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The Free Press Wed June Time to forget poor attendance at Decora Hon Day service was disappointing to organizers those of them who were there and a surprise to those who attended Certainly there isnt much use organizing the program and parade if the people of the community will not respond Reason for the attendance is difficult to pinpoint Its not physical The event is always at the same day of the same month at the same time The weather was per fect There were plenty of people in town gardening lounging swim barbecuing taking drives People who belong to the support ing organizations There are more headstones than ever more people here than ever before Why did so few attend Acton used to have great community spirit as people who moved here or moved away observed Maybe that time is past Should we forget the whole thing t Editorial Few show concern Again the attendance was underwhelming at a meeting called to explain the concept of a middle school About a dozen parents turned up Monday Local trustee Tom Watson didnt know if people were apath or satisfied Again it hard to say The people there had good questions about bussing lunch hours open concept classrooms They didnt always agree with the answers given How about the rest of the parents of the hundreds of grade six seven and eight students who will be walking to the old high school when it becomes a middle school Monday night was the time to be heard Wrong way to learn Lest We Forget Decoration Day on Sunday Sugar and Spice by bill smiley More power to Judy and Lucien Beaulieu who are off to Europe to see if foreign media have far less violence than Canadian and U radio and tele vision Other papers have been critical of the expense Not us Again the old cliche what the value of a human life Our children are obviously growing up here thinking murder and terror are the normal way of Anything we can do to change this horrible distorted vision given to our young people m their own living rooms is surely worth the expense In Europe there are already policies set for the media on the broadcasting of violence Many European countries including land and Hungary have pioneered in the development of children s programming and adult drama No one can deny that people are drawn to read watch and talk about accidents murders disas natural and unnatural This kind of news produces horror and fear Yet people respond to it This human tendency is appar when the Years Ago column is being written each week In 1876 the editor of the Free Press got the Toronto papers and culled the news for his readers Most of them depended entirely on the Free Press for news both local and international Again his choice shows murder and disaster are al ways fascinating no matter what part of the world they occur in Court cases suicides and accidents are reported in detail Print is one thing television another It is adults who read news Papers in the main But it is impressionable child with an undeveloped sense of reality who are sitting slack jawed in front of the T V silently listen to the screams and watching the blood drip Of this and that Heres news for the front page a Toronto subscriber told us I got the Free Press on Thurs day The same householder has such freakish delivery as a general rule that papers even arrive out of order one of them a week and a half late That s Toronto we said not Timbuktoo The new middle school for Acton has no name Any ideas Recently we watched the awards presented from Hollywood by the television Industry It was a crashing bore right in Ihe midst of a television thai is stultifying dull Despite the opportunity to show whjt a medium television cm be the show which seemed to go on intermin h id nothing to from cleg nit costume fancy coiffures Cm you think of inylhmg less exciting llial platoons of writers or directors or sound nun or whatever trotting up i receiving a shiny trinket and one of them Into a micro phone with the deepest sincerity thanking their wives their children the mothers eighteen guys Max and Hymn for the fantastic honor they wire re ceiving In an of liberation it is significant that in this for the biggest entertainment industry in the world very verv few women won least when the film industry presents its iwirds imidst the stream of in one in count on two or three witty masters or mistresses of ceremonies How would vou like lo be a Mistress of icremonv gentle reader It sounds sin fulh delicious Bui the television industry wis content to hire two of the biggest grins in the bus mess John and Mary Tyler Moore They looked be iiiliful they grinned and grinned and grinned but the entire evening had is much wit sparkle to it as a convention of under l ikers probably less Only it hum during the evening w is a feeble one with a tired stand up comedian lelhng the same old tired gags There were one or two attempts at dig speeches amid the and the Gee Mom 1 won atmosphere but they were quickly drowned in the molasses is various personalities lined up lo pal ten other on the back and burble I just like to say this was a team effort and everyone pulled together and I jusl to thank m director my producer my network our wonderful camera crew our sound people our writer for a fantastic script our tremendous cast and so on and on Somi of them inked hut their dog their dentist and their hair dresser who probably had more to do with the iw ird than my other actors It w is pretty h ird to lake just a w alter the Cup when we heard the same sort of sentimental miwk from tonnes players and sportswntcrs until some of us yours truly lo vomit miybc tint what wrong with television today Don tell there s no with Whit special pleasure tonight tor example Will it be a re run of All in Family or run of Bob or run of Cannon or i re run of Marcus Or perhaps you prefer a re run of a re run of or Or may he you like to sec that movie I lyint Tigers or the fourth lime In this country we have the for which I onto had a good deal of respect It produced first excellent radio When tele vision came along it was right in there with comedy drama and variety The brightest writers and talent in the country were sought out Now ihey re all in Hollywood all the good gray Carper can up with despite its frc resounding promises are exhausted antiques such as Front Pigc Challenge and This Is The Law I won mention such as the Tommy Hunter Show and Hockey Night in Canada because I don t want to lose three quarters of my readers but surely surely just because a show went well ten years ago doesn mean it I be improved Nope The his turned chicken Its afraid of parliament rulings and con As for the garbage that pours in over the border is so often grabbed by Can networks and advertisers words do not suffice to describe the dreariness of Is it too lite for television to be saved or to save itself In my opinion Why Because it has built up in the past couple of decades starting withchildren a mind less audience which will turn on the tube lei jaw drop slack and watch any gar shoved in front of it As long as it s in color I don give a rip I rather read a good book any time But my heart bleeds for the hundreds of thousands or old people for whom it is the only bit of life they have and the hundreds of thousands of children who will make it part of their lives They are being treated as morons As 1 said I don care But one more spin off from the Mary Tyler Moore show and I m going to take an ixe lo the OUR READERS WRITE Writer puzzles over census forms PUPILS OF THE LATE Robert Little posed at the school for their portrait during their reunion July 1894 This picture belonged to the Kenney family In the photograph are rear row James Matthews Hattie Speight John E Farmer Jennie Svmon Ida Charlie Cook Emma Matthews John Hutchinson Lizzie Cameron Hall Martha Cummings John Moore Annie Grant John Secord Jennie Hynds Lewis Matthews Bella Gordon George Hynds Maggie Moore second row Cook Sam uel Worden Albert Moore Jame Speight Ed M Gar vm Nellie Hill John Hill Eliza Cameron Richard Maggie Kennedy Betsy Milne Maggie HemstreetH P Moore 3rd row Geo Sam 1 Clark Mary Vincent John Douglas Mrs Little Austin Tubby Lizzie Kennedy Al Jennie Cameron front row Ed Matthews John Chas Davidson Geo Wilds I received the census form and had to make a comment or someone made these forms had them printed with decorative envelopes not to mention snazzy pencil An aver age home doesn have pencils to fill out their forms so the government came to their aid where are they when you really need ihcm If the computer is set up for special pencils I suppose that was another money saving device one of our workers thought up People ore paid to deliver these forms and on and on and or Can you imagine the cost or this little deal Of course some government department has all this information but it would n do for one hand let the other hand know what is going on What thought was interesting is on the form we received on one page the question in one column is what month and year of birth then beside it went into detail and needed to know ihe year of birth In decades and actual year I guess to write the month and the year I very plain Then you turn the page over and Ihey ask If your 15 years of age or older before June 19G1 Again so much for our educational system I would be interested to know why how many visitors or other persons who have i usual home elsewhere in Canada stayed over night on May June Important If a person t living in your home ana not a visitor then what are they The govern ment classes them as other persons It states this form is of fundamental importance to your community and to Canada as the census figures are used extensively in the determination of government financial grants Please t forget to mall your forms in or may not give us the grants have before and if that should happen our taxes may have to go up to compensate The Free Press Back Issues 20 years ago Taken from the Issue of the Press June 1856 Tears of excitement in her eyes 15year old Jean Manes became Acton Rotary club second Queen for a Week Saturday Before a crowd of in the Theatre Jim Ledger announced the name of the winning girl as delighted applause broke out Other contestants were Wendy Mac kenzie Jean Lambert Donna McMillan Betty Bean Margaret Nightingale Joy Peal Marilyn son and Anne DeForest After writing his examination in Guelph last week Jock Holmes Tuesday received his real estate brokers licence Slight damage was caused to Ihe kitchen at the home of Mr and Mrs Bert son yesterday afternoon when a pan of doughnuts took fire on the stove Mrs nvaldson suffered minor burns on one hand when she attempted lo control the fire Acton firemen who answered the call treated Mrs after the small fire was put out The home is about two miles south of here on No Highway George Lucas 2 Acton was the operator of a pane truck which was in volved in an accident Sunday on Highway No near Damage to the truck was estimated at WOO Mr Lucas was treated in General Hospital for lacerations lo the head and an injured back 50 years ago Taken from the Issue of Ihe Press Thursday June 10 The weather for the annual I decoration day parade was rather settled on Sunday but in spite of the showers a good turnout of the local and visiting assembled at the lodge room and cemetery The Duke of Devon shire chapter of the I 0 D E are holding a garden birthday lea al the home of Mrs Church St Friday after noon In the death of Mrs John Stalker this community lost a very choice spirit At convocation ceremonies at the of Toronto last Friday Acton was honored with having four of her young people among Ihe graduates Misses Mane and her sister Miss Jessie and Miss Margaret MacDonald who received the degree of A and Mr Kenney who graduated in medicine Miss Clara in pharmacy but did not attend Miss Jean Kennedy and Miss Edna Henderson at tended as well as the families Dr Harold Mowat came across the continent from Los Angeles to be present at the graduation of his sisters He presented each one of them with a gold watch Mr J Mackenzie new bungalow at the corner of Church and Victoria is nennng completion 100 years ago Taken from the Issue of the I- Press of Thursday June 1 1876 The fifty seventh anniversary of Her Majesty birthday was celebrated In the usual manner last week The day was ushered in with the booming cannon firing of squibs and general uproar Every thing betokened a grand gala day During afternoon a great many people were on the streets amusing themselves in various ways Great interest was taken in the athletic games and events which were well contested In ihe morning a baseball team was expected to arrive by train from Guelph but as none came it was resolved to choose two mixed nines from our local players under Messrs Kennedy and James Nicklin to contest For the SID prize Sports events included heavy stone light stone tossing the caber etc In the evening the concert given by Acton Brass Band was well at tended Two murderers have escaped from Cay gaol The old Methodist church building has been purchased by Mr Ranson Adams for about He speaks of putting up a two- storey brick building on the vacant space between his residence and Mrs Storey s Council met in the Temperance Hall Sat night but as the hall had been let for a lecture they adjourned till Monday They assembled but l get in for want of a key caretaker having given it lo one of the members of the band it being their night The band commenced their practice but at the request of the reeve kindly gave up their right of possession and the business of council was proceeded with THE ACTON FREE PRESS PHONE 853 Business and Editorial Office Thank you for your time ivtr in Ac cant par I QMS attfplod on thai avonf or typooraorilcal Htm Ids I alUwanea for will not ma Ml ma advortlttmant paw ma rat In vait or a typographical Copyright