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wmmmmm sa4 wednesday february 8 1984 editors mail concerned dear mr thomas the observation by the centennial college teacher re the missing apos trophe in cards hardware sign was both interesting educational and amusing i too noticed the mistake but since proper use of the apostrophe was al ways a problem of mine in school i didnt want to pass comment without being absolutely sure the teacher is to be commended for her aboveboard approach and graydon card is to be congratulated on his willingness to co operate a less understanding businessman could well have said who cares however some people do care as a parent sandie barnard is the kind of instructor id like to have teaching my children sincerely reta bell gormley rr 1 important dear editor sandie barnard of centennial col lege is obviously a signwatcher many of us are its amazing the things one sees when driving through the country side and the spelling one cant help but wonder if were a nation of illiter ates here are a few examples of misspel led signs i can remember for sale- four rabitts availableroom and bored guiltedged investments auc tion sale of holsteen cows rode island red hens for sale work wantedwill do anythink and for salebaled hey there are hundreds more one sees them everywhere theres concern among parents about schools turning out a generation of poor spellers obviously many of usdontset very good examples sincerely irma booth rr 3 stouffville ontario community assk james thomas editor the tribune established 1888 bruce annan publisher pat pappas advertising manager editorial dept jim holt audrey green display advertising dept bryan armstrong terri bernhardt real estate classified advertising joan marshman circulation manager doreen deacon h national sales representative metroland corporate sales 4931300 published every wednesday by metroland printing publishing distributing at 54 main st stouffville ont tel 6402100 single copies 40 subscriptions 1650 per year in canada 4500 elsewhere member of canadian community newspapers association ontario weekly newspaper associ3tionontario press coun cil and suburban newspaper of america second class mail registration number 0896 the stouffville tribune is one of the metroland group of suburban newspapers which includes the acton free press the aurora banner ajaxpicfcering news advertiser the botton enterprise the brampton guardian the burlington post the burlington weekend post the etobicoke advertiserguardian the georgetown independent markham economist sun the milton champion tre mississauga news the newmarket era the north york mirror oakville beaver oakville friday beaver oshawa this week oshawa this weekend richmond hill liberal thomhill liberal the scarborough mirror the stouffvilig tribune and woodbridge liberal metroland printing publishing distributing is a division of harlequin enterprises limited 6402100 6402101 roaming around an eaglejust a hawk by jm thomas- editorials start in the schools whitchurchstouffvilles an anglo- saxon community not entirely but close to ninety per cent this cannot be said of areas like mil- liken mills thomhill unionville and the former town of markham they are now multicultural communities predomi nantly so those districts bordering metro toronto this can and should be a learning ex periencea pleasant learning experi ence however an adjustment is often required and this adjustment must begin in our schools fortunately children ad just more easily than adults in fact in this regard we oldsters have a lot to learn from our kids to make for better understanding be tween races colors and creeds the prin cipal and staff at dicksons hill school is planning a novel program on the even ing of feb 23 the school is holding a multicultural night theyre calling it caravan at this event open to the public the students will display some thing of their cultural backgrounds through music dances dress whatever means they chose it should prove an enlightening and entertaining evening more than 60 per cent of the enroll ment at dicksons hill school comes from markham this makes for a multi cultural environment because mar kham is a multicultural town to prom ote a better understanding of the gifts each has to offer the boys and girls are being encouraged to display their multi cultural talents in public we trust the program will prompt a positive re sponse this winters been a birdwatchers paradise at least for me j weve never had so mahybirds in our backyard and such variety im continually kidding jean the reason it takes her so long to do the dis hes is she spends too much time staring out the window at the menagerie of feathered friends vieing for position on our feeder she could retaliate but never does that i spend more time peering at the sparrows than playing with the kids which is true i find everything alive in winter very fascinating even sparrows back in early december when the cold and snow arrived with a vengeance i made myself a promise the birds would not go hungry even if i had to mortgage the house to buy a hundred pounds of seed so far ive kept my word and the in vestment has paid off like you wouldnt believe it helps too that our immediate neighbor vic and gertrude little enjoy a similar pasttime the birds travel in flocks from one feeding station to the other while weve yet to see anything rare i mean really rare even a pair of cardin- als is enough to bring the entire family to the viewing stand because the perch on our tree feeder is small the larger birds like mourning doves and blue jays have difficulty hang ing on so ive used our bird bath to good advantage the flat surface allows them to stop and eat to their hearts content snow presents a problem here however so i hold back on handouts until after the weatherman has sounded the allclear being a bit of a nature nut i some times get the idea that we and our neigh bor are the only ones helping the birds span the starvation period between fall and spring but were not a trip around town reveals feeders everywhere back yards front yards side yards every place possible stouffville has always been noted for its generosity and this obviously includes birds the whole communitys a veritable sanctuary all winter long while im not a birder to the extent i keep a count of every specimen i see its no secret that something different would send me soaring into an aura of feath ered ecstacy i cant understand how some folk can attract so many winter rareties while i must be satisfied with basic birds common to everybody on the block just once i plead let something special visit our humble abode that will send me scurrying for my audabon book to discover its identity on occasions ive come close to realizing this dream however close doesnt count with the professional bird watchers society nothing less than the real thing will do but last thursday i came close i mean really close i was driving north of the high school towards doc petries place there it wasa birti largest wingspan id ever seen at first i thought i was dreaming but no it wasnt an illusion this was for real i stopped the car wound down the window and stared this majestic bird hovered about forty feet above the ground then alighted atop a nearby spruce an eagle i said to my self a bald eagle but who will believe it the truth no one not even my own family an eagle in stouffville they joked it cant be and thats pretty much the response from others the most sym pathetic to my premature elation was noted birdwatcher and wildlife photo- grapher betty pegg of rr 2 claremont she described it as possi ble but not probable and much as i hate to admit it shes probably right only once in recent years has a bald eagle been sighted in this area she said okay so what was it in all probability a roughlegged hawk betty said her color description matched what i had seen so i i spotted a roughlegged hawk in stouffville on thursday feb 2 1984 no one seems to care a bald eagle sounds much more impressive but im not discouraged ill go on waiting and watching and feeding even if the end result is nothing more than hordes of house sparrows refuse gas gimmicks kamps korner two columns scrapped by bill kamps i the oil giants of north america are strongly opposed to gas wars not that theyre the losers on cutbacks of this kind but like the flea on the elephants trunk it can become irritating after awhile so now theyre into the giveaway game wholesale handouts of everything from tumblers to hamburgers who needs it in a province where the automobile remains the most pratical means of travelling from point a to point b and where point a and point b are often hundreds of miles apart the cost of oper ating a car or truck is excessive gas wars brief as they were provided some temporary relief now its a case of pay the price or else to promote these giveaway gim micks several firms have embarked on huge advertising campaigns cam paigns costing thousands maybe mil lions this companies can seemingly afford to do yet they cant give the motorist a price break at the pumps were not buying this latest deal well bypass every station that flaunts such offers and we urge other motorists to do the same plan celebrity auction to reach a goal of 200000 the whitch- urchstouffville rec centre fund- raising coordination committee re quires the cooperation of the entire community to date the campaign has been very successful were close to the halfway point however the second half will be the most difficult we must all work together to put this project over the top the tribune as its contribution to this worthwhile venture is sponsoring a celebrity auction the date is friday may 11 on this evening items from vips very important people will be sold by public auction the father and son team of norm and phil faulkner have already agreed to attend others will be contacted in addition the cam fella film will be shown for a first time here and bob davies will sing his now famous cam fella song over the next few months the tri bune will be in touch with many people both locally and from afar concerning donations of personal and unusual arti cles already we have a final edition of the old toronto telegram dated oct 30 1971 its a collectors item other valu ables hopefully will follow we ask you to circle the date of may 11 and make this night your night it should be a lot of fun i wrote two columns this week that will never see the light of day the first con cerned the future of town council had mayor eldred king been appointed york regional chairman it was brilliant in its prose and had no match in its political analysis of the potential candidates for mayor of whitchurchstouffville since we still have our mayor thank god both the tribune and my lawyer heaved a sigh of relief my column wont see print later i penned a second epistle re plying to points made by a fellow col umnist on the sports page of the tri bune last week again mine was a liter ary gem the words that flowed from my quill literally scorched the paper i finally turned on a small fan to blow the smoke away phrases such as the pen is mightier than the sword and the abuse of the freedom of the press made my eyes fill with tears come to think of it maybe it was all that smoke i described my column to scoop and he flatly refused to publish it personally i dont blame him i doubt the tribunes fire insurance is all that great the only remaining subject that im still steamed about is the forecasters who keep sending us the deplorable weather i wrote about two weeks ago during world war ii i was amazed at the accuracy of the weather forecasters in england which is one of the toughest countries in the world to predict the weather this is due to all the water sur rounding it and the straight pipeline to the arctic storms still you could practi- cally set your watch when they announced the fog will lift at 11 am and you will be able to fly sure enough at 11 am away went the peasouper and you were flying these predictions were made by people who only had access to weather information from half the globe because the other half was the enemy it was also done with very primitive equip ment today we have weather satellites around the world thousands of ground stations all nations cooperating in the exchange of meteorological informa tion and vast banks of computers that collate all this data and then draw maps for the weathermen has this improved the accuracy of the forecasts we re ceive it has not can the average view er even understand what all those blotches on the satellite map have to do with whether or not its going to snow tomorrow i doubt it i may be attacking the meteorologists unfairly because it is after all those tv types who give us the final word now theres a sterling bunch if you watch carefully youll notice even the news and sports folk try to pretend theyre not there those weather forecasters dont give you the weather they give you as many gimmicks as possible to conceal the fact that they havent got the faintest idea what theyre talking about flip around the dial and youll sec a whose succession of them teeth gleaming and hair neatly sprayed who dont know enough to come in out of the rain theres one in particular that was surely hired for his boardinghouse reach he can cover the whole of north america in one sweep some of the rural stations provide young ladies with crayons to mark up the map this is an improvement as it gives you something to look at besides long lists of numbers that tell you how cold it was in newfoundland and moose jaw yesterday we also have the fellows with their buttononacord and the marvel lous kindergarten drawings of toronto that appear on the tv screen and final ly we have the prince of the tv weather men the fellow who wields two crayons at the same time i hear hes working on three but there are technical problems there is one mystifying feature of this mans satellite graphics everytime he shows a lot of snow coming in from the west its colored yellow now i know the west doesnt like the east but they wouldnt do that to our snow would they and have you noticed on the buffa lo stations thetemperatures are always higher on their side of the lake than on ours i suppose all those fires they have over there must be affecting the climate where is percy saltzman with his brushcut his piece of chalk and his cold hard nonnonsense weather reports when he was finished i knew if i needed toerubbers or boots and whether to raise or lower the flap on my longjohns now i just go out every morning lick my finger and hold it up in the wind