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COMMENTARY Next day you are pounded on the head with hail - yes, hail "T"" or you go down to the basement and there's a foot of water in it. First couple of times, I mopped it up. Now, we just stay out of the basement until the indoor swimming- pool has dried up, by evaporation. It's quite difficult to keep one's brains unicrambled in a summer like this. One day you are gasping around like a newly-caught fish, trying to extract enough oxygen from the humidity to remain alive. Once again, we have discussed at great length. what to do about the "patio. ,. We call it that for want of a better word. We have two French doors leading onto the patio.' The patio is a pile of rocks, ranging from three pounds to two hundred It has no known purpose that we've ever been able to ditF cover. It has no geometric or any other kind of design. It looks like something a cross-eyed architect, well into the grape, assembled one night with the aid of a bulldozer and a couple of bibulous. but mighty strong companions. in the belief that he was recreating the Pantheon, in Rome. And if you walk up the back path at night, with no lights on. one of the protruding rocks can give a hell of a ripon the Iv 'e If. - Nearly everyone becomes a volunteer at some time in their lives, and we are frequently advised that vo-r hitters are the hackmne of ,'. the community. How does itfi b new. that; that the com: position of our very_vit‘al backbone is constantly changing? Why are the ver.. tebrae so fragile? How do we lose our volunteers? While he is sitting around, you sit around also. You eat your danish and drink your coffee, but you don't tell your volunteer where the lunch room is because the rest of the staff complain if No essay this week. No controlled, clear. coherent. con- cise evaluation of some piece of trivia. as is, my wont. The word 'volunteer' in this context means a person who offers his services and does it out of love. not for money. Whether he fully realizes it at the time or not, he will undoubtedly benefit from his action, but not fin- ancially. You don't bother to in- troduce him to other volun- teers and any staff that might be present. If he ign't too self-conscious. he'll do that for himself. " he is. then he'll have to remain an- Scattered among the patio rocks are bricks and half- bricks, pulled from the wall of the house by a vine that is a herbivorous incredible Hulk. By day, it is a thing of beauty, making the old house look like something out of a book of Georgian prints of stately homes. It must be at night that it turns into a monster. matching bricks with its octopus-like tentacles and stuffing them into You let him stand there. waiting for instructions. and eventually you find him a chair. , Now let's say you belong to an organization that relies heavily on its volun- teers. even perhaps, de- pends on them for its very existence. And let's put you in the role of paid co-ordina- tor. Here, from the writer's personal experience. is how you lose a volunteer. . On your volunteer's first day at work, you are disor- ganized. Yon didn't have time, for breakfast, almost missed your bus and are a little bit crabby. So you don't have a job for him right away. Keeping ‘voldnteers busy and happy BILL SMILEY The thought never crosses your mind that he might be ill or otherwise ineapacitat- ed and that he tried for half an hour to phone you but your switchboard was con- stantly busy. He could even be a little upset still about your attitude the last time you met. Some volunteers But at last you find him a job, train him Irrieny, and leave him to get on with it. You don't have to test any equipment he'll be using. If there's anything wrong with It, tte'il let you know. His working space is small and poorly lit - as you know from complaints you‘ve had - but that's relatively unimpor- tant because Ite"s only a vo- lunteer. He may have travelled some distance by bus or ear, but as he doesn't work for money he obviously doesn't need it, so you don‘t have to offer him mileage or drive him home. And so you _leave him and forget him. You don't check to see if he's doing his-work correctly because he might think you are interfering. Besides, youve busy. He finishes the job and prepares to leave. It would embarrass you both if you gave him a pat on the back. thanked him, shook his hand or told him you looked for- ward to seeing him again. Next time he is expected at your place of operation, he doesn't turn -up. You were too busy to call and remind him,' but you are angry - jus- tifiably, you think - and you strike his name off your list. it gets too crowded with un- paid help. You breakfast, file your nails. comb your hair and gossip with a friend, Your volunteer. waits. That's all right because if he had any- thing better to do; he'd be home doing it. - r its voracious maw, except for those that dribble out of the comer of its motttit onto the patio. _ - And let‘s not speak of nights. Four mornings in a row I went out for my postprandial coffee and morning paper. Four mornings in a row, I dashed back into the house, white- faced, shouting things like: “Call the cops. Get the fire bri- gade. The Vandals are here. and maybe the Goths. The Mar- tians have landed. Gimme mine brandy." Now my back lawn is not exactly pristine and perfect, a classic greensnrd. Let's say you conkh’t bowl on it, unless you were using mum bowling balls. It has its little ups and downs. like the rest of us. Some almost of ski-hill poten- tiality. But it's mine. and I like it. , You dim't know why, but it certainly wasn't because he became bored with his role and was ready to take on so- mething more interesting. with more responsibility. You actually let him do some work, real work. for which you or some other staff member got paid. Hnwwouldyoullketogooutanddincoverthataherdof elephants had been grazing on your back lawn. durum the small hours? There were divots there that Jack Nicklaus couldn‘t make with a nine iron. There were holes that looked as though they'd been made by malty Mole. There was turf and grass and dttrtg all over the place. It looked like a used car lot from which all the cars had been lifted by a mighty magnet. , But then he started offer- ing suggestions as to hirw your operation could be im- proved, and you didn't ap- preciate that at all. Who could blame you? _ F Second time I saw it, I was cooler. Elephants make bigger droppings than that, and there's been no news report of a band of rogue elephants. I figured it was horses. But then I thought. horses eat grass. they don't kick holes in it. Third morning. I [new it we: the dogs next door, a couple of beautiful Pinchyourman Dobers or something. But thty're perfectly trained and kept in at night. - are very insecure and that is why they volunteer in the first place. . They are tanking for a way- to reinforce their "tf-er- teem, make friends. become one of a m. They need to be needed. But you aren‘t an analyst and can't be expect- ed to concern yourself abut such things. Finally, I knew. It was a kid I'd failed last June. getting back at me in some twisted fashion. I rapidly ran through the amp. "nanny. and came up again“; brick wall. They were all too lazy todo such: prxtdigi-mottntofdamage. Of course. sometimes you get lucky. You might find a volunteer who is indepen- dent. a self-starter: so- meone who feels that the sa- tisfaction of a job well done is all the appreciation he needs. He is punctual, cons- cientious - totally reliable. He overcomes all obstacles in his path and returns Strain and again. Until one day...he doesn't. How to lose a volunteer? I could have said it in just a few words. It's easy. lghoré him. He'll soon go away.. There are plenty more fish in the sea. Whatever the reason, he quietly quit. And you don't have time to find out why (or you dotft want to know) because you have to get busy and start the whole process again from the be. ginning. Anyway, it's well- known that volunteers have a short spanof interest. But what will you do when your net comes up empty? Thoughts at summer's end _ While browsing through a local book- store the other day, I qoultl‘t help no. tice all the Bo-called 'aeif-hetp" and “fact" books. Fact books. like the Guinness Book of World Records. the Book of Lists and the Book of Averages, to name a few. are jam-packed with interesting but to- tally useless information. . I figured the former were of little use to me-rm beyond the point of no re- tum-tto I tamed my attention to the lat- ter. I mean, are there really that many people interested/tn the number of pounds of "nature‘s finest“ that is smuggled into Mexico each year? And how about the fact that there is a stag- gering number (unfortunately I can't re- member the exact figure) of people who believe that plants can communicate? I'm sure tere are plenty of "interest- ing" little tidbits of information floating around the streets of Waterloo that could be collected, catalogued and pub- lished for use by people. like myself. who find there are more and more gaps cropping up during conversations with that very special lady they are trying to impress. While glancing through these books, I was disturbed to note that few, if any, contain Canadian statistics. And fewer still have any information about Wa- terloo or its citizens. By the way, if there are any publishers out there interested in promoting my. manuscript, "A Typical Day in wa- terloo", please call because I'm just as interested in the almighty buck as the next guy. On a typical day in Waterloo: q the most direct route between your home and place of employment is torn up for improvements! Uh-uh ... thank you very much, but rd rather overhad my brain with more re- levant statistics. Your intrepid reporter decided to do something about the situation. I spent days and days wandering around the city gathering important statistics, and here are some of the more "interesting" ones that are relevant to Waterloo. So you think LalllW.d you know Wateiioo'? STEWART SUTHERLAND tht-tteta-ti-ttr-tms-' Anyway. the water is turned off and the in" are of! to ravage tome outer plot. I learned something", an achieve- 'netttttesedars. Andrttavetmemoremitttteieetgthy tally my standbys must answer to one day. (cl: i bitjheesrigtt. Sheep were the oitir animals I hadn't Next, we thought of coons. There are some around. But no self-respecting coon is going to be out there digging like a dingbat when all he has to do is whip the top off the garbage pail and regale himself on watermelon rind: and lag-emu of pizza. _ ' He looked at me pityirtgty, as he so often does. But he's not brutal. He led me gelltly but accurately. as a seeing-eye dog does with a blind person. "You've had your lawn gunner on? Quite a bit?" "Well, lure. My grandsons turned it on beef“: July. I turned the tap off, but not the main valve. It's in the cellar. But there's been just a little trickle coming out of it for the last month." F “Stinks." he stated annually. “The water brought up ttyre white grub: and the that: went after them." " wanted to give him an "(amt but I couldn't find a thing to say. If it woukh‘t be a rotten pm. I might admit] Fifth night, seleftontheoattsidertgtttandTsatttpai1 nigtttwitttabriekietmtehandandattoekeystiekirtttte other. Nothing happened except that I fell asleep about two am. and dropped the brick on my bare foot. Finally. as I mould have done in the first place. I brmaght myneigttttor,arn-mirterttgetods-d6ideknow- ledge. over to View the vandalism. rll bet you can relate to these statir tics more than you ever will with those contained between the covers of all the fact books presently sold at local book- stores ... and then again maybe not! Before my phone starts to ring off the hook tomorrow morning, I should ex- plain that I arrived at my list of statis- tics through many not so in-depth inter- views and a considerable amount of su- perficial research. Much of the work was done while I was trying to drag my- self out of bed in the awning or while] was counting the raisins in my breakfast cereal. If you‘re interested in more Waterloo- related "facts" please buy my book-if a publisher ever decides to use its Publi- cation " a fax-write-off or better still, wait for the movie version which will undoubtably turn up on your television set three days after if bits the silver otserearopeopiewsoéetmtttse third-noor elevator at the Marsland Centre, pus: the ground-floor button and end up on the sixth floor! q there are 122 people who grab a handful of free books of matches at local restaurants only to discover that most fail to light! ' . there are 674 people wearing the same socks they have worn for the past three days! . . there aresabout four real estate companies link. a {Vb-bedroom bunga- low with a broken toilet u a "charming Victorian ”low! .. " . seven people wake up in the morning and aren't able to name the person they woke |ip with! 0 there are 108 people who accept transfers from a Kitchener Transit driver. but never use them! q thirteen families bury their pets in backyard plots but the pets aren't happy about the situation! Oeighty-two public school children du, tifully pull on their galosties first thing in'the morning only to remove them two blocks from home! . there aniline people arrestedtor smoking marijuana "' but they don't really can! _