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THE BRA WED APRIL 1969 VOL NO 17 Editorials A dime a week this The infinitesimal increase in Newmarkets general tax rote indicates that the town plana no new major expenditures for the welfare of It also indicates a concern residents Members of council when considering the budget saw a huge increase in the tax rate for educational purposes This has been somewhat softened by Minister Davis announcement that the education tax hike will be held to a maximum of five mills The average Newmarket homeowner will have to pay an extra on his assessed property in the general residential rate This is less than cents per week Most of the that will be raised by taxes during 1969 will go towards public works and property expenditures such items as the continuation of the widening of Prospect St and the much- needed resurfacing of other Newmarket streets The next costliest item on the expenditure list is debenture costs a total of It is in this area that Newmarket faces its most serious problem as the Ontario Municipal Board baa warned that it will not entertain the approval of any more debenture issues until the towns financial picture brightens All in all this stand pat budget is right for Newmarket in this year of consolidation and reappraisal Park land in danger It seems incredible that any government for any reason should consider selling large quantities of park land in southern Ontario yet this is apparently whats happening in Ottawa The federal government has balked at the use of federal funds by the Conservation Authority to buy land for recreational uses Ottawa wants all its contributions to the Authority spent on flood control The Authority has been told to either sell the acres In contention and give the money back to Ottawa or raise somewhere else Either way the Authoritys hardwon land acquisition pro gram which has been built up over the years since Hurricane Hazel is endangered in a period when park land for any purpose is becoming almost unobtainable SUGAR SPICE By Bill Smiley Yep I II be there April is a month to try the soul of the householder And mine lias been tried and found wanting When the last flirty gray streaks of snow had disappeared and took shock treatment on the rocks We live on a corner lot On two sides it there was some thing that looked like the remains of Hadrians Wall It was the ram parts of sand and salt thrown up on the lawn by the In January You cant blow it back into the street There are two al ternatives The first is 18 man- hours first with shovel then with then with stiff broom The other is to use it as the foundation for a stone wait around the pro perty Hither way your lawn is Hut that to of the iiiipe leaver bunting and raking like a fiend for a couple of weeks Hut the oaks drop late and they dont cascade down but drift one by one Von might as well wail fur them all I distinctly remember going out one day last November with a face as long as a fool tak ing a look at the fencc-to- fence carpeting of sodden leaves and leaching I dont you wait a few days until theyre dry Theyre still there even more sodden after four feet of snow all winter And theyll be the death of me 1 know it if I try to rake them There must be 18 tons of wet leaves on the lot I wonder if I could get some husky m student whos not doing too well in his English at school and have a quiet crafty little chat with him pointing out the ratio of benevolence to the scarcity of wet oak leaves on my Those are two April problems jet solved And theres a host of smaller ones Huge oak branches all over the front lawn broken off in snow storms The hose has been out ail winter My wife set fire to the twrck porch one winter day when she put out a box of ashes which contained some lives coals Charred is the wool The flowerbeds look like a barroom floor on a Sunday mor ning The shrubs are all broken off at the by the of snow The fences lean precariously as you would if an oak branch ten inches thick had fallen on you A dreary scene indeed Hut theres only one thing to lie done about it No Not directly That way lies a heart attack I look a beer and a laid them down looked at the blue sky and thought Opening Day Thais the salvation of April Deep in your heart yon know thai all garbage is going to he attended to even if the Old Lady has to do it And if you have a touch of the and artist in yon as What man doesnt you know that the first day of trout fishing will wash away all Die aspects of April and leave you pure of heart and mind if not of tongue when you got out am have a bash at the trout This Hie promise of get- ling away out into the real world of Icy water and lost lures and no women on the last weekend of Ap ril gives a man a certain sanity- retaining detachment as he sur veys the nomans land of his pro petty ljast year for various stupid reasons I missed Opening Day for the first time in years This year even with a broken neck and I think I have one the riiys havent been read yet am going to catch my limit fall off a tint polar water and come home filthy stinking ant purged all the good things that accompany Opening Day and the real begin ning of Spnng in this country Dear Editor As a young mother of two small children with another one on the way living in a cramp ed dark underground hole I ask Where is the development that other towns seem to bike for granted Aurora last week heard a proposal for yet another apart ment building the second shown to council within two weeks Au rora in fact has a number of developments proposed built or in the building stages erected here Even if four were to mushroom on the horizon to- Ihey would be filled by want to bring my children up And this may not be the town I want my children to grow up in IF Newmarket doesnt want to bo left behind the rest of the county heed my plea and the nightfall Many young couples cant afford to buy their own Ironies If they must live in Newmarket then they are stuck as we arc paying outrageous rents for cubby holes in basements and off of back porches Dear Editor Confusion Sunday has come and gone wont return til next fall Its at that time that we will turn our clocks backward or is it forward would you be lieve sideways I think I put my clock day that cant remember Why do we have to fiddle around with our clocks twice a year Why cant we have day light saving time all year around Im glad I dont own a clock shop Id really go nuts Frank Russell Newmarket Vague Vague history History is sometimes m by fools wise men are they who record it I dwell on this thought because ever time I attempt to delve into Newmarkets past I seem to hit a dead end Hardly anything in the shape of records lias been preserved and why this should he so is hard to understand Perhaps its the savage urge to destroy that is inherent in all of us Whatever the cause the seeker after history or the re searcher ing facts and trends usually finds he archives empty A hundred years in the life of a town is not a very long span yet the sort of life lived in Newmarket a century ago is a closed book to us today We know nothing or next In nothing of the citizens of the town in the vear or hereabouts We know no- I 1 1- I ii culture or institutions We do not even know their names Newmarket must have had passing events of some interest but if so all appears to be lost To illustrate im meaning consider for example the Frank lin Expedition this expedition lead by Sir John Franklin set off in the year 1815 to discover the Northwest Passage consisted of two ships the Erebus and he Terror with officers and men They were last sighted by a whal ing vessel on July 1815 in Hay Within he next ten years dispatched to the Arctic but of no avail Then in a yacht equipped by Lady Jane Franklin and rearing the significant name Tux sailed from Aberdeen Scot land After two years this search- part was finallj successful in discovering he history of the ill- fated expedition From the Eskimos they obtained relics and articles from Franklins ships And at King Williams Hay skeletons of some of the crew members were found A record which related some of the details of the expedi tion was discovered at Port Victory and this revealed that by April 1818 the lolal casualties amounted J9 officers and fifteen men including Franklin who had died on June In reply to in quiries an Eskimo woman stated that she had seen several men stumble to the ground and die as they trudged to a faroff mili um an by ed in Newmarket on a Honda and died the same Sun Others slate that he died hours after his arrival His name was Mi Donald and he is believed to have been the last of the li Tim in that improbable Eagle Street the one thai was supposed to have been made into a park many years ago but is still no more than a plot of grass with Ihe decimated remains of dogear ed tombstones set oul in awesome array on concrete bases And here beneath the grass now changing chameleon- like from brown green in the April sun one would never guess hat McDonald and long grass As searched for a trace of evidence could see a grass hopper anil a cricket hiding be- Hut nowhere could find small marble stone sent Franklin to mark the spot where the intrepid Scots- is the property of Church When I questioned Rev Rhodes several years ago he in formed me hat no recnds what ever exist of anyone who was buried there