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PAGE 6 â€" WATERLOO CHRONICNF, WENDNESDAY, APRIL 6. Second Class Mail Registration Number Waterloo city council acted with both conscience and wisdom Tuesday in shelving, at least temporarily, the Bearinger Road and Maple Hill creek projects during its 1983 budget session. The realignment of Bearinger and improvement to Maple Hill creek would have roughly doubled this year‘s municipal levy, which without the projects now stands at 5.59 per cent. But the monetary consideration involved in trimming the two plans is but one aspect of these multiâ€"faceted concerns. Though®%ome will argue otherwise, council was placed in a difficult position re the onâ€"going Bearinger dilemma and more recent Maple Hill flareâ€"up in that groups backing the projects focused heavily not on aesthetics but on public safety and concern in justifying their stance. Anyone who has lived in Lakeshore or regularly travelled through it knows full well the inadequate state of the Bearinger access, especially in the studentâ€"saturated winter and spring months. And arguably, swelling waters from Maple Hill creek could prove hazardous to the safety of residents adjacent to it, though thorough engineering department reports indicate little cause for concern. While we would be loath to support the theory that danger to public safety in either of these situations would have to be "proved" to justify merit, the gut feeling is that both would be worthwhile â€" in better times. But at a time when everyone is feeling the pinch, when many essential services are being told to toe the economic line, and when council is not only concerned, but expected, to lead by example in lieu of restraint, these projects simply cannot represent immediate priority. NOTHING annoys me quite as much as the dear souls who, when I‘m telling them about my retirement, beam sympatheticâ€" ally, and exclaim gushily, "But you‘ll miss the students, won‘t you? Far from turning their backs on Culpepper residen. ;, council has in the past few weeks and months attentivey probed the Maple Hill creek problem, and indicated Tuesday they will continue to do such to hopefully exact some sort of compromise situation. And potential westâ€"side realignment of either Hallman or Westmount Roads could have a great impact on the need to restructure Bearinger. That too, is a consideration that must not be overlooked. They are shocked and a little indignant when I tell them that 1 will miss the students the way I would miss a bulletâ€"hole in my sternum, a punch in the mouth, a massive coronary. ‘"But l thought you loved your students." they croon bewilderly. And of course they‘re right. I do love my students, in the abstract. I also love apple pie and ice cream, rye on the rocks, lilacs, ragâ€"time music, and women. It‘s a noâ€"win situation when beltâ€"tightening is the name of the game, no question. But in making the decisions it made Tuesday, council wisely ruled with the head when the heart could have easily taken over. You‘d wind up with pie tasting of rye, sicklyâ€"sweet music, and a woman screamâ€" ing because she had an ice cube down her decolletage and ice cream (chocolate) all over her bikini. But that doesn‘t mean I‘ve got to eat nothing else, drink nothing else, smell nothing else, hear nothing else, and feel nothing else, for the rest of my days. Imagine one day of sitting around eating apple pie and ice cream washing it down with Canadian Club under a lilac tree with the tape recorder blaring ragâ€"time, and a beautiful, soulful woman on your knee. Conscience first One could cope with one day of that. It BILL SMILEY published every Wednesday by Fairway Press, a division of Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo Record Ltd., owner 225 Fairway Rd.S., Kitchener, Ont. Waterloo Chronicle office is located in the Harper. Haney and White Law Office Building (rear entrance, upper floor). Parking at the rear of the building Open Monday to Friday. 9:00 a m. to 5 00 p m address correspondence to Waterioo office 45 Erb St. E.. Waterloo, Ont. N2J 1L7, telephone 886 2830 might even be interesting. The combina tion has many permutations. But try it three days in a row, or ten, and you‘d wind up in the white jacket. What if the woman started smelling of rye, the apple pie tasted like lilacs, the rye was hotter‘n a fireâ€"cracker, and the music started sounding like strawberry icg cream? I And that‘s how I feel about my students. As we used to say in Germany, ‘"Genug is genug!‘", or something along those lines. Does the lion tamer miss the lions when he retires and goes into extensive plastic surgery on his scarred face, his torn legs? Does the janitor miss his broom? Does the sailor miss puking into the wind? Does the housewife miss the ironing? Does the plumber regret not having scabs on his knuckles any more? Does the doctor miss head colds? Does the lawyer miss the people at parties who ask him if their wife/husband is divorceable? Certainly I‘ll miss my pupils. Just the way I miss the old rubber boots for fishing that I threw out twelve years ago. Just the way I‘ll miss being a prisonerâ€"ofâ€"war on bread and water. It‘s not that I don‘t like kids. I do. But I don‘t go on and on and on being their Publisher: Paul Winkler Manager: Bill Karges Editor: Rick Campbell m I DON T LIKE IT EITHER .FRANCES, â€" y BUT HES5 THE ONLY ONE THAT established 1854 [( uNDERSTANDS "FORWARD AVERAGING . . didn‘t know what premise to go on, or anything. Andghen, it just happened. I found that I had such a clear idea of her, that she just started talking. It was kind of neat how it all fell into place." Miss the kids? It is written father and their mother and their babyâ€"sitâ€" ter and their friendly local policeman and their ingratiating psychiatrist and their grandfather and their jovial uncle. I know perfectly well that the moment I retire, my potential students will be plunged back into the Dark Ages. None of them will be able to read or write or scribble graffiti on the desks or go to the washroom twice every period. What is to happen to them? It may seem heartless to you, but it doesn‘t bother me in the slightest that good ole Mr. Smiley won‘t be there to suckle them at his literary breast, watch them blossom into language that only a sailor wouldn‘t shrink from, and steer them into pourses that will drive them to suicide. They can go and cry on someone else‘s shoulder about the rotten parents they have, and the terrible turmoil of being a teen, and the "fact‘ that all their other teachers are down on them, and that‘s the only reason they are fiftyâ€"percenters instead of eightyâ€"percenters. They can tell some other gullible that they didn‘t know that their assignment was due, that the reason they missed the test was that they‘d missed the bus. _They can give somebody else the big blue or brown stare of utter sincerity while they lie through their teeth about why they have thrown someone else‘s book out the window, or why their desk has suddenly overturned, or why their desks are cover ed with pornography. Don‘t get me wrong. As individuals, I love them. Who could be sweeter than Shawn, wideâ€"eyed, who tells me that the reason he didn‘t write the test was that he hadn‘t (in two months) read the book? . Who could be more appealing than Lisa as she explains that the reason she is falling behind is not her boyfriend, perish the thought, but her parents, father a wifeâ€"beater and mother a drunk (both of them turning up for Parents‘ Night,; the father a milquetoast, the mother a Sunday School teacher)? What can you say when Greg mutters, shamefacedly, that he didn‘t get his essay done because he, heck, was skiing all weekend because, like, it was the only decent weekend all winter? Maybe the reason I‘m so soft is that 1 never told a lie, was never late, never slept in, never missed an assignment, and sat like an angel in class, when I was a stu dent. Whatever, I‘m gonna miss them exactiy as much as they‘re gonna miss me. In both cases, like a toothâ€"ache. Lily Ann Green, speaking of her role as Nell Gwyn in The Duchess of Drury. â€" SEE PAGE 12 +)