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The Editorial Page Studies of historic sites should be mandatory before construction On Monday morning a race against time began in Tay Township to preserve part of this area's heritage before it is lost forever. Archaeologists from Midland, Pickering and 18 Junior Rangers from Camp Hendrie collected in a sand pit near Waubaushene to attempt to save the remains of a 425-year-old Huron Indian Village before work progresses too far on the extension of Highway 400. The area is currently being used as a sand quarry by the construction company working on the extension of the highway. The company has assisted the ar- chaeologists by moving its machinery away from the ancient village site. However, by the end of the week, sand supplies should dwindle enough that they will be forced to move their equipment back into the area. The construction company, until they were informed by the archaeological team of the possible treasures hidden under the property, were not aware of the site's significance The question is why? Local archaeologist James Hunter, who is heading the team at the excavation, filed a report two years ago with the Ontario Ministry of Culture and Recreation which catalogued every potential Huron site, in- cluding the one near Waubaushene Somewhere along the line, the Ministry of Natural Resources gave the go ahead for this project to the construction firm without any knowledge that there was a_ possibility historic artifacts may lay buried in the vicinity. Obviously this must be seen as com- munications between our provincial ministries at its worst. Congratulations should be extended to the construction people for allowing the ar- chaeologists to go into the area to salvage what they can. It would appear to us it is up to the ministries of our provincial government to realize, through the work of people like Mr. Hunter, that there is potential for uncovering the past before construction crews go into these areas to do their work. We would recommend that in an area such as Simcoe County archaeological studies become a mandatory part of any such con- struction project. We have paved over enough of the past already. Letters to the editor Thanks to reporter for assistance in hiring students Dear Terri Howell: The Canada Manpower Centre for Students would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your participation in Hire-A-Student Week. You will be pleased to note that our Statistics indicate a record breaking week for both regular and casual placements. The 1978 Centre will be in operation for approximately two more months. Having been involved in our Centre's operation--you are definitely our best advertising agents. If a neighbour, friend, or relative needs help remember our slogan--"Hire a Student for an hour, a day or a month. It's the Oppor- tunity of a Summertime'"'. Thank you for your interest. Yours very truly, (Mrs.) Ruth Lamoureux Director Canada Manpower Centre for Students County planning editorial was off base Dear Editor, Your Times editorial (July 12) in which you knock county planning efforts seems a classic example of not being able to see the forest for the trees. What is the basic issue? Is it how the area is planned? Or, is it who does the planning? The community planning process is at best the wisest use of the various resources within a given area. The '"'resources" can be many and varied, from human resources to financial to geological. At worst, planning can be and often is the imposing of one in- dividual's or group's biases upon others. No municipality or area can be effectively planned having no regard for those jurisdictions adjacent to its boundaries or even elsewhere within a political entity be it County, Region or the peninsula group of municipalities to ignore efforts at County planning, has to be the height of absurdity. If the concern is instead "who is going to do the planning" it is relevant to look back only a few short years and recall the uproar when the Area Planning concept first began. Like children playing alleys on the street, there were wails of outrage when the new kid on the block (the area planners) began to pick up some of the marbles. Now it seems the shoe is on the other foot--the county planners want a piece of the action and look who is doing the crying. Whether or not county, or as you imply regional, planning has merit is the million dollar question that Barrie and Innisfil taxpayers will be answering through their tax bills for the next several years, but for a town that is part of the county family of municipalities to flagrantly thumb its nose at the rest of the county's planning efforts is juvenile and lacking even in common courtesy. As a non-Midland resident, I defend the right of Midlanders to elect and appoint whomever they wish to administer their municipality. And if they prefer an ad- ministration that seems to function like some sort of political "gong show" that is their right also. But for your newspaper to fall so far short of its potential by taking a stance that looks to be simply currying favour with city hall is disappointing. One of the cruelties of life is that as some people reach the golden years of wisdom, senility is inflicted upon them and they revert to childish pastimes. Do icipalities in their centennial years also begin a second childhood? It would seem So. Yours very truly, Ron Jones The story of the ept and the inept Opposites attract, they say. Thus males marry females, gregarious people marry misanthropes, careful planners marry dingbats and the ept marry the inept. Those of us who are functionally inept do our best to keep that fact a secret from the world, but of course we can't because we're incompetent. After months of tennis lessons, the inept are still unable to hit a watermelon with a flyswatter. We have shelves full of cookbooks, and kitchens abloom with Cuisinarts and wooden spoons, and still our Beef Wellington comes out looking like an ambitious Shepherd's pie. The inept are constantly mistaking tins of cat food for tins of sockeye salmon, and con- sequently their refrigerators are full of stinking leftovers The inept spend hours getting ready for a party and arrive with an inch of petticoat hanging down, and toothpaste dribbles on the bosom The inept go all to pieces in public phone booths where they drop their dimes, and get their elbows all tangled up in the folding doors. Inepts always get one red sock in with the white T shirts on laundry day. They habitually store precious things in green garbage bags and are dismayed when those bags disappear into the maw of the sanitation truck, The inept take pictures with no film in the camera. They forget where they parked the car. They lose their bankbooks. They affix postage stamps upside down. But the inept of the world serve a noble purpose by Shirley Whittington We are the ones who make the rest of you look good. This is why competent people marry incompetents. Even when you're very good at everything you need reassurance and when you live with a terminal bumbler, you look good all the time. I reflected on this last week, after a spectacular snafu. It was late on the afternoon of June 30. I bought a flag. When you buy a flag, that's what you get--a flag--a piece of slippery nylon cloth the size of a small bedspread. How you get it up to catch the fine Canadian breeze is up to you. I should have known that this was a job for the Squire (who is one of the ept). But remember--I said it was late afternoon on June 30. If I'd consulted the Squire he would have frowned thoughtfully, and measured and made a list and gone to the hardware store for the proper fittings. He would have made or bought a flagpole, and sanded it and painted it and the whole (correct) process would have taken at least a week. A certain impatience is a characteristic of the inept. Accordingly I took my project down to the basement, in secret. I drilled holes in one of the posts from the kids' volleyball set. Using pliers and the garden shears and some scotch tape and an old skipping rope, I mounted the flag on the pole and ina trice it was hanging from the upstair balcony. I clattered down the stairs, gathering family members as I went. We all rushed out into the middle of the road to admire our new flag, up in time for Canada Day. Nobody saluted. Nobody even said anything except our daughter. "Is there any special reason," she asked sweetly, "why you're flying it upside down?" "T think it's a distress signal," said one of the other kids thoughtfully. We all looked at the Squire and said "Help!" He fixed it. He messed around with the right tools and right fitments, and the flag is up again, flying correctly and he feels pretty smug about it. As in most wildly opposite partnerships, things worked out pretty well. Patriotism is served, the flag looks good, and so does the Squire. " We're boring on the whole CANADIANS, on the whole, are probably the most boring conversationalists in the entire world. I don't say that idly, merely to put backs up. I say it from agonizing personal experience. It's not because we are a dull people, though we are. It's not because we're stupid, because we aren't. It seems to be based rather on a sort of philistinism that labels interesting conversation as a "cissy"' pastime, fit only for dilettantes, idealists, Englishmen of a certain background, educated Europeans and other such in- tellectual trash. Next time you're at a dinner party or any similar gathering, lend an ear. The dialogue will depress you deeply. Perhaps the real fault lies in the fact that we are basically a nation of materialists, and that we have become more and more so, with the withering of the churches and the in- creasing affluence of our society. Our topics of conversation change with the The Midland Times The Penetanguishene Citizen and The Elmvale Lance Published every Wednesday morning by Markle Community Newspapers Limited 15 Queen Street West, Elmvale, Ontario Andrew Markle, publisher Victor Wilson, general manager Rod McDonald, Managing Editor Howard Elliott, Citizen Editor Judy French, Lance Editor Subscription Rates: Home Delivery: 20c Weekly, $10.40 Year BR ADIAN COMMUN AM Eo Subscription rates: $9.50 (Can.) per year in advance $24.00 USA or foreign Audit Bureau of Circulations require that subscriptions be paid in advance. Second Class Mail Registration Number 0991 Member, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and Canadian Weekly Newspaper A Member of Audit Bureau of Circulations A4, Wednesday, July 19, 1978 decades, but remain awesomely inane in their content. A few decades ago, men could talk for hours about cars and hockey, while women chattered incessantly about children and recipes. Nowadays, the men talk about real estate and boats, and women go on and on about Women's Lib and the trip abroad they have just taken or are just about to take. And they all say the same thing, or near enough. All of them, especially the men, are ab- sorbed by their vocations, the sadistic cruelty of the revenue department, and their latest acquisition, whether it's a power cruiser or a swimming pool in the backyard. Get a gaggle of editors together and dicy talk shop, golf, and how much advertising linage they carried last year. Seldom a word about a powerful editorial campaign they are going to launch to halt an evil or promote a good. Dig up a deliberation of doctors, put a glass in each hand and listen to the drivel about the iniquities of medicare, the ingratitude of patients, the penal taxes they pay, and the condominium they just bought down south. Not a Best nor a Banting in the bunch. Lawyers are just as bad. They may be a bit by Bill Smiley more sophisticated than the doctors, but they're just as dull. Dropping hints of inside dope on politics. Obsessed by the possibility of getting a judgeship or at the very least, a Q.C. Criers of the blues about the taxes they pay. A party of politicians is even worse. Jostling for attention, Back-slapping everything that is warm and breathing, needling the enemy, seeing everything in black and white. "'They're black; we're white." Joe Clark likes westerns on TV. It figures. The big shoot-out, and let the bodies of bystanders fall where they may. Behind the politicians, but not tar, are the civil servants. Empire builders, defenders of the status quo. Everything in quadruplicate. Everything secret. The public is the enemy. Always go through channels. Keep your nose clean. Don't get a black mark on your record. Dull, dull. Ah, ha! The farmers have been sitting back enjoying this. They're every bit as bad as the rest. It's the government's fault. It's the chain stores' greed. It's the fickle public. It's the weather: too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet; or, if the weather is perfect and the crops are superb, it's taking too much out of the land. Business men are just as culpable of devastating dullness in their conversation. Too many forms to fill out. Lazy clerks. Second-rate workmen. Those dam' shopping plazas on the edge of town. Manufacturers are in the same boat. Wages are too high. Can't get parts, what's the matter with those people? Too much absenteeism on Monday morning. Profit down .03 per cent last year. Can't compete with those lousy foreigners who work for peanuts. Too much government interference. Dentists ditto. They are just as dull as the others, but they commit the crime of asking a particularly dull question when your mouth is so full of junk that all you can do is grunt, and then think you are interested and agreeing with their platitudes, when what you are trying to say is, "Shut up, turkey." As you know, I always save the best to the last. When it comes to dullness supremo in conversation, I have to hand it to the teachers. They go on and on and on about some kid who just won't do his homework, or some meaningless memo from the office, or some student who decided to spend a nice June day in God's great out-of-doors instead of in a dull classroom with a dull teacher. Maybe I've been harsh in this somewhat blanket condemnation. Certainly none of my friends are dull conversationalists. Maybe that's why I have so few friends. Or perhaps my remarks are based on pure envy. I haven't got a condominium in Florida. I haven't even a row-boat, let alone a cruiser. I haven't a two-car garage, though I have two cars, eighteen years old between them. That's it. Jealousy. I don't have a swim- ming pool or a little place--just forty acres, mind you--in the country. My wife is as near to nuts as can be. One kid is a missionary in Paraguay, the other can't get a job. That's why I can't stand around with the doctors and lawyers, etc., and commiserate with them on the fact that the price of steak is 8oing absolutely out of reach of the ordinary professional man making only forty-five thou a year. ie Fr ee ee Terri Howell What If magnetic? An enterprising entrepreneur has come up with relief for women who want to wear earrings but can't stand the pinching of the "clip-ons" or the pain of having their ears jerced. oie took the simplicity of the magnet and combined it with an earring to come up with a new magnetic earring. The decorative bauble goes on the front of your lobe and the magnet on the back. ? What the idea could lead to is mind boggling! If the consuming public goes for magnetized earrings, why not magnetic spectacles, magnetic stockings, pens that stick to your fingers and wigs that never come off? Fit glasses When an optician fits you for a pair of glasses he could insert two tiny magnets behind your ears. The arms of your glasses could have a small piece of metal attached to them. When your glasses are brought within seven inches of your face they would be jerked out of your hands and pulled on your face. All the disco dancing in the world won't make them budge. And what about the problem of slipping, bagging knee socks. A small magnetic strip could be taped around your calves. The socks could have a thin band of metal in them. You would only have to clear your toes and your socks would leap into place. As time goes by, bigger and better things could be magnetized. Think how easy it would be to parallel park your car if the hubcaps were made of the right metal and the curbs lined with huge magnets. Magnetize world The problems of magnetizing the world are as, mind boggling as the idea itself! Imagine wearing two south poles on your knees and meeting a well to do dignatary on the street with two north poles on. Instantly you would be joined at the knees unable to move. What would his wife think? Or suppose you are bent over the meat counter looking at some fresh chicken breasts with a collection of little south poles under your wig. A collection of north poles bends over to peek at the thighs and sud- dently you are joined in a head lock. Or suppose you had a south pole on one ear and a north pole on the other. All day you'd walk the streets looking like Dumbo the Elephant as your ears vainly try to meet. On the other hand it would be tough trying to kiss and hug your boyfriend if your sun hats were both held on with south poles. Your lips just wouldn't meet. Similarly, imagine trying to shake someone's hand if you both had north pole pen holders on your index fingers. You'd be more likely to slap each other's face as your hands were driven un- controllably away. Magnetic fields And as the world became magnetized scientists would find that wearing magnets creates hundreds of tiny magnetic fields around you that affects orbiting satellites, destroys the atmosphere and causes cancer in magnetized rats over a 25-year period. The headlines in Hollywood's national gossip magazines would read "Burt Reynolds made sterile from wearing magnetized underwear" and "Magnetized shoes make you three inches taller." Stores selling magnetized items would be constantly chasing merchandise around the stores. The magnetized socks would take off for the magnetized underwear. The earrings would head for the spectacles and the shoes would head for the curb outside when the door was open. Imagine the jumble that would have to be sorted out. And think how easy it would be to turn criminal. Your magnetized index finger pen holder could pick pocket money, you could undo your neighbour's freshly done beehive hairdo by sucking the bobby pins out of her head and you could lift your pant legs in a store and hundreds of pairs of socks would come on the run. New companies New companies would start up. Magnet tefurbishers would open on the main street. Once a month you could take all your magnetized items in to be strengthened. Special units would be set up to pull unassuming victims of similar poles apart. Fly by night manufacturers would set up weallwent 9 factories and make cheap imitations of good \ magnets. The idea of magnetic earrings appeals to me. I wish I had thought of it so I could be basking on a Virgin Island beach and fanning myself with my money. This column would be the farthest thing from my mind. I hate pain and the thought of having a sharp needle poked through my sensitive lobe sickens me. I'm one of those people that keeps a clip-on on for 10 minutes and either I lose it or I tear it off when my ear turns blue. Reliable sources say the magnetic earrings are hard to lose and don't hurt to wear. Hats off to the inventor. I just hope magnetization doesn't go to the nation. ®