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Page 4, Terrace Bay-Schreiber News, Wednesday, June 11, 1986 Terese Editorial The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published Co. Ltd., Box 579, Terrace Bay, Ontario, POT 2W0. Telephone: (807) 825-3747. . _PRODUCTION MANAGER ERIVOR oo. Se Se sa A eee Conrad Felber .- ADVERTISING: |. 3 a ea ee Gigi Dequanne OFFICE. 3s eS ee ee ee Gayle Fournier been oh PAS Mary Melo every Wednesday by: Laurentian Publishing Single copies 35 cents Subscription rates per year in-town -- $14.00 out-of-town -- $18.00 Member of Ontario Community Newspapers Association and The Canadian Community Newspapers Association. No B.S. for P.O. It's been in three different locations over the years, and has sent and received mail during both World Wars. On June 2 it celebrated its 100th anniverary. "'It," of course, is the Post Office in Schreiber. At the party which was held to celebrate the event, area MP Keith Penner pointed out how essential the Post Off- ice is in a small community like Schreiber, while town Councillor Ed Borutski noted how the P.O. also serves as a meeting place for residents of the community. We often take the Post Office for granted, especially in the case of the one in Schreiber, which has now been around for over a century. Everyone complains when their mail is late or when the postal charges go up--again--but it is only on days like the one last week when we all final- ly realize just how important the Post Office is. Therefore, to Postmaster Barbara McLaughlin and her dedicated staff at the Schreiber office, here's a bit of recognition and even appreciation, for a change. The P.O. in Terrace Bay should also be given its share of credit for a job well done. It may only happen every 100 years or so, but for what it's worth: thanks. By Conrad Felber There's something that has really been bothering me for a while now, and I think the time has come to men- tion it in this space. As some of you may have figured out by my bi-weekly front page re- ports, I regularly cover Terrace Bay Township Council meetings (and, once a month, Schreiber Council as well). Although I publish complete, detailed articles, apparently there are still some folks out there who don't really know too much about munici- pal politics...and that's a shame. In fact, a few of these people have been getting mad at me because of their own ignorance. They attend these Council meetings, say a few words at the end of the session, and are then amazed to read what they said in the following issue of this here Black N' Whi A BIZARRE THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE CHURCH _-- newspaper. They haven't been complaining to me because they've been misquoted, as my stories are always (*ahem*) ac- curate. No, they are usually just upset because their name popped up in a news story and they had never realiz- ed that such a thing might happen. I don't want to dissuade these public-spirited individuals from speaking at Council meetings, but you should all be reminded that if you stand up and say something at an open, public meeting--whether it is in Terrace Bay, Schreiber or anywhere else for that matter--the press (me) is well within its rights to take down what you say and then publish it. I really didn't want to have to say all of this, because now I'm sure we'll never have any more delegations at these meetings, but it's time the facts were told. Besides, I don't know why seemingly every person in this entire area is shy of the media. I've been here for a number of months now, and this puzzle is one I still haven't figured out. Have I not yet won your trust? If not, I guess I haven't been doing my job right (or, horrors, some of you haven't been reading this paper! Naw, that couldn't be). But enough whining. Let's return now to one of my favourite Close To The Edge subjects: booze. I read in a recent issue of the Toronto Star that the provincial government has started a public review of Ontario's drink- ing laws that may lead to a higher drinking age and extended drinking hours in bars and restaurants. I have mixed feelings about the possibility of raising the drinking age, but I must applaud any talk of extend- ing the drinking hours. Aside from _ the fact that such a move is long over- due, it may actually reduce the number of drinking and driving ac- cidents on the road. It's like this...in Quebec, you can drink in a bar until, in some places, four in the morning (compared to 1 a.m. here in puritanical Ontario), and .therefore many Ontarians, after clos- ing their local watering hole, jump in their cars and zip off to Quebec if they happen to live in a border town (like Ottawa or New Liskeard). Now, if they would just stay at home instead, that would mean less trips for them in the car and maybe even a chance to sober up before clos- ing time. Another thing the public review advisory committee should consider is a resolution passed by Terrace Bay ils, Town Council (ooops, we're back to them again) a few months ago. Coun- cil believes the responsibility for the safety and sobriety of people at a licenced event should be on the shoulders of those who have the per- mit and are holding the dance or whatever, and not on the owner of the building where the thing is being held, (that's the current state of aff- airs). Cross your fingers and hope the committee picks up on this idea. Bring back the hammocks By Arthur Black Ever since the snow melted, I've had the uncomfortable feeling that there's something missing from my backyard. Oh, I found the lawnmower. It was right there, where it stalled last October 14th, the after- noon of the first snowfall. The garden hose hasn't moved. It remains coil- ed like a sulky, underfed python, almost hidden by the dandelions and crabgrass on which I swear I will mount a full frontal attack this very weekend. I uncovered the two pairs of horseshoes rusting quietly by what used to be the horseshoe pitch (dandelions got that, too). And I think I can make out at least two and possibly three of the hoops of the Croquet Course which is in the pro- cess of undergoing the same fate as Muccha Pichu, Chitzen Itza and L'Anse aux Meadows -- which is to say that the jungle is reclaiming its own. Good luck to the anthropologist prowling through my backyard a thousand years hence. But still, as I say, there is something missing. It used to fit in right...there...between those two gnarled apple trees. It was homey and familiar -- the very essence of a Cana- dian summer, of lazy days of dozey flies and tall cold drinks on muggy afternoons... My hammock. What happened to my hammock? Wasn't so very long ago that the hammock was the very emblem of that two or three month respite from winter that all Canadians consider to be their birthright. The hammock was a personal sanctuary to which you repaired with a sense of weariness, a sample of your favorite beverage and a less-than-favorite book. You never took a good book to the ham- mock because the object of the exer- cise was not to read; it was to become drowsy as soon as decently possible and drift into a snooze, wafted along by a jam session featuring vocals by a rag-tag combo of orioles, robins and sparrows, all brought to you on a warm, heavenly-scented summer breeze. When I was growing up, back in the Neolithic Pre-Highrise Era, just about every family had a hammock in the backyard. Folks who didn't have a couple trees of a fence post or a porch bannister to screw hammock hooks into could make do with a free- standing tubular steel hammock stand from Canadian Tire. It was a kind of a Johnny-On-The-Job arrangement of metal poles that slipped into one another and arrangement of metal poles that slipped into one another and held the hammock. It wasn't your classic hammock mooring, but it got you off the ground -- and you could set it up anywhere. Can't help but wonder what Sir Walter Raleigh would have thought of the modern portable hammock. Sir Walter was one of the first white men to view the original. In 1596, while visiting the Caribbean, Raleigh wrote about the natives in his ship's log: '*They lay each of them in a cotten Hamaca which we call brasill beds." Sir Walter's spelling may have been a little shaky, but he knew a naval breakthrough when he saw one. For sailors forced to sleep in tiny, pit- ching, rolling wooden ships, the ham- mock was a godsend. No more clut- ching at a straw-filled mattress as it slithered around the cabin -- let the ship heave and ho away. A sailor in a hammock could snore through a gale. Mind you, there's an art to snooz- ing in a hammock, and the first step to master is getting into the thing. The secret of successful hammock entry is to treat it with all the respect you reserve for a shuttle docking in outer space. The first few times you should approach the hammock with both free hands. This allows you to grip both sides of the hammock and avoid an ambarassing, self-induced body slam to the grass in front of the family dog. True masters of the craft (See my book Zen Hammocking and The Art of Hedge Clipping Maintenance) -- can forego the timid two-handed ap- proach and flop into the beast just as ordinary mortals carom into a favorite easy chair. A word of advice however: Don't try it your first time unless your name is Nadia Comaneci or Popeye the Sailor. But hammocking isn't just for gym- nasts and navy men, hammocking is a grand idea for everyone -- so what happened to them? They were everywhere in the 50's... then something happened. I don't know if they succumbed to some variations of Dutch Elm disease, or if a govern- ment study discovered that laboratory ocks for six months develop duodenal tumors ~ all I know for certain is, hammocks disappeared. Stores mysteriously stopped stock- ing them and they gradually vanish-: ed from virtually every backyard on the block. I don't even know what became of my hammock. Maybe the moths go it -- or a collector of Canadiana. Whatever it's fate, I sure miss it. It's a lovely summer afternoon as I write this. My lawn needs cutting. There's some cracks in the driveway I've been meaning to seal; I've got a fence post badly in need of shoring and the kitchen tap is leaking again. Not only that, I've got bills I should pay, letters I ought to write, phone calls to make and I'm bucking a deadline for this column -- why, I don't know how I'll ever get around to it all. But if I had my hammock, I know exactly where I'd start. \