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THE ERA WED AUGUST VOL 117 NO Editorials Restatement of policy This week The Era received a letter that bore the signature Disgusted In other words it was an anonymous letter and although the letter writer did ask us to publish it we understand that letters addressed to the editor are meant by the writer to be published y The Era does not publish anonymous letters We publish only letters from people alter we have checked to verify that the person who actually wrote the letter signed his name The letter we received this week is a poison pen letter And even if it was signed we would not have published it This letter was written about a prominent man in the community It contained information about his private life his business and nobody The news columns of The Era contai reporter is told to slant a story but t best of his or her ability The editorial columns of The Era for The Era voice their own opinion not tell its columnists what to write in fact The Era has often differed with columnists and said so in an edi torial But The Era has never censored what has been written by a columnist The Era will publish every legitimate news item possible provided it is within the bounds of good taste and is not libellous The Era receives press releases from people looking for some free advertising Most of these wind up in the waste paper basket The Era receives hate literature which is recognized without being read which is then ripped up and thrown in the waste paper basket The Era receives poison pen letters which are thrown in the toilet bowl where they belong Giants not peewees Hail the Legion The Legion peewees Royal Canadian Legion Branch base ball team that is They are not champs but they are young gentlemen And after all thats what is most important in sport good conduct on the field and off Since the start of the season the Legion have come close to winning several tournaments Because of their baseball playing ability they were invited to attend one of Canadas top baseball tournaments at the CNE They probably wont win it but it wont be for lack of trying this undermanned team has captured the hearts of people every where they have played through their hustle their ability and their gentlemenly conduct in opinion Columnists writ- their byline The Era does their weekly columns and in SUGAR SPICE By Bill Smiley Organized living Its customary to look forward to the end of holidays with a mix ture of and despair They were too short the weather was rotten the kids all had the skitters and you hate going back to that job that you hate But quite a few people go back to the routine of everyday organiz ed living with something like a sigh of relief Basically men like work They are not cut out for more than a couple of weeks of the gay aban doned life of camping swimming fishing These are treats to look forward to and to look back on But like many of the other treats in life they lose their flavor if taken in large continuous doses Even a kid gets sick of ice cream if he gets it at every meal for a month So the boys tote their sunburned carcases back to the job and fall reasonably happy back into the comfortable round of daily work the casual friendships with fellow- employees and the good long lazy rid on weekends those with children No more cuts and scrapes to look after No more summer flu to cope with No more panic at the beach when Jimmie disappears for a few min- huddling in a tent the What joy to get everybody out of the house in the morning What bliss to sit down with a quiet cup of coffee and taste the pure pleas ure of privacy What exquisite ecstasy to know that nobody is going to burst in with a Hey Mom Billy just fell off the porch on his head Like many another I dont mind the end of holiday at all Two months of muddling and piddling Looking back each year the sum total of my holidays fails dismally to impress me Long glorious days of fun in the sun My foot This summer was no different I went fishing once in the bassinfested waters of Bay fished all day and caught a cold I broke golf Onced I poured Its the things I didnt do that makes the impressive list didnt go on that canoe trip up north I didnt jog for an hour every day to get in shape I didnt go to the Stratford Festival I didnt take off on that swing around to we ill my old friends in tin weekly newspapers I didnt make that trip to Quebec City to see sou Hugh I didnt read War and The list is endless Thats why the opening of school in September finds me almost eager to abandon this life of sloth and meet the challenge of all those young faces in the classroom And challenge is the word for some of them defy you to teach me any thing But there are other things that make the opening of a school a pleasant occasion Fellowteachers are all brown and keen and friend ly By November theyll be gray and harassed and surly but thats all right There are the new teachers wide- eyed with alarm and confusion who ask desperately But where do I send these forms What do I do with the locker money How do you teach a poem Who do I There are the first staff meetings those symposiums which sparkle with the wit and eloquence of a grocery list But first and foremost there are the thirteen hundred students brown of face and limb mini skirt ed to the hitt friendly happy and excited as they greet old class mates make new friends and head for another milestone on their trek through life Dear Editor The apparent lack of a positive united stand for Urban Renewal on the part of our councillors con cerns me greatly A healthy thriv ing iown town core is essential to any community Our Main St is certainly not the bustling through- fare that it used to be Those who do not admit it are only trying to save face Urban Renewal is the only plan that can save our com munity so that it may keep its identity It is fast becoming not suburbia but exurbia for Toronto Some may argue Why a down town core to a community when a ring of shopping plazas with ade quate front parking could supply all of their shopping needs A thriving down town area can pro vide much more for a community than merely stores When shops are closed a shopping plaza is dead but a down town core provides other activities long after the stores are closed A good hotel theatres restaurants recreational facilities and church activities can make the down town area bustle with activity for our young people and older folk long after the stores a closed and thus create a pride town that our citizens Yours very truly Elman Campbell Dear Editor It gave us great pleasure to re new subscription to your paper last week for an old Newmarket boy Leslie He was raised on a farm just outside town and had all his schooling here Believe you me he loves news of the old town and once a Newmarket boy always a Newmarket boy Sure the old burg has changed a lot and not too many old faces left but we wouldnt trade it for any other spot in Ontario Happy Sincerely Mrs A THIS WEEK By Ray Hounding the hippies One way of judging the calibre of municipal leadership is by watch ing reaction to the presence of hippies in a community If the reaction is in consistent and somehow out of focus with the treatment of other problems it can be assumed that maturity and judgment is absent in the council chambers The phenomenon of the hippies is a distinct social development of the 1960s It is evidence of deep underlying problems in our soc iety Yet the reason of too many political leaders is entirely puni tive Their idea seems to be either to punish the hippies for being that way or to shove them on to some other town where they be blighting our property welfare of people Witness the deci sion of the Board of Control to deny responsible local group use of an old as a shelter for hippies Instead it will be torn down and used as a parking lot by The suggestion health minister John Munro that penalties for offenses involving marijuana be reduced has brought loud protests from police says flatly that One of the most laughable atti tudes and one which prevails espe cially in Toronto is that toward something which Torontos mayor Bill describes as the hard ened hippie You see there are really two kinds of hippies accord ing to these people Those who are out for a bit of innocent weekend fun and then the fierce gruesome hardened hi pie who must In- bounded and punished at all costs There is plenty of evidence around that most hippies come from homes where there are serious emotional and psychological disturbances In most instances they are fleeing from parents who are unable to offer them the mature love and guidance which adolescents need Because their gathering in large numbers sometimes creates health problems such as the hepatitis which upset businessmen were ill but because that ing the moneyladen tourists off it is now advocated in some quart ers that hippies be punished for being what they are refuse to recognize that the kind of social illness which pro duces hippies cannot be stamped out punitive action Tins is really very little different prin ciple from the medieval practice of chaining the insane and whipping hem for good measure Montreals mayor Jean the man whose initiative and im agination gave this country Expo and his a major league base ball team becomes hysterical when you talk about hippies Hound them out of Montreal because they might offend tourists he apparently be lieves In British Columbia the city council of New Westminister in an action for which it clearly has no constitutional right bans the sale of a hippie paper on the streets because it is not a family paper The paper in question the Georgia Straight is only faintly porno graphic compared to the thousands of hard core and sick poc ket books which are merchandised on every newsstand in that city There is growing support for the idea that municipal politics needs to be brought into some kind of mainstream of political life in this country so that more mature people will be attracted to this important- level of public affair The only way of doing this will be to estab lish party politics on the municipal level to give some common sense stability and leadership to political decisions in local affairs Crier By DILI GAMBLE When the suggestion was put to me just a Tew days ago that I become The new Town Crier I absorbed the Idea with a mixture of apprehension and nostalgia The apprehension came first What I wondered does The Era do with all old town criers when It Is through with them Does It whisk them out surreplit at dawn blindfolded and prop them up against that wall at the hack with all the funny- names on it to face the firing Momentarily assured that I would be in no danger of being shot then begun to experience a few pangs of nostalgia I wandered back through the years when some of my first appeared In the old Newmarket Era Express edited at that time by Jack Newmarket was so much small er then with a population of little more than 5000 East Heights was still a field and there was no Newmarket Plaza York County Hospital was simply New market Village Hospital small and quaintly attractive but hopeless ly inadequate The was nam ed the Fairy Lake was call ed Fairy Lake and nobody was quite sure why and babysitters were called mothers Later in the early 1960s my column appeared regularly on the editorial page alongside Andy disons Heart Throbs Humor a clear case of shifting from the sublime to the ridiculous with my own effort occupying the lower designation I had never until then under stood why women should think that we males considered ourselves to he the superior sex But the old Era Express had a womans pace which was then under the guidance of columnist Jean Ste- ladies you had one special page all to yourselves a fact which exemplified the superiority of the male since men by common con sent had the rest of the paper Although by no means reaction ary I find it difficult to suppress a twinge of regret as I write these interlocked memories But that Is natural with the passing of time Newmarket and The Era have both grown and progressed at tremendous rale and it Is going to seem strange to be back on he pages of The Era again Now never having towncried I havent the foggiest idea what it is that town criers are supposed to do Ill try This is not to suggest that plan to shuffle from street to street at dusk ringing little bell and yelling Hear ye Hear ye Instead this column will endeav our to exemplify uniquely the hap penings in the town It will at tempt to disclose that knowledge which is not common knowledge It will comment much as it reports It will not be so much concerned with what has been said as with what has been left un said At times it may even dare to prognosticate And sometimes it may even be wrong Hut that is the point Any fool town crier can peel an orange but where is own THE ERA Serving York County Since Incorporating THE POST THE HERALD DAVID K HASKEM Publisher TERRY CARTER IIOlHil AS REGAN Advertising ana Business Manager Published every Wednesday at 30 Charles St Newmarket Ontario by the Newmarket Era Express Company Limited Subscriptions for two years for one year copies 10c each Mem ber Canadian Weekly Newspapers Association and the Audit Bureau of Circulation Authorized as Sec ond Class Mail by the Post Office Ottawa for the payment of postage in cash Phone Newmarket 8952331 30 Charles St Phone Aurora 21 Yonge St Phone Keswick BJL 1 Keawldr