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wHITBY FREE ÈpRESSI EDAY, APRIL 22, 1IW, PAr, 51 I was eight years old that summer, and was vacationing on the farm with Uncle Jim and Aunt Nita. And my cousins: Ronny and Bruce and Joan. Joan was my age, and would Lord over me her knowledge of farm life. She was also a tomboy, and could play cops and robbers and other complex male games. Bruce had the world's largest collection of comie books. Each year on this week's vacation I would pray for rain so I could stay indoors and devour Spiderman, The Hulk, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman. But that summer it was older cousin Ron who provided the moment that drilled into my memory and stays there still, forty years later. Groundhogs were then a farm annoyance or worse. If a horse were to step in a woodchuck hole, snap: scratch one horse. The mounds of dirt the rodents threw out of a burrow were enough to tip a loaded hay wagon. And what that same mound could do to the teeth of a binder mower! Like many ôther farm boys of that time, my cousins Ron, then 16, and Bruce, 14, often carried the .22 to the fields with them. Thus one night just before supper - back in those rural Ontario days we always ate supper at night because we ate dinner at noon - Ron came in from the fields carrying the rifle. "That better not be loaded," said Uncle Jim. Ron reached in his pocket and showed off a handful of shells. "I just want to set up the sights," he said, grabbing a tin can from the kitchen window sill. He filled the can with water from the pump and set it on a fence post near the orchard gate. Two quick shots - as quick as could be, reloading a single shot - and the can spurted water like a happy whale. WITH OUR FEET UP by Bill Swan Why I hate guns I must have shown interest. For his next sentence sent me into rapture. "Want to try?" Uncle Jim washed his hands in a cold water basin on the porèh. "Just be careful," he said. Ron stood behind me. I leaned the rifle stock against my cheek, and tried to steady the barrel on a porch post. It looked easy in the comics: bing! with a shot from the hip the bad guy's gun went flying. But here in real life it was different. The barrel kept weaving. Bang! The tin can quivered, but no water ran. We walked the thirty feet to examine the damage. The bullet had gouged a valley out of the side of the fence post. "Close," was all cousin Ron said. Nineteen years later I stood by that same fence post and fingered the grooved scar. Memory had served me well; the trajectory, the position of the post, the loose porch boards, notched in time. But it was another rifle that had brought me back to Un- cle's farm that spring in 1966. That rifle was one I bought for myself ($19.99 at Graham's Hardware) the year I finished college. For several summers I hunted groundhogs on summer visits home. My youngest brother, Bob, then 21, eventually ap- propriated thé'rifle and used it for target practice, and groundhogs. My parents had sold the house in the village the fall before, and for the winter had rented Uncle Jim's old farm house, Jim having built a new house on the family homesteadnext door. Thus it was to this farm that Bobby came home to that morning near dawn twenty-one years ago and decided to go hunting. What he expected to hunt on a cloudy morning in.April we will never know. He picked. up the rifle and was reaching for am- munitition he kept on top of the refrigerator when the gun ewent off. He died before he hit the floor, ten feet from where I stood when cousin Ron helped me fire my first rifle shot nineteen years earlier. ~ He was a happy kid, and he loved Brahms' violin con- certo and country music and beer and would uncle-toss my son, then nineteen months old, like no uncle had before. He shouldn't have died; had we then the good sen- se to treat guns with the respect they deserve, he would not have. Young men always think they know best. Some mistakes don't give a second chance. That was twenty-one years ago today. I have hated guns ever since. Schools plan many events to celebrate Education Week Several events have been plan- ned by Whitby elementary schools to recognize Education Week in On- tario April 26 to May 2. The theme - of this year's Education Week is "Come Learn With Me." Residents at Fairview Lodge will be entertained by the Colonel J.E. Farewell Public School band and junior choir on Tuesday,. April 28, and by the R.A. Sennett Public School operetta singers, primary choir, recorder group and square dancers on Friday, April 31. Also performing at the lodge on April 31 will be the Dr. Robert Thornton Public School recorder group, choral speakers, Rock Club and talent show students.R C The Farewell Public School band and choir will be at Sunnycrest Nursing Home on Tuesday, April 28. The Thornton primary and junior choirs and piano soloist An- drea Gale will be at the home Thur- sday, April 30. The Whitby Senior Public School band and junior choir will perform at Sunnycrest Friday, April 23. The wrestling team from Palmerston Ave. Public School will stage a demonstration at the Whit- by Mal Tuesday, April 28, 1:30 p.m. Events planned at the schools are: - Dr. Robert Thornton Public Schhol - open house, science fair, April 28, 7 to 8:30 p.m.; literary guild, Wednesday, April 29, 9 a.m. to noon; open house, junior science fair, 7 to 8:30 p.m. - R.A. Hutchison Public School- open house and science fair, Wed- nesday, April 29,7 to 9 p.m. - Col. Farewell - author Phoebe Gilman, Thursday, April 23, after- noon; author visit, April 29 or 30; balloon launch with messages about Canadian books, Friday, April 31, 11:30 a.m. - Florence M. Heard Publie School - book fair, April 21 to 24; open house, April 23, 7 p.m.; children's theatre "What Are Friends For?" Monday, April 27, 1 and 2:30 p.m.; Whitby Senior Citizens Choir, Tuesday, April 28; literary guild, Wednesday, April 29, morning; Chris Evans' performan- ce, April 29 and 30; Myra Whyte concert, Friday, April 31. - Whitby Senior Publicr chool - book fair, science fair, April 27 and 28; book fair, April 29; spring con- cert, Friday, April 31. - R.A. Sennett Public School - art display beg ns Monday, April 27; gym open for parent viewing of classesTuesday, April 28; literary guild at Westney Heights Public School, April 29; new gym opening April 30; operetta "The Canada Goose," Thursday, May 7, 10:30 a. m. - Kathleen Rowe Memorial Public School - art display, April 28 to 31; open house, gymnastics, primary spring concert, art demonstrations, Wednesday, April 29, 7:30 p.m.; open house of multi- handicapped class, Thursday, April 30, 9 to 11: 30 a.m. r-D' Thies weekend you Can buy our floor mode We've got a lot of beautiful solid wood furniture, and very littie room. So for a limited time weyre offering exceptional savings on just about everything on the floor. tiS Spring into action today and' at basem ent pnCes. 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