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The Goderich Signal-Star, 1979-02-01, Page 21sykes 2 Every year is The year of the Child BY JOANNE BUCHANAN For people like Dorothy (Dot) Scott of Goderich Township and those who work at Huron County's Family and Children's Services, every year is the International Year of the Child. In 1978 Family and Children's Services' Christmas Bureau helped 160 families in the county with gifts and money for Christmas dinners. Organizers were pleased with the tremendous response to the Christmas Bureau from both individuals and church and service groups. Depots were set up in Go-derich, Clinton, Seaforth, Wingham and Exeter where people could drop off toys, clothing and food during the first week in December. During the second week in December, families who had been referred to the Family and Children's Services by social workers, health nurses, doctors, ministers or others, could visit the depot in their area choosing the things they wanted for Christmas. If they needed help with their Christmas meal, a cheque proportionate to the size of the family was given to them. There were also vouchers which could be used for special requests, for example if some child wanted a certain thing for Christmas that was not available at the depot. This year the Christ- mas Bureau received, over $6,000 in donations, about a third of this amount came from in- dividuals with the rest coming from service clubs and church groups. This amount was down slightly from last year but so was the number of families referred. Family and Children's Services added $1,700 to the donations. About half of the total amount was distributed in cheques and the other half in gifts. Money received by the Christmas Bureau can be acknowledged with of- ficial receipts because it is a charitable organization. This past year, the Christmas Bureau tried something new. A knit- ting program was co- ordinated with the Bureau supplying wool to those who were willing to knit articles for the - Bureau. This program went over quite well and will be continued next year, with many of the knitters. starting to make things already for December. Over-all co-ordinator for the Christmas Bureau is Marian Hindmarsh of Family and Children's Services. She explains that there are so many families in the county Dot Scott ...volunteer living so close to the poverty line, that they can't afford all the little extras like presents and turkeys at Christmas and that's why the Bureau is important. This past year, she says, the families helped by the Bureau were fairly evenly distributed among the five area towns ex- cept for Seaforth. There were 38 families in Goderich, 44 in Wingham, 39 in Exeter, 32 in Clinton and only seven in Seaforth helped by the Bureau. But because the . Bureau is ,now a co- ordinated effort among the five areas, the gifts and money collected can be evenly distributed. For example, the That's it. I quit. The brush and roller have been appropriately retired in the basement in an ostentatious ceremony usually reserved for revered athletes. Hopefully,there they will grow old and brittle,collecting moss, fungus or whatever else tends to grow in the cellar. My •painting days are„numbered. Oh you cuuld.probably tempt me with a gallon of shiny enamel, satin finish, drive me crazy with a quart of semi- gloss or watch the eyes widen at the glimpse of primer. But my resistance and willpower are now so strong I could refuse without batting an.eye. I think the habit is licked. The habit took roots when I figured it was a reasonably .sa.ne idea to paint the interior of the house with relative ease. Ah, but not so sedulous semi -gloss smoothers. Things are not always as easy as they may appear on the sur- face. I quickly discovered that painting ceilings is not only a laborious procedure at best but also has an ad- verse effect on key sections of the anatomy. For days on end I would report to work with arms raised above my shoulders in the fashion of clut- ching the roller handle. Not that my mind had become ac- customed to the technique of rolling ceilings, rather my arms were locked in the awkward'position. m And despite everything you read or. hear about how effortless painting can be, they are simply rumors manufactured by people who probably do not have the least inclination on how to hold a brush let alone use it. It isnot a task to be performed in a perfunctory manner. Painting is an art that requires skill, finesse anda monumental amount of patience. In all modesty and sincerity I possess none of those attributes. For instance after completing a section of wall I would back up several paces for further artistic scrutiny only to find my pants were stuck to the wet paint behind me. Then in an attempt to cover up the faux pas, I could, without much effort, manage to get too close so my hair stuck to the wall. Another patch job. Painting, especially in close quar- ters, can also play weird tricks on the mind. Although I have yet to seek a legitimate medical opinion, I am convinced the paint fumes wreaked havoc among vital organs and my cerebral apparatus, which was suspect to begin with. Newsroom colleagues insist there was little for the fumes to tamper with. I have yet to calculate the number of gallons used for the job but the empty cans form a formidable barrier in the basement that resembles a thriving scrap yard. De.ite the, gallons that were applied to the walls and ceilings with,care and on occasion, wild abandon,there will be at least a couple of gallons returned to the store. I will simply turn myself and the clothes worn through the ordeal in to the store and demand a refund. There should be at least two gallons of paint that could be reclaimed from my paint clothes and exposed parts off my body. But somehow I don't think they will go for it. The painting is over for now but I still get uncontrollable urges to whip off the. lid of a fresh gallon and inhale deeply. Hopefully I won't take to hanging around paint stores. on Friday nights or keep a paint brush -in the glove com- partment for a quick fix. Truthfully, I think 0 will be easy to combat the problem. The rollers and brushes can rot in the basement. Seaforth depot collected too much for seven families so some of their things were sent to the Exeter depot which needed more. Mrs. Hindmarsh feels that people are becoming more aware of the Bureau as time goes on. It has been a co-ordinated effort among the five county towns for about ten years now, she estimates. Before this, it was all handled, by the Family and Children's Services workers and a few dedicated volunteers who would help pack Christmas boxes for needy families. DEDICATED VOLUNTEER One of these dedicated volunteers was Dot Scott. Not only would she pack the boxes but she would visit every needy family in the county to distribute them, sometimes putting as many as 2,400 miles on her car. "I look back now and think,'how on earth did I do it?'. It was time- consuming but I just loved it. All the families remembered my name and they were so glad to see me: I used,:..to..start about November and cover the county from corner to corner and one time we even over- stepped our boundary and went into another county,” she says. There seemed to be a lot of families to help back then, remembers Mrs. Scott but they were all so appreciative and she says that delivering the boxes used to "make" her Christmas. Mrs. Scott says she can't even remember exactly how she got started helping the Family and Children's Services at Christmas. She says she was a little dubious about goinginto people's homescold at first. But in her 17 or 18 years of helping, she only ran into one incidence of unappreciativeness. This year Mrs. Scott was the co-ordinator -for Turn to page 3A • L. - like the results but it seems I risk my clean criminal record, my' health and sanity, the value of my house and the safety of anyone within shouting distance when something goes wrong. And it never seems to fail something always goes wrong. I'm talking about my flings as a home handyman. At least once a year I have to forget about what I would really like to do and put on my Mr. Fixit coveralls, pull out my trusty hammer and other assorted tools that are necessary for any repair or renovation job and get' at it. Every time I start a job around the house it is done with the assurances that this is the last project and then every room is • done. The last 430 jobs just about cleaned up the slate of things to do and once this little repair is out of the way our home will be just the way we dreamed and we'll be able to pursue the good life. To put it mildly pshaw. The first step in any job is to spot exactly what . you want. You visit someone's home and see what they Goderich SIGNAL STA 1 132 YEAR -5 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1979 SECOND SECTION Marie Park thinks her community is worth talking about Dungannon has a new reporter BY JOANNE BUCHANAN Marie Park, a resident of Dungannon for more than 20 years, is' the new ""Dungannon • correspon- dent for the Goderich Signal -Star and the Lucknow Sentinel. She is replacing former correspondent Mary Bere. Having a, special column in the newspaper for Dungannon news is important, says Mrs. Park, not so much for the people who live in the community but for' those who have moved away and still subscribe to an area paper to keep abreast of local topics. Even though Dungannon is a small community, consisting of only about 300 'people, Mrs. Park feels it is important to keep it on the map. For these reasons, Mrs. Park took it upon herself to write the weekly Dungannon Doings column for the two nearby papers when Mrs. Bere could no longer continue. Because she' is active and "gets out and around quite a bit", she is able to pick up a lot of news tips for the column which she might not have heard otherwise. Mrs. , Park says she enjoys meeting the public and likes writing the -column. She is the mother of eight children. Four of them are still at home and the youngest one is five years old. One of her daughters, Wanda, was Goderich's New Year'- baby in 1957. Mrs. Park says she is glad she is- raising her children in the country although sometimes- she thinks living in town would be easier because the children wouldn't need rides everywhere they wanted to go. Although the country kids don't 'often get the same advantages as the town kids who are closer to activities, she feels that country kids are often "a better breed" kids. They have clubs like 4-H to pull them close together. In town, she says, even though_ the kids are closer to ac- tivities, many of them just walk around the Square with nothing to do. She feels the town should have a sports complex or something similar. Mrs. Park herself was born on a farm in Colborne Township but moved to Goderich when she was seven years old. She attended G.D.C.I. and after her marriage, moved to Dungannon with 'her 'husband who was born and raised there. She still -does all her shopping in Goderich but Lucknow is the family's main centre for activity. Bowling is - her first love, she says, and she is the captain of two dif- ferent league teams in Lucknow. She once placed third in an all Ontario high -low bowling -competition in Sudbury after winning.- 12 house tournaments in the area. But bowling is just one of many pastimes for Mrs. Park. Shealso likes Turn to page 2A •• have done in their kitchen, Iiv ig room, bedroom or crawl space. Keeping in mind that your house is just a little different you make a few mental notes of changes you'll have to make and then ask how they did it. It never fails. When my wife spots something nice it has been done by a.Class A carpenter and while I might pass for a Class D tradesman the only thing I will be able to come up with is a reasonable fac- simile. Ignoring the fact that I am way out of my field I try to ask intelligent questions about how I should attempt the same thing. ^ Convincing myself that I can do it I head home to make all the arrangements. Furniture has to be moved,"the house has to be changed from a three bedroom bungalow to a one room apartment. Everything we own is piled into one toom and the rest of the house torn apart. Once the demolition is done I have to sit dowh and try to figure out what I'll need from the , lumber company. That is com- parable to planning an invasion of Europe. I don't know how many bags of plaster, how many nails or how much wood. I ballpark my needs and set out for the store. They won't have what I need and the salesman will recommend another type of product that is just a little different but will do the same thing. Slightly confused but trusting his ability I go for the sales pitch. Once all the materials are wedged into the car and then piled into the room to be renovated the great search begins for tools. I last used thehammer in May and I set it right there I explain to a confused family. Who took it? Frustrated because I already feel the job could•have been half done by the time I found all the tools I get set to use this easy application product I've been suckered into buying. Think I'm worried about the direc- tions that carry a warning that I've got three minptes to get.this plaster on the v*a11 before it turns into concrete. No Problem. First application gets it all over- the floor: I tear into the kitehen looking for a rag and by the time t find deg Mrs. Marie Park, a resident of Dungannon for over 20- years, is the new Dungannon correspondent for the Goderich Signal -Star and the.-Lucknow' Sentinel. She feels it is importantto keep the Dungannon A40 rf Doings "column' in the papers for those residents n who have moved away and still subscribe to the, papers to keep abreast of local'topiose.(Photo by Joanne Buchanan) one the kitchen is in shambles and I've ,•also tracked plaster through the house. The floor is clean but two of the three minutes is up and the stuff is like bread dough and won't spread. Add a little water to smooth it out and away I go. I'm beginning to lose con- trol. The money I saved by doing it myself is turning into cement before my eyes, the lumber company is closed •and I don't have enough to get the job done. Just as I'm about to take an axe to the wall there's a knock at the door. Company. Somebody that always threatened to drop in and see what we've done with the place but never seemed to get around to it. We desperately ,try to explain that we are still renovating. Oh but we love it say the unexpected guests. You must be very handy, with your hands. Want me to take my trowel in my gifted hands and reshape your fade with they latest easy to apply, fast drying plaster that's turning to rock in my livinlg room? Nothing personal you understand. jeff seddon 1