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@welOR COMMEN A Gift To Last A splendid gift from the Little family and Mrs. Lit- tle's sister, Jean Hay of Weston, to the Village of Russell. A gift that will be remembered. The Little bush, ten acres of almost primeval woodland in what some day will be the centre of the village, or near it, preserves a choice window on nature for the years ahead. ' It will be known as the J. Henry Tweed Conservation Area in honour of the pioneer owner of the land, the - father of Mrs. Mabel Little and her sister. Lopsided Levesque It appears that Mr. Levesque and the PQ Party have an excellent chance to win the referendum, although it is still a bit too early to say that the disorganization of Levesque's opponents is complete. Perhaps the most audacious ploy of Mr. Levesque's audacious career was when he said that if the referendum is successful it will no longer be necessary for a government in an indepen- dent Quebec to legislate supremacy for the French language. He spoke of a commitment to safeguard and protect ine rights of English. It will be surprising if this tactic gains much support among English speaking Quebeckers. Mr. Levesque has government to recognize the rights of the English. In no single instance has he taken advantage of such oppor- tunities. Is he suggesting that if he gains everything he wants -- complete independence for Québec, with English Canada paying the economic shot -- he will overnight adopt the tactics of Joseph Mugabe -- con- ciliation for everyone? Squeezing the public Many signs point to a world staggering in the same direction as in 1928. We are told as an excuse for government inaction that interest rates must be kept on a par with those of the United States or investment money will leave. What does it really mean? It means that the foreign subsidiaries -- mostly American -- who dominate our economy, will send their money home to U.S. banks, rather than leave it here. In the post-war years, when we had a fixed rate and a similar situation existed, the government met it not by allowing wholesale usury, not by allowing people to lose their homes and be put on the street, not by allowing farmers to go to the wall, while the rich got richer, but by imposing foreign exchange controls so that money earned in Canada stayed in Canada. Is it too much to ask the government to exercise the authority granted by the people? Highway monsters _The prospect of 105-foot trucks crowding super highways like the Queen Elizabeth, the 401 and the 417 is one to terrify the ordinary driver. From Oshawa to St. Catharines the 401 and QE presently constitute a nightmare of monstrous, rushing shapes in which the driver of a small car is about as much in control as a gnat among a herd of elephants. ~ Yet, this insane proposal is currently under study by Ontario highway authorities. Truck lengths on the pro- vince's super roads are currently restricted to 70 feet. The proposal to allow two trailer units of 45 feet each . would bring the weight of these highway behemoths to better than 20 tons. A remark by the vice president of the Ontario Trucking Association was'illustrative of the trucking industry's consideration of the public. What difference does it make, asked Stephen Flott, quoted in the Globe.and Mail, whether a car driver gets crushed by a -- 10-ton or 20-ton vehicle? The Ontario Government can resolve the matter very simply. If the trucking companies want to put 20-ton, 105-foot juggernauts on the roads, let them build and pay for their own roads as the railways do. had plenty of opportunities as head of the Quebec- CASTOR REVIEW "One Canada' Box 359, Russell, Ontario Editor: Mark Van Dusen, Submissions preferably typed, 445-2080. After 4:30 p.m. ~ Sports: Jack McLaren, Editor, 445-2131; Gary Ris, Columnist 445-2069. - News: Suzanne Schroeter, 445-5709: Photographs: Estelle Yaternick. Advertising: Michael Van Dusen, 445-5770. Layout: Paul Rodier, Stuart Walker. é Subscriptions: Freddi Rodier, 445-2805. Bookkeeper: Joan Van Dusen, 445-2080. double-spaced -are welcomed, publishable at the discretion of the editor. Published by Castor Publishing, Russell, Ontario. President: Thomas W. Van Dusen. Subscription rate: $3.50 a year; $4.50, out-of-country. Printed by Performance Print- ing, Smiths Falls. NEXT DEADLINE May 5 NEXT ISSUE May 16 Second Class Mail Registration No. 4218 ISSN 0707 -- 4956 Dr. Lynn -- The legacy lingers The healing hands are stilled and fifty years of contributing to the community have slipped away in a twinkle. Dr. Lynn Morrow, beloved Metcalfe physician has been laid to rest. This dedicated country doctor, who became a byword in our pioneer story, followed in the footsteps of his father, a horse-and-buggy physi- cian whose practice antedated the turn of the century. Like the father, the son represented the very best type of that category of men known as the country doctor. A force for good in the community, men whose knowledge of their neighbours was not confined to ailments, or a tag on the end of a hospital bed. Men who wielded an almost Godlike omniscience as they went tirelessly on their daily rounds, administering to the suffering, handling emergencies, with little equipment but with enormous Back to | the Privy By Thomas Van Dusen We are led to believe on good advice that a new, popular gim- mick among the nouveau riche of the affluent (or effluent) society is to make up bathrooms to look like the old fashioned privy. There is something kind of cute and nostalgic about this. The idea is that a modern bathroom is lined with barnwood and a two-holder box constructed to look like the real thing, with a real toilet (pardon our effrontery) inside. This is declared to be quite the rage wherever the intelligentsia gather. Wherever that is. The reappearance of the out- door privy constitutes a link with better times, when there was authority in the land, when men made decisions and stuck by them, when a man's home was his castle and he had the power to prevent vandals from invading his privacy and when crime, perver- sion and decay were kept in the shadows- not trotted out to the dining room table. Where did we go wrong? Was it when we brought the privy into the house? By this single act, men (and others) were deprived of a place of repose, meditation and study, when the Eaton's catalogue served the same function as TV commercials in informing the woeful wight how the fortunate ones of the world lived. The Eaton's catalogue presented a world that was not totally out of reach, because there were things in there that you could, by dint of scraping and scrimping, manage to afford. I remember my Uncle Franklin, a voracious reader, who went through six volumes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall in the privy. Not all in the same privy, mind you. There was one in Gracefield, one -- in Blue Sea village, another at Un- cle Wilfred's farm at Orlo. He carried a volume of Gibbon around with him at all times, so that not a single moment would be wasted. He finally became one of the most literate men in the coun- ty. In the winter he had to resort to indoor bathrooms. It wasn't the same. The noise of the mechanical contrivances disturbed him and made him lose his place. He was a great bath-tub reader. He would fill the tub to the brim with boiling water and go into the bathroom, or rather disappear (it was like a weekend visit) bearing an armful of books, sandwiches and beer, not to come out until his entire body was wrinkled and water- logged. He was a true genius. He also avoided a lot of work. skill and devotion amid conditions which would have made a city practitioner recoil in horror. They were always in the front lines, their first duty to their com- munity, to the friends and neighbours whom they often drew 'back with an intervention almost divine from the brink of the grave for more years of useful living. They battled the elements, giv- ing themselves without stint to the service of others. And miraculous- ly, they found time to contribute heavily to community activities. The country doctors set a stan- dard which is today almost im- possible to equal. Not for them the impersonal. coldness, the clinical abstractions of big city hospitals, nor the dreadful anonymity of those confined to their care and treatment. For Lynn Morrow, as for Frank Kin- naird and that ilk of country prac- titioners, a.patient was a friend and neighbour. Their solicitude knew no bounds. Closely involved with Dr. Mor- row in his practice was his wife, Myrtle, a qualified nurse. To Mrs. Morrow, the sympathy of the community goes out in a loss which all of us share in common, although none to the same extent as the helpmate who worked by his side. In the passing of Dr. Lynn Morrow, following fifty years of service, the community salutes a gallant member and, ina small way, acknowledges the im- perishable achievement of the band of dedicated men and women of which he was so able a representative. "POETS OF THE... CASTOR> GREAT OAKS The acorn cup is empty, Where once a life-bud grew, At the side-walk's edge we notice The promise of life anew. A new tree is beginning, Two leaves-we see, so small, Can this an oak be, someday? Will it ever grow quite tall? Deep in the earth go the rootlets, Down in the cool earth's shade, Life's dreams may seem a fantasy, Our progress seem quite slow, But deep from the roots of our faith there comes The strength that will help us grow. The strength from love and forgiveness From the One Who created us all, To lift our heads, and raise our sights, This is the secret, though choked é : eh Like the oak, to grow quite tall. with pavement, This is where life is made. 2 ("Beaver Bob a a Spring explosion Spring hit the Castor like an explosion. One weekend, skiers were making tracks on the snow; four days later, you could have shot the rapids of the flood-swollen waters in a scow. The ice-packs floated heavily down, jamming up in the narrows. Four-foot thick blocks perched on the dam, sliding reluctantly down the other side. The river expanded to more than respec- table torrent. © ' As the river flung itself against the Russell bridge, a gentleman from Environment Canada was busy measuring the strength of the current with a peculiar contraption which at first glance resembled one of those rigs used by fishermen to bring in tarpon. It was not that. In response to gentle questioning, he allowed that a great deal of water was being wasted and that it would have been considerably to the village's advantage to have added another five feet to the Russel Dam, since much of the runoff could have been gathered in and kept all summer, proving an attrac- tive small lake in the centre of the town. From older residents, we have ascertained that this was ex- actly the intention of the dam builders but they were forced to reduce the dam's height for fear of flooding one or two pro- perties, a fear that has not been realized even when the spring freshet is at its most violent. We also spoke to the man who engineered the Russell Dam, Joe Mangione, who told us that the original intent was certain- ly to erect a higher dam and that in its present state it was largely self-defeating. "Another four or five feet, without altering the contours of the river would have made all the dif- ference in the world," he said. Along the North and Boundary roads, the new ditching and drainage system completed last summer, seemed to carry out its role satisfactorily. When we came down the Boundary Road, the night of the big rain storm, the drains were gallopp- ing torrents. Water was lapping the edge of the road and the sensation was very much like driving on top of a dike. _ The next night, the waters had subsided somewhat, at least they were not rising and the rushing motion had slowed down considerably. In fact the ditches, although still brimful, were so calm that they reflected the evening sky, with its dark, scud- ding clouds as faithfully as fragments of a mirror. It was a good night to get home. The rain sank into the sod- den earth with the velocity of hissing arrows. It was time to in- spect the sump pump drain and in the savage twilight, with the river roaring down three feet away and only an icy slope in bet- ween, the great cakes smashing against one another like so many demented ships driven by crazy captains, it was just the right time for a poor, half-frozen, half drowned muskrat to drag his shrinking form up on the ice and look up with an ironic, remorseful glare, as though to say, "I don't like this any better than you do." Then he was gone, carried away by the flood, as spring came in on the Castor with a rattle and roar.