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WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNF4SDÀY, JANU' Y17 1990, PAGE 5 Offering a persan a ride ta Toronto recently, I was given a strange request. "Could we drive on streets?"- Since the persan came from out of town -- or as they say in the Maritimes, fram Away -- I began to explain. 'Well, here we have a better way. We just get on the four-oh!-one, point the aid car. . ." "That," the persan said, is the prablem. You forget that I lived in Taranto. I have ridden on the four-ah-on.. Thats why I don't want ta ride an it agein. 1Laok, the GO train may be wonderful, but using it and subway and buses it'll take you three hours. Highway 2 will take you an hour and a half. Four-oh!-one: forty minutes." "Sa you say," she replied. But by this time we were up the ranlp, sa ta speak. Something there is about an expressway and speed. I>e pasted speed is always ignored (SPEED 100 k.p.h.) unless a cap car doddles along in the inside lane. Then everybady behaves. Otherwise, traffic normally flows at 20 klicks faster than the pasted lirait. This is knawn as safe driving. Ta take my passenge?s mind off Iane changes and other necessities af expressway driving, I spin a few tales of happy mataring. "A few years aga I picked Up a guy and he likes expresswayi-the way you do." 'We're a growing club." "Yeah, he thought they were dangerous or samething. Anyway, pulling into bis driveway, I had a fender-bender. Some guy tried ta turn left in front of *me withaut signalling. That delayed us an hour.- The guy says, 'A good job that didn't happen wbile I was in the car!' Sa finally, we get out an the expressway, and I'ffi sitting in the second'from a utside lane, minding WITH OUR FEET UP by Bill Swan Happy mot oring my own business... "You're not going ta tell me you had an accident." "Outta the blue. One moment, nothing. The next, bang! This guy bita aur back fender, less than a foot from where tbis guy is sitting. And this is three weeks after bis open heart surgery. And THEN I had ta cross four lanes ta, get- off the road." 'Thanks. Yau make me feel a lot botter." 'Then there was the time," I bogan, "when I met this nut just west ofWitby. Two ay em. rm in the outside Iane, nobody else around. Suddenly this guy is right bebind me, on my bumper, flicking bis flicIn' lights. Wants by. Now I hate guys who do that, as thaugh the outside lane bolonged ta them. I pay no attention. Fxi doing one twenty; if this guy wants ta do one forty, let" ern. So I don't budge." 'You have good manners." 'Well, I maean, there's nobody else on the road. So finally,. he goes by me. On the right. Then swerves back in front of me. And slows down." "What'dya do?" "Slowed down, too. inm not gonna go around this guy and have bim ram me. So I bit the high beams to let him know inm there. Finally, he cornes to a full stop. Rigbt there. I don't believe it. I stop, too, cause inm afraid this guy's nat too stable. Eventually, I pull around hum on the left and get outta there. Last I saw he ývas still sitting in the outside lane, dead stop, waiting for an eighteen-wheeler tai make a pizza outta him." Its reassuring ta know there. pre guys like bath of you on the road.". "Hley! What'd I do? But these nuts are everywhere. I could tell you about the lady the other day who got trapped in *thé entrance rainp, afraid to make a lane chne . -."1 I could identify with her "Or the cowboys playing tag. This one guy kept slowing down, wouldn't let the other pass. Weird, eh?" "They let these guys an the road." "But then there's my favorite. Time I overheated my oid Honda- on the Don Valley. Pulled to the. side and waited half an haur, hood up, wbule traffic poured by at fort klicks.* Right across the road is an, emergency phone. Think I cauld get over to it? Finally, a pick-up truck pulls up, guy pulls jug of water out, filîs up my rad thený waves off the thanks. 'Just pay it ta the next guy in trouble,'he says."ý "Now that's a story that makes me feel, better." Me toa. r Tough- times led to Uni'ted Way shortfall By Scott Laurie The United Way fell short of their projected fundraising gal by about $15,000, andfethat it Ms mainly due to tough economic times. United Way president Mike Ambler feels tbat fundraising as a whole is «tough slugging" because of competition for funds and the. fact that people don't seem to have as much te spare these days. Tihe saine seeme ta b. true with industry. Donations from General Motors, which provide almoot 50 per cent of the cam- p aign but whÎch is experiencing a is have also dropped. Ambler says iayoffs have accounted for a $10,00-a-week dropin funds. H. speculates that it will also b. tough next year te rais. funds. "In todays society, we are being taxed heavily...and the economy is gomng south. But in tough times, we nieed the United Wayý even more." Ambler doesn't forée. any cancellations of United Way pro- grains due ta the shortage. A reserve fund was included in the. bude for the canipaign objec- tie or emergency services which can b. used if the. need arises. Ambler feels that further shor- tages could b. avoided in the future with mare public aware- ness. "Tne biggest problemi we have is that.w. always get wrapped up in the money. Ev.rya knows we do good work but they don't know what we do." mhe United Way is mnvolved with organizations such as Block Parents, Big Brothers and Sis- ters. boy scouts, girl guides, St. John's Ambulance and Meals on Wheels, te naine but a few. new body is waiing for yo u at Ewopean Women's Hea(tb iu C ongratulations to Mayor Bob Attersley and the entire Whitby Coundil for takçing a f=r stand against the Ontario Government's taxation of municipal parking lots. 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