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p 4 weekend saturday december 27 997 the tribune st saturday december 27 1997 vol 13 no 52 the tribune is a member of the ontario press council comment mon send your letters to the editor to the address below editorial dont be a statistic they just dont get it not you you wouldnt take the wheel of a vehicle after a drink or two or three but somebody out there is too many somebodies the police ride programs are in full swing throughout the greater toronto area and they are netting the usual menaces who insist on driving after drinking but police forces are worried about two things the first is that the number of drinking women drivers has increased dramatically over last year secondly its the drivers they are not catching that is the biggest source of concern in metro by middecember 19 people had been killed due to drunk driving up from last years grim total of 17 since the ride program began at the end of november metro police have reported 41 alcoholrelated collisions already six more than in last years antidrinking and driving program the ontario provincial police report similarly worrisome statistics so far this year theyve investigated 72016 collisions with 3704 classified as alcoholrelated this is up from 3158 accidents involving alcohol in 1996 between dec 5 and 10 auroras opp unit charged seven people with impaired driving and the whitby detachment charged one man so the message isnt getting through to everyone please make sure youre not a police statistic not on their drunken driving offences list or worse still on the fatality sheet have a happy and safe holiday here are some ways id rather not go im not afraid to die i just dont wanna be there when it happens woody allen i know just what old woody was talking about call it middle age or call it midwinter blues but ive been thinking about dying and the many ways i dont want to do it i dont want to go the way david grundman went for instance grund- man a gun nut was getting his jollies one day back in 1982 by shooting at a giant saguaro cactus in the desert out side phoenix arizona unluckily for grundman the blasts from his shotgun dislodged a 23foot section of the cactus which fell on his head and killed him i dont think i want to end it all the way simon longhurst did either longhurst a british teenager was performing a new wave dance called the head shake at a disco in wigan england the idea is to shake your head violently as the pace of the music gets faster simon retired from the dance floor with a headache which turned into a blood clot which caused him to die of acute swelling of the brain then theres the case of robert williams of flat rock michigan back in 1 979 he became the first per son to suffer an end right out of sci ence fiction he was killed by a robot williams worked at the ford motor company plant in flat rock along side a oneton robot used to fetch automotive parts from a storage rack one day williams was rummaging around in the rack when the robot suddenly sprang to life wheeled basic black our twofaith family welcomed stapley column dear editor i want to thank bruce stapley for his article on saturday dec 20 about adam sandlers hanukkah song on mix 999 my husband and i heard the song on the radio and being from a twofaithed household as well as bruce put it we both got quite a chuckle from it like bruce s wife susan i am another one of the handful of jews inuxbridge my husband paul however is not and our fiveyearold son matthew is able to experience the best of both worlds at this time letters of year bruce your lighthearted look at this sometimes confusing time of year was much welcomed in our home when we light the menorah beside the christmas tree on tues day night and put the happy hanukkah sign above it i will think of you and adam sandler witha smile oh my face evylynn coleby uxbridge arthur black around and clubbed williams with its arm killing him instantly some folks just have the cards stacked against them consider the case of vittorio luise the 45year old italian was driving along a road near naples when a freak gust of wind caught his car and hurled it into a river under water luise managed to break a car window free himself from the car swim to the surface and final ly haul himself ashore where a tree blew over and killed him sometimes when the guy with the scythe comes knocking it doesnt matter how safe you think you are jerome moody thought he was pretty safe when he went to a pool party in new orleans back in 1985 he was a certified lifeguard after all half the 200 people at the party were lifeguards plus there were four life- guards on duty at the pool guess what jeromes body was found at the bottom of after the party was over with other mortalities its hard to think that the victims didnt have it coming take the case of the wrestler yousouf ishmaclo he was a turn-of- thcccntury turkish wrestler who came to north america in 1897 to make his fortune and he did he whupped every north american grap- plcr he met and he always took his pay in gold coins which he kept in a money belt that he wore around his waist night and day in 1898 he was sailing back to europe when his ship collided with another vessel and sank no problem for ishmaclo who was an excellent swimmer when he wasnt wearing a money belt full of gold the stubborn turk refused to dis card the belt and drowned another man who let dollar signs get in the way of common sense was the new yorker who got hit by a car a couple of years back he got up unin jured but lay back down after a bystander advised him to fake injury in order to collect insurance money no faking necessary the car rolled forward and he was crushed to death and then there are the folks who appear to be just too dumb too live like norik hakispan a resident of chelsea england norik was a believ er in home remedies accordingly he decided to treat his rather severe case of hemorrhoids himself the hakispans had a family hem orrhoid treatment involving the appli- cation of paraffin norik couldnt get his hands on any paraffin so he decided to use gasoline the fumes from the open can of gasoline he was using were ignited by a nearby hotplate and the results were explosive and fatal cured the hemorrhoids though these arc just a few of the ways id rather not exit this vale of tears if its all right with everyone else but how ever i go i have one last rcqu oh hell i gave the first words to woody allen i might as well let him have the last word too one last request dont use embalming fluid on me i want to be stuffed with crab meat stouffville tribune weekender a metroland community newspaper patricia pappas publisher andrew mair editorinchief tracy kibble editor debra weller director of advertising mike rogerson retail advertising manager stacey allen classified manager barry goodyear director of distribution vivian oneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager about us news 905 6402100 retail sales 9056402100 classifieds 905 6402874 distribution 905 6402100 fax 905 6405477 email thetribistarca 6244 main st stouffville ont l4a1e2 the stouffville tribune pub- lifihed every tuesday thursday and saturday- is one of the motroland printing publishing and distribution group of commu nity newspapers which includes ajaxpickering news advertiser allusion heraldcourier barrio advance brampton guardian burlington post cilyparcnt colllngwoodwasaga beach con nection east york mirror etobl- coke guardian georgetown inde pendentacton free press kingston this week lindsay this week markhom economist sun midlandpenctanguishcne mirror milton canadian champion mis- sissauga news newmarketaurora erabanner northumberland news north york mirror oakvitlo beaver orillia today oshawa- wbltbycloringtonport perry this week peterborough this week richmond huirbomhillvaugban liberal scarborough mirror and uxbridge tribune todays seniors contents cannot he reprinted with- out written permission from the publisher permit 1247 the pub- juher reserves the 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