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The Huron Expositor, 1982-09-01, Page 3'flu' 1tiron «xposior Since 1860, Serving the Community first incorporating .4 Brussels Post founded 1872 12 Main St. 527-0240 Published at SEAFORTH, ONTARIO every Wednesday afternoon , by Signal -Star Publishing Limited Jocelyn A. Shrier, Publisher Susan White, Editor H.W. (Herb)Turkheim, Advertising Manager Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Community Newspaper Association and Audit Bureau of Circulation A member of the Ontario Press Council /ME\ Subscription rates: Canada $17 a year (in advance) outside Canada $50. a year (in advance) Single Copies - 50 cents each , Second class mall registration number 0696 SEAEOl8TH, ONTARIO®, SEPTEMBER 1, 1882 When times are tough; and no one will argue they aren't right now, a $12,000 Heritage Conservation District study may seem like the last thing downtown Seaforth needs. What we really need here in town, you'll say, is more shoppers (if you're a business person) or more attractive, competitively priced merchandise (if you're a potential shopper). Both those things are true. (Here we'd like to slip a plug in for the super service that Seaforth stores have always offered. See something you like in the city that Isn't available locally? ."We'll order it for' you," a local merchant promises. And he or she will.) And yet, a study like the one John Brock's architectural firm is doing right now for our downtown can be really important In helping those who five here decide what direction we want Seaforth to take. That's if, and only if, local people get involved. Local participation wasn't exactly 'overwhelming at the first public meeting about the heritage conservation district plan earlier this summer. But thanks to someone with strong opinions and an interest in his community, Tom Schoonderwoerd, those involved in the study had to justify what they are doing and Why. As this study may show,-Seaforth's old buildings, its fine service, its relaxing downtown atmosphere, could with some promotion bring more shopping traffic to this town. A concerted'effort by Main St. merchants and property owners can pay dividends for them and for residents who'll be encouraged to make more use of local facilities. A downtown Heritage Conservation District could be an important part of a plan for expanding local business and for keeping what's here now. The alternative we see is stagnation. Slow closings, store by store. Ever increasing carloads of shoppers heading not downtown but out of town; somewhere, anywhere that they feel offers more for their dollars. A dormitory town with a dead commercial core. Since to most of us that alternative is unacceptable, we urge people, especially those who think it's a dumb idea or who have some thoughts of their own on downtown Seaforth's future, to get Involved in the heritage district plan. A call to town clerk, Jim Crocker, or to LACAC chairman Ralph Smith will get you .signed up, fast. The traffic flow study described in last week's Expositor or more especially the proposal to build a downtown scale model at a cost of about $4,000 may seem like a ridiculous waste of money to you. But such tools are Important in learning whether hunchesabout downtown Seaforth are in fact grounded in reality. While we're not at all sure we're itching to spend $80 as our share in a three dimensional Main St. -model, we're really impressed by Niagara on the Lake, a town that treats its architectural heritage very seriously. And brings in thousands of tourists as a result. (Niagara on the Lake, In case you missed it last week, uses its scale model to .assess downtown changes.) We're in favour of the heritage study because it can be the beginning of Seaforth's valuing what we have and working together to improve on it. Even If you don't agree, especially if you don't agree, give the study steering committee a piece of your mind. By saying nothing, and bitching in private, you're voting for downtown Seaforth exactly as it is now. And downhill from there. Appreciate support It's easy to blame one big corporation or another for many of the things that are wrong i)n our world. Dark dangerous smoke pours out of corporate chimne es; the cars they build are unsafe; they pollute our lakes and streams in their quest for the almighty dollar and they will endanger the health of their workers rather than Install costly health and safety equipment. Right? Sometimes. And self-serving public relations programs like the oil companies' telling us they deserve all those tax breaks because they're working for an energy secure future (for whom?) only make the public more sceptical about corporations and their motives. Meanwhile there are corporations, many thousands of them, who act as quiet good citizens, supporting the arts, sports, people and charities and providing "extras" that many communities all over this country would not have if it weren't for corporate generosity. There's an excellent example right here in Seaforth. Last week's Expositor carried a photo showing people from Topnotch Feeds Limited presenting a $5,000 donation to the new arena. It started us thinking about all the other Topnotch contributions to many other good causes in Seaforth and area over the years. The company, owned by the Richardson conglomerate, has been generous with its money with gifts to the hospital building fund, the Lions Park, to the old arena repair program, to Seaforth and area causes, big and small. But Topnotch has also been very generous with another resource...the time of some of its key people. Bruce McMillan, then Topnotch general manager and now a Richardson vice-president, headed the fundraising campaign which made possible Seaforth's new community hospital back in the sixties. And following in his footsteps, the present general manager Jim Cunning ham, lends encouragement and 'support to local causes at every opportunity. Topnotch's David Cornish served on the school board and chaired the hospital board and generally showed the good citizenship the town got from the company's management. Then there's Gord Rimmer, idea man for many organizations around town and present chairman of the hospital board who never hesitates to' contribute his services when there's a job to be done. And there are others, lots of them in the company, who've been as generous as these four with both their personal and professional time. We don't mean to slight the many small business people, farmers and self-employed among them, who've always given generously of their time and money to Seaforth causes. Without a doubt their volunteer activity has cost most of them money. Just like it costs a company to give employees time off for community work, But it's no reflection on the hard work of others to give an outstanding corporate citizen a vote of thanks. We appreciate you, Topnotch. We're glad you're in Seaforth and not Smooth Rock Falls. OpOnlon Huron departments -learn AUGUST 5,1.: 2 There was a large scale train ride on the Grand trunk from London to Goderich via ' Stratford. The train was composed of 18 cars and had 1000 passengers. The man who was caught ransacking Mrs. Hill's house was shipped to Goderich and pleaded guilty although he can't be.eharged heavily because he did not actually burglarize anything. The High and Public schools are being readied for opening on September 1. The agricultural show held on Aug. 21st and 22nd was a good success. , AUGUST 3fD,1 ° 17 Messrs. Martin Bros, of the second le Adrian Vos. a well-known fjarm writer and a farmer, hit the nail on the head in Farm and Country magazine last month. An outspoken man, Adrian expressed feelings about a hoax -perpetrated by farmers which 1 share. completely. Formes who block highways with useless tractor parades and who throw dead cattle on the steps off banks or who make threatening gestures by a display of ski -masked faces and rifles leaning against straw bales do little to enhance the image of agriculture in the eyes of the general public. In any age when four per cent of the public are actively engaged in agriculture, it is absolutely necessary to get public support for the plight of farmers. More than that, farmers must -gain the respect off the nation if they are going to continue to gain concessions from all levels of the marketplace and all levels of government. Mr. Vos decries the methods used by a group of farmers in Owen Sound last year. Listen to the buzzes of September On t� concession of Tuckersmith H.R.S this year threshed 335 bushels of fall wheat, the product of 7 acres of land. Mr. John O'Keefe, off this town, who is one of the town's most extensive cattle dealers, paid out over 536,000 for cattle which he purchased and shipped in the last month. There was a county board of members meeting of the board of examiners for Huron County on August 24 to do business with every member present. t f Once ?©© ow bV Dob 4Qo41QP The group literally duped the press. espe- -cialy the Toronto Star, into accepting a story about farmers becoming vigilantes. "As a farmer and a farm journalist who has, for many years, tried to get the farmers' message across to the city public. i am outraged" by the stupidityof the group who pulled the hoax, wrote Mr. Vos. Right on, Adrian. 1 share your sentiments 100 per cent. Fifty years ago, most people had some connection with agriculture, perhaps were even born on the farm. Most had a relative still working the land. But that is no longer true. Most people do not know a Hereford from a Holstein. As an example, I offer you a program on television from an independent station only a few weeks ago. The newscaster was talking of aid AUGUST 19, 2932 • Seaforth's new theatre is expected to be opened on Thursday, Sept. 8 in a rush to be opened early. The theatre is expected to hold 300 people. The Seforth fall fair was being readied for September 22 and 23rd, This year 3rd place has been added to the prizes along with more prize money. The horseshoe club held a large tourney with Elliott and Wrefford of Stratford capturing 1st. I_ e • ho quinow SEPTEMBER 23, 1957 Laurel Dale of Hullett defeated 118 other constestants to be the first girl to win the Junior 4-1.1 Championship at Western Fair. There was a large turn -out for the 122th anniversary of the Egmondville United Church. Hensall was protesting two claims off where the police were called in on a case but never appeared. Mr. and Mrs. Keith Webster celebrated their 25th anniversary. • A mutual aid plan was outlined for Huron County for the 13 fire fighting brigades. The Huron Expositor was awarded the CWNA Printing Award (second). pit about the increases pending for dairy products. On the screen behind him was a film clip to illustrate his news. It was a herd off Angus cattle, for heaven's sake! It is just another example of how uninformed most people are about agricul- ture, It is a huge job that farmers' have: To educate the general public about agricultural problems. 1 have castigated big -city newspapers for years about their lack of knowledge and'their reluctance to cover agricultural affairs. When they do, it is usually done by a city -born reporter who is afraid to get manure on his boots. Most of the readers -- 96 per cent of them -- are in cities, towns, urban centres. There- fore, the big circulation bucks are not found in the country. Which is why farmers, quite often. are ignored. f r s "We may only hope that the (Toronto) Star won't hold the actions of a few back -conces- sion clods against the farm population asv a whole --and refuse to report farm concerns except when it comes from non-farm sources," wrote Adrian. I echo that hope. Farmers find it tough getting coverage, accurate coverage, in any big. urban newspaper. The Star sent one of its best reporters to cover the Owen Sound story. Fran Reynolds is respected in the business. The story she wrote was only recently revealed as a hoax by the group responsible. "We may only hope that that's reporter, now with the CBC, won't carry a grudge against the farm community for the cruel and cretinous joke inflicted upon her," said Adrian. This type of stupidity is reprehensible. It . makes it doubly difficult for farm writers to continue to plug away at trying to help farmers educate the rest of the public. As summer winds down, the buzzing sounds of July and August give way to the buzzing noises of September. Some of the sounds are manmade; others come from Nature. The latter are usually the most interesting and often the most difficult to deal with. For the past few weeks, we've heard the buzz of outboard motors on motorboats on the lakes. Some trailed water skiiers. Other engine buzzes came from sailboats when the wind let them down. Occasionally a redfaced crew spent a long day waiting for wind, because somebody forgot the gas. in September. we'll probably hear the buzz of chain saws in the woodlots. Anyone whose lucky enough to have a woodlot on his property will be busy culling out the dead and dying tr' as to pr vide precious and cheap heat thi! winter. And s on the v icular buzz will come from snowm• riles t boats. The buzz of air conditarners d fans wasn't heard as much Oddo °n Endo by C lath@ '©wingh@imd during this unusually cool summer. Soon we'll hear the humm of heaters and furnaces. But those are manmade buzzes. The most amazing summer buzzes are made by Nature's creatures - bees, flies, mosquitos. Common houseflies are more liable to cause emotional damage' rather than physical damage to humans. For example, after a hot and humid August day, you lay on the bed enjoying the cool night air. You're almost asleep when you hear "b -u -z -z -z -z-." Next thing you known there's a fly sitting on your nose. You have three choices. You can twitch and wiggle your nose to scare him off, but you'll probably wear out before he will. You can jump out of bed, turn on the light and chase him with a swatter, but you know he'll just taunt you from the ceiling. Or, you can cover your head with the sheet making sure there's no space for him to crawl in, while you risk suffocation. Whichever alternative you choose, by morning, the fly will still be fresh and composed and you'll be a hot and sweaty nervous wreck. Anyone who wears glasses has probably fallen victim to another ingenious method of attack used by a flv on the street. You're standing on the street, chating with• an acquaintance and not hurting anyone. Out of the blue a soft black missile zooms and lands on your spectacles. He then proceeds to run around the Tense just inside the frame where your eye can follow him : round and round and round and round. Maybe you think if you ignore him, he'll go away. Not so. Chances are you'll collapse in a dizzy fit before he gives up. You can try waving him away, and you can even try blowing him away. Ultimately you'll end up removing.your glasses, and he'll disappear - until you put your specs back on. I've never heard of an olfactory sensory student being done on flies, but I'm sure they can smell a barbecue ten miles away. The common housefly is basically harm- less, I'm told, He may bother us indoors and outdoors, but he won't harm us, as long as we are strong enough to win the psychologi• cal warfare. Next week let's listen to some of Nature's other buzzing creatures that carry a sting and a bite as well We all want equality, plus a bit more In these days when people speak in the new foreign language of "interfacing" and "conceptualizing" and other gobblety-gook, few words are as unadulterated in meaning. as clearly and instantly understood as democracy and equality; at least until you try to apply them in every day life. These thoughts came to mind recently when reading a play I came across while browsing through some old books. in "Teahouse of the August Moon/, a hit Broadway play of the early 1950's, playwright John Patrick uses a familiar writer's trick in looking at some gid concept through one small. often hilariou�st( example. Patrick in this case examines democracy and equality through the experience of a young American army captain who is sent to bring democracy to one of the small islands recaptured from the Japanese at the end of World War 11. He's given a big book by his commander and told he doesn't have to think about this job at all because all the thinking has been done for by the people back in Washington who wrote the book. But as Captain Frisby tries to apply the Pentagon's ideas of democracy in his little mountain -side village. he finds the answers aren't always in the book. One problem after a@Gt OWd ins oc@w@o by 2 ggog another crops up where his trying to apply the advice of the book runs against the majority rule of the local people. Finally he gives up the book and just plays it by ear with resulting. near -disastrous, and hugely funny results. One example of the problems Cap. Frisby encounters is when the head of the Ladies' League for Democratic Action a very dower. unattractive lady. comes to him complaining that while she and her friends stood in line for rice rations in the hot sun. a local and very beautiful geisha comes along and not only gets served before them. but the men serving out the rice take her inside in the shade and have tea with her leaving the other, plainer women outside baking in the sun even longer. Capt. Frisby immediately says something •must be done. He cannot have discrimination -in his village and he will eliminate it. Oh please, the president of the Ladies League for Democratic Actions says, don't eliminate discrimination, just give her some too. He has promised equality under this new democracy then give the older ladies what the geisha has. in one small, funny way the wri er has said so much about our "democracy". We deplore privilege in others, but delight in it for ourselves. We speak of all people being equal but we're more equal than others of cpurse. Many times in modern life these inconsist- encies of human nature go unnoticed. We live in a land of plenty where there's lots of nearly everything to go around so we can really be equal. It's only in a case of quantities being limited that privilege becomes important. At times of rationing of limited supplies such as Canadians saw during World War 11 we really see how people begin resenting being merely "equal" to their friends and neighbours. We can sec in the news today. how governments that overthrew corrupt regimes and which make a great noise about equal treatment for everyone as in the Soviet Union and China. give tremendous privileges to government officials or favoured sports heros and artists. If you want to see democracy in action come work in the box office of a theatre as 1 do every day. Suddenly you will see how large a proportion of the population thinks it should be more equal than others when it comes 10 getting tickets when the show has been sold out for two weeks. getting as good seats as those sold two months ago when they just got around to buying tickets for tonight's performance or getting special treatment because they know a cousin of the cousin of the star of the show. In a way that exemplifies how we got our country into such a mess as it is today. There is a limited supply of so many things that we thought for so many years had no limit. There, is only so much fresh water yet some people think they should have a special privilege of polluting, There is only so much land but people think they should have the special privilege of misusing it. Most of all there is only so much money in the economy and each of us thinks we have a special claim to a larger share than anyone else. Look at what is happening with the proposal for wage restraint. Nearly everyone can find some special claim why they shouldn't be held to a six per cent increase even though they agree that everyone else should be. Yes we truly want equality in our world. It's just that each of us has the right to he a little more equal than everyone else. Live it up, while you can g J©Q (Dnd opk* by/ ©o0O gfi8o®y/ Well, it's been quite a summer, hasn't it? Lots of hot beach and golf weather inJuly, enough rain to keep the country from burning up. and a general relief from a long. hard winter. With the advent of summer, Canadians seemed to throw off the depression of The Depression we are in. Thumbing their respective noses at tit darkening mood reflected in the financiar pages. with their bleatings of growing' unemployment, inflation untouched. and a dithering government, the masses of the country have headed in all directions, trying to squeeze a little enjoyment out of life before the steadily shortening days remind them of the cruel fall and winter ahead. Despite the lack of jobs and the gloomy forebodings of experts in all fields of finance and economics, the beaches are crowded and colourful. the beer and liquor stores have never been busier. the marinas are jammed, and tourists swarm like ldcusts - welcome locusts, not the other kind. Although many people have been hard hit by the employment situation, there's still a great deal of bounce and resilience in the that old terrorist Menachim Begin should Canadian people. a good sign. We'll see if it pulverize a city and slauter c;vilians to wipe keeps up. as things get worse. out the Palestinian terrorists and Yasser Maybe it's not bounce and resilience at all. Arafat.. whose very name sounds vulgar). Perhaps it's a kind of hysteria. an inner sense Sunshine and green golf links and bide that the world is going to hell in a water have shoved into a corner our wheelbarrow. and we might as well enjoy it knowledge that three-quarters of the people while we can. Something like the last days of in the world are living on what we'd throw the Roman Empire. with the Vandals into the garbage over a m61 h. knocking at the gates. the empire shrunk, and Mea culpa. I'm as guilty asbnyone. Did the the once -mighty legions composed of for- people of Berlin grieve when Britain was cigners and mercenaries. being blitzed, night after night? Did the "What the heck! Next year my dollar will British sorrow over the fate of civilians when be, worth 40 cents, so why not spend it now? their bombers went out night after night and We're going to run out of oil anyway. so why obliterated German cities, with the deliberate not buy a big car and enjoy it, keep the cruiser intent of terrorizing the Germans into running, buy lots of booze because the price submission by destroying civilian morale? wilt go up again and again? Maybe we'll have Not on your life. They both rejoiced. if a mild winter and the oil bill won't be so anything. vicious. Maybe Trudeau will resign and Joe Human nature, I suppose. Cultivate your Clark will lead us farther into the wilderness. own garden and don't worry if the guy next Maybe the world will blow up. Let's live it up door can grow nothing but bitter weeds. while we can." The summer hasn't been without its lighter Is that what's going on in the subconscious moments as far as the news goes. Personally, of Canadians? 1 hope not, but 1 have a sneaky 1 got a tremendous hoot out of a couple of little feeling there might be something in it. items. Summer haze an 'lazy days have pushed Chief one was the predawn visits to the away from our ciousness the -Mack clouds Queen's bedroom by some young nut.,who in the Mid ast: war between Iraq and sat and chatted with her in the middle of rutal attack on Beirut by the once impregnable Buckingham Palace. Never m ch -admired Israeli forces (how ironic that again will 1 read a novel about MI5 pr M16 or Scotland Yard without smirking gleefully at the utter ineptitude of their "security" measures. Another story that gaved me a chuckle was about the guy who owns the shack in which the Dionne quintuplets were born wanting to move it to Niagara Falls. Ont. because he wasn't getting any tourist trade in Northern Ontario. 1 wouldn't walk across the street to see that place, and 1 don't think many others would. Tough Luck. ,Joe. On the home front, it's been pretty strenuous. We agreed to relieve our daughter of her two boys for the month of July. so she could concentrate on a university course. They arriLed in .lune and left in August. It turned out to be about seven weeks instead of four. If 1 could somehow harness the energy of those two kids, 1 could forget about furnaces. air conditioners, and anything else requiring energy. Unlike oil, their energy seems to be undepletable. They can go from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. without a break and are driven off to bed only under the threats of "no story., then!" And 1 just about ran out'of stories. But the boys were great fun. And I hope you had a great summer, ton. r