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The Goderich Signal-Star, 1978-11-23, Page 23sykes There is just about every type of holiday excursion offered to test everything from meagre and unwilling budgets to gold American Express cards. Depending of course, whether ane is taking a bus trip to Brantford or a jumbo jet to the Cote D'Azur. A weekend story unfolded details on the newest travel adventure holiday package. For a modest fee, you may have to remortgage the house or sell an off- spring, one can beflown to a deserted Bahamian island for a shipwreck adventure. That's right. The answer to all those romantic fantasies. Along with other members of the group you can be left on a deserted little, sun -soaked island for a specified time period and get back to nature. The only drawback to the holiday Linda Hansen, assistant at the Goderich Municipal Day Nursery, helps Chad Shaw with his silhouette. The children have been working on the theme "ourselves and our Bodies" lately. Besides making silhouettes of their faces, they have made fancy paper frames for photographs of themselves. (Photo by Joanne Buchanan) Children at the Goderich Municipal Day Nursery crowd around supervisor, Eveleen McDonagh who holds Fluffy, the guinea pig while Heather Zurbrigg feeds him a carrot. With so many little ones demanding your attention at the same time, you have to tune them all out and concentrate on one at a time, says Mrs. McDonagh. But, she quickly adds, don't forget to go back to the ones you have tuned out or they will lose interest in you. (Photo by Joanne Buchanan) IMMO "package is the frills, or lack of them. Once deposited on the tiny island in the Caribbean, you and the group are left to fend for yourselves just as if you were shipwrecked. The menu is left up to the individuals imagination and resourcefulness as is shelter and providing other amenities. Now that may sound like anexciting way to spend the annual vacation but the group who tested the idea found that boredom, more so than hunger, was the main disadvantage to the adventure. They could easily get used to eating slimy things from the seas in an assortment of disguises, raw, stewed or chowdered, but even hunger gave way to boredom. With nothing to do all day but sit on the white sands and take in some rays, it's easy to understand that such ac- tivity would not tax one's energy or initiative to any great extent.. Now the holiday would be somewhat' more interesting if scantily clad young ladies occasionally sauntered down to the water's edge •with a. tray full of refreshing beverages. It would tend to relieve the boredom, somewhat. Somehow I can't picture myself being thrown at the mercy of the elements and coming out ahead. Breakfast of -bark and berries washed down with a shot of coconut milk is not exactly a morning eye opener. - Personally, 'I _prefer a few cups of caffeine before the mind and body co- operate., • and begin functioning. My mind rarely co-operates but the old body tends to function regularly with a few cups of coffee. And unless I was able to read three or four newspapers, daily existence would Godericth SIGNAL. a •y tend to become tedious at best. You see there is Just too much taken tor granted, like hair dryers, television and a late night snack before the national news. And without those little life sustaining extras, life on a sun - drenched Caribbean Island can be as exciting as listening to Howard Gossett recite Shakespeare. But perhaps such a vacation is the idyllic, nine -to -fivers romantic fantasy. Escape from the pressures of a job and family life and worrying about the next car payment. The new vacation idea may attract people wanting to escape the chill of winter and pressures of society but name one thing you could do on a Caribbean island that you couldn't do on a January night in Goderich. STAR YEAR 131-47 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23,1978 SECOND SECTION Mrs. Mac loves all her children BY JOANNE BUCHANAN Some people just seem to have a ,special way with children. Eveleen McDonagh and Linda Hansen are two .of those people and that makes thein well qualified to handle their new duties at Goderich's Municipal Day Nursery. Mrs. McDonagh or Mrs. Mae as the children affeciionately—cal t 'ter, started working at the day nursery as an assistant to Carol Egener in April and when Mrs. Egener retired, she took over her duties as supervisor in September. She loves the job but admits that it can be a demanding ..one. With so many little ones calling, "teacher, teacher", at the same time, she says, you have to tune them all out and concentrate on one at a time. But, she continues, you must always remember to go back to the ones you have tuned out or they will lose interest in you. Mrs. McDonagh says she tries to get her housework done in the mornings before going to work at the nursery so that she will have time for her own children when she goes home again. She has three children aged 8, 10 and 12. She herself comes from a family of 13. Being the third oldest and having to help look after the younger ones, she feels, had something to do with leading her to her present job. Mrs. McDonagh was born in Ireland but moved to London, England when she was 13. When her oldest child went to nursery school in England, Mrs. McDonagh started helping out as a volunteer parent. The nursery school was a co-operative one run by the parents and Mrs. McDonagh soon became president • of the organization. Everyone kept telling her that she had a way with children and that she should take a course to become a nursery school teacher. • "I didn't feel that I had the time to take a course but I was more or less pressured into it," she says, adding that she's glad now that she took it. But says she couldn't picture herself working at anything else. While attending the two year college course in Early Childhood Education, Mrs. McDonagh was able to leave her children in a nursery school attached to the college. This was Very convenient. Upon graduation, Mrs. McDonagh worked in a nursery' school in England. Mrs. McDonagh had relatives in Nova Scotia and after hearing about Canada and seeing pictures of it, she felt it would be a good place to raise a family. She also thought she would like the snow (although she's not so sure now) and she liked the adventure in- volved in moving to another country. Sot in 1973, she did move to Canada with her husband and three children. They lived in Hamilton first where she worked as a supervisor in a nursery school for four years. Then they moved to Goderich where her husband is employed at Champion Road Machinery Ltd. Mrs. Turn to page 2A • Assistant Linda Hansen (left), and supervisor Eveleen McDonagh, along with two volunteer parents, look after about 25 children per session at Goderich's, Municipal Day Nursery. Here, some of the children pose for a picture during their outside play time. The children also have a creative time, a free play time and circle time. So far this year they have visited an apple orchard and a pumpkin patch. They have also visited area nursing homes and hospitals dressed in Hallowe'en costumes. (Photo by Joanne Buchanan) The expression everything turns to gold was never more explicit than when it was said of Walt Disney. The man could do no wrong. Everything he did seemed to make him a fortune and as people all over the world put money in, his pocket they kept smiling and saying he was truly a great individual. Disney may have been a great guy. There is no reason to believe that that smiling, friendly face that fooled with Disney cartoon characters before and after the Walt Disney show on Sunday night could be anything but Motherhood and apple pie. But now that I'rn old enough to see that Mickey Mouse was more than a cartoon character I can see that destiny demanded that Walt Disney make millions. Anyone else that had a field mouse invade their working quarters would have gotten rid of the pest. Disney ' tamed it, drew pictures of it, gave it a personality even the hardest of people had to like, and set out to make his first million. The world is still as fond of Mickey. Mouse, the first of over 100 Disney characters, as it was in 1928 when Mickey Mouse made his film debut. Proof of 'Mickey's amazing popularity was made evident during the rodent's recent cross-country whistle stop birthday tour that started in California and ended in the White House. Hundreds of thousands of Americans of all ages braved freezing. temperatures and hours of ..waiting at train "stations to personally wish Mickey a Happy Birthday. His popularity has been responsible for saving the Ingersoll Watch Com- pany, a firm that was on the brink tof bankruptcy when it began producing Mickey Mouse watches. The first day the watches went on sale over 11,000. were snatched up by Mickey Mouse fans and the firm has never looked back. Mickey didn't stop at watches , and now his countenance appears on everything from cereal bowls to let- terheads keeping hundreds of thousands of people in jobs by more than 1,200 licensed merchandisers throughout the world. The amazing thing about Mickey's film career, he has appeared in 118 flicks, is that he has played everythi'' g except a mouse. He was not the first cartoon character to hit the silver screen. Felix the Cat and Oswald Rabbit are older than Mickey but neither were given a voice early in their careers and neither enjoyed the instant climb to fame that Mickey did. The only threat to Mickey's fame was Donald Duck and while Donald may'be funnier than his rodent competitor and may have made more cartoons (128) he cannot begin to cut into Mickey's fan club. Psychologists have devoted a great deal of time and thought to Mickey's popularity attempting to determine why people love him like they do. The best they can do is assume that the rodent's personality combined with the 'fact that he normally gets himself into situations that the man on the street does endears him to.the public. Myself, I never stopped to think why I like Mickey Mouse. The truth of the matter is he's by no means my favorite Disney character. My all-time favorite ls`Goofy followed closely by Dopey, one of the Seven Dwarfs that saved Snow White's buns. If you 'got to 'know me it may be understandable why I would choose those two characters as my favorites. But for the life of me 1 can't understand why you like Mickey. Mind you, I'm also not on the verge .ofestablishing a multi-million dollar empire that spans the globe either. Jerf Seddon 0 .44