Loading...
Clinton News-Record, 1985-1-30, Page 4Pagt34--CLINTON NEWS -RECORD, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30,1985. The COinton News -Record is published eocto Wednesday of P.O. Box 39, Clinton. Ontario. Canada, NOM 18.0. Tel.: 4824443. Subscription Rote: Canada 519.75 Sr. Citizen • 556.75 per year U.S.A. foreign - 395.00 per year U is registered as second clasp mail by the popt office under the permit number 0817. The News -Record incorporated h 1924 the Huron News -Record, Bounded In 1881. and The Clinton News Era. founded in 1865. Total press runs 3.700. Incorporating (TIIE BLYTH STANDARD) J. HOWARD AITKEN - Publisher SHELLEY McPHEE - Editor GARY HAIST - Advertising Manager MARY ANN HOLLENBECK - Office Manager CCNAA' 04A,. MEMBER MEMBER Display advertising rates available on request. Ask for Rate Card No. 15 effective October 1, 1984, Weighing immersion costs Dear Editor; After reading the obviously biased article by Stephanie Levesque in last week's paper regarding Grade 7 and 8 French Immersion, I feel I must respond to let the readers know the complete truth about the Ad Hoc Com- mittee's recommendations. I' attended the same January meeting but got a completely different impression of the recommenda- tions. Committee chairman, Tony McQuail, in giving the report, recounted how his com- mittee spent many hours and went to great lengths in collecting data. This included talking with -other school boards which had active Immersion programs as well as those who had decided against starting such classes. A questionnaire was also sent home with kindergarten and elementary students ..to 4deterrnine the degree of interest in French Immersion. After • months of consideration and meetings in each area, the Ad Hoc Commit- tee recommends the following: (from page 57 of their report) "While the Ad Hoc Com- mittee wishes to state that it recognizes the value of the concept of French Immersion the Committee recommends,: 1. That no extension of the French program occur at this time; 2. That the Board develop the criteria for establishing a program of late immersion in the Grade ,7 and 8 classes in the Clinton, Seaforth, Exeter, Goderich and Wingham areas." Given the dispersed nature of student, population in Huron County, the committee felt that any French Tmmersinn program should be both universally accessible and cost effective. The pilot program sought at this time was seen only as a method of star- ting a permanent program with increasing costs in the future. To this end it suggested a list. of 10 criteria to guide the board in considering any future request for French Immersion. These items dealt mainly with student numbers required to establish and maintain an immersion class, transportation provided by existing bus routes, and guidelines for qualified staf- fing. It was also recognized that the increas- ed costs of French Immersion might not all be covered by the grants available for same. To me, this question of financing such a program is , of paramount importance. French Immersion at any level represents ?et another layer of education to be funded at taxpayers' expense. With today's climate of deficits and economic restraint, an even larger bill for education. is both unwise and unnecessary. As reported, the Huron County Board of Education will be debating this issue and coming to some decision at their meeting Feb. 4, 1985. Make certain that yOur elected representative to that board knows your feelings on this subject before then. That way he/she can represent the true majority of his/her constituents. If you do not, you will have no right to bemoan a greater tax. burden.due to French Immersion. Better yet = perhaps the ratepayers' willingness to sup- port French Immersion'should be determin- ed at the polls the next time we elect school board representatives! R.N. Holland Clinton Donations help program gifts, Mac Campbell for stocking gifts, North Street U.C.W., St. Vincent de Paul,.. and several individuals for turkeys, FOCUS . magazine, and the -women who made such beautiful stockings. I would also like to express the apprecia- tion of the Board to all church groups who have' assisted in the past, and, to all the new volunteers. I hope they feel a part of the group, and wish for their continued support. My special thanks go to all those who assisted with and contributed to the bazaar and to the donor of the door prize. Thank you to all individuals, services and organizations who assist with the program. Sincerely, Judy Cieslar, Program Officer Dear Editor, On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Survival Through' Friendship House, I would like to express my thanks to the following individuals and businesses for their very generous support: Ray Hurd of Zehr's for food vouchers, Frank Pontes of the Met for stocking gifts, Art Bell for. apples .and cookies, Rieck's Pharmacy for stocking gifts, Max Cutt for milk, hot chocolate, and cups, Nakamura's Pharmacy for stocking .gifts, Woolworth's for stocking gifts, Mary's Sewing Centre for material for stockings, Vanastra Lioness Club for hosting a Christmas Party, John Hindmarsh for a sleigh ride, Sherwood Transportation for the bus ride, Dan McPherson of the Naboiir Store for stocking KaIeid oscope Had a call last week froman appreciative rural router. "Hat's off," she said. "Never since the mail has arrived at the post office in the mornings have I seen a rural mail man delivering our mail in the afternoon due to blocked roads in the morning. This happen- ed last Tuesday, January 22 when our mail man came around in the late afternoon, so the boredofn of not. having the daily paper was relieved..Thanks Frank," from an R.R. 2 recipient. + ++ Get well wishes for speedy, recoveries go out to Dr. Don Palmer and Bob Campbell. Their energetic presence along Main Street Clinton has been missed. + ++ Oops, ouchs and get well wishes also go out to Ron McKay, principal at Clinton Public School. Ron is hobbling around these days after a too rambunctious volleyball game with students. And who says school principals have an easy life! + ++ Clinton council received a special note of thanks this week from Huronview. One of the town's public works employees, Arie Verhoef was on hand to help transport workers to and from Huronview during the recent snow storm. + ++ Snowrnobilers are thoroughly enjoying all this snow, but John Gibson of R.R.. 2, .Seaforth reports that snowmobiling also demands its share of work. Sunset recol ections The beach was deserted, lonely. The sand was cool and soft. The water shimmered and shone in the light breeze as the last moments of day vanished into the night. The once bright, brilliant sun was now a dark, deep orange, disappearing into the lake; A small boat creeps, floating silently through the water in the last of the sun's paths. The sand now cold, is dark and sad feeling the absence of the sun, that had once shone on it making it glorious and hot. -by Jennifer Hodgins Gr. 8 Clinton Public School Behind The Scenes By Keith Roulston Storms and births'. I,'or most of us a winter stone is just a time to hunker down, put another block on the fire and .wait until it's over. For a. few people, however,, it's not just an inconve- nience, it's a frightening experience. A neighbor of ours, for instance, looked on the. coming of our last storm with trepida- tion. She was waiting a new addition to the family who was already late. Plans were made, with a neighbor wlio-W a nurse to come to the aid if thereuld be an emergency. It was lucky Mere was a break in the storm long enough to get a plow down the road and get the lady to hospital even though there wasn't any sign that the baby was really corning because when the baby did come, 24 hours later, there were com- plications that really required the experts available in a hospital. A few other children were born at home in this storm however without complications. They will have unique entries on their birth certificates. Those of .us living in or near villages these days seldom are officially "born", in the towns we would call our home towns. 'Mothers are shipped off to hospitals in nearby towns and whenever .some biographer or government bureaucrats refer to their "home town" from then on, it will be where their mother gave birth, even if they never set foot in the town again. Only one of our four children has a birthplace that corresponds to the town we lived in at the time of the birth. Winter storms and birth certificates and the recent reunion of team Canada '72, the hockey team that beat the Soviets so dramatically, brought to mind recently the battle over the birthplace of the hockey hero Paul Henderson back in my hometown. By Shelley McPhee John writes: Snowmobiling is fun, they all.say But we never get time to play. We have asked foryour help on our trail But it always seems to no avail We have bridges to build over ditches and streams But we can't get help or so it seems. There are gates and gaps to open and close There's lots of work God only knows. There's brush to cut and trails to mark Help is scarce and that's no lark. No doubt there are lots that do their part But the season is over before some can start. We relied on others, but that wasn't smart We always ended up doing their part. How much longer will we survive If all some do is join and ride Gord's been busy since early fall. Making our trails safe for all. The club is now in its 16th year So we need new members to volunteer If we can't get help, it will be your sorrow There may be no trails for you tomorrow There is always help needed at each end. So come on gang a hand you can lend. Keep the club going, other clubs will be jealous Don't leave all the work to just a few fellows. It's fun and healthy under sunny skies So please will you help us tiring guys. Some help in other'clubs we know. But at least they joined to play in the snow. Some don't joinandthat isn't fair For other: to do their share. To ride the trails without a pass You can be charged with trespass If you enjoy the snowmobiling sport Join our club and show your support. Everyone come out and work away. So we all.can get out and play. John Gibson of R.R. 2, Seaforth informs us that to ride a snowmobile in the Province of Ontario you must have consent from each landowner to travel across their property. Working together the members of snowmobile clubs gets this permission for their members. If you are not a member and travelling these trails, you can be charged by the club as a trespasser. The Clinton and District Snowmobile Club Inc. welcomes new members. If you wish to continue to have a trial system in this area join the club and help out. If we all join in the work doesn't take long. "Many hands make light work". If everybody does `a little nobody has to do a lot. For more information call 482-7276 or 482- 3229. The club's next meeting is Feb. 4 at the. Hydro Office, 8:30 p.m. +++ Just a reminder - the first Saturday in the month is coming up and local Lions Clubs will be making their monthly paper collec- tions. Londesboro Lions will be in Clinton, bright and early on the morning of February 2 and the Bayfield Lions will be making their rounds in that village on the same day. Be sure to have your newspapers bundled and out at the curb. I.ucknow is a town made up originally of people of Scottish descent and the people have always been very proud of their native sons (and daughters) who go on to success. h'or years in the hometpwn arena there was a sign for a hockey pla}?er from the town who I'd never heard of. And when Paul Henderson made the Detroit Red Wings and later the Maple Leafs, the local people not only put Up a sign in the arena,put painted.a board fence on main street to 'proclaim him their own. But Henderson wasn't listed as being born in I,ucknow. He was listed as being born in Kincardine because his birth was registered at the hospital there. So one night some young fellows from Kincardine decided to set the record straight and carne over and painted out the part about the star being "Lucknow's own," and substituted Kincar- dine. After the historic goal in the 1972 season made flip a national hero, Godcrich tried to get into the act a bit too because he had played Junior B hockey there and lived there for a time in the summers between seasons. The irony .about, the whole fight over where the hero was horn was that they were all wrong. Getting to the hospital in winter in the late 1940s was even harder than today. When birth seemed imminent, the family rushed Mrs. Henderson toward Kincardine hospital on a sleigh. The roads were blocked so they tried to short cut across the ice of Lake Huron. The short cut wasn't short enough and Paul Henderson, national hockey hero of Canada was born on Lake Huron. ' It makes a great story but I'll bet few women would like tkodo a repeat. Pinter warmth SagarandSpice Remembering Illy teachers ISN'T it odd how well we rem ber our teachers: the old battleaxe who w asked us over the head with a pointer; the math teacher who never scolded, lauti rolled ,his eyes to ,the heavens when you ' put your answer on the. board; the sardonic art teacher who would sit down beside you and polish up your "painting," which was the same one you had done last week and the week before'' I remember distinctly almost every teacher I ever had. The only one I almost really "had" was my highschool French teacher, but she was too fast for my gropings. Some 1 remember with warmth, . some with sadness, some with pity, and a few with hatred. I think that's about par. Until she died, I corresponded occasionally with my Grade 1 teacher who still thought of me as a sweet little boy with big blue eyes. She kept an eye' on me through this column, and occasionally remonstrated with me about my choice of language. One of my favorite high school teachers has done the same, and we keep in touch. Every so often I receive a letter from a former student of.,mine. I have yet to get one that was not warm. Those who hated me can't write letters. Warm letters are one of the rewards, intangible but important, that a teacher receives. Have you evet written to your old minister? What about those other nouns: pity, sadness, and hatred? I pitied a few: my other old French teacher who used to put her head on the desk and weep loudly and wetly, when we drove her over the edge; a science teacher with a Ph.D., a goocf•and kindly man persistently bullied by some cretins in this class. I was saddened by the fate of some teachers who sickened or died or became mentally ill under the unrelenting pressure of the classroom. Hatred? I never hated those who clobbered( me or strapped me or bawled me out. There was only one teacher I hated. He wars- a flying instructor with a,.permanent sneer, a hectoring manner, and,not a decent bone in his body. I swore I'd kill him some day. I still half -hope that he crashed in a stoney field while bullying some frazzled student pilot. And the student escaped with a bloody nose. All my other flying instructors by S. McPhee By Bill Smiley were tops. These vagaries 'came trickling into my skull -bone when , two of° my favorite university profs were featured in the newspapers recently: E.J. Pratt and Northrop Frye. I have never written either a warm letter, but have always had a feeling of warmth and awe for each. E.J. "Ned" Pratt was a gentle man and a gentleman as well as a scholar. Son of a Newfoundland minister, he worked his way into the groves of academe, and became one of Canada's "great" poets. • I use "great" in the sense of vast, grand, epic. Pratt wasn't interested in the usual preoccupations of modern poets: examining his own navel,; imitating, badly, the poets who lacerate society, who are still hung up on Freud and sex, who think that ugly is beautiful with a few four-letter words tossed in. Rather, he chose big themes, and has a gift that enabled him to make them into works of art. He was either behind, or ahead of, his time. The building of the C.P,R., the martyrdom of the.Jesuits in Huronia, the evacuation of Dunkirk, the sinking of the Titanic: these were the massive bones on which he built, with consummate skill, his epic narrative poems. At the same time, he was capable of writing the most tender, delicate lyrics, or such precise pictures as "Shark", which many student has studied in high school. As a professor, he was a delight. He didn't give a diddle about such nonsense as attendance, and when he went dreaming off into Shakespeare or one of the great poets, his dreams and insight rubbed off on his students. He personally wrote • for me a recommendation that I be accepted into graduate school, after another professor (by the way, I still hate him) had refused. I believe he thought that because I was a veteran, I deserved a chance. A decent, lovable man. Northrop Frye, a generation o .• :er, but a close friend, colleague, . admirer of Pratt, was anoth- cup o ea. He was no kindly, gentle, elderly .' olar and poet. He had a mind like a well -honed razor, an intelligence and learning that used to make us wince, and a brilliant lecturing technique that drew crowds from all over the university. He has emerged as one of the finest critical minds of this century, at least in North America. He has probably converted more people to his theories than Jesus did in his limited " time. His disciples, rather watered down, have spread across the land. In lectures, he had a cutting wit that reminds one of the Ghurka soldiers who took a swipe at a Russian with his kukra ( blade). The Russian laughed, "You didn't even touch me." The Ghurka replied, "Yeah? Don't shake your head." Yet "Norrie" Frye, too, behind the scintillating mind, the scathing wit, was and is (and I speak from personal experience) a gentle, sympathetic person, to whom each student is a treasured. human. He is intensely shy, away from the podium, but intensely decent, as a human being. I can only be humble when 1 remember that I, one of the great unwashed, intellectually, was exposed to these fine minds and persons. uron dairy summary If you would like to participate in the Huron County Dairy Summary this year, please contact Dennis Martin at the Clinton Agricultural Office - 482-3428 or 1-800-265- 7044. Emphasis for this confidential summary will be placed on: feed costs/cow as related to production, how production can influence debt servicing, heifer numbers versus cow numbers on each -farm, cost control (total income and expenses of each farm for com- parative purposes), equity in the farm business and return on investment. Each participant will receive their in- dividual report and county summary, which hopefully can be used to identify strength or weakness of the operation. We are always looking for new par- ticipants, along with those who have been participating on a yearly basis. Both are welcome.