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p4 kibonmarchs ii m st stouffville time to pay piper with user fees y he time to pay the piper has arrived groups using town facili ties will be hit with user fees for the first time in 1994 and while we can gripe about paying taxes and pay ing user fees at the same time those to blame are not the staff at the rec centre ball diamonds or swimming pool activities simply cant be funded any longer without paying costs continue to rise and yet there is no more money coming in if we want facilities and groomed parkland we are justly going to pay for them user fees are designed to offset the cost of taxing the general public for the bene fit of those who use the facil ities it is the wave of the future and while we all believe we pay too much as it is there is the feeling that this is just the beginning w appears wm campkul tf f4u1 complete out of favofci wib4 too pm ar1u tou wt an unwanted tenant that wont pay rent cj till more from the country r notebook had a runin with my newest tenant this weekend eating sunday dinner in the dining room i was acutely aware of a shadow moving behind me and some rather uncatlike rustling from above i whirled around and saw a bandits mask staring back at me through the window a huge raccoon was wiggling upside down from between the eaves and roof of my dining room no longer daunted by alarmingly frequent bouts with natures creatures i went out the side door to confront the beast at my approach he quietly climbed onto the roof and stared at me shouts and demands for rent went unheed ed as he sleepily walked to the point of the roof and down the other side i went in the house to put on my boots as i was cursing and zipping up my coat a sudden realization that i had left the garbage unattended in the garage saw me scurrying out the front door we had often heard tales of how wily the raccoon can be but i was not aware they were a magical creature for no soon er did i have the screen door open then i heard the unmis takable sound of cat food tins minute with mair 9 fz and re w m a i potato peelings and chicken wrappings being spread from stem to stern across the garage out the door and into garage i went armed with a cross coun try pole but when i flicked on the garage light i saw what i had expected the remnants of two weeks worth of human con sumption littering my garage floor and yet there was no sign of the bandit i looked in the rafters under the car in the back of the precarious log pile and all around the yard no raccoon i listened for him but nothing came across the breeze i went slightly befuddled back into house twenty minutes later my cats began to wail looking up i saw the coon standing on its hind legs grinning at me through the patio doors the cats were right in front of the doors but he paid them little mind he just sat there grinning and chewing on a chicken bone my chicken bone it is like one of those house guests who just dont know when to leave you can cut them off turn out the lights and yawn by the door but they are still there monday morning the party was still going on and it seems to be picking up steam looking in the patio doors two raccoons sat grinning up at me and by the looks of the second one more are on the way storm left us shaken and stirred stouffville tribune publisher general manager editorinchief advertising director business manager operations manager patricia pappas andrew mair jo ann stevenson debra weller vivian oneil pamela nichols staff reporters tracy kibble julia caspersen roger belgrave photographers sjoard witleveen steve somerville real estate joan marshman classified doreen deacon oebbie amundsor uxbndge retail sales joan marshman doreen deacon heather hill gibson uxbridge distribu tion artena maddock canadian publications mail sales product agreement 439010 published every wednesday by metroland printing publishing and distributing at 9 heritage rd markham ontario l3p 1m3 tel 2942200 the stouffville tribune published every wednesday at 6244 main st stouffville is one of the metroland printing publishing and distributing group of suburban newspapers which includes ajaxplckerlng news advertiser aurora banner barrle advance brampton guardian burlington post colllngwood connection etoblcoke guardian georgetown independentacton free press kingston this week lindsay this week markham economist sun midland express milton canadian champion mlsslssauga news newmarket era banner north york mirror northumberland news oakvlllo beaver orlllla today oshawa- whltby this week peterborough this week richmond hiiithornhlllvaughan liberal scarbor ough mirror and uxbridge tribune national sales representative metroland corporate sales 4931300 6402100 6405477 fax t hey say you learn something new every day at march break during what had been billed as a relaxing stateside holiday we discovered the meaning of frost heaves not to mention experiencing the dubious delights of driving head long into a recordbreaking bliz zard at 645 am on saturday we were on the road perhaps the old man mused we could beat the storm how can we beat it i inquired if were driving directly into it the customs official at the american border assured us the storm was way down south and wed be fine no doubt he was a descendent of the individual who described the titanic as unsink- able by the time we arrived in the vicinity of our resort we had driven through the kind of weath er rarely seen outside a holly wood disaster movie it was then that i first spied the legend frost kates corner kai e d er da i e heaves writ large at the bottom of the hill leading to our holiday haven our horrendous drive through the storm of the century paled into insignificance when com pared with the challenge of the hill a nine kilometre obstacle course consisting mostly of craters bordered by occasional bits of buckled tarmac we got stuck twothirds of the way up this natural disaster by then the meaning of frost heaves was depressingly obvi ous abandoning the family charabanc we were driven to the resort at breakneck speed by a friendly maniac in a clapped out truck the axles of which were beaten to death en route by the wildly undulating terrain we were deposited at last both shaken and stirred among the friends we were vacationing with all of whom had undergone a sim ilar initiation ritual snowstorm horror stories were exchanged over their generously shared provisions yours truly having failed entirely to grasp the magnitude of the storm which to no one elses surprise had caused all supermarkets to close before we arrived it turned out to be one of our most memorable not to say hilar ious holidays during which cars routinely got stuck on the hill from hell skis got buried in snow drifts and every night was party time and when frost heaves in laco- nia new hampshire this time next year we want to be part of the reunion