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SR TD 0d A LA A Hd hit ALAN < BENE R Saath editorial cc comments The New Library It was difficult to believe last Thursday evening as the members of the Scugog Public Library Board . awarded a construction contract for the new building, but just over six months ago, the chances for a new library in the Township seemed bleak. Now that the contract has been awarded with work on the new building slated to get underway early in September, it is time to bury once and for all the controversy which surrounded the location of the building. That's history now, and hopefully the bad feelings that resulted can be laid to rest. We believe the Library Board and its sub- committees have done an admirable job in two respects: keeping costs of this new building down to a respectable $324,000, and raising money in the community to help pay for it. Scugog Township is not going to get an extrava- gant monument of a library filled with frills and extras. What it will get is an attractive, functional building of 6700 square feet which will do what it is supposed to do: provide decent and necessary library services for people of all ages in Scugog Township. It will also be a permanent war memorial dedicated to the memory of those men from the community who lost their lives fighting for their country. It is a fitting-combination of two functions. When members of the Library Board held a meeting last Thursday evening to make a decision on awarding a construction contract, the atmosphere was business-like and low key as the project is now entering probably its most crucial phase. The public fund raising campaign has been successful with many people playing dedicated and hard working roles in light of the controversy which surrounded the project. More money is needed and to this end, more fund raising events are planned in the future to put the target over the top and to pay for furnishings and equipment once the building is cornplete. We would urge the people of this community to continue their financial support of this project until all the targets have been reached. And we would like to make an honest plea with those who have not supported the project, for whatever reasons, that making a contribution at this - time would be. one way to show that the ill feelings are not going to linger over the community like a shadow. Every dollar is important. In this week's: paper, there is a picture of a group of youngsters who held a back yard carnival and raised about $10 for the library. The amount is not important, of course, but the spirit of commitment is. While the library is for all ages, it is the young people of the community; your children and grand- children, nieces and nephews who stand to benefit RII FRIAS YR Rrra RE kL E75 HOPE 17 DOES SOMETHING FOR My crown. / most from the new facility. They deserve our support. Construction of the new building is going ahead. Wintario, which is paying up to one-third of the cost, _ must still put its final approval to the project, a process that may take three weeks. And no doubt as the construction phase gets underway, problems are going to pop up which could be fodder for anyone who wants to nit-pick about it all. But we are more than confident that some time early in 1982 we are going to have a new War Memorial Library which will do this community proud. If you want to donate to this project, call the Library staff 985-7686 for information. Some day, your children and grandchildren will say thanks. The Summit They came, they talked, they mugged for the cameras'and then they all went home. Leaders of the world's richest industrial nations held a get-together in a tourist town near Ottawa last week, and true to predictions, not much of anything concrete was done in the way of sorting out the economic mess most of the world is in right now. In fact, no sooner had the party broken up when the Canadian dollar plunged to a new record low, and right on cue to shore it up, the Bank of Canada hiked interest rates once again. So much for confidence in summit conferences. Pierre Trudeau wanted to use the conference to open a :dialogue on the growing split among the wealthy and the poor nations. The leaders of Japan, West Germany and France wanted to nail Ronald Reagan over interest rates in the U.S., which are playing havoc in their countries as well. Reagan, with a mitt-full of trouble in the Middle East, fended off the interest rate attack, at least in public. The big news, of course, was the fact that to stage this conference cost the Canadian government (read tax-payer) a.cool $8 million. And through it all, negotiations to end our postal strike went nowhere, the Royal Wedding madness went on and on, and there were gloomy predictions the baseball strike may scuttle the entire 1981 season. What a summer. Now you know the reasons why the hot weather has got nothing to do with booming beer sales in Canada. DEARLY BELOVED . I'm often glad that I don't have four or five daughters waiting in the wings to be married. If I did I'd soon be in the poorhouse, as we used to call it. Or on welfare, as we call it now. Or mumbling my gums and my pension in one of those Sunset Havens, or another atrociously-named place for old people who are broke. This opinion is a direct result of three middle-class weddings I have attended in bill smiley the loot. It was. But that doesn't do the old man much good. However, I guess it's all worth it. A daughter, especially an only daughter, is a gift from heaven. This last one was a lovely wedding. And I don't use words like "lovely" casually. Kevin MacMillan, 20, grandson of Sir Ernest MacMillan, one "of Canada's great at our latest, as we ooh-ed and aah-ed over' the past two years. As an innocent bystan- der, I am aghast at the cost - financially, . emotional, and stressful - of the modern straight, or traditional wedding. It's not too many decades since you could send your daughter off in fine style for a couple of hundred bucks. Her mother made her dress. The church and the preacher were free. You rented the community hall, and the ladies Auxiliary catered the food. You could hire an orchestra for $25. And you still had $50. left to give the bride, your daughter, a little nest egg. © My own wedding cost almost nothing. We were married in the chapel at Hart House, U. of T. No charge for the facilities. Five bucks for the preacher (larceny was creeping in). The organist was a schoolmate who played in a burlesque house, so no fee. Borrowed a car from a friend for the honeymoon, $20. My wife bought a suit and her own wedding ring. I had supplied a diamond, courtesy of a friend who had been jilted, at half price. No ushers, no reception, no drinks. The best man and the maid of honour got a kiss. And away we went, just as married, with the same words (and still married), as the modern bride whose old man has forked out a couple of thousand minimum, whose mother has been brought to the verge of a breakdown over invitations, guests, hair- dressing, and a hundred other details, who is herself ever-increasing demands as the big day approaches. With my own daughter, I was crafty. I asked her whether she'd like a church wedding and the usual on, or a cheque for one thousand. A chip off the old block, she opted for the cheque, knowing she'd get the other, too, if she wanted it. I sneaked in just under $1500. She invested the cheque in a car, which she totalled in a oliver on their honeymoon. No pun inten- At a moderate accounting, today's dad is going for at least twice that before he sinks into his chair on Sunday night with a: "Thank God, 'sallover." On second thought, $3000 is modest, the way today's middle-class wedding has built up its hidden costs. It's $25 for the preacher, unless he's lost his dog-collar or been disbarred. Ditto for the organist. Gowns for the bridesmaids, add $300. A donation to the church for oil heating. Fifty bucks for invitations. Five hundred minimum for new duds for him and the old lady. A "little" going-away cheque for the bride, another five hundred. He's up to nearly fifteen hundred before the preacher has even said, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today If he's a real big-time spender, he Dicks up the tab for the motels at which the guests who have come from afar at great trouble and expense, lay their well-coiffed heads. Then there's the open bar at the reception, the dinner with wine, the orchestra or disc jockey for dancing, the open bar again, the towing charges for the guests who mistook the ditch for the road on the way home. Call it fifteen hundred. Of course, there are compensations. With a big wedding like this, the bride receives about four thousand dollars worth of gifts. "Isn't it obscene?"', asked the bride's father men of music, married Anne Whicher, 18, whom I have known since she came home from the hospital in a pink blanket. They are very young. Good. Both deep into music. We had a beautiful Ave Maria, sung by Cousin Kathy, and an excellent string ensemble, before the wedding and during that interminable time when they are signing the register, and during dinner. Class. Anne was kissed and cozened by dozens of cousins, armies of aunts, and hordes of hooligans, like me. She took it in her stride, as she will life. For my wife, the wedding was a chance to gabble at 500 words per minute, with old friends from school days. She loved it. For me, it was being assaulted by large ladies of indeterminate age who still had that = elusive beauty, fairly well camouflaged, of twenty years ago, and who still thought I could dance till dawn. I loved it. Good wedding. . Due to the Postal Strike this column has been reprinted from June 27, 1979. , £3 Fj a --