Clinton News-Record, 1984-02-01, Page 4• • •••••• • ••• • '•••
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AARP
1983
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J. HOWARP AITKEN - Publisher
SHELLIY *PHU . Editor
GARY HAUT, Advertising Manager
MAR! ANN HOLLENSIECK Off kyr Manager,
MEMBER
°wow nnfinoranInt note*
available on !sweet. for
Mete Card. NO. 14 affective
October L 1U3.
•
ay awe ot we are care
The-tuitutre.th-thildrents-rdarcare-rernains-uncertairt,nbut concerned -men -and -
women are lobbying to maintain the vital service.
Between 30 and 40 day care representatives from across Ontario gathered in
Toronto last week to fight for more government support for day care. They hope
to unite another 200 to 300 supporters for a meeting in early May with the provin,
tial government.
The day care defenders have a legitimate beef, one that requires immediate
atteytion and action.
They are battling the lack of affordable cay care and the Ontario government's
announcement that by 1986 municipally run day care must charge the actual cost
to parents who don't qualify for subsidy., This will see rates of approximately
$8.50 a day, forced to $20 to $25.
Presently, centres, like the the Tuckersmith Day Care Nursery, have been
allowed to claim a subsidy for 80 per cent of the costs for all children. In 1986, if
the government proposal goes through,. this will end.
While some muncipal councils and day core boards,are sitting it out, hoping
. that the government will change its mind by 1986( many local residents are
already taking steps to oppose the increases. •
They've seen whRifhpTied to -the-Raiti ea Day -Care-Centre • i n St ra tford -Bu
only a year ago with taxpayers' money, the centre •is already closed .because of
major cuts in day care subsidies. •
This is a generation of men and women who rely heavily on the benefits of day
• care. Working parents, looking for the best care for their children, utilize these
facilities.
. In a Jan.• 31 interview with The Globe and Mail Wingham. Deputy Reeve Pat
Bailey explained that the alternative to. day care can be grim. What happens,
Deputy Rpeve Bailey said, is that children of working parents often endup with,
"a babysitter who watches soap operas all afternoon and leaves the kids to their
own devices. I don't want to slam all babysitters, but it's just not good 'enough, to
• in., a./..44
Ve-dumping our chilaFeTifili-e that.'
Day care supporters foresee that government increases could force some
working parents to apply for welfare .to offset the costs .of expensive nursery
Tuckersmith -Day Care Nursery supervisor Karen McEwing-McConnell told The
Globe and Mail,. "..Higher prices.. scare the parents away. Theydon't want to apply
for subsidy. The majority of our parents are what you'd call middle class, they
work in offices, banks, factories, farmwives. They don't want welfare. They want
• affordable day care." . •
The issue is not only a concern of local day care centres. Groups in St.' Marys,
• Strcitford and Toronto are rallying together to oppose the government plan.
Government officials say that the increase is not a new proposal. They are
simply following up on federal -provincial agreement established with day care
expansions in the 1970s. •
At.that time there was enough money to go around and increased rates were
not put into effect, but times are tougher now and the prices have to go up, accor-
ding to thegovernment.
• The government has foiled to realize ;that times are also tougher for working
parents and they'll be.the ones who have • to pay to help the goVernrnent's
monetary restraints. .
If an agreecible compromise. can't beworked out within the next two years, the
days of affordable day care may end. The result may be parents who are forced
to give up their work, simply because a minimum wage weekly 'salary won't •
•cOver 'the costs,of day care.
• Reasonable increases may be .needed, but what we also need is realism and
..---the-realization-4hot-parenta-need-goocirliffordeble-day-care-faeili-t-ies-for-oUr
working parents, not more unemployment and poverty, -by S. McPhee.
_
Behind The Scenes
•
By Keith Roulston
Armchair athletes
agar and
pia?
.ve'n g� 11s
,
Dear Edito•r; • • • .
We the reahlento 014kablO.Wert.tinWea
by Bell ChOadn,Of '1,11; vote taken in
Clinton. cone.thgfreeca11fngto Clinton and of theautcoine Of the vote by
being turned downWthe,residenta of Clio
ton andaurnnaldingareaa.
We believed the. blgtineas we have done in
Clinton .in the. peat wan OPPredated, A 10- of
the Auburn people fought hard tokeep the
hospital open and door, towards the new
addition, yet. a lot . . burn residents use
Goderich and *Ingham hospitals. Now
when your little donation of $1.20 a year was
asked for you turne.d us down for toll free
calling to Clinton. I guess What this ell sums
up to, we as residents will take our business
elsewhere to avoid costly telephone charges.
From ' reading the News we
realize the merchants of Clinton are already
concerned about losing business. They'll
have to worry more in the future, after .this
thoughtless move.
rom-some-of-the
surrounding area.
Public meeting
Dear -Editor:•
I would like to inform your readers 'of a
public meeting to.discuss the preparation of
a history of Stanley Township on Feb. 9 at 8
p.m. in the Township Hall in Varna.
The Stanley Council has decided to
celebrate the 150th anniversary of the
township in 1986. They in co-operation with
the Recreation Committee and some in-
terested local people hope to have a history
prepared in time for this anniversary.
All residents of the township and border-
ing hamlets are asked to attend this meeting
if possible. A special invitation is extended
to those outside the township who have roots
in Stanley or other interest in township
history.
Past experience of those who have written
local history indicates that much material
•by Shelley•
McPhee. comes comes to light after the book has been
published; so it is of the utmost importance
.•- • . _ • _ -__- that all. relatives,_former neighbours and
anyone that might have pictures or informa-
tion on the townships past be notified and
the material made available for the history.
Yours sincerely,
• IvanMcClymont
Canadians are boring
•CANADIANS, °pike whole, are probabl
the most boring conversationists m the ei
tire world. I don't say .that idly, merely to
putac up. say agonizing .
sepal experience. ,•
It's not because we are a dull people,
• though we are. It's not because „we're stupid,
because we aren't. It seems to be based
rather. on a sort of philistinism that labels
interesting conversation as a "cissy”
pastitne, fit only for dilettantes, idealists,
Bpglishmen of a certain background,
educated Europeansand othersuch
in-
tellectual trash.
Next time you're at a dinner. party or
any similar gathering, lend an ear. The
dialogue will depress youdeeply.
Perhaps the real fault lies in the fact that
we are basically a nation of materialists,
and that we have become more and more so,
with the withering of the churches and the
• By Bill Smiley
Invest in futures
Dear Editor:
y talk shop, golf, and how_much advertising
---7WwTelliey earned lastyar:Seldrifiraltrrd
about powerful editorial campaign they
are going to launch to halt an evil or pro-
increasing affluence of or society.
•• Our topics of conversation change with -
the decades, but remain awesomely inane in
their content
' •
•
plazas on the edge of town.
---M`atitifaciffrers afe—firthe-saine
Wages are too high. Can't get parts, what's .
the Matter with those people? Too much
absenteeism on, Monday Morning. Profit
down :03.per cent last year. Can't compete
with those lousy foreigners'whoWork for
peanuts: Too much government in-
terference.. - •
Dentists ditto. They are just as dull as the
others, but they commit the crime of asking
a particularly dull question when your
mouth is sofa of junk that all you can do is
grunt, and then think you are interested and
agreeing with their platitudes, when what
you are trying to say is: "Shut up, turkey."
As you know, I always save the best to the
last. When it comes to dullness supremo in
conversation, I have to hand it to the
teachers. They go on and on and on about
Some kid who just won't do his homework,
or some meaningless memo from the office,
or some. student who decided to spend a nice
day in od's great out-of-doors instead of in
a dull classroom with a dull teacher.
Maybe I've been harsh in this somewhat
blanket condemnation. Certainly none of my
friends are dull conversationalists. Maybe.
that's why I have so few friends.
envy, I haven't- got a condominium in
Florida. haven't even a row -boat, let alone
a cruiser. I haven't a two -car garage.
• That's it. Jealousy. I don't have a swimm-
ing Pool or A' little place - just 40 acres, mind
you - in the country. • •
• That's why I can't stand around with the
doctors andlawyers, etc.,. and commiserate
With them on the fact that the price of steak
is going absOlutely out of reach of the or-
dinary professional man who is making only ,
forty-five thou a year.
mo atood.. • • • • •
Dg up a deliberation olf: doctors, put a
glass in each hand and listen' to the drivel
about the iniquities of medicare, the in-
• gratitude of patients, the penal taxes they -
pay, and the condominium they just bought
down south. Not a. Best nor Banting in the
bunch.
• Lawyers are just as bad. They may be a
bit more sophisticated than the doctors, but
they're just as dull. Dropping hints of inside
dope on politics. Obsessed by the possibility
• of getting a judgeship or at the very least, a
Q.C. Criers of the blues about the taxes they
• pay._
A party of politicians is even worse. Jostl-
:kg for attention, back-slapping everything
that is warm and breathing, needling the
enemy, seeing everything in black and
white. "They're black; we're white."
Behind the politicians, but not far, are the
civil servants. Empire builders, defenders
of the status quo. Everything in
• quadruplicate. Everything secret. The
public is the enemy. Always go through
channels. Keep your nose clean. Don't get a
.-black,marken yourre.cord.Dull,. dull._
• Ah, ha! The famers have beensitting back
enjoying this. They're every bit as bad as
the rest. It's the government's fault. It's the
chain stores' greed. It's the fickle public.
It's the weather: too hot, too cold, too dry,
too wet; or, if the weather is perfect and the
crops are superb, it's taking too much out of
the land.
Business men are just as culpable of
devastating dullness in their conversation.
Too many forms to fill out. Lazy clerks.
Second-rate workmen. Those dam' shopping
•
A few decades ago, men could talk for.
hours about cars and hockey, while women
chatted incessantly about children and
NowadnYsjiie men talk about real estate
and boats,, and women go on and on about,
Women's Lib and the trip abroad they have
just taken or are just about to take. And they
all say the same thing, or near enough.
All of them, especially the men, are ab-
sorbed by their vocations, the sadistic cruel-
ty of the revenue department, and their
latest acquisition, whether it's a power
cruiser or a swimming pool in the back-
yard.
Get a gaggle of editors together and they
The wrong hat
•
Anyone who does not enjoy the prospect of
a wide -spread takeover of Caribbean and
Latin American countries by communist
dictatorships can only despair the continued
short-sighted American.polic-y in the region.
Twenty:five years after Fidel Castro took
over Cuba to set up the first communist
state in the western bemispheri;' Reicald
Reagan atid his' advisors seem to be out to
prove that the Americans haven't learned
anything in a quarter century.
Over the years it has been proven there is
only one way to defeat commuaism: give
the people of a country a standard of living
and the freedom of democracy that makes
them not interested in any Utopian dreams
spun by the radical left.
But take a look at the countries Mr.
Reagan is trying to save for democracy.
They are often among the poorest nations in
the world. People are so poor that even fresh
water seems a luxury. Children die young
from disease and hunger. And living so
closely to the richest nation in the world only
makes people see the disparity , ,more
clearly.
Now take a took at Cuba 25 years after the
revolution. Average life expectancy has
risen from 50 years in the 1950s to 73 today.
Infant mortality has dropped from 60 deaths
per 1,000 live births to 16. In the last 10
years, there have been no cases of polio,
malaria, diptheria or infantile tetanus,
ailments that used to kill thousands of
Cuban children... Massiy.e ineolaiion
campaigns, improved diet, .sanitation and
living conditions and three times as many
doctors and hospitals haVe all contributed to
not only a longer life, but a better one.
Compulsory education to the Grade 9 level
puts Cuba on an educational level with many
advanced industrial countries.
All this would be tempting even for poor
people who had the freedom of a real
democracy. Yet many of the governments
Mr. Reagan tries to prop up with force of
arms are not free. People live in fear of
-death- squads and arbitrary government
arrest, torture and execution. Given the
choice of no freedom and abject poverty
versus no freedom but a decent standard of
living is it any wonder so many are finding
communism attractive?
• Yet the Americans continue to go along
with their short-sighted policy of tryng to
beat back communism with guns. History
has shown that there is only one way to
defeat conununism: a two handed policy of
fighting the rebels on one hand, while in-
stituting massive reforms and upgrading
the standard of living of the people on the
other. The Americans have had 25 years to
do soinething for other countries in Latin
America in. order to head off the threat of
communism. They have chosen to ignore the
threat until the rebels had already made
great headway.
And given the success of a rebel
Movement, the Americans immediatelysay
the repels Must be communist even if they
have not said they were. The Americans
turn against the rebels and drive them right
into the hands of a Russian or Cuban
government quite willing to help out. To the
people of the regiop„. the Americans_ are.,
associated not as the good guys but as the
bad guys.
If Mr. Reagan, the former movie good
guy, wants success in Latin America he's
got to see that he's not wearing the white hat
for these people but the black.
11,
The annual cam ign for the Ontario
„,.,,...March of Dimes is underway. Twenty-five
' , hundred appeal letters have been
. distributed by mail to the people of Clinton,
Bayfield B fiel Londesboro Varna
and surroundirtgareas$
• This campaign for fundsis undertaken by
the members of the Sarah He Chapter . •
IODE. This is the second year that the
Pa
11,
mailing system has been used. It is hoped
that this method is more convenient for
residents than the traditional door-to-door
canvass.
The Ontario March of Dimes uses as their
theme this year "Invest hi Futures". This
theme is particularly appropriate because
the Ontario March of Dimes has a
reputation for creating new futures ,,for
people who have become disabled by ac-
cident or disease.
You are encouraged to respond as
generously as you can when you receive
your appeal letter in your mail.
Marg Allan,
. Volunteer Chairperson;
482-3668. -
Gardener is
Bloomin' mad
Dear Editor:
Through your coltunn, I wish to relate my
experience and thoughts on the town's park-
ing regulations.
• On Jan. 26 the Clinton Horticultual Society
held their annual meeting in the Board room
of the Agricultural Office. Usually, our
meetings are held in the evening, but with
the uncertain winter driving conditions, we
changed to a daytime meeting. Since
several of our members are from the coun-
try, they welcomed the idea, because they
could attend the meeting and do their shopp-
Kaleidoscope .
" •1
after election of officers for 1984 and review-
ing the past year's events, we plarmed for
ing in one trip. ,
the coming year. When two ladies came out
of the door, the car ticketer was at their
'2.ars. They asked if he had given either of
Our meeting wai schedidedior 2 p.m. wid
•
. _ . _1 1 3 Shelley McPhee ;hem a ticket his reply was he didn't think
Thursday is it folks - the day when the
humble groundhog makes his yearly
weather prediction. '
Up in Wiarton they'll be making a big
ballyhoo about the affair with their annual
Groundhog Festival and Wiarton Willie is
scheduled to make his prediction under the
watchful eye of Mayor Harold Silk.
Wiarton people have been groundhog wat-
ching since 1956 when Willie's grandfather
first started the family tradition. The
Festival pays tribute to Willie's family and
also to Nawgeentuck, the first Canadian
groundhog to be formally revered more
than 700 years ago.
It seems that way back when, Nawgeen-
tuck saved the life of a Mohawk brave Klion-
da,
According to Indiap legend, Klionda was
making a wintery trek into the Strange Land
under the Polar Star but realized that the
heavy snows and Tierce north winds were
quickly draining his strength;
Hungry, cold and weak, Klionda knew
. that. he would_drifLintOfiteen
there is no awakening. But in the sky, the
Great Spirit watched as a soft, warm wind
of the Spring God swept ever northward, br-
inging softer snow and thawing trees and it
was thus when Klionda -awoke to a dark,
darrip dawn. He then knew that the Great
Spirit was with him. As daylight crept
beneath his shelter he watched the coming
of the new day.
Suddenly, before his eyes, the snow mov-
ed and a small hole appeared. From it
peered Nawgeentuck, the groundhog. As if
by lightning, Klionda's tomahawk struck
and in an instant he was tearing at the
brown carcass that was to mean his life.
And thus the story has been related
through the centuries. And someday,
Nawgeentuck's descendent may again save
a life, as he did Klionda's so many years
ago.
According to Indian legend the groundhog
is a sacred animal among many tribes.
Natives of the Wiarton and Bruce Peninsula
believed that the groundhog was an offering
from the Great Spirit and that it possessed
spiritual powers that wouldassiire the sur-
vival of human life with the consumption of
its flesh.
And thus on Feb. 2 the humble groundhog
takes on great meaning in Wiarton and they
celebratetekd
:ieWveillints? sighting • _withaa variety of
w
• +
Back in Clinton, don't forget that the
Lendeshoro Lions will be making their mon-
thly newspaper pick-up on Saturday morn-
ing. Be sure to have your papershuridled at
the curb for the collection.
On Thursday night, Feb. 2 the Huron
County Federation of Agriculture will hold
an informative meeting in Clinton when
Ralph Barrie, former Ontario Federation
president will be the guest speaker. The
meeting is scheduled for 8 p.m. at the Clin-
ton Public School. •
+ + +
The Columbian Squires youth group have
helped to support the Clinton Public
Hospital fund raising efforts with a $30 dona-
tion.
Squire members, Dan, Ken and David
Reidy, Carlos and Peter Brand, Mike Tyn-
dall and Matthew and Paul Kerrigan raised
the money by cutting 25 cords of wood from
Bill Brand's bush.
In their two -days work, the group not only
raised money for the club, but also helped
the iocal hospital.
+
Spring and summer are soon on their way
and it's time to start preparing your
costumes for the June 9 Clinton Kinsmen
Barbecue.
•-The-- event is --being- billed as- the largest'
'50s -'60s bash in southwestern Ontario. It
will feature a dance, car Show, contests, and
of course the barbecued dinner.
Contact any Kinsmen or Kinette member
for tickets and further information.
hey. were thereloncenough to be ticketed.
They were brushing snow from their cars,
when the rest of us came out. Our cars were
ticketed 4:05 p.m. Both of the other ladies
'were' there before one, and we got tickets
and they didn't. Five cars in a row sported
tickets. We thought it was just a warning but
it was the real thing. Pay4.2.00.
During out meeting the treasurer
reported an expenditure of over $1,100 for
plants and bulbs spent on beautifying the
town and over 500 WOMAN hours of labor.
For the past seven summers I have loaded
my garden equipment, including a roto tiller
and driven to town to help with the spring
planting. I shall not be there this spring,
because I don't feel like paying to work for
the town. It takes much more than two hours
to cultivate and plant those two central beds
but then maybe some of the council will see
at to' lend a hand. To my knowledge, they
hive yet to show any signs of appreciation
or. thanks for any work done by the society.
They just take the work and planting for
granted. A letter of thanks would be ap-
preciated once in a while.
Ironically, I was elected president of the
,s9.cietry,..Autwing,hosg.,MuelutheAown„reites....,
on the rural people.
Speaking of rural people and agriculture,
this brings up another point and that's the
Agriculture Office. In my humble opinion, it
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