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6 - The Cariadian Champion, Frday, Septembr 4, 1998 SOPINION Box 248,191Mn St. - Ihe Canadian Chamipiosepublislideve'y tuesday ad Milton, Ont. L9T 4N9 Saturday a 191 Main St. E., Milton, Ont., L9T 4N9 (Bax 248), is one of The Metrotand Printing, Publishing & Dslribuling Lt. D~O~~A-u roup ot suburban companies which includes: Ajax / Pickering (905)878-23'41 News Advertiser, Allisten Herait/Ceurier; Barrie Advance; Brampton Gardian, Brlinglan Post; City Parent; Cllingwood I Editorial Fax: 878-4943 Wasaga Connection; East Yrk Mirrer; Etabiceke Guardian; Georgetown Independenl/ Aclon Free Press; Kingson This Week; Advertising Fax: 876-2364 Lindsay Tiis Week; Markham Ecanamiot & Stn; Midand I Pene- Classified: 875-3300 tanguishene Mirrnr; Missisnauga News; Newmarket I Aerora Ere Banner; Northumberland Noms; North York Mirror; Qakville Ian Oliver Publisher Beaver; Onîllia Tnday; Oshawa / Whitby I Clarlngtonn /Part Perry This Week; Peterboreugh This Weeh; Richmond Hil I Tlrnrnhill / Neil Oliver Associate Publisher Vaughan Liheral; Scarbernugh Mirrnr; Ubridge I StauffvllIo Bill Begin General Manager Tribune; Teday's Seniors. Advertslng jes cceptod on the condition that, ln tho onont et a Rob Kelly Editor typographical errer, that portion ef the advertsing space eccu- Kareen Cross Circulation Manager pied by the erroneous item, tegether with s reasonable altowsnce TeriCass OficeManger fer signature, will not be charged for, bet the balance ef the Ten asas Offie Maageradvertisement wilho paît fer at the applicable rate. The publisher Tien Cotes Production Manager rserves the rght te categentoe advertisements er doclne. Don't drink and drive As the last long weekend of the sumrmer approaches, many people will be visiting family members and friends while others will be retir- ing to cottages and campsites across the province. Students will be moving to various university and college camnpuses. We fear that fun times and partying may turn into nightmares for some famiùlies. As memnbers of MADD Halton can sadly tell you through experi- ence, far too many famnilies are tom apart because of the senseless tragic ending of impaired driving. Police suspect two out-of-town crashes in which Milton citizens were killed earlier this year involved drunk drivers behind the wheel. That's two too many. Statistics show that more alcohol-related crashes occur during holi- day weekends than any other timne of year. Elsewhere in this newspaper, the OPP points out that 10 people lost their lives on Ontario highways patrolled by themr last Labour Day weekend. The causes of the crashes varied. But with the high numnber of Canadians travelling this weekend, it should be no surprise that collisions involving alcohol also increase. These are incidents that are totally preventable. Alcohol is present at many social functions. We agree with MADD Halton that drinking is a personal decision. It's when alcohol is mnixed with driving a vehicle that it becomnes a public decision. Don't let your holiday weekend becomne a tragedy. Please don't drink and drive. +OUR READERS WRITE Hats off to Donaldson Bourgon for ail their help Dear Editor: I arn writing to let Une community know about the tremendous ongoing support Donaldson Bourgon Financial Services has offered the United Way. For the third year running, Donaldson Bourgon Financial Services bas agreed to be the major sponsor of our annual golf toumament. Not only that, but they have doubled their own financial contribution to $4,000. As well, everyone at Donaldson Bourgon Financial Services continues to contribute in variaus other ways to the toumnament by selling tickets, collecting prizes, volunteering on toumament day and fulfilling count- less other thanidess tasks. Their support has been unwavering and generous and I think it is important for the community to know about the type of commitment they have made to the United Way of Milton. To Donaldson Bourgon Financial Services, please accept our thanks. We hope to see you ail at Executive Fairways for this year' s toumnament on Saturday, Sept. 12. It fea- ures great prizes and a day of flan for those who take golf seniously and those who don't. Ha) Watson Chair, United Way of Milton golf tournament Fourteen years ago., it was a different industry In late 1984, when 1 firat started working for The Canadian Champion, we stili wrote stories on typewriters and passed Ue hard copy -- Ue typewritten sheets -- on to editors. Today hat seems equivalent to etching characters laborious- Iy into stone with a mammoth's tusk or some- thing. TIi Une mid 1980s -- not really Uat long ago at ail -- Ue editors would mark up Ue copy in Ue secret editor language, which included various little squiggles and circles around letters and words, al in red. Then Uey would forward the copy to typeset- ters, who would input it on rudimentary word processors so Uat it was transformed mnto what are called 'galleys', the familiar stripa of type that make up the columna in any newspaper stoe.y. The galleys emerged trom the machine in a long stream, if 1 remember correctly. The length- ier Ue story, Ue longer the ribbon of paper. Jane Muller, Une previous Canadian Champion editor, used to refer to wordy feature tonies as 6scarves' because you could wrap Uem around your neck and boUn ends would drape down past your waist. once thse gailcys carne out Uey were matched up wiUn photographs Uat had been duplicated by a special camera so that Ue duplicates could be put in Une newspaper. Headlines would pop out of anoUner device on thin strips of paper. A paste-up artist, or compositor, would come by with a very sharp, metal-handled exacto knife and a special steel ruler called a ime gauge. The compositor would then begin waxing ail the page components and cutting Uem into precision size 50 as to fit on a page. The waxing -- donc on a small unit Uat feeds Une copy and photos Urough rollers and a heated liquid wax -- secs Ue paper coated on Ue back side with the sticky substance so hat it will adheoe to Une page. The compositors had very good eyes for lay- out and design, and it was impressive to watch Unemn effortlessly wield those sharp little knives, trimrning and pasting, fingers fiying. They're ail but gone now, and the type of work they did je pretty well a dead craft. Computera edged it out. Nowadays, there is very Hlte cutting and past- ing, except if aomething goea wrong. The entire newspaper page is displayed on a large computer monitor. You can zoom in and out to check detail, and if you want to change Une way any- thing looks it is simply highlighted and différent attributes are chosen. The program we use to create Il Champion is called Quark Xpress, industsy standard for page design. Curiously, perhaps, al Une compti newspaper production here, and places, are Apples. It is one of the niches where Apple maintains effeti control, from smal-scale desktop Urough to full-blown production of and magazines. In the wake of this wrenching tc change, many of the compositors e new software and kept Ueir jobs, did not. I knew some very nice people, work in the composing rooms I fi Acton, Etobicoke, Oakville and]N couldn't make the transition to computera. Some hung on for a while, but now they're gone, having quit, taken a package or been let go. obThere's a whole new generation of younger R b people in computer pagination, as it's now S known, who have had little or no exposure to the K elly craft of pacte-up with exacto knives and line gauges. On the rare occasions when it's necessary to rh aainhave some of Uat work done, I look to the com- hanad ianh posing room foremnan or somebody who bas a lot adiisUeof years in, because for Une recent graduates it'a uters used for just an odd lost art. 1most other As far as the news department goca, we coms- efew market pose our own pages now wiUn Quark Xpress and ctive industry the composing people concentrate on the ada. In ýp publishing the past the compositors did the newa pages as echnologîcal embraced Une while others who did fine frequented in Milton. They I do some of the pages and Karen Smith, the assistant editor, does the reat. She enjoys Quark Xpress, noing it is a nice break from writing. I find it boring, perhaps because my knowl- edge of the program is not extensive. I always say I could teach a chimpanzee to do my part of it, Unat is if I could fend one who would put up wiUn me long enough to leamn.