during the Depressioij
Smiley's- writing career was ca t
early; in grade eight, he won the $2
first prize in an essay contest spon-
sored by the town council. He can't
remember the topic, but he does
remember that the exercise defibed
his goal: "I wanted to grow up to be a
foreign correspondent, the old trench
coat, the battered fedora, the whole
bit." After highschool, he. went to the
University of Toronto, majoring in
honors English, but World War II
intervened, and he joined the Royal
Canadian Air Force as a fighter pilot.
He flew more than 30 dive-bombing
missions before he was shot down
over Holland and captured by the
Germans.
With several other captured Allied
servicemen, Flight Lieutenant:
Smiley was taken to a train station in
Utrecht to be sent to a prisoner -of -war
cam somewhere in Germany. At
one :tried to escape. When no one
was looking, he darted into a cup-
board station. An hour went by. He
was starting to feel confident when
the door was suddenly yanked open by
a German soldier with a machine gun.
"Raus!" (Out!) he shouted. Smiley
jumped to his feet. As he did so, a pipe
and tobacco pouch fell from his
pocket. They belonged to the soldier
with the machine gun. Smiley had
furtively stolen -them earlier from the
soldier's coat. Smiley grinned. The
soldier didn't. He and four others
kicked Smiley black and blue,
cracking his kneecap and breaking
his nose. Smiley decided it would be
best to serve out the rest of the war in
the camp.
"Hundreds of thousands of young
Canadians sneered at that old witch
Death and offered their most precious
possessions, themselves, to the
bullets and the shrapnel, the mortars
and the cannon... Most of them were
just kids, two or three years older
than you are. They had the same
hang-ups you have: bad marks in
Canadian storyteller
math; frustrated love; uncertainty
about the future. Those young fellows
who were killed in ' France and
Holland and Italy didn't have much
chance of leaving anything behind.
But they left a memory. Once a year,
on Remembrance Day, we take a
silent moment to think about those
laughing boys who went across the
ocean so that we could have freedom
of speech, open elections, letters to
the editor and gravy on our french
fries.''
From a Remembrance Day column
on his address to the school assembly.
Following the war, Smiley re -
enrolled at the University of Toronto.
In 1946, he married a classmate, Sue
Bull, tall and languid with dark,
pretty looks, who would become the
mother of -their - two . children:. -Hugh,
now 32, living in Toronto and a
missionary for the Baha'i religious
movement; and Kim, 27, married and
a high school teacher in Moosonee,
Ont. Smiley had planned to do post-
graduate studies and become a
university teacher, but his intentions
were short-circuited by . a family
tragedy: his wife's brother-in-law, the
owner of the Ontario weekly Wiarton
Echo, drowned in a boating accident
on Labor Day, 1949. Out of death was
born Bill Smiley, newspaperman: he
and a friend bought, the paper and
Smiley began running it. "I found
journalism fascinating. I covered
everything and wrote everything."
Including, from 1954, his column,
then known as "Sugar 'n' Spice." "It
started out strictly as a local thing. I
gd-sick of the editorial `we,' the
pomposity and- the pontificating. I
decided I'd write whatever I wanted;
dogfights, snowstorms, hangovers,
anything at all, whatever struck my
fancy. I was confident I knew my
audience, I was one of the people, and
I was sure my fears and foibles and
fancies were theirs, too."
Well, most of them, anyway. "One
time," he says, smiling, "I did a
column about the churches in
Wiarton. Wiarton had about 2,000
people then and 10 churches. I
suggested we sell all the church
properties, since the town got no tax
revenue from __them,_ and use the
money to build one big church, using a
different minister each week. That
did it. I had every minister and Bible
thumper in town marching into my
office, screaming for my head. That's
when I realized what fun being a
columnist could be."
The popularity (or notoriety) of
Smiley's column grew rapidly; a year
after it started, the editor of another
Ontario weekly, the Durham
Chronicle, asked to run it, and Bill
said sure — at 50 cents a column. Four
years later, he had 88 papers in
Canada. He'd write one column, run
off the required number of proofs and
mail them out. Eventually, at a
weekly -newspaper convention in
Hamilton, he met Ray Argyle, then
head of the Toronto Telegram Syn-
dicate. "We plied each other with
drinks and a deal was. struck,'" says
Smiley. "Two bucks a column, plus
all my expenses, even including
promotio
In 1962, Bill Smiley decided he
wanted a break from the all con-
suming demands of operating the
Echo and sold out. Teaching high
school interested him, so he looked
around and found an opening in
nearby Midland. But he continued his
column, and at one point, in the early
'70s, he 150 papers from coast to
coast. 'tile figure is down today
because more papers are developing
their own local columnists. Many of
Smiley's readers, ironically, think
he's local. He gets about40 letters ,a
week, and a recent letter from a lady
in Red Deer, Alberta is typical.
--ane wrote to me, addressing her
letter to the Red Deer paper, and said
she wished, I would expose her
brother-in-law. She said he sells cars
all summer, and then the. big bum
goes on unemployment insurance all
winter while she and her husband
work hard on the farm. She said if I
would just drop into such -and -such a
tavern at 8 o'clock next Friday night,
I'd see him standing at the bar, half
cut." Bill shakes his head and grins.
In fact, he never writes about local
characters, except his own family.
Particularly his wife, whom he's
institutionalized as the Old Battleaxe
or Trouble 'n' Strife, monikers she
accepts with bemused indulgence.
"She's my best critic," says Smiley.
"The only time she gets upset is when
she thinks I'm using too much slang
or too many profanities. Then she
reminds me that I'm an English
teacher and should know better. I
remindher that being able to teach
English doesn't mean you know how
to write. In fact," he chuckles, "I
know of very few English teachers
who can."
"Being a graduate of the
Depression, when people had some.
reason to use bad language, in sheer
frustration and anger, and of a war in
which the most common four-letter
word was used as frequently, and as
absentmindedly, as salt and pepper,
has not inured me to what our kids
today consider normal. Girls wear T-
shirts that are not even funny, merely
obscene. As do boys. Saw one the
other day on an otherwise nice lad.
Message: "Thanks, all you virgins -
for nothing." The Queen is a frump.
God is a joke. The country's problems
are somebody else's problems, as
long as I get mine.
"I don't deplore. I don't abhor. I
don't implore. I merely observe.
Sadly. We are turning into a nation of
slobs."
From a state -of -the -nation column.'
Although he regards himself as a
teacher first ("it pays me the most")
A V
and a journalist second, Bill Sr;niley
does share One trait with columnists
everywhere: the need for response,
pro or con . He's hard pressed to single
out th greatest
reaction, but thinks it might have
been a Christmas column many years
ago that is considered a classic of its
kind.
It' was about an 8 -year-old
Depression -era boy who coveted a
pair of $5 skates in a store window.
His parents were poor and couldn't
afford them. Every day after shcool,
the boy would go to the store and stare
at the skates. And then go home. One
day, his boot struck an object in the
snow. It was a smailpurse. Inside was
$8 and a lady's address. He took the
purse to:the address and was about to
knock on the door. But he didn't. He
turned around, went back to the store
— and bought the skates. He took
them home and hid them in a shed
behind the house. He thought up a
story: he would tell his parents a kind
lady saw him looking in the window
and bought him the skates.
That night, lying in the darkness, he
heard sobbing from the kitchen. It
was his mother. He crept down the
back staircase and listened. He heard
his father; speaking harshly: "I don't
care," he said. "If we have to put the
fuel bill off for a month, so be it. If we
have to skimp on food for a while, so
be it. The decision is final. He's
having those skates. I'm getting therm -
tomorrow." Racked with guilt, the
boy snuck out of the house, before
dawn, retrieved the skates and threw
them in the river. The story is corny,
maybe, but true. The boy was Bill
Smiley, and the man has received
letters about it from as far away as
Texas.
Bill Smiley writes his column
between 4 and 5:45 p.m. each Tuesday
in the second -floor den of his stately
red brick home on Hugel Avenue. He
,works to the accompaniment of piano
music from downstairs, where Sue is
giving lessons. He works with a
cigarette between his lips and a bottle
of beer next to his typewriter, an old
Olympic portable with a bum letter A
that he refuses to fix because it gives
the machine personality. He then
mails the column to Ray Argyle in
Toronto, who sends it out to •the
member papers untouched. In 25
years, he has never missed a
deadline. Says Argyle: "Bill can't be
hurried, harassed, cajoled or
browbeaten. he's a man of total honor-
and
onorand commitment, and, out there, he's
a monument."
That he is, and he has the writing
awards to prove it, but surprisingly
he's never had a book of his work
published. Which, speaking of
monuments, is the one he'd most
cherish. "Oh, I've had `a couple of
feelers, but nothing ever came of
then.." And then, musingly: "Maybe
it'll happen some day, who knows?"
For Smiley buffs, that day can't come
soon enough.
Betty Hamilton's a mother to manyas a dedicated foster parent
BY JOANNE
BUCHANAN
Since Betty Hamilton of
Goderich turned her
house into a receiving
home for Huron County's
Family and Children's
Services seven years ago,
she has seen 500 foster
'children come and go. As
a foster parent for 61/2
years before that, she had
looked after at least 20
babies, mostly newborns,
on a short term basis.
"1 often wonder what
some of them look like
now. f You can get at-
tachect" td them but you,
have to keep in mind
right from the start that
the departing day will
come," says Betty.
Being a foster parent is
not always easy but it is
often rewarding.
Recently Betty was
visited by three 'of her
former foster children
and was pleased to learn
that they are all doing
very well now as grown -
ups.
Betty's house on St.
David Street is the only
receiving home in the
county. A.receiving home
accepts children on a 24
hour seven day a week
emergency basis from
Family and Children's
Services, often with very-
little information. The
Betty Hamilton of Goderich (left) runs a receiving
hone for foster children out of her house on St. David
Street. Here, she chats with Louaana Taylor, ii eocisil
worker with Family and Children's Services who
helps co-ordinate the activities in the home. (Photo
by Joanne Buchanan)
purpose of the receiving
home is to provide the
children with a warm,
accepting family en-
vironment at a time of
crisis in their lives and to
provide temporary
emergency care for them
until more permanent
plans can be made. A
social worker from
Family and Children's
Services co-ordinates the
activities of the home and
integrates and supervises
the overall operation.
Sometimes long term
prlacements may be
considered in the
receiving home under
special circumstances.
At present Betty has
three long term
placements living in her
home. One of these
placements, a 20 -month-
old girl, requires extra
attention and must do
speci, 1 ,.Oxercises three
time`a day because of
her slow development.
Betty works closely with
the Children's
Psychiatric Research
Institute on this and a
nurse visits her home
every two weeks. „•
In the past, Betty has
also looked after retarded
children, emotionally
disturbed children and
one baby with cerebral
palsy. She has had as
many as 10 placements in
her home at one time.
The Hamilton
household is a busy
centre of activity as Betty
offers her services to
Family and Children's
Services in a variety of
different ways. She has
an answering service in
her home which people
can call on a 24 hour
emergency basis.
"That's a big boost for
-us, - says Louanne
Taylor, the social worker
in charge of fostering who
works closely with Betty.
"Often the person who
calls the answering
service just wants
someone to talk to and
Betty can calm them
down so that a worker
doesn't have to go out
right then. But there is a
worker available at all
tines if needed."
Another of Betty's jobs
is arranging- -volunteer
drivers for those childrren
under Family and
Children's Services care
who must be taken to
hospitals, doctors or
special schools out of
town. She also drives
parents to visit their
children in various foster
homes and observes their
reactions to them. She
keeps records from her
observations that the
social , workers can use
for assessing the older
children to match them
up with the best possible
foster parents available.
Betty's receiving home
takes in; mothers and
children in need of
protection as well as
unwed mothers and
abused children. Often
she is required to go to
court concerning these
children.
She must work closely
with a number of dif-
ferent people and in-
stitutions and she has
found all to be most co-
operative. She works with
the families of the foster
children she takes in. She
works with the various
police departments in the
county and with doctors,
the public health unit, the
Huron Centre for
Children and Youth in
Clinton and the
Children's Psychiatric
Institute. She also works
closely with the schools.
"If I'm not told by the
teachers what 'my' kids
are doing wrong at
sehool, I can't correct the
problem," she explains.
Betty believes in
discipline.
""There are rules here
the same as in any other
home," she explains.
"And the children all
have to do chores like
making their beds and
doing dishes. I'm always
reminding them that
they're not at the Holiday
Inn.
Betty says that often
the other children in the
home will help with the
discpline and remind the
newer children of the
rules.
Betty explains that
after awhile you can
'read' children.
"You get to know 'the
runners' right away," she
says referring to those
children who have a
tendency to run away
from home.
With teenagers, she
says, the first thing you
have to do is gain their
trust and you usually
have to meet them three-
quarters of the way in-
stead of half -way.
"I never back down
from them though," she
says.
Betty says that you
can't turn children
against their parents no
matter what they have
done to them and that you
shouldn't even try. There
is always a bond between
parents and children no
matter what has hap -
pened, she explains. She
doesn't make her foster
children call her mom
unless they want to. Most
of them call her Betty.
Betty, has learned about
fostering and child care
from experience. She
says it's mostly common
sense. She has attended a
few workshops on ,the
subject as well.
She is not exactly sure
how and why she first
became a foster parent
but says it is just
something she has
always wanted to do. She
thinks it might have
something to do with the
area in which she was
raised.
"I was raised two
blocks away from what
used to be called 'the
Shelter' on Cameron
Street here in town, I'
used to walk to school
with the children from
the shelter and go to their
birthday parties," she
explains. "Also t was an
only -child."
Betty says she takes
her fostering job one day
at a time. Just when shb
gets used to planning
meals for 14 people, some
of the children leave and
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