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Page 4, News, Wednesday, June 8, 1988 | TERRACE BAY | SCHREIBER The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published every Wednesday by: Laurentian Publishing Co. Ltd., Box 579, Terrace Bay, Ontario, POT-2WO. Telephone: (807) 825-3747. Second Class Mailing Permit Number 0867 Editot............ Se eles ecat vedi ctud sé foasasesvacesteeoesncinvecweocace Greg Huneault - General Manager/Advertising...............ccccsssccssensenes Paul Marcon Administrative Assistant.............:ccsssssssssssseeneensen Gayle Fournier Production Assistant.............. bp vinct Uaioe sagegevaeuerceacees Carmen Dinner Single copies 40 cents Subscription rates per year in town $15.00/yr. two years $25 out of town $21.00/yr. Member of Ontario Community Newspapers Association and The Canadian Community Newspapers Association (*@CNna Recreation Centres are the hearts of our communities Congratulations to Joe Kostecki. It should make all proud to see one of the "local boys" do well in athletic competition. To win a competition such as power lifting that Joe claimed the title to, one must have a great deal of deter- mination and dedication. Obviously, Mr. Kostecki has both of these admirable qualities. However, for those who which to excel and be the best they can be, it requires physical necessities as well. Proper and sufficient equipment, roomy and clean facili- ties and the financial resources necessary to see that those residents who want them are just as important. There was colourful and lively debate between Terrace Bay councillors and weight lifting enthusiasts at a council meeting three months ago. Joe spoke for the group of weight lifters when he complained about lack of space and a few of the regular athletes having to do some basic repair work. Concerns were raised over the lack of space and increase of potential injuries from having too many grunting, sweating and screaming bodies in one room. When the chalk dust settled, the weight room was expanded, and now the weight lifters are engaged in money-raising events to buy even more equipment. It must be that same driving determination that helped Joe win. Dean Main, co-ordinator of the Terrace Bay Recreation Centre, referred to the complex as the "focal point of the community." Indeed, it is the heart of a small community. The Schreiber Recreation Centre was packed to the candy floss-stained walls for the Acrobats of the Pagoda. Hundreds of excited people joined together in the build- ing to share an evening of fun and fantasy. Although it was just swept under the rug for another few months, curling season is a social highlight for many local residents, and one can bet that plans are already being discussed about how to guard the house next sea- son. How many children have learned to. skate -- and more importantly how to break a fall -- on the rec centre ice? Public swimming allows a dad and his son or daughter the chance to share learned secrets of the dog paddle in a safe, clean environment at the local in-ground pool. Recreation centres serve many purposes. They are meeting places for community leaders and concerned citi- zens to plot out plans for ways to improve the community and the lives of those who live in it. A concerned committee clashes over priorities in the conference room, while a girl runs into the multi-purpose room to meet her new boyfriend. Down the hall, a mother and her small son walk along the rows of books in the library to get a book on cars "cause the teacher said I could." There's a lot going on in your recreation centre. See for yourself. You are invited to write a letter to the editor. The purpose of "Letters to the editor" is to provide a forum for public discussion on any sub- ject. Your letter can state a fact, or present ideas or suggestions on any issue about which you or others feel strongly. Letters are greatly encouraged; however, the editor reserves the right to edit content as a last resort if deemed necessary. Address letters to: Letter to the Editor Terrace Bay/Schreiber News P. O. Box 579 Terrace Bay, Ontario. POT 2W0 All letters must be signed. build for full-sized human bodies. Here's a chilling statistic culled from the pages of a recent edition of Harper's magazine: Combined number of hours Los Angeles motorists waste each day in traffic jams: 100,000. A hundred thousand hours each day. That's more than 4,000 days! Nearly twelve years of collective inaction! Think of it. All those drivers in all those cars sitting, steaming, fuming...Going nowhere and doing nothing -- aside from force feeding their ulcers and polluting the environment. I think about that statistic quite a bit -- but then I have time to, because Fate and economics dictate that I, too, must commute to a large metropolis several times a week in order to keep myself in Skippy peanut butter and hold the Revenue Canada weasels at bay. In my case, the metropolis is Toronto. Not as freeway festooned or concrete-crazed as Los Angeles, but getting there, getting there, If I drive, I can count on running into the first forest of winking red brake lights about 30 miles due west of Toronto City Hall. After that, it's anybody's guess. On a bad day it can be stop-and-go with extra helpings of the former. On a great day I might even be able to leave it in fourth gear. But I'm lucky. I don't have to endure the horrors of big city traffic. I can drive 12 miles from my house to.a nearby town and catch a Gray Coach bus that'll carry me right to the heart of Hogtown. On a good day. On a normal day, the bus gets snarled in the same traffic jam I took the bus to avoid. Except on the bus, I have to sit through it in a steel tube full of strangers, each of us jack- knifed into seats built for anorexic dwarves. Which levels me with a third option (aside from moving or myself of the services of Via Rail. Yes there's a train depot just half a block from the bus Seats that recline and even, if the conductor isn't looking, swivel around, for a couple of beers and a good yak. Yes, my train even has bar service. The scenery is captivating, the company is convivial, the coffee is hot, and the beer is cold... taking the train to the city would be absolutely perfect if only, if only... ¥ terminal. The passenger trains If only it worked. It doesn't. Not very well anyway. Those comfortable old railway cars are really old -- 35 years each, on average. They should have been retired to stud # years ago. Instead, thanks to " hostile and forked-tongued federal regimes -- Tory and Grit -- the wheezy old carriages have been pressed into service well beyond their capacity. They break down a Arthur Black lot. And anybody who has to punch a clock or keep that run to the Big Stoke appointments just can't rely on the feature those grand old plush _ train to get them there. Via Rail...today's answer to the purgatory of traffic-jamming take it because my work hours are flexible, the train schedule (such as it is) in convenient, and because even with the breakdowns, the delays and the no-shows, Via Rail is by far the best way to get from where I live to the city without enduring the hideous purgatory of traffic jams. The irony is that right out behind my house, which is deep in the country, there's a railway line. It's getting harder to find each year. The tracks are rusting, the ties are trotting and grumbling, the dogwood and twitchgrass are slowly crotcheting a shroud that will one day cover the track bed. Once upon a time I could have walked out my door, hailed that train, climbed aboard and availed myself of a passenger train network that would have whisked me, cheaply and efficiently, to Toronto or Vancouver or Lunenburg or just about anywhere on the continent. But that was a long time ago. Sixty or seventy years at least.