4 thetribine thursday mat 31 1973 established lss chakles ii nolan publisher james thomas associate pubjuhrr and editor robert mccaeslaxd advertising director published every thursday by inland publishing co limited at 54 main st stousftille oct tel 402101 toronto cbone 36116s0 single copies 15c bscrotrs s600 rer var m canada 1500 elsewhere member of audit bureau o circulation canadian community waspapers association and ont ario neeily xexspapers association second class mail registration number 08s6 editorial a roadbuilding blunder iajovej jo be accepted nfo anglcati presfhood aeu em sighs of relief undoubtedly replaced ut terances of disgust late last week when signs of activity were observed at a location on hwy 7 west of 48 i the disheveled site shrouded in blasphemous blue air since early in march must be written into the records as one of the worst manmade road building blunders on file the strange thin about this mess is that the storm that did the damage was no hurricane hazel or even an unexpected cloudburst it was merely a heavy prespring rain that in a matter of hours washed out many weeks of work and poured thousands of somebodys dollars down the drain but whose dollars is the government we the people standing good for someones obvious goof is the contractor paying for repairs out of his own pocket wed like to know perhaps with a little digging markhams man at queens park donald deacon could come up with some facts however he shouldnt be surprised nor would we it the card account related to this phase of the contract is stamped an act of god retire the broom brigade every weekend hundreds of people pass through stouffville while the majority are undoubtedly from metro many are not they come from towns and communities not unlike this one and likely tend to compare theirs with ours i know we do and did only last week during a 3day vacation trip as far west as stratford the thing that impressed us first on en tering individual urban areas was the tidiness of the main street places like preston gait now cambridge had an immaculate appearance in acton however the opposite was true refuse of every description littering the sidewalks and curbs it was sunday noon and i thought of the similarity between acton and stouffville at a similar time in the week our town too leaves much to be desired as a solution we feel the town should budget for the purchase of a mobile sweeper not necessarily an new unit but one that could do the job on a daily basis preferably in the morning when the road is clear of cars the only manualtype labor required in this regard in addition to the operator would be someone to rid the downtown sidewalks of debris every sunday a onehours chore at the most we feel that stouffville the main urban area in a municipality of 12000 has now outgrown the broom and shovel brigade inat still performs this duty on a somewhat irregular basis and in doing this particular job more mechanically a group of employees would be free to perform services in other areas where automation is still not practical i now pronounce you and lahat4hisnawiz wotyan and husband sugar and spice back to the bottle and nappies by bill smiley pathetic parental response several thousand elementary and secondary school students are transported by bus twice daily five days a week in the region of york and while there have been accidents several serious ones the record throughout york is probably as good and perhaps better than most comparable areas in ontario but this does not mean these isnt room for improvement in the drivers and in the vehicles they drive this was the main purpose of the public meeting may 24 in st marks school stouffville it was sponsored personally by mrs ann griffiths and promoted by the whitchurchstouffville ratepayers association the response however was pathetic editors mail dear sir last week i had a petitioner call at our home the question concerned a new library for the town or the completion of repairs to the present one all one had to do was sign on the dotted line no strings attached talking it over later my husband questioned the end result of such a survey why not he suggested request a 10 con tribution from each resident with 1000 contacts sufficient money would be raised to make a start on the project rather- than only talk about it id rather not have my name published i could have everyone down my neck however i still feel such a donation is not that much when one considers the value of such a project j i m dear mr thomas there is no doubt that new library facilities are needed in the town of whit churchstouffville according to the bowron report a professional study commissioned by the board in 1972 it cannot be emphasized too strongly that service is greatly restricted by the present space little expansion of the collection or the services is possible at the present location there is no storage space no meeting rooms no lounge area inadequate study facilities the shelves are crowded together display space is minimal and no public or staff parking is available nearby what services could a new library provide modern library service is more than booklending most libraries now provide multimedia collections with tapes records films microfilms and study facilities for students of all ages in addition a library is becoming a centre for community activities by providing meeting rooms offering its own programs and reaching out to serve special groups such as the handicapped and senior citizens u the library board and a library development committee of interested citizens are working to provide improved library facilities we would like some feed back from you what kind of library service would you like please address replies to mrs doris lapp whitchurchstouffville public library 7 main street east stouff ville a quick head count placed the attendance at 69 and at least a quarter of these had other than a parental interest in the discussion where then were the parents those concerned people who daily place the lives of their children in the hands of bus operators they seldom see and may never know where were the parents who for the past several months have submitted letters of complaint to this newspaper accompanied by recommendations and solutions where were they its alright for individuals or even small groups of individuals to make representation to queens park and ottawa but its the plea thats generated through the masses that will move mountains the pittance of people in attendance last thursday wouldnt push a pebble one minute you are dad in your prime just a broth of a boy taking a breather after raising a family the next you are a grandad doddering heading into the lean and slip pered pantaloon stage thats what happened to me this week over the phone longdistance a familiar and dear voice asked with a giggle hi dad howd you like to be a grandfather immediate reaction was oh no followed at once as i realized the enormity of my mistake by oh yes great the kid then talked to her mother but for some reason didnt mention the main item on the agenda she left that to me when id picked the old lady off the floor fanned her back into consciousness and wiped away the tears the whole thing struck me in its bleak truth here we were not even middleaged except by the calendar my wife still attracts whistles i still have an eye for a thigh at the beach and were about to be plunged into a world of bottles and nappies and colic and constipation and talcum powder at first it seemed as though someone was playing a practical joke but fortunately the stouffvflle i lindsat ir blunderlmd 4 vinvs v- overnight a new community called blunderwood was created according to a highway department signpost west of stouffville the intended location is thought to be in the area of the proposed airport while the individual who erected it remains a mysicry its no secret who took it down jim thomasj resilience of human nature came into play and we bounced back to not only acceptance but anticipation that girl should be right here with me announced her mother if shes as sick as i always was and was she sick she threw up every day all day unntil you could see the insides of her heels this lasted for about four months with each of them it runs in the family her mother was the same i used to bring my wife tea and soup cold drinks and hot and everything came up youd think the babies would appear looking like something out of belsen or buchenwald but then shed settle down eat like hyena for three months and produce a little fatso however maybe the child will escape this modern girls dont seem to do anything the way their mothers did last night she was eating beef as though the last steer in the world had been slaughtered and today she was out raking the lawn anyway im now looking at the positive side i can hardly wait for the kid to arrive ive been watching the television com mercials for those disposable diapers and am keen to have a go at them ive told everybody so often about how i won the war practically singlehanded that all i get now when i casually mention the normandy campaign and the falaise gap is a rolling of eyes which then become utterly apathetic here comes a new listener and then there are the bedtime stories theres nothing finer in life than to blow and burble in the stomach of a freshbathed child bundle it into its nightwear then launch into a story with its eyes wide the occasional chuckle then the eyelids falling and the gentle breathing of deep sleep so i must dust off some of my dandies they were a mixture of mowgli and tarzan and kaa the snake and munkleuncleunky the oldest and wisest monkey in the whole jungle they might have been a little confusing to the adults who had read the books but the kids loved them geography got a bit mixed tigers turned up in africa and gorillas in india but nobody cared sometime i must tell you about how mowgli the wolf boy after seeking the advice of munkleuncleunky scattered a band of marauding elephants by swinging through the tree tops and sprinkling the ground with thumb tacks it was a real gas to see those elephants hopping around on two feet trying to pick out thumbtacks from the other feet with their trunks then theres going to be the fun of teaching the little blighter all sorts of things if its a boy ill teach him to fish and swim if its a girl ill teach her to swim and fish their grannie can teach then all the other things everything from playing mozart sonatas to making out the income tax returns shes much better at practically everything that i so she says anyway maybe itll be twins i have a vision of the old lady and me she sitting with the boy on her lap i with the girl on mine burping them on a saturday night while their mother is out on the town one thing worries me what kind of a world is the little stranger going to grow up in i hope the general outlook improves by about 300 per cent in the next ten years or its not going to be a pretty place to be young in theres only seven and a half months tu go wouldnt it be a real bummer after ive adjusted so well and made all these plans if it turned out to be a false alarm ffiuun kitchen calisthenics by jim thomas when i arrive home for meals sometimes early but usually late i expect everything to be ready and waiting and so do the kids we all rush in toss offf our coats and head straight for the table no one ever thinks of the planning and the problems in preparing a bountious repast for six hungry people three times a day we look on thechief cook and bottle washer as a kind of modernday samantha stevens you know zap like magic breakfast dinner and supper nothing to it but i really know better at least i should for i endured a firsthand experience related to the toils and tribulations of meal- making when my wife was in the hospital with neil in all my life i never went through such a frustrating time to cut corners i stuffed the kids so full of cereal they had corn flakes oozing out of their ears but that was almost five years ago time for a family to forget were just as deman ding as ever but lesson two in kitchen calisthenics is now take shape daughter susan is en deavoring to win her cooks badge as a member of the 2nd company stouffville girl guides the deadline date is tuesday june 5 and the rush is on however here again all the male spectators around our house dad included figure the test is merely a simple flick of a switch and presto job over no fuss no muss but were learning slowly mind you that its not all that easy susans learning too requirements include prepare and serve a twocourse meal with one hot dish prepare two eggs two different ways prepare meat fish or poultry any two using two methods prepare one cooked fruit cook three types of vegetables prepare one milk pudding prepare one cooked cereal prepare one bakery product make gravy prepare a cream soup make one salad serve tea coffee or cocoa any two and thats it one cooks badge sounds simple on paper but it takes a certain culinary skill a talent i dont possess for example ever tried to peel a potato no susan hadnt either and on her first attempt she had bits and pieces flying all over the place the next catastrophe was losing the gravy spoon in the gravy a common thing im told and later a lesson on how to dissolve the lumps in a batch of cream of wheat the most hilarious episode concerned something called a tossed salad by the time she was through most of it had been tossed around the room under the pressure of smart remarks and prying eyes most girls would have given up in disgust but not our susan for shes a determined kind of gal a lot like her father she just kept right on stirring and mixing unmindful so it seemed of suggestions from the sidelines our evening meal sunday was a wee bit late about seven oclock to be exact but it was worth the wait for the roast was done just right and the potatoes umm fairly melt in your mouth so it now seems certain her cooks badge is in the bag i only hope her next test of skill pertains to plumbing then maybe our dadblamed toilet will stop flooding and start flushing