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GRAN Og NS SNS BR EAS ANSE SH RIL A ORISA El BABA) PORT PERRY STAR - Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1972 - J ingrown toenails," ¥ rapidity as Dad's hair." . # bumping on my bum." Onis. 2 week. an Ontario high school teacher hunches over his' typewriter and stabs out a salty little column about things like: mortgages, kids, taxes and the cruel Canadian winter. Bill Smiley, who seasons 150 weekly newspapers across Canada with'. «his personal blend of sugar and spice, tells it like it is. He comments: on home life. "It is something to be borne, like varicose veins or He talks about family "hang-ups. ""Momma's tolerance thins with the 'same +" About his job, he says, "Show me a teacher in June and I'l show you a ' character witha crumpled shirt, a wrinkled brow and a' desperate look in his eye." He has this to say about the puzzling business of living: '"The Sixties produced the millions of kids who are now a mystery and terror and bewilderment to the relics of the Frightful Forties." To readers 'of his column, Bill comes across as a wise, irreverent and witty man. It's an honest projection. He writes the way he talks. Sitting in his favourite chair an uncomfortable straight backed job - he'll curl one hand around a drink and run the other through his thinning white hair. He listens, while conversation flows around - him, then delivers a wry and usually definitive comment, in a voice as com- fortable as a rusty porch. swing. This wiry unsentimental wisdom is the reason -- "acquaintances from eight to 80 ask him for advice. This is why ex-students invite him to their weddings, and why every female he meets falls a little bit in love with him. And this is why a clipping from a Saskatchewan newspaper describes him as "by far our . most popular syndicated columnist." . Bill was born in Perth, Ont., and was studying at Victoria College when World War Two began. He joined the RCAF, became a Typhoon pilot and took part in many dangerous missions, like hitch hiking -- 380 miles on a forty hour pass to see a girl. He regards this escapade with the same puckish spirit as the time he had to circle an ~ airfield for a couple of hours with a live bomb hanging from his wingtip. The chaps down below wouldn't let him land until they had cleared away all the men and machines. "I landed", he says, 'like a mouse in kid gloves walking on eggs. Then Iran like a bat out of hell, in flying boots, with a parachute _ The high times were abruptly interrupted in 1944 when he was shot down over Holland and imprisoned by the Germans. He came home with a knee disabled by an S.S. boot, and with plans to complete his Honour English course at U. of T. There he met his + dark-eyed wife, and he's been announcing ever since that she is the root of all his roubles. '* They had only been married a few mon- ths, subsisting on love and very little money, when biology threw a spanner into the works. Ivy (Susie to her friends) became pregnant and Bill developed T.B. After a year of separation - he in a sanitorium, she at home in Wiarton - they both resumed their college careers, burning the midnight oil with a baby son as well as a stack of text books. Bill had his eye on post-graduate studies in English with a view to. teaching, but tragedy intervened. ; Ivy's brother in law, the editor of the Wiarton Echo was drowned and there was happy harried life of a small town newspaper editor, rushing to get ads out, covering council meetings 'and Women's Institute meetings." In addition, he wrote a personal column, free from editorial and reporting restrictions. The little column caught on. Soon other editors were picking it up and some of thém paid him as much as 50 cents a week for it. Before long over eighty weeklies were reprinting Smiley's Sugar and Spice, and the proofreading, mailing and billing became a family industry for Bill, Ivy and the youngsters, Hugh and Kim. When the Telegram Syndicate offered to market Bill's column, everybody was licking envelopes and stamps! Although he was established as an editor and columnist, the urge to teach lingered in Bill. Off he went to 0.C.E. Ivy managed the paper, juggling interviews, news reports nobody to take over the paper. Bill stepped and the management of a home and family into the breach and for years he lived "the with cheerful efficiency. ASA He began his teaching career in Midland, . where he is ncw head of the English Department of MSS. Lately he has joined the Argyle syndicate. The Telegram tried to delighted. No more sticky tongues from what you've always wanted to know about. retaliate by featuring another well known columnist in Smiley's format, but his loyal readers weren't fooled. As far as they're concerned, Bill Smiley is irreplaceable. Proof of his readers' affection and in- volvement arrives in his mailbox almost. every day. When he mentioned a few years ago that his daughter Kim was dangerously ill with hepatitis, a flood of letters arrived, with prayers for her recovery. When he said that, in his opinion cable TV was ex- plotation, he was visited by two officials from a large cable network, who suggested that perhaps he was only kidding and would like to retract or modify his statement in a later column. He wasn't. He didn't. Last year he wistfully remarked that he'd like to get away from it all and enjoy a summer vacation with his wife - perhaps in the form of an auto trip across Canada. Invitations flowed in, offering everything from deep sea fishing in the Maritimes to dancing under the stars in British Columbia. A column commenting on the BAHAI religion inspired a spirited if ungrammatical, reply from an irate Westerner. _ For a writer like Bill, a colourful family is "university, a definite asset. His wife, to whom he has referred variously as "the Old Lady," 'the Battle Axe," or "the Boss," is in reality an intelligent and attractive lady who gets fan mail of her own. She's as interested in writing and reading as he is, and plays a mean game of chess. If occasionally she does something wacky, like setting the mantle piece afire at Christmas, it's all grist for Bill's mill. Daughter Kim, a beautiful redhead with a blinding smile, is currently a student at Erindale College, where she is earning professorial raves for her writing ability. Smiley's readers know all about her. They have been following her exploits through Bill's column, from her first music festival to. her summer hitch-hiking adventures. Hugh, Bill's handsome son, was also at and Smiley afficianados remember columns about his piano recital, his summer working on the boats and the time he broke a finger Indian wrestling in Mexico. - Bill's attitude to his kids is a typical blend of sugar and spice. 'Those selfish brats? Let them look after. themselves. I'm going to enjoy life without worrying about a pair of rotten ingrates."' As he says this, he writes out a healthy cheque to help with college "expenses. Is writing the column ever a chore? Yes, says Bill. "It has to be in the mail every Tuesday night, and every minute writing it is hard work. I hate it except when it's finished. 'Then I either feel the glow of knowing it came off, or a small work of misery starts eating away at me and I can't eradicate it until the next column." Will he ever write the Great Canadian Novel? "There are quite a few of them around already,' he says, 'by fellows like Callaghan, Richler, Hugh Garner and Jack Ludwig. As long as I'm teaching, I won't have time to start anything so ambitious." . Because there are never enough hours in the day, Bill often has to turn down in- vitations to speak, or to conduct writing seminars, The few speaking engagements he 'has undertaken have proven to be memorable occasions for his listeners. Toa high school graduating class he said, "Tonight I'm supposed to speak to you about good reading habits...The choice of speaker was a hilarious piece of miscasting." In 1971, he opened a speech to the top officials of the Royal Canadian Legion this way: "You must wonder what a ... piddling little one-time flight-loot is dojng addressing such an august body. And I wondered the same." He has served on the panel of judges for the Stephen Leacock Award for several years, a role he enjoyed because it kept him, abreast of developements in Canadian writing, a subject in which he is intensely interested. His ambitions are stated in this snippet from an old column: "When I'm 85, I want to be known in the Nursing Home as 'that old devil Smiley, who pinches your bottom .every time you pass his wheel chair." In the meantime, every Tuesday night Bill returns to his century-old brick house and dumps the day's crop of unmarked essays or exams on the kitchen table. He settles himself at his typewriter with a drink, (anything wet - Coke, coffee, beer, tea,) and a smoke ("I'll smoke till 1 croak!") and percolates his weekly ration of wry com- ment. Then he starts rapping with the folks in Collingwood and Seaforth and High River and about a hundred other very important places in Canada. i nr ESAT nd Loi . Sr SIH ru 7 rp Fe