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p 4 weekender saturday october 4 1997 st the tribune saturdayoctober 4 1997 vol 13 no 40 comment opinions send your letters to the editor to the address below editorial remember to support fall drive for food bank its getting to be as traditional a part of thanksgiving as the turkey or the ham residents are being asked to support the annu al fall food drive to aid the less fortunate in their communities but just because youve heard the pleas before please dont tune them out the need is as great as in previous food drive campaigns in fact with our rapidlygrowing communities the need is greater than ever before with stately homes rising from construction sites like so many mushrooms it may seem as though all the newcomers are well- heeled and welloff things are not always as they seem the kids who go to school without breakfast dont stand apart from their wellfed fellow students the mom at your office or plant who skips lunch in order to save food in the cupboards for her family doesnt look any different from any other worker and the worried dad who pays one or two bills this month and lets the others ride so he can go grocery shopping this week probably looks like any other guy but theyre all hungry the fall food drive starts today and continues until thanksgiv ing monday oct 13 when youre out grocery shopping during this time why not fill just one more grocery bag for the food bank if every fortunate family in this community donated one bag of food for the hidden hungry in their neighbourhood there will be a lot of families truly giving thanks this season markham fair belongs to stouffville too dear editor the markham fair banner is wel come on our main street this fair is a part of stouffville it is a regional event many fair presidents have been from stouffville in its 153- year history the president this year as well as last year have been stouffville residents many locals are board and committee members- other stouffvillites are volunteers various stouffville organi zations operate booths to supplement their coffers a host of residents from here are exhibitors in all classes it is our fair too jean barkey stouffville i confess im a birder well frustrations forcing me out dear editor i support the brooksbains letter in your sept 25 issue water hookup a comedy of errors and i would like to add the following comments i was not in favour of installing the water main but to support the less for tunate residents who had polluted wells i was the first to connect it took me months to get a permit because of the squabbling between the little tin sol diers at the township andor region my eightfoot well water was perfect ly okay but i find that with so much chlorine and chemicals in the town water i feel like i am now drinking out of someones swimming pool to try to adhere to the towns disorga nized water connection procedural rules was a task in itself but to cope with what appeared to be intentional hin drance by the town staff was impossible the lack of cooperation and inflexibili ty by a few makes the township appear user unfriendly i have always found most employees very much cooperative and helpful but those who are not reflect on the entire staff house cleaning is likely long over due are you listening candidates it is my understanding that a legal opinion has now been acquired and that no resident can be legally forced to con nect to the town water most of us knew that but having it in writing from a lawyer is more assuring i admire the resident who fought back by obtaining that advice and for refusing to connect if the 600 remaining residents who have not yet connected had my experi ence of all the horrendous hassles and road blocks the township personnel cause they would not even bother to connect to lend support to these 600 the 200 who connected ought to follow my example of asking the township to disconnect my water again i intend to vacate this beautiful area just as soon as i can get my affairs in order to facilitate the sale of my proper ty the frustration heaped on the mus- selmans lake residents by town hall makes stouffville an unpleasant envi ronment to live in at this time back to the water problem common sense tells me that if only a paltry 25 per cent of residents want town water what kind of vote was conducted to get town water approved by the majority how about a recount or another vote in the upcoming election why not aliow a negativeoption style voting sys tem so that those voters who dont both er to vote will automatically count as a vote against politicians to cancel the yes votes from the fools who would vote to put them back in office ai yetman stouffville i have a confession to make the time has come for me to come out of the clos et its my duty to alert my faithful readers as to my true nature ive already told my family ive tried to explain it to the few friends i have left i can only hope that our rela tionship can however battered survive based on a platfonn of mutual respect untainted by the poison of judgmental prejudices but im not sure it can not after i tell you that i am a practising birdwatcher its true i realize now looking back that i have always been a birdwatcher albeit a furtive one as a kid i sucked in my breath as i watched the aerial antics of barn swal lows and bats i marveled at the impossi bly elegant gravitydefying nests of ori oles thrilled to the explosive thunder of a ruffed grouse taking flight from cover just inches ahead of my hiking boots i was watching birds sure but i wasnt a you know birdwatcher per se i was still normal not one of those goofy fanatics you see in tennis shoes and tilley hats creeping through raspberry canes with a petersons field guide in one hand and a pair of bushnell 7x50s in the other true some of my most vibrant memo ries seemed to revolve around birds i remember the otherworldly experience of hiking out on a cliff high on the niagara escarpment in southern ontario and see ing a pair of turkey vultures soaring at eye level so close that i could see their beady little eyes and red neck wattles i remember sitting on a beach on the island of antigua tracking white pelicans as they circled lazily high in the sky only to suddenly hurl themselves into steep kamikaze dives right into the ocean they hit the surface with such force it didnt seem possible for them to survive they did and surfaced with a craw- ful of fish more often than not oh i can see it now birds arc me my favourite sight arrowheads of basic black arthur black canada geese etched on a spring sky my favourite sound the eerie ululations of an unseen loon at dusk my favourite smell roast turkey on thanksgiving okay a little cruel but you get my point one way or another ive been birdwatching for years and then a few years back i moved to the west coast we get most of the regu lars out here robins chickadees star lings and crows but there are also bald eagles and great blue herons stellar jays and rufousheaded towhees not to men tion eight dozen different kinds of seag ulls none of which id ever seen before ive arrived in birdwatcher heaven thats why i decided the time has come to out myself mind you i plan to take it one step at a time i wouldnt want to make the blunder of british birdwatcher neil symmons symmons managed to attract a tawny owl to his garden no mean feat con sidering that he lives in downtown lon don and tawny owls are notoriously shy nonetheless each evening for 12 straight months symmons has gone into his gar den at dusk and called his owl and each night for 1 2 straight months hes heard the unearthly unmistakable hoot of a tawny owl answering him symmons wife kim was so proud of neil she mentioned his evening pastime to her nextdoor neighbour thats odd said the neighbour my husband fred spends his evenings out back talking to an owl you guessed it the two enthusiasts had been hooting to each other every night for a year birdwatching no one ever said it would be easy stouffville tribune weekender patricia pappas publisher andrew mair editorinchief julie caspersen editor debra weller director of advertising mike rogerson retail advertising manager stacey allen classified manager barry goodyear director of distribution vivian oneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager about us 905 6402100 retail s 905 6402100 classifieds 9056402874 4t histrlbutioti 6244 main st stouffville onl r l4a1e2 ihu stoaffvulo tribune pub lished uvory tuesday tbudj and twirtty is on of ue femetimtodi printing pm i hi g pni dintribulion xvoup of commu nity nwupoiert which include ajaspickrrlni neat adverliscr ssaitfeten handdcburier bmc advance brampton guardian burlington post cityparenl collincwoorlavtmig ucaah con nection ea york mirror unbi- coke gunrdlun guonilon lndr- pemtcntaclon pr- 1ruiw kingston thl week lindsay this week markham economist a sun jlirtundlynntonsrnboioiie mirror i milton cnnadlon champion mlic sutsaufii nevwi nevranrlirlaurora er8inir news north york 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