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i ge. AG Py i Po a Na pt a i ana Pa PN 6 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, January 10, 1989 Editorial Comments "A FOOLISH FEW Scugog Township Mayor isn't kidding last week the council may be forced to snowmobilers. Mayor Hall, other members of council and Township staff have been getting more than the usual number of complaints about snowmobiles on roads, sidewalks and private property. He told the Star that the council is going to review the snowmobile by-law, possibly toughen it up and if neces- sary, bring in a total ban on snowmobile use on munici- pal roads. As the old by-law (passed in 1970) stands now, snowmobiles ARE pemiien on municipal roads and streets, including Port Perry, if they keep as near as pos- sible to the right curb. Snowmobiles are NOT allowed on any sidewalk. In fact, Section Two of the by-law says they are not even al- lowed to cross a sidewalk. That old by-law which gives snowmobilers the right to operate their machines on Townhips roads and streets was worded In such a way that residents would be al- lowed to drive their machines from their homes to the lake or to the trail systems in the rural areas. "it was not intended in any way to open up the streets of this community for snowmobile drag-strips. Snowmobiles are also allowed in public parks, un- less signed otherwise and at rates of speed not exceed- ing 25 MPH. Again, the by-law is lenient on the side of snowmobilers. If Township council decides to get tough with 'snow-. mobjlersfto the point of slapping a ban on their use on all streets and roads, it will do nothing but hurt the vast ma- jority of snowmobile owners who are reasonable and safety-minded, and who don't go tearing up and down roads and sidewalks at break-neck speed. when he said get tough" with It's the old story of a few yahoos making it tough for the majority. Hopefully, the [probisnis can be corrected without the Township council having to resort to stern new measures to curb snowmobiles or ban them completely. Common sense should be the rule here. Or maybe a few of the reasonable snowmobilers can collar the yahoos and have a little "chat" with them, gent- ly persuade them to smarten up. After all, it is the dumb few who give anything a black eye, and this seems to be especially true when it comes to snowmobilers. Frankly, we are a little surprised that this has Deeoms.. e an issue again. The sport of snowmobiling has 'go through some rough times, but these days, thanks to the efforts of club members, a trail system has been esta- blished. This has gone a long way to ease the old ten- sions between snowmobilers and others. . Too bad a foolish few are helping to build those ten- sions back up again, at least in Port Perry, anyway. Port Perry | STAR 235 QUEEN STREET - PORT PERRY, ONTARIO "Phone 985-7383 P.0.Box90 LOB 1NO J. PETER HVIDSTEN {2 CNA oO of} =] Member of the Publisher Canadian uy Nawveapes Association a ntar muni ewspaper Association. Advertising Manager 'Published every Tuesday by the 18 LAND Port Perry Star Co. Ltd., Port Perry, Ontario. Editor Aiichized as second class mail by the Post . Office Department, Ottawa, and for cash can SAL Fre payment of postage in cash. res Second Class Mail Registration Number 0265 ' RADIAN COMMU » WZ] @@n » yy Wo, pA2ERs 43305 5 Vo © COPYRIGHT -- All layout and composition of advertisements produced by the adver- tising department of the Port Perry Star Company Limited are protected under copyright Subscription Rate: In Canada $20.00 per year. Elsewhere $60.00 per year. Single Copy 50° and may not be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. ph = CE When ball tou © ) ' Co oe oo -- DEDEDE CD ZR CR CR TR Y, Chatterbox by CATHY OLLIFFE A HEART OF ICE Bitterly cold, it was, and the snowbanks piled up higher in January than the hood of my father's Chevy. The car was parked elsewhere, maybe on the street, who can remember exactly where, but it wasn't in the driveway of 218 Seventh Street because that's where Dad built a skat- ing rink. | can't recall much about skating on that rink, although there are a couple of home movies kicking around to remind me, featuring me and Billy and the neighbourhood kids bomb- ing around on unsteady ankles. It was more than two decades ago, and like | said, | can't remember how it felt to be skating around on that small rink, but | do know it was cold-- because it was always cold in Midland, and be- cause Cheryl Mooney cried all the way home. Nobody liked Cheryl Mooney. Leastwise, none of the kids in Grade Two at Parkview Street Public School. She was poor, from a poor fanny with a whole bunch of kids, all with red hair and freckles, all wearing scruffy old clothes that were hay ever clean and just about never pressed. They lived a couple of blocks away from us, up on a lonely wooded section of Do- minion Avenue, and when | think about the Mooney house, a picture of the Beverley Hill- billies before they moved to Beverley Hills springs to mind. | think they might have even had an old bloodhound sitting on the front porch, but. maybe I'm making that up. Cheryl Mooney looked like Peppermint Pat- ty, round-faced, stringey carrot hair, with an S4blosion of freckles on every exposed part of her body. Even her ears, | think. And she stunk sometimes. She was in my grade, and even though | don't recall what she smelled like, it was common knowledge that Cheryl Mooney smelled. She had the cooties too, and God help anyone who touched her. Cooties could practically kill you. If you didn't like someone, you could touch Cheryl Moo- ney and pass her cooties on to the person you didn't like. Course, you had to wash your hands straight afterwards, in case you caught 'em yourself. Heather Adamson didn't have the cooties. ~ She lived in a big old house next door. She was always clean. She wore starched white blouses and blue jumpers a lot. Her father managed an A & P store. She was my age and we walked to school together and hung out and on this particular wintér, we skated on the rink my Dad built. Cheryl Mooney would walk by when we were skating, and every time she'd walk by, she'd ask if she could skate too. Every time she asked, we said no, and we called her names, and we told her we didn't want no co- oties on our skating rink. " My mother overheard us one day and or- dered me inside and yelled a whole lot about how mean | was. She told me | had to let Che- ryl Mooney skate or | wouldn't be able to skate either. What could | do? The next time Cheryl Moo- ney walked by and asked if she could skate, | said okay, but only because my mother was making me. The round-faced girl was delight- ed, | think, and ran home and got her skates, which were ancient, probably handed down from a skate exchange, all scuffed with rusty blades and broken laces. She was beaming when she sat down in the snowbank to take off her boots and put on those ugly skates, while Heather Adamson and | stood watching, a fair distance away lest the cooties caught us, seething because my mother had forced this girl on us. But she seemed oblivious to our hateful lances, and with great exuberant strides, she ated onto the ice surface like a ballerina, as graceful and beautific on the ice as she was gawky off it. | was horrified. Horrified that the dreaded Cheryl Mooney was actually good at some- thing. No, she was better than me at some- thing, at skating, and on my rink. | was furious. So was Heather Adamson. So | we did the first mean thing that sprang to mind. When Cheryl Mooney was on the far side of the small rink, when she was too busy having fun to notice what we were up to, we stole her boots.Heather took a boot, and | took a boot, and we stuffed each one with snow. We checked to make sure that awful Cheryl Mooney still wasn't looking, and then ve Huried her snow-filled boots in the snow- ank. When it was time for her to go, she took off her skates, reached for her boots and realized they were gone. She looked to us for help and we told her we had hid her boots, and that she wouldn't find them until spring. Which she didn't. Cheryl Mooney ran all the way home in her sock feet, frozen tears streaming down Je! fared face, ugly skates banging against er leg. J | have dreams about Cheryl Mooney some- . times. And they're not good. on