bo The Acton Free Wednesday April 7 Take my advice When your kid comes home from school and says breezily HI Dad I have this project to do don take the bait Don t say a word beyond Hrummph as you flip your newspaper up for a shield or better still head for the bathroom and locK yourself In Never ever reply Well what a It all about or Is there anything I can do to help If you do you discover inevitably that you have a project to do Projects are all the rage these days in education Give a kid a project and he II learn everything there is to know about the Persian Gulf the origin of sandpaper or the sex life of the blowfly He may never learn anything else in school a strong possibility but he always be an expert In one field For the rest of their lives these kids will find some way at cocktail parties or formal dinners in casual conversation to drag In the Gulf the sandpaper or the blow fly Which Is good Most people know prac tlcally nothing about practically anything Thus they can easily be put down by a forth right statement like But that exactly what I ve been saying The whole thing is in direct contrast to the solemn sedate secretive sex life of the blowfly They simply can t field that one If it properly delivered And you can always change your adjectives to suit the situation It could be The wild exotic orgies of the In heat only on leap- MAPLE SYRUP TIME and the familiar old cry saps running brings out the crowds to a number of sugar bushes Sap collected from the maple trees is boiled down in huge pots over open fires The girl in this photo at Braces Mill Conservation Area wears old fashioned clothes and carries the sap the traditional way let out a little more line Said she d considered doing one on the legends of the Ottawa Valley lumbering days with particular reference to my great uncle Mountain Jack Thomson reckoned to be the toughest lumberjack in the Valley reputed to have killed four men in fistana boot fights I got excited nibbled the bait and began spinning yarns about Mountain Jack She responded with the appropriate Wow That really great Dad Then it emerged that she hod to go direct to human sauries not the printed word and we realized there t time to round up all the relatives and talk to them Both downcast Suddenly under the Influence of the excitement and too many coffees I came up with a new project and tossed It to her The Curse of the Great Lakes She roved That IT Shed been born and raised on their shares and of course I knew all sorts of Interesting old timers don t you Dnd We talked long and feverishly and It looked better and better I had swallowed the bait All she had to do was set the hook Next morning the whole thing looked insane But when I started to swim quietly away I found I still had the hook in my mouth And the line was taut Hundreds of miles and a couple of weeks later we hod talked to regional historians commercial fishermen light keepers and lake captains Kim had a stock of stories ships sunk without trace Indian legends mysterious murders and exotic anecdotes like the pianos floating ashore at Duck Island Must admit I enjoyed every minute of It Old friends were generous with time and invaluable with memories that reached far back into the century But it s my last project At least until my first grandchild sidles up and says Uh Granddad I have this project at school Wowfly which years Actually projects are nothing new though some young teachers act as though Moses had Just been up the mountain again and come down with a great stone slab inscribed Projects We had projects when I was a kid I remember one In agriculture I chose to build a model of a hen house Wisely as I was perfectly aware even at that tender age that I couldn nail two boards together without making a hand sandwich And equally aware that my father was a master craftsman Even so It took a lot of time I had to spend about five evenings in his basement workshop praising admiring and fetching cups of tea before the job was done It was a beautiful little henhouse with windows and a swinging door I got an Despite my experience of the whole fiasco of projects I got myself hooked recently Daughter Kim was home from university Out went the bait Dad I have to do a project in anthropology Sounds interesting Warily ready to run I asked what It was fairly secure in my utter ignorance of the subject It turned out to be a project on folklore any area I breathed easier I was still swimming free Hatred of young problem of future Briefings by officers of the Canadian Armed Forces manning the Nicosia district gave us background information of the mandate of the U presence In Cyprus and the geography of the country which requires policing to maintain peace It was on Christmas Eve 1963 that serious street fighting broke out between the Greek and Turkish Cypriote The green line agree ment was established which divides the two areas of the island currently and it is the N responsibility to maintain the terms of that green line agreement While the problems of Cyprus remain unresolved a whole new generation of people is growing up with real hatred for rhose years old have been the object of a rtal propaganda drive and are Just now at the fighting age An early resolution of the difficulties on Cyprus seems remote As Turkish forces rotated after a six month tour of duty on one of the days during our visit in the Middle East such things as the presence of Turkish boats too close to the shores of Cyprus were causes for threats and further discussions While the presence of forces contributes significantly to the local economy there are economic opportunities being sadly missed as agreement between thetwocommunltiesisabsent For example a Hour mill built In 1963 and so extensively automated that six men could operate it has never produced a bag of flour The fighting at the end of December forced the abandonment of that huge flour mill and now its roof forms a sand bagged outpost while the machinery inside rusts and deteriorates As Canadians It distressed us that a factory able to produce one of the basics of life could not be the subject of successful negotiation to permit its operation Another example which we saw was a factory processing olives for oil It was also capable of processing but was rating at only per cent of its capacity there had been no trouble it would probably have been operating at full capacity and the economy of the island would thus have been strengthened Sandbagged outposts with gun slits about a wooden pallet were evident at major intersections and points as we travelled Conflict and Contrast along the green line in jeep in truck or on foot Through narrow streets down the middle of shopping districts and in more A BLOOD spattered wall in OrmophUa near Nicosia is indicative of the bitter street fighting of Today the area is almost deserted Easter a time of faith Appropriately Easter comes at a time when the earth is reawakening After the long dreary days of winter there s an expectancy in the air and an optimism that is never apparent at any other season It is a fitting time for the feast of Easter which commemorates the resurrection of a Man who left an indelible imprint on the world never equalled And the most surprising part of the Easter story is that the Man died by the means employed to execute criminals on a cross Over the centuries it is said man has become more humane and the cross has been replaced by the hangmans noose gas chamber or electric chair But it is not uncommon to pick up a paper and read of some atrocity committed In the name of Justice or religion in conditions which could parallel those in Jerusalem almost years ago Authenticity of the Easter story has been denied by many over the course of centuries Some have said It Is merely a fairy tale conceived by the fertile minds of those who wished to thrust a new fantasy on the world Others admitting the accounts of the passion and death of Christ are accurate refuse to believe there could have been any resurrection me proofs they say and we will believe Theres an old newspaper adage that you must go to the source if you remote areas like golf courses the blue metal privy tike structures stood out between and were located at equally strategical points Canadian Forces maintain vehicle patrols bicycle patrols manned outposts and unmanned outposts They work closely with the Danish Civilian Police in the Nicosia district and of course their objective is to avert misunder They also guard the public works buildings in the Turkish area for the Greek government The public works building is another example which has provided distress in the economy since it was left abandoned in 1964 with a million and a half dollars worth of equipment standing in the yard gathering rust and deteriorating But what about the soldiers of Canada I talked with year old Pete Bruce Allison who had been in the Princess Pats for two years I asked him how be enjoyed this peacekeeping role I was impressed with the kind of answers he gave and his sense of dedication to maintaining the peace at one of those tiny little outposts with Greek guns on one side and Turks on the other He was on his six month tour of duty and he felt Canada was fulfilling an important function in keeping the peace in Cyprus He wore his U blue cap and shoulder patch proudly It was his task on duty to operate by persuasion He had one shot in his semi automatic standard service rifle and that could be used only in defence His role on the front was that of the diplomat and his senior officers explained when confidence in the force is lost immediate with- drawllstbeonlyanswer It is not their task to become involved in fighting Confirmed on Page want the truth of happenings in any particularevent In this case that takes you back to a time when there were few accounts of happenings in a country which considered a back- wnter by conquering Romans However the most important point of the accounts of the passion and death of Jesus Christ have been published in a book We call it the Bible The men who wrote the gospels In the book were eyewitnesses to an event that seemed to put an end to their world Their Leader the Man whom they depended on for daily spiritual sustenance was cut off in the prime of life at 33 years of age The despondency at the sudden turn of events must have been enormous for these men ordinary fellowB who constantly quarrelled amongst them selves and being very human sought preferment in the kingdom they expected would soon be set up They probably imagined they would be pretty important when the Leader set up His Kingdom On the Palm Sunday prior to the tragic happenings of Easter they must have been in their element Christ was welcomed by the populace with waving palms and loud It seems inconceivable that less than a week later he should have been nailed to a cross in a gross and vile manner and laid to rest in a borrowed tomb Yet only a few weeks later these same ordinary downcast men were out Only a 40 pay hike Figures in an editorial last week about hefty pay hikes for county coun cillors were apparently partly in correct Information on which the editorial was based came from figures published in the county budget They showed councillors collected for council and committee meetings in 1970 averaging out to per member New information reveals however that these figures did not Include pay ments to councillors for serving on the various committees A complete list shows that councillors received for an average of 140 last year This of course changes the per centage of the pay hike Instead of a one hundred per cent raise from to 3000 it now comes out at about a per cent raise Good pickings if you can get it and it looks like the Halton council has nailed it down We would be interested in knowing whether we will also receive 20000 more in good govern ment Milton Council has decided to launch a protest over the high cost of county administration since the county rate has gone up accordingly For those Interested in the pay for councillors last year the following in the streets preaching in a way contrasted to their other meek and mild manner could only be called bold They had cast off fears and armed only with words and conviction they tramped Into almost every comer of the then known civilized world Something happened which had made these men lose fear and take on new life They said Christ rose from the dead and had appeared to them And they believed this Intensely with a con viction that led of the to horrible deaths Peter the leader was crucified upside down Paul a latecomer was beheaded All except John met some form of death as they carried the Easter message to people who sometimes turned on them stoned and cast them out of their cities It is not uncommon for men to die for beliefs when they are armed and able to fight back with equality But to face the perils of hostile people dif ficult travel of those days and an unfriendly government with nothing to defend themselves but a story and a belief requires conviction Is it any wonder then that we celebrate Easter and the events leading up to it with certainty Easter faith in essence is an af firmation thnt beyond the material the ultimate reality is spiritual The message may be old but it Is renewed each year at this season figures might be of interest They include council and committee meetings plus roads manor museum and board of health meetings which arc considerable Council Member Fees F G Oakes Acton 2910 E Tyler Acton G Gallagher Burlington 00 D Coons Burlington Hunter Georgetown A Speight Georgetown Hams Milton P Barr Milton 1398 W Gillies Ookville G Currie Esquesing 00 T Hill 1920 A Nassagaweya 00 G Agnew Nassagaweya 189000 A Day Warden Totals 3432800 Mileage Conventions Tola 13 54 as is 16292 1026 38 1716 72 30296 3304 US 02 54 1285 44 492 543 7536 41 20 years ago Taken from the issue of the Free Press Thursday April 1951 Mrs Milton Brown of Hornby and Mrs Service of Compbellville officiated at the formation of the twentieth senior branch of the Women Institute in county in the district lying immediately north of Georgetown The name chosen from several suggested was SilverJrVood as the territory involved Silvercreek to Twenty members are already enrolled with Mrs Miller president This week a tree that was already sturdy when the village of Acton obtained its first Est office in was cut down The second gest tree on Mill St for over a century was becoming rotten It was by s Grocery It was predeceased by a willow which was cut down to make way for the Merchants Bank after being planted at the corner of Mdl and Willow by William Steele in 1853 Murray Deans of was the unanimous choice for Liberal candidate The annual Ladies Night of the Rotary club was held last Friday at the Yellow Briar Brampton The problem of bringing electric power into the new school was discussed including costs of overhead and underground wiring It was decided underground cable would be used from the transformer to eliminate danger 50 years ago Taken from the issue of the Free Press Thursday April 14 1921 Dr A W Nixon for years representative for Halton in the Ontario Legislature died on Friday at Guelph after a lingering illness A year ago he had a paralytic seizure from which be never fully recovered For the first time in several years the county Jail at Guelph is without a single occupant Mr C C Speight who has spent 30 or years in studying the birds and animals of this section their habits and eristics and in securing true to life photographs of them has now a collection of several hundred views His services are In growing demand in exhibiting these splendid views by limelight The Mothers Allowance Board of Halton county is pleased to be able to announce that per cent are now receiving assistance Vote for prohibition next Monday The Musical gave a musical revue in the town hall on Tuesday evening Swiss bell ringing xylophones and the tubular musical numbers were especially meritorious THE ACTON FREE PRESS PHONE 853 2010 Business and Editorial Office elan ma I tin acctptad en ma I m M 0 Coin 11 Ace- Hi boys club had a trip to Toronto with their mentor Douglas Gowdy In the words of one of the boys It was peachy Another daily paper in Toronto The World has gone to the wall The Mad and Empire has purchased the plant The historic willow tree on Willow St the last of the row planted over ago lost several large branches in the ice storm years ago Taken from the issue of the Free Press Thursday March 28 Last year was a busy one for the builders at the tanneries and the coming season will also see considerable activity Lumber and other materials are now on the ground for a large new bark shed and it Is proposed to up an addition to the tan yard at the sole tannery of sufficient capacity for new vats The Rev Samuel Fear one of the pioneers of Methodism died at his home in at 94 He came to Canada from England about years ago and was sent as a Methodist missionary to what is now the county of Peel and thence to the county of Ontario last Thursday there set In the heaviest buzzard of the season Acton was pretty effectually isolated There were no trains from Bo clock on Thursday until 3 clock on Saturday afternoon and the first mail was received Monday A bis drift at Kennedys crossing a mile west of Acton required the attention of a snow plow three engines and a gang of men for several hours The storm was the worst since the memorable buzzard of when snow covered the fences in all directions It is said the R staff here never before experienced as long a period without a train coming through The fine driver belonging to Rev Father Haley died last week of brain fever A couple of hundred citizens went to the track to see the snow plow come through An amendment to the Public Schools is proposed allowing rural schools a weeks Easter holiday as well as town schools