The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

editorial po Energy: The Crunch Has Arrived The latest threat to Confederation comes not from the province of Quebec wanting to "go it alone," but from a serious disagreement between Ontario and Alberta over the price of Canadian oil. Alberta, which produces the stuff, wants the price to rise to world prices (about $23.50 a barrel), while Ontario which uses the stuff in large quantity wants to keep the price about where it is ($14 per barrel). Obviously, the provincial and federal govern- ments are going to have to reach some kind of compromise. Certainly, allowing the price to rise to world levels would result in conservation as "Sunday drivers' would think twice about unnecessary consumption. But Ontario industry needs oil, and a hike to world levels could price many manufactured products almost out of the competitive market, Possibly we need some kind of dual price system where the cost for essential services and industry use stays lower than the cost for everyday motorists. It Is obvious that the crunch is coming one way or another, and. with it a substantial change In our life-styles and mobility. - ~~ No NeedFor Suffering Rabies Is an ugly disease. It is present in the wildlife population, especially foxes and skunks, but can be contracted by any warm-blooded animal including household pets like cats and dogs. It is fatal in animals. : Human beings who come in direct contact with an animal which has the disease can contract rabies themselves, and must receive immediate medical attention through a painful and unpleasant series of 14 needles. N ) This is the case in Scugog Township where eight people including five children came in contact with one pet dog last week which proved positive when tested for rables at a government laboratory in Ottawa. The parents of two of the children now under- going the series of 14 needles contacted the Star and Rh ge urged this paper to convey a very simple message to our readers: pet owners should have their dogs and cats vaccinated against rabies, and parents should stress to their kids to stay away from strange animals, and never under any circumstances should they go near a wild animal such as a fox, skurik or raccoon. L While these eight people in Scugog are now receiving the treatment as a preventative measure against rabies, it could have been avoided. The dog which they came In contact with had not been vaccinated against the disease and nad been allowed to run free In a rural area of the Township where the chances of it coming In contact with a rabid animal increased. : : . In connection with the story in this edition on the rabies outbreak, the Star has published a picture of a five-year old girl receiving one of the 14 needles. It is not a pleasant picture. But with the permission of'the little girl's parents, we felt it would be a graphic way of getting the message across to pet owners and to all parents. With a little prevention, this could have been avoided. A rabies vaccination for a pet dog or cat costs less than $10 and should be done every year. It is a rather small price to pay. ® JHE N ENERGY SHORTAGE KNows No BounNDS SM Tales of Summer Well, here it is, Tuesday afternoon, time to write the column. 1 could have written it last Friday, or (Sunday morning after church, or any day during the past weeks of holidays. But I couldn't. I write my column on Tuesday afternoon, rush to the post office, plead with the clerk to squeeze it into the outgoing bag. Summer or winter, working or vacation. If T try to write it on a Thursday evening, a Monday morning, there's a complete block. Blank paper, vacuum mind. Especially in summer, when I have enough time to crank out a couple of volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. That's why the summer columns don't have one single, brilliant theme, . lucidly expostulated, witty, striking a single, sing- ing note in a muddled world. They usuallly come out as a kind of shotgun effort. There are 100 many aistractions. - A couple of promiscuous bluebirds have proliferated on our property. There are now five juveniles of the same species, shrieking bluebird imprecations from five different trees, driving out the song-birds of yester- year. ley This morning, we had one of those real, old-fashioned summer storms. Darkness at noon: The gods bowling in the heavens with tremendous balls that rumbled, crashed, and reverberated down the empty halls of the black sky. Bolts of lightning straight from Zeus that hit, you swear, twenty feet from your giant oak. Blinding rain, cars driving, lights on, as though they were fording the Ganges. Ilove storms, ever since the one that put a pine treetop through the. roof of our cottage, when I was seven, and everybody calling, "Where's Billy?" and finding Billy standing against one of the remaining walls, scared speechless and grinning like an idiot. Or the one on the Lakes, when several ships went down, and the captain was puking in his second-best hat, and every dish in the galley was smashed. ' More distractions in summer. Rotten kids. Card from son Hugh in Paraguay. He'd previously written for five copies of his birth certificate, and copies of his student transcripts from U. of T. and Dalhousie, because he might be going to university in Paraguay or Toronto or India or Cuba. Card says, "Massage and English classes going well." What the hell does that mean? Phone call from daughter who's off to Moosonee to teach, music to Indian kids. Doesn't know how to get there. Doesn't know how to get furniture shipped, what to take, why, what, where, how much? So guess who sorts all' that out? Animals, birds and fishes have the right idea. Teach the offspring to fend for themselves, kick them out, and have some more. I wonder how many grandfather whales, or bears, or eagles, are still solving problems for their fully-grown children, and baby-sitting their grandchildren? And in summer, of course the daily mail, though a welcome break in the monotomy; is distracting. Pleas, amounting almost to demands, from relatives that you have to pay a visit, you promised last wifiter. They don't really want to see you, only make you listen to their problems, when all you want to listen to is the birds and is click of a five-iron as you set it up by the pin. Not all bad. Nice letter from Jim Lamb of Nova Scotia, saying I'd helped inspire his «new book 'Press Gang", and that I am his favorite columnist, along with Ted Reeve and Eric Nicol. Bless you, sir. Note from Bessie Doolan, 89, of Cereal, Alta.: "I attribute the smiles and chuckles I receive from your column as a big aid to my longevity." And bless you, Bessie. Invite me to your hundredth, and we'll dance together and defy the fates, if you don't mind jugging with a guy with an arthritic foot that goes whither it wants. Two proofs of a photo of yours truly, from Mike Boule of the Milton, Canadian Champion who dropped in one day to take a picture. Thanks, Mike, but I think you got your negatives mixed up. Surely this is a photograph of American poet Robert Frost when he was 86. Justkidding. You got me, warts and all. Every crease, every wrinkle, the warped nose withthe scars on it, the bump on my lip from the car crash when a piece of the lip turned up missing during surgery, even the -hairs in my ears, which you might have had the decency to trim before you shot; Never mind, my wife likes it, probably because it makes me look old enough to be her father. But she insists I don't have those bags under my eyes and wrinkles on my forehead. I must have been squinting into the sun, I point out. Anyway, it's the sort of face of which people say, when they can't think of another single thing, "It looks lived-in," or "There's a lot of character in it." But it's been a good summer. Twice I've gone out to play golf and played with complete strangers who were worse duffers than I, despite their immaculate shirts and slacks; and fancy equipment. Occasionly I go down to the dock, look at the $30,000 to $100,000 boats, and chortle when I think of what they'll be worth when gas rationing starts. And snicker and snicker when I drive up beside a Lincoln Continental in my 1972 Ford so rusty you can put your feet through the floorboards and pedal with them, for mobility. Not quite like last summer, cruising the capitals of Europe, but fair-to-middlin', if the old lady would get off my back about falling through the back stoop every time she hangs out the wash. LS LJ] 3)