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4 the tribune thursday february 2 1s78 he rtbune john montgomery editor established 1888 charles hnolan publisher bar re be acock advertising manager editorial oept ajuwgrtt lamure kitti bolcodcr display advertising oept lets wmjtmkl art ouofl business office jom marthman dor n dtacoo eiln glover pvmislwd evry thursday at 5 mam st slouhvillt ont tel mo- j 101 toronto phono mihw single copm mc mibxriptions 1000 per year in canada 124 00 elsewhere member of audit bureau of circulation canadian community newipapen association and ontario weekly newipapert association second class mail registration number mm the tribune is one of the inland publishing co limited group ol suburban newspapers which includes the aiaawhitbypickenna news advertiser brampton guardian burlington post etobicoke gaiette markham economist and sun newmarket aurora era oekville beaver oshawa this week andmississauga news 6402100 3611680 about mils anderson jnerga icteric haulage application well we think more study is needed before we make a decision on the terminal zeicl editorials response magnificent it seems everybody is heartily sick of the raging blizzards we have been suffering through this winter but we must admit that these trying conditions do seem to bring the best out in a lot of people a case in point of course is last weeks storm which with its 115 kilometer per hour winds and whiteouts brought traffic to a complete halt a goodly number of motorists some from neighbouring communities and others from hundreds of miles away were stranded in town the legion generously opened up the hall as a temporary hostel while a small group of men and women members hustled up food and bedding for the guests only a small number of legion members 30 years ago this week excerpts from the january 29 1948 issue of the tribune oil mixup if you live in stouffville and buy your furnace oil from a local dealer with storage tanks here the price may be 18c to 18c per gallon the same dealer may have customers south of no 7 highway below markham or unionville and those customers will be serviced from stouffville one cent per gallon less the reason for this peculiar quirk in the sale price of fuel oil is that the whole province is divided into zones furnace oil to city customers and a limited area outside the city obtain the lowest price 17c per gallon and this is stepped up to the zones farther located from the source of supply because stouffville is close to the border line storage tanks located here service two zones and that is the simple explanation why dealers cart furnace oil out of town eight or 10 miles and sell it for less than they charge stouffville customers ice fishing the ice harvest at musselmans lake commenced this week according to carl rose who maintains a sawing outfit and cuts around 8000 blocks per season quality of the ice this year is good as it was last year blocks measure 15 inches in thickness good clear ice mr rose services numerous dairies and many farmers were actually involved but this was not due to a lack of willing helpers but because those initially involved felt they could handle the situation without dragging a lot of other people out into that horrendous storm we have especially kind words for the county breaker club members who used their cbs to direct people to shelter at the legion and to safety in the smaller hamlets as well the club also used snowmobiles to rescue motorists from their stranded cars and they found local accommodation for the motorists who were perhaps a bit too old to sleep comfortably on the floor at the legion many people place cbers in the same category as people who use fuzzbusters and regard them as a group solely interested in getting away with driving at illegal and reckless speeds as far as the county breakers are con cerned though nothing could be further from the truth again and again at acciden aies and in disastrous storms the cbers have proved themselves a responsible group with a sincere interest in providing aid in times of trouble of course it is not just service club members who have risen to the occasion in these trying times we have spoken with several people who reported getting stranded on some rural sideroad in the area invariably the drivers would go to the nearest house and it seems just as invariable that they were immediately invited in and given shelter for the night not to mention the efforts made by police school bus drivers and a host of others who were called upon to perform without this responsive and helpful at titude winter in this climate would be un bearable editors mail human error famous case of the vanishing beard p eases mom dear sir those decision makers at the school board who decided not to run the school buses last friday have my gratitude for erring on the side of caution rather than taking a chance i for one would much rather my children did not risk discomfort injury or possibly worse in a school bus trying to get through a blizzard and whiteouts ann griffiths rr 3 stouffville one rather disconcerting aspect of working on a weekly newspaper is that if you really blow something sooner or later everybody in town is going to know about it this is especially true when the incident appears to some few persons usually those individuals with questionable taste in humour as being uproariously funny such is the famous case of ed macdonald and the vanishing beard the only reason i am divulging this most embarrassing story is as i have already mentioned because almost everybody already knows about it i partially spilled the beans last month in the interview with centennial committee chairman keith sutherland keith i suspect on purpose put me in a rather difficult position i asked him to tell me of any funny in cidents from the centennial and laughing heartily throughout he recounted the rather sad tale of the editor of the local paper who went over to this guys house to take some pictures of the guy shaving off his beard in order to have the mandatory clean start for the centennial beard growing contest i remonstrated that this was hardly a funny story and urged him to take the question a little more seriously and come up with something fit for publication keith just sat chuckling as more details came to mind no to be honest he said a sure indication he was being less than honest that is the only one i can think of and there must be thousands he concluded theatrically rolling his eyes heavenward of course i was in a spot i finally resolved i had to use the anecdote as it was the only one i could get so having already divulged an ab breviated account i might as well tell all ed macdonald as everybody knows is a not very tall and not very thin teacher from orchard park who at that time had a magnificent animal growth of black beard to say that eds beard was merely luxurious is to shamefully underestimate it there were tremendous photographic possibilities in images of eds rotund face contorted this way and that to accept the razor the black beard bristling with shaving cream and the unhewn remnants of beard taking on ever more bizarre shapes there i was perched uncomfortably on the bathroom vanity in a triangular corner bordered by the sink the wall and the bathroom mirror ed was in de rigueur black tshirt deliberately and carefully shaving as two wideeyed little children gawped in at the door at daddy being photographed while shaving my entire weight was perched on one point of one buttock as i tried to balance myself while holding the camera in one hand the flash in the other by john montgomery the pictures were coming very fast ed would delicately pinch his nose with stubby forefinger and thumb haul his head back and have a tug at his moustache i snapped pic tures of threequarter moustaches half moustaches and infinitesimal fractions of moustaches all at close range then i took pictures of faces half cleana shaven and half ferociously bearded and so on even a few arty shots in the mirror until there was nothing left just as ed was scraping away the last remnants of persistent bristle i came to frame number 22 on what i believed to be a 20 picture roll of film with an almost intuitive grasp of the situation i immediately con cluded c something was not right the something turned out to be no film in the camera there was of course no going- back as by this time eds face was smooth as a babys bum other than a few nose hairs he was bereft ed laughed and laughed jim doble now councillor jim dropped by and he laughed and laughed i didnt laugh of course the story spread like wildfire and even now some 10 months later there are still some people around town who never fail to mention it when we meet kids stuff genie warned me not to be greedy one day when i was at the beach i found a bottle the bottle was bright green it shone like a diamond behind the rocks carefully i picked it up and pulled out the cork inside was a tiny genie in a puff of white smoke he floated out of the bottle he started to grow soon he stood right in front of me he said that i could have three wishes but he warned me not to be greedy i sat down and thought finally i decided what i wanted to ask for i asked for gold diamonds and rubies the genie granted my wishes i blinked and there before my eyes were the sparkling treasures i started at the shining rubies and sparkling diamonds running to treasure i started to fill my pockets quickly i dropped the rubies into my hat and filled my shoes too the pieces of gold i stuffed into my socks as i started running for home i tripped over a hidden rock the rubies tumbled out of my hand and the diamonds rolled from my pockets breakfast for ten by jason la mure the situation at the breakfast table was outrageous eight young children helping them selves to whatever they could grab ahold of in the kitchen one sweet young child ran up to his father as he emerged from the stairway and threw his gooey little arms around his dads right leg ruining dads best suit billy thundered dad as he received a milksodden cheerio in the eye dad picked his way through toppling milk containers flying cookies smelly diapers mouldy processed cheese and grimy apple cores he finally made it to the door and the safety of the car he was halfway to work before he realized it was saturday jason is a grade 9 student at sdss two holes were torn in my socks the i warned you not to be too greedy gold dropped into the soft sand i lay on the sand and started to cry this story was writted by mrs robbins behind me i heard the genie laugh and say grade 2 class at orchard park ps fr it crf aiss vfirl ai i iurtetl for home tripweol window on wildlife winged weasel by artbriggsjude l he goes anywhere i go by mike dewitt i was in a rocket ready to take off 10-9- 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1- blasst off here i am in orbit it is scary up here theres the milky way the big dipper and the little dipper i see orions belt well theres my destination i will see you when i land bing bing crash bing well here i am at mars theres a martian he looks funny he is green and has two pieces of string on his square head he is looking right at help me good thinking fido we have no time to lose lets hurry into the rocket and take off home i forgot to tell you about my dog his name is fido he goes anywhere i go mike is a grade 4 student at whit church highland while driving along the bethesda sideroad this past week i noticed a robin sized bird perched on the overhead wires being in no great hurry i eased my vehicle over to the side and focused the field glasses on the long tailed avian as i suspected it turned out to be a shrike an interesting songbird that oddly enough is also a predator that this sinister flyer is much feared by other songsters was soon evidenced when a small flock of wintering goldfinches ap peared in a flash of black and white plumage the shrike sped hawklike into the undulating formation and came within an eyelash of downing one of the small seedeaters after this unsuccessful sorty it returned to perch and scan the landscape for the next un suspecting target when the bird returned to the wire it gave me an added chance to closely study some of its features from the overall gray and black appearance i could see it was a mature bird for last summers young are predominantly brown at this season the black face mask stopping just in front of the eye and the light flecking on the gray sides and flanks told me it was a northern shrike and just to make sure i checked the lower bill sure enough it was lighter in colour than the black notched upper mandible incidentally its this heavy hooked beak that serves as the birds deadly weapon in many instances it uses it to strike its victim a stunning blow to the back of the head or on other occasions to simply grab its prey in a viselike grip for the feet of this peculiar predator are very weak in comparison to other small flesheaters and except for perching play no part in the actual capture unlike the true raptores then that hold their prey with their claws while they tear and devour it the shrike has to rely on other means thus we see nature endowing this species with a unique method to overcome its weakness utilizing any nearby thorn twist of barbed wire or small suitable twigfork the shrike impales its quarry in much the same fashion as a butcher hangs his meat little wonder then that this bold flyer is known by the popular name of butcher bird actually there are two species of butcher bird that can be observed locally the nor thern shrike the larger of the two comes to us only during the winter season from its home in the far boreal forest and because of its winter residence here its prey consists of mice and small birds the loggerhead shrike on the other hand is a summer resident in these parts and as such adds many large insects such as beetles and grasshoppers to its predatory diet at first glance shrikes somewhat resemble mockingbirds with their gray bodies black wings and tails closer ob servation will reveal that while the mocking bird is a slim trim fellow with fine lines the butcher bird is heavy set with a black mask like a bandit another tip to help you identify this sinster songbird from afar is its habit of holding its tail horizontal when perched and quite often flicking it a few years ago i was watching a flock of cedar waxwings as they fed in a clump of highbush cranberry to my surprise a shrike dove into the startled group and flattened oe of the crested birds i ran over to where the downed berryeater lay while the bold assailant showing no fear perched nearby waiting for me to leave on another occasion while walking through an old orchard i spotted a butcher bird perched on a dead limb above a brush pile its attention seemed to be drawn to this clump of cuttings so i decided to wait a bit and see what the bird was up to presentlyit darted down and began hovering over the pile moving from one edge to the other the ground was frozen with a light dusting of snow and soon i was able to make out a mouse scurrying around under the outer edge of the clump as long as the little rodent stayed under that protective cover he was safe so the shrike was trying to scare him out in the open it was then i noticed a freshly impaled meadow mouse on the wire fence beside me so it sure looked like these scare tactics hid already been successful but if the shrike had procured one cache of food why was it so keen on taking a second victim from these an other observations in the past it seems to m these beadyeyed birds do on occassion kill foi a pastime when they do display this trait like their counterparts in he animal kingdonc they could in effect be called winged weasels moving from my observation place behind the trunk of an old apple tree i walkec towards the brush pile the determiner shrike relinquishing its attack flew along the fence row to perch in protest a few posts away stepping on one side of the brushpilei watched the little fat mouse scramble out and crossing the snowpatched ground disappeai under a stack of old baskets