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Whitby Fre Press, W*Mmod&Y, JunO 22. 199, P*ge 7 Cray This life-and-death drama began as a promise to an eight-year-old girl on a boring Saturday morning: fJ "Make your bed and clean up your toys, and l'Il take you to the creek this afternoon." Ites a five-minute drive.Xi Under the road, in the shady tcoolness under the concrete, the water is too deep, too', dark, for wading. But if you hunker down on the muddy bank, unblinker your eyes to the filtered sunlight and wait . Yes! There! Just his snout poking up, see ol' turtie ~/.W float gently toward the far side of the road. Ak' If you keep watching, the water striders and minnows surge back and forth, always flick! flick! gone before you can get your net out. Look longer and you can see the other critters of the creek bottom. Crayfish, crawling timidly out from under rocks. __________________________________________ And mud dogs, minnow size, sitting at the bottom, ____________o__ mi___K__A__________M___o__ z__ AI-_______a elbowing the crayfish aside. They're hard to catch. Too fast for your net. But minutes before it's time to go, you fil the old cookie jar with water, and hand the net to your Dad, then zip! zip! before you know it, you've got a mud dog, a little crayfish and a bigger crayfish and you're headed back home. On the way home you share. "Jessica gets the big M crayfish. Erin gets the littie crayfish. Daddy gets the mud dog." "Where will Jessica keep ber crayfish?" "She'lI ask lier parents. Otherwise, she miglit use your tank." But Jessica does keep lier crayfish, even though it gets loose in the bouse and she can't find it but then she did find it under the bed and it was stili alive. Then. Erin named lier crayfish 'Cray', and Daddy's mud dog 'Minnie'. On Tuesday they scooped Cray into a nature study cup-size bucket and Cray went to school. Wednesday, Minnie wouldn't, corne out from under the rock they had put- in the tank. Thursday Minnie was upside- down under the rock with his liead hung back. "He's dead," Erin said. But Minnie officially belonged to Daddy, so that didn't matter mucli. She IIGGASA NAI LDE'CLEE .13 was buried beside the miniature rose, near last year's lRin s n te asSTuns onpttTraf lgar Cstie Seo, fCme. t19O38ri Ftdn noeo h »ie ogps TaagarQsl cooIo ry teOnai mOn satraEi rtre rm h on Ladies'Colage. The chool is 120Oyears old this year, havig open.d in Se ptombr 1874. The. On Saurdy, rinreurnd fom he ornngoriginal building, built in 1859-62, was once the home of Sheriff Nelson ilbr Reynolds of check with sad eyes. "TMe tank is ail yellow and 1 Ontario County. Wib ràv ht can't see the bottoni. Or Cray." WIb vhvepal "We need fresh water." 10 TEARS AGO Minutes later she reappeared with tears. fron the Wednesday, June 20, 1984 edition of the "Cray is on bis back under the rock and lie going WH1TBY FREE PRESS like this (wavy arm motions). He's going to die." Big Ontaio Minister of Health Keith Norton, a former teacher at Anderson Collegiate, teats.officially opened the new chromic care ward at Dr. J.O. Ruddy General Hospital on June "lLet's try some fresli water." * Sxty-three per cent of ail housixig starts in Durhamn Region are in Whitby. Thena litiegirls bightidea "Cn wegethlm o *A stone cairn on the site of the. former Almonds United Churcli wil b. dedicated on June Thena lttlegir's bigh ida. "an e ge hi to23. creek before he dies? Can we? Now?" Forty students will take part in the Whitby junior fire department this summer. So the Nissan Miera became a crayfisli ambulance. Five minutes later a girl hunkered down by the 35 YEARS AGO xnuddy bank and slowly released Cray. from the Thursday, June 18, 1959 edition of the. In three inche s of creek water, with ol' turtie WH1TBY WEEKLY NEWS crusin fo ls beakasta ew feet away, Cray lay Reeve Kenneth Lee, at 12-year veteran of local polities, lias resigned from Town council fr a iu uinngforansdbisarestortf--.to-.- n ýAiberta. 1