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Page 4, News, Tuesday, June 23, 1992 Editorial eee Tal. 825-3747 # The Terrace Bay - Schreiber News is published every Tuesday by Laurentian Publishing Limited, Box 579, Highway 17 at Mill Road, Terrace Bay, Ont., POT-2W0 Fax: 807-825-9233. Office hours Tuesday-Friday, 9-5. Second class mailing permit 0867. Member of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association and the Canadian Community Newspaper Association. Just a little bit of understanding can go a long way French class was easy in grade two, the first year I remem- ber studying the language. Mr. Robinson, our quite english french teacher, had a Jerry Lewis-like sense of humour, which is, I guess, mandatory for the profession. His teaching method basically consisted of acting out words as he said them in french, and we had to guess what the word was in english. For example, he would look heavenward in dreamy pleasure, dancing around the room as pretended to chew on a piece of candy which, of course, was "le bonbon". Then he would act like a chimpanzee, screeching hysterically, scratching his armpits, pretending to peel a banana, which was, of course, "la bananne." Not exactly classic comedy, but then again, pretty much everything's funny when you're in the second grade. It was low pressure happy-fun class, and to boot, he'd give us candies for correct answers. We didn't learn much french, but we had a lot of fun. It wasn't until elementary school that studying french became a chore. And what a chore. Verb tenses were piled upon verb tenses; nouns, for some archaic reason, had gender; past tense verbs took an "é"; and on and on. It was all too con- fusing. Happy-fun class no more. Gone too was the congenial Mr. Robinson, who was replaced by the austere and downright cross Madame Bertrand. Unlike the former, who exploded in orgasms of joy at a correct answer, Madame Bertrand mostly scowled at her unmotivated students, who were learning to hate the french language more and more as each class passed by. What is it about english-speakers that makes us notoriously resistant to learning how to speak other languages? How many times have we heard that french being "shoved down our throats"? In fact, the only thing being shoved down the throat of English Canada are nonsense misconceptions like that. I have met a whole lot more french speaking people who have learned english than the other way around, so I can only won- der what language is being shoved down who's throat. If we don't want to learn french, we don't have to, and can get by just fine without it, thank you. I can go to B.C. to work, or Newfoundland, or Omaha for that matter. The only barrier in my way is finding a job. But think of the plight of a unilingual francophone. Outside of Quebec, where are they going to get a job? Once they leave their province, they may as well be in Germany or Sweden. The realities of their world force most Quebeckers to gain a minimum proficiency in english, a fact that has led, I'm sure, to more than a little resentment. Quebeckers--and all french-speakers in Canada--are sur- 'rounded by an english-speaking world. Couple that with the fact that the province has one of the lowest birth-rates in the Western world, and what you get is a worried society. So it's not that surprising that a siege mentality has sprung up in Quebec, a resistance to all things that are english. Like signs, for example. Single copies 50 cents. Subs. rates: $18 per year. Seniors $12 (local); $29 per year (out of 40 mile radius); $38 in U.S. Add GST to yearly subs. EION .«.c..c555<08008 uy Advertising Rep Canad Se |25 -- Admin. Asst...... Publishev.............. A. Sandy Harbinson Advertising Mgr....Linda R. Harbinson wtitee Darren MacDonald esi' Cheryl Kostecki (eiieiindine Gayle Fournier #CNA Cc cn -- Fantasy a switch from reality If it's not too personal, I'd like to take up my allotted half page today by telling you about a couple of women in my life. Suzanne and Heloisa their names are--one's French Canadian, the other Brazilian. They both fluttered into my life more than 30 years ago. I've been haunted by them ever since. I thought about them, dreamt about them, fantasized and even hummed songs about them off and on for the past three decades. But I never laid eyes on either of them until last week. The French Canadian one is Suzanne Verdal. There was a photo of her in the paper last Wednesday. It showed her packing her belong- ings into the back of a Chevy four- © by-four. She's leaving Montreal 4 and heading for California. A By weird coincidence, the same newspaper carried a photo of § Heloisa three days later. She's as Fi tall and statuesque as I'd imagined, but with long platinum hair curling over her shoulders. Funny. I'd always pictured her with chestnut-coloured hair. But then I'd never even known her name was Heloisa until I saw her picture in the paper. To me she was simply The Girl From Ipanema. Anyone under the age of 35 who's still read- ing this might as well move right along to the Classified Ads section now. I realize that The Girl From Ipanema probably means nothing to you. Or perhaps I'm wrong. The song was on the hit parade for ages. Even today once in a while, pushing my cart around the supermarket aisles. I will hear those familiar lyrics tall and tan and young and lovely the girl from Ipanema goes walking... oozing out of the store speakers, wrapped in curdling strands of Muzak. I, along with several hundred million other male earthlings, promptly fell head over heels in love with The Girl From Ipanema. A woman I had never seen. ae Arthur Black A woman who frankly, I didn't believe really existed. But I was mistaken. The Girl From Ipane- ma was a 16-year-old student in Rio de Janeiro whose name was Heloisa Eneida de Menezes Paes Pinto (no wonder he just called her 'the girl'). And she really did walk to the beach past the besotted eyeballs of a music composer by the name of Tomas Jobim. Jobim saw her, felt his heart strings strum a major chord, sat down and wrote the famous song. It changed Jobim's life of course. A number one hit song will do that--but it changed Heloisa's life too. She became The Girl for : life. It became her whole per- } sona. It turned her from a i human being into a product. Today, The Girl From | Ipanema runs her own publici- ; ty firm and modelling agency. i She appears in Brazilian soap f operas and does celebrity 4 endorsements. A few years ago she even hosted a talk show on which she invited guests to join her for an interview in her hot tub. And the French Canadian heart-throb? Suzanne Verdal? You guessed it-she's the Suzanne made famous by Leonard Cohen in the song of the same name. Tums out Suzanne did not really know Leonard Cohen that well. She feels he kind of used her. In fact, reading the newspaper story you get the feeling Suzanne thinks Canada kind of used her. After a court battle with Hydro-Quebec over an unpaid electric bill for $5,000, Suzanne became disillusioned with life in the Great White North and applied for a U.S. visa. Frankly, Suzanne sounds like she could be a flaming pain in the butt. And The Girl From Ipanema sounds like she'd be about as much fun on a date as my accountant. Of course, I'm not exactly the pompadoured, flat-bellied, swivel-hipped stud I was thirty years ago, either.