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ht - -. iva : $3 : EA editorio Shame! Shame! The executive and directors of the Port Perry Minor Hockey Association have every right to be more than a little upset at the poor public turn-out for the annual meeting held on Sunday night. With almost 350 young boys registered in the minor hockey system in this community last year, and with the criticism that hockey in general has been getting recently, one would think that at least a few parents would take the opportunity to attend the annual meeting, and maybe even get actively involved by agreeing to serve as a director. . Not so. The time and place of the meeting was well advertised in advance; it was even held on a Sunday night so as not to conflict with weekend plans. About 20 people showed up, and strangely enough they were the same people almost that one sees constantly at the arena during the winter months: the same people who devote their time and effort to minor hockey and take a fair number of knocks in the process. While we agree it may be tough to *"think hockey" in the month of May, we must also reach the rather depressing conclusion that an awful lot of people who send their kids to the arena every winter just don't care, and just don't want to get involved. What if the handful of people who did show up at the meeting decided that they just don't care anymore, that they don't want to get involved? Come October there would be a lot of disappointed youngsters. By the way, the Minor Hockey Association is still looking to fill several directors positions for the coming year. Drinking & Drivin rinking & D g Drinking and driving is a deadly combination. Most people know that, and most reasonable people are in favour of the stiff penalties imposed by our courts against those who are convicted of these crimes. And it is probably fair to say that most reasonable people would not object too strenously if the penalties for conviction were made even tougher. After all, there are lots of statistics floating around which prove that people behind the wheel who have had too much to drink are a menace to themselves and everybody else on the roads and highways. However, it is difficult to understand just what the Ontario-government is up to with its announcement last week that it plans to conduct a survey of drinking and driving habits. Teams from the Transportation Ministry, with the help of police, will be stopping motorists at random, asking them questions about where they are going, and asking each to take a breath test, the results of "AND JHE CREST 15 NO] EXPECTED 70 PEAK J1LL (YAY 22%? 4 which will be turned over to the motorist. Fifteen communities across Ontario will be selec- ted for the survey and testing, although the govern- ment as yet has not indicated which ones. The government says motorist participation will be voluntary, yet it will be the police who will be stopping the motorists and directing them to testing stations. Voluntary? Who's going to argue with the police? And if a driver is found by the testers to be over the legal blood-alcohol limit, he will be asked not to continue driving. If he refuses, the police will be called. All of this will take place during the month of May and between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. While we applaud the government's reasons for this survey, the method is nothing short of madness, and a serious intrusion into the private. lives of Ontarians. It appears as if the police will have the power to order a motorist to take part in a voluntary test. It stands to cause the driving public a great deal of inconvenience, and it will tie up police manpower at a time when officers could be better used tracking. down those who have broken a law. The government says it will use the data collected to compare the effectiveness in future of tougher controls over drinking and driving. Surely, that information could be obtained from police records or the courts without putting the people of this province through this ""voluntary survey". ] Surely the government can find better ways to spend our tax money. Surely the people of Ontario have a right to stand up to this silly scheme and shout ""noway". Surely if the laws covering drinking and driving need toughening up, it can be done without dragging motorists off in the middle of the night to some testing station to answer questions and take a ""voluntary" breath test. bill MUSIC FESTIVAL My old lady"is back in the music festival business, after an absence of some years, and it's just like old times around here; hectic. We quarrel frequently about great issues such as who put out the garbage last week or whose turn it is to do the dishes. When these tiffs become heated, I am frequently told, in a typical wifely digression, when she is logically cornered, that I know almost nothing about music. It has nothing to do with the argument, but I hear, "You couldn't even find middle C on the piano," in tones of contempt. I cheer- fully admit to that fact and the further fact that I don't give a diddle, which fans the flames. This always non-complusses her, which is the object. But, when a music festival looms, and looms is the word, I suddenly discover that, "You have a good ear, and a great sense of rhythm and tempo," and I realize, I'm in for hours of listening to minuets and gavottes and sonatinas, and making judgments based on my good ear and great sense of etc. smiley It all began about 20 years ago. Both our kids were taking piano lessons, and doing well. One evening I was sitting idly, reading my paper and wagging my foot in time to the sonatina my son was preparing for a music festival. My foot got going so fast I couldn't even read the printed word for the vibration. "Hey," I thought, "this kid isn't Chopin or Paderewski. That's a mite quick for a grade six piece." I made my wife sit down and listen. She checked the tempo in the book. He was playing about double speed. She brought it to the attention of his music teacher, who was a little shocked and embarassed to realize that old tin ear was right. Happy ending. We got the kid slowed to half-speed, and he won first prize. That was the end of any peace for me, around festival time. Ever since, I've had to listen to dozens of kids play all their festival pieces, and come up with some enlightening comment about things of which I have absolutely no knowledge, like pace, tone, rhythm, tempo, appogiaturo, forte, crescen- do and the like. I don't even know what the words mean. In self-defence, I've concocted a number of comments about as useful as the things teachers write on report cards. Things like: "perhaps the second movement is a bit subdued; " or, "Yes, that's holding together nicely," or, "don't you think the andante allegro is a bit turgid?"' When you don't know an andante from an allegro, if one were to crawl out of your soup, it seems to do the trick. That worked pretty well when the old girl had twenty-odd students. And was churning out prize-winners by the dozens at every festival. listening and would go right ahead and have the kid play the piece the way she knew it should be played. ) But this time around, she doesn't have the same old confidence, because she's been away from it so long. She makes me actually listen, instead of just appearing to. When I question the speed of a piece, she plays it at four different speeds, and forces me to make a judgment. They all sound the same to me. Should I suggest that the minuet seems a trifle fast, she makes me get up in the living-room, pretend I am a bewigged, bepowdered French gallant in tight pants at the court of Louis Fourteenth, and dance a minuet. It's hard to get into the mood when I'm in my bedroom slippers, painting pants, and old sport shirt. Have you ever tried prancing around to She'd be satisfied that I was - the strains of a gavotte, on a Saturday morning, when you know your neighbours can see in the windows and are wondering what on earth Smiley got into at this hour of the day? Have you ever tried to "Bum-bum-bum"' your way through a sonatina, at the same time trying to clap your hands to establish the time and to read the headlines about the coming election. It's nerve-wracking. Our social life has deteriorated, too, as it always has at festival time. Instead of going to sparkling parties where all the guests are full of repartee, among other things, we sit in the living-room with her pounding the piano, and me waving my foot. It's enough to keep the mind alive. Oh, we do take a sashay into high life occasionally. On Easter weekend, we really lived it up. We went to see Great-Grandad, who is recovering from an operation, and came home the next day to help Kim, who arrived with Batman and Robin, as they call themselves, figure out her income tax. Naturally, she didn't have half the informa- tion. And Balind, three, asserted that he was no longer Robin, but the Incredible Hulk, whatever that is. But The Festival is right up there like a bill board, with all its infighting, anxiety, lousy adjudicator (if you lose), teachers teetering on the verge of a coronary, and mothers tearing their hair out in clumps. Next year, I hope the old lady takes up karate or skydiving, or something sane and sensible and safe. Music festivals are murder SAYS HIE