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celebrate on ve day fifty years ago canadians were gearing up for a celebration hitler and mussolini were con firmed dead the russians had entered berlin and the axis war machine was in ruins the axis powers in the face of the allied onslaught was preparing to capitulate back home there was the palpa ble feeling of victory in the air and half a century later that feel ing is returning for many local vet erans and their families in celebrating the upcoming anniversary of ve day we will all have reason to rejoice for many of the families of veter ans they will be celebrating the safe return of their loved ones from our view overseas even five decades have not dispelled the relief many felt at having their soldier return safely for others the ve day anniver sary will be a time to celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in our country hardwon freedoms for which thou sands paid the ultimate price still more will celebrate the last ing friendships marriages and children rays of light borne out of the hardships and horrors of war subsequent generations will be celebrating the simple fact that they have a grandfather or grand mother it will be a time to relish victory to extol past glory and remember that war on this enormous scale can never happen again but amid all the celebration the parades flag waving and horn- honking we must not only tip our hats to those who returned but also pause and reflect on the 45000 who left canada and never returned this must be explained to school children and those born in the gen erations since the war who have the privilege to know a veteran should take time shake his or her hand and offer thanks join in our local ve day celebra tions and remember those who would be joining in the festivities if they only could stouffville tribune 6244 main st stouffville out l4a1e2 9056402100 9056492292 fax 905 6405477 publisher patricia pappas general managereditor andrew mair editorinchief jo ann stevenson director of advertising debra weller retail manager mike rogerson distribution manager barry j goodyear administration vivian oneil operations manager pamela nichols questions news andrew mair editor joan ransberry mike ruta roger belgrave reporters sjoerd witteveen steve somerville photographry retail advertising joan marshman doreen deacon classified doreen deacon real estate joan marshman distribution arlene maddock the stouffville tribune published every wednesday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publishing and distri bution group of community newspapers which includes ajax pickering news advertiser auroranewmarket era ban ner barrie advance brampton guardian burlington post cityparent collingwood connection etobicoke guardian george town independentacton free press kingston this week lindsay this week markham economist and sun milton canadian champion mississauga news north york mirror oakville beaver orillia today oshawawhitbyclarington this week northumberland news peterbor ough this week richmond hillthorn- hillvaughan liberal scarborough mirror todays seniors oxbridge tribune contents cannot be reprinted without written permission from the publisher ethdtions ran high on ve day by margaret stapley special to the tribune victory in europe there is no way to paint a word picture that will truly capture the commingling of emotions on that longawaited day so im not even going to try i can only share with you some of my personal memo ries of ve day and the six years that led up to it although i cant recall the exact phrasing of the official dec laration of peace i can still hear perfectly the rich deep voice of lome greene then just a young cbc radio announcer as he read it unconditional surrender by the axis we already knew that berlin had fallen and that hitler had died by his own hand but that didnt take the edge off our jubilation at the allout ending of the madmans reign of terror oh how we laughed how we cried we danced in the streets to music from improvised bandstands and instruments kazoos papercov ered corhbs toy drums and tam bourineswhatever we could find winston churchills resolutely voiced avowal had proven true we shall not flag or fail each of us who are old enough to remember now find ourselves reflecting on those war years in our own way for me memories of little things juggle for a place among the bigger ones but there was only one beginning i was still in high school in 1939 and the threat of war was not foremost in my mind as it was with the grownups these after all were my salad days the sun shine of my happy youth and i heedlessly expected them to go on forever caught in the nether years between girl and woman hood i was ready for everything life had to offer everything but war that is my first reaction to the news that labor day weekend was i guess that of a typical teenager resentment rather than concern hey no fair what about all my nifty backtoschool plans but this selfcentred view of what being at war would mean quickly changed once the awareness hit me that none of us were now in command of our futures everything else became sec ondary to winning the war and this little girl soon found herself one of many others on an aircraft radio tube assembly line and there i stayed until i was eligible for enlistment in the canadian womens army corp under the shield and banner of pallas athena goddess of war it wasnt a time of simply and solely grim resignation even with the continual goodbyes and the foreboding that went with them optimism gaiety and humor kept shining through for those both in and out of uniform we backed the attack by laugh ing at rationing and other incon veniences we jitterbugged to the music of glenn miller harry james benny goodman and the dorsey brothers we sang roll out the barrel ill be seeing you youll get used to it therell always be an england when the lights go on again all over the world with everything so vital then its funny the insignificant things that come to mind on looking back all of a sudden i remember clearly the tune that was playing on the jukebox at the cwac recruiting centre when i joined up it was take it easy a com forting title considering my jit ters id love to have the space to tell you all my adventures as part ii order clerk in the battalion order ly room of a mens training camp like the day i inadvertently struck off strength listed as having officially left the camp an entire company of men who had just arrived the adjutant was not amused when i presented the orders for his signature but that old sourpuss never did smile even when i did something right jumping ahead my one regret regarding my army days was that i couldnt celebrate ve day with sergeants stripes on my shoulder i was married and too noticeably pregnant by that time to keep my secret from the brass for long our uniforms were rather formfit ting figuratively speaking my stripes came through a hair breadths too late to sew them on that adjutant didnt wish me good luck on my discharge but who cared the co his superior officer by two ranks told me that i was the best part ii order clerk he had ever had it may sound strange to succeeding genera- tions what with all the warfare that has gone on since world war ii but my army hitch was one of the happiest times of my life and thats counting the multitude of pure gold days that have fol lowed easy for her to say you may be thinking safely away from the battlefields and the con stant exposure to danger of even the civilians overseas quite so and yet a remarkable number of those who were in the midst of it have told me of the abundance of treasured memories they possess even veterans who went through the worst campaigns will never forget the spirit of together- ness among the fighting forces or the undaunted fortitude humor and conviviality of the british people on the homefront the amazingly high spirits and spunk of the dutch and other small countries they helped liberate canada as one of the big kids in that global pitched battle with hitlers gang was not just fight ing for its own countrys contin ued freedom but to prevent the more helpless smaller ones from being ground under the heels of bullies however this is not a time for looking back in anger or assigning blame on this 50th commemoration of ve day the main thing is to remember with gratitude all those who fought so hard to make that victory come to pass the older one grows the more swiftly time passes and looking back it sometimes seems like only yesterday that we were wildly celebrating victory in europe im remembering again how long it took to grow accus tomed to being at peace after such a prolonged state of war with all its restrictions it was one thing to say we could now get back to normal but what was normal we almost needed to be given directions on how to go about picking up our lives again from where we left off after being confined to barracks during the war we now felt somewhat cast adrift by the vagaries of its aftermath but time flies when youre free to spend it as you like and doubt less the fact that i myself was so busy bearing and raising five children followed by lending a hand with 13 grandchildren accounts for its speedy passage although none of us would choose to reexperience all the ugliness and heartache of world war ii there are those of us who wouldnt trade some of its brighter memories for love or money and so on this ve day lets not just celebrate the victory itself but the free and indis putably incomparable life that we can boast of here in canada because of it on one of lifes two certainties l the income tax people are very nice theyre letting me keep my own mother henny youngman yes drones its that time of year again the time we pay our government repre sentatives to keep lining their own pockets with inflationproof pensions and to make those of us liv ing above subsistence lev els feel guilty for being rich the following items despite all my attempts to write them off are not con sidered taxdeductible let tuces natural blue black hair dye noname headache pills ingested when one is faced with the complexities of the average income tax form junk food bills for teen sleepovers and prozac you also get zero compen sation for being forced to listen to all those pretax phonein radio shows fea turing annoyingly breezy accountants who furnish you with lists of the many surprising things which are taxdeductible none of which have any bearing on your own miserable situa tion not only does tax time keep you awake at night and ruin your life it also ruins phonein shows for this radio noon listener who would much rather lend her ear to somebody being shocked and appalled about employ ment equity the dismal state of the education sys tem or the short shrift accorded suppressed mem ory syndrome victims tax phoneins are about as exciting as those during which people call to describe in gory detail the leaf mould on their fleas benjamina or to ask the expert for advice on the powdery mildew afflicting their strawberries also less than fascinating are the shows on dysfunc tional dishwashers and wayward washing machines unless a similar kates corner q i i d e r d a i e trauma is being played out in your own household and youre too cheap to call in mr or ms repairperson to add insult to injury just when you thought it was safe to switch on your radio again they call a provincial election thats when your phone- in host replaces costcut ting accountants with a motley collection of caring candidates whose previ ous tough love budgetcut ting strategies have under gone a transformation into a kinder gentler manifesto mysteriously encompass ing both tax cuts and peo ple power once they have seized the helm however all that syrupy sentimentality is trampled underfoot in an orgy of recrimination against the previous party whose fudged deficit fig ures are held entirely responsible for the follow ing five years of tax hikes and personal privation the only exception to this rule is when the party cur rently in power is reelect ed in which case creative accounting continues for the term of office or howev er long it takes the elec torate to forget the former sins of the opposition par ties and vote for one of them the new shorter oxford dictionary has several def initions of the word tax among them a contribu tion to state revenue com- pulsorily levied on people businesses property income commodities transactions etc and an oppressive or burdensome obligation or duty a bur den a strain a heavy demand i wouldnt put it that kindly myself rx