The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

A shameful way showed its true colors Inst week THE ERA WED MARCH VOL NO Editorials G F Newmarket town white on white Not a single member of council hat the guts to stand up in open council and defend a town department head engineer George who has been harassed to the point of resignation for doing his job properly This despite the fact that privately at least some of the coun cillors admit their sympathies lie with the engineer and that the mayor after the meeting came publicly to Mr defence and was critical of Deputy Reeve Bruce Eves campaign of harassment How can a town get and hold the type of well trained professional people it needs if the town council refuse to back up their employees when the going gets rough The answer of course is they cant Ami who could blame a good man for not coming or taking the first offer from a good administration that comes along once he finds out the situation here Newmarket council didnt even balk when Deputy Reeve Bruce Eves requested they heap the ultimate indignity upon the engineer tell him to leave at the end of the week instead of at the end of his two weeks notice and this despite the fact that the town has no engineering figures for its budget and no prospect of getting any in time It was a shameful way to treat the man A federal problem The prairie grain glut may bring mixed blessings to residents of York County Because of the glut western beef and pork producers are able to buy grain for their animals at 35 cents a bushel York County beef and pork producers must pay 130 per bushel for the same grain because it is shipped out of the originating province and therefore comes under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board This lower cost to western farmers in animal feed may mean that the price we pay for beef and pork at our York County meat counters will be less than it is now But what about the York County meat producer How can he compete with his counterpart in the west when he must pay four times as much for his feed It means that he cant compete and more and more York County farni3 will fall into the hands of the developers This is a Federal Government problem and it should make feed available to York County meat producers at the same price westera producers are paying SUGAR SPICE By Bill Smiley Lots of billy left in goat Two recent letters have accused me of something inexcusable losing my zest One was from a chap I havent seen since we played together as kids He said a recent column showed a negative approach and me not to feel that way I think hes also a health nut of some kind because he urged me not to let any body such as nicotine or alcohol to enter my system Youre right Bob your spelling is terrible but thanks anyway Another was from a lady whose daughter I taught She said I sounded as though I had the mid winter blues and cheered me by tell ing me that her daughter thought I was great even though she had hat ed school Thank you too Mam and I know your name though you didnt But dont worry chaps I might sound a trifle misanthropic at times I always have But theres plenty of billy in the old goat yet I dont intend to slash my wrists At least not until the present curling is over I need them We have a great institu tion at our school for pulverizing those February blues Once a year we throw the curriculum out the win- and do something sensible We have a bash called Frosty Frolics This year a computer couldnt have picked a better day Ten below piles of snow and a brill iant sun Everybody in colorful garb Boots and parkas and scarves and hats of all hues The day began with a leg auction in the gym Girls hid behind a curtain with only their legs show ing Boys bid on the legs One French teacher male was knocked down for 325 and the highest bid was over All proceeds to support a foster child in Hong Kong Then a grand march to the lake for games on the ice Snow- shoe races in which every thing goes including tripping teach ers at every opportunity tugofwar and just plain horsing around and wrestling in the snow No holds bar red A fine sublimation of sex Other groups split for curling skiing snowmobile rally for a trip out around the islands snooker tournament swimming skating The beauty of the day that its so amateur Thcr ivory field of But you could watch fat middlea teachers eyes bulging with horror as they tried downhill skiing for the first time ever Or little Grade kids weighing in at 80 pounds try ing to get 40pound curling stone over the hog line Everyone back to school and terror saw three of my Grade Tech boys up there smash ing oneinch boards with their bare knuckles and bare feet kicking and chopping with blows that would kill flipping each other around like piec es of rubber hose Cold sweat crept into my armpits as I remembered that Id thought once or twice of ousting these individuals physically from my class That is a thought that will Or skating or swimming All sorts of other things going on too Snow sculpture Choos ing of a snow queen This year in a student body of about 1300 with Indinn students the Queen was a beautiful Indian girl Hows that for a blow against the WASPS And so it went with a big windup dance Saturday night But the melody lingers on This midwinter madness has the effect of literally melting the thin red line which separates teach ers and students How can you main tain your dignity when some girl is yelling at you Sweep Sweep you dummy Or when some fivefoot stops to help you up when youve sprawled in a hopeless tangle on the ski hill The whole community kicks in with free swimming curl ing and ski tows We all discover that were human beings Biggest discov ery of the year Should have one every term Dear Editor is not my intention lo discredit the judiciary There la far too much of hat occurring as it Ik when fallible humans try to get nut of an imperfect system the just in tent of law laid down for the good However it would seem lo me that highly regarded people in responsible such US judges am editors should check out he facts before they defame lh and misinform he citizens In cases I have lu mind it is my belief that people wore charg ed under the Liquor Control Act of having liquor in other than a legal place In dismissing the charge against same Urn Act was pointed out publicly as the inept direction that didnt provide guidelines for the those least able bite back in this case old people and retarded children Your editorial clearly in dicates the category in which our administration falls Until there is a drastic change we will remain a twobit town administered by twobit polili- ROSE Deal- Editor in be lli fact Section 35 or the Act which goes at least back to lOtili provides hat if the drivers were not charged with a drinking offense they were perfectly within their legal rights to transport alco holic beverages from one residence to another as apart from taking it directly from the Liquor Store to resi dence KEN RAMSAY AROUND THE COUNTY column of last week you erred in attributing the expression about law being an ass to some judge many The of this famous line is Charles Dickens Oliver Twist in which Mr Humble told the law assumed that he had control of his shrewish wife retorted If the law supposes that the law is a ass a idiot I beg to remain my dear sir yours for the preservation of our great British literary tradition A Aurora Dear Editor The editorial on county councillors salaries in your last issue deserves comment politic There three types of On i- public person one who has such pride in his town that he is willing to FREE LY donate part of his time to the betterment of the Community and his fellow citizens Today a rarity indeed Two is the ego who en ters politics for the prestige it offers who craves the opportunity to re mind at every opportunity that I am Mr Mayor Reeve Councillor or what have you A BIG SHOT the iv ho Dear Editor The Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire IODE a Canadian Womens Organization celebrated its anniversary recently A review of some of the marks the Order has done In the last few years show their uptodate progress members They raise and dis burse funds for expensive hospital The Canadian arts ballot thea tie and youth orchestra are support ed student exchange with postgradu ate scholarships An active part is taken in Ontarios program for chil dren with mental and emotional dis- pires for the Ruck who en ters politics as a parttime job mer ely for the sake of the remuneration offered one who rarely misses the opportunity to increase this remuner ation and usually at expense of Thank you for your attention ELEANOR Mrs Royal Rd Crier Our chemical existence When Ihc teenager said of he drug forum at Maple Leaf School recently that it was a big farce he may not have been loo far from the truth This is not to say that he panelists involved were not sincerely trying help They were Hut the most good hat can come from such forums is hat they will bring the problem out into open The teenagers who attend drug forums ostensibly seeking ad vice are really seeking our approval and we adults cannot in the face of our own neglect our own weaknesses honestly deny them thai approval When they question us wc ply them with platitudes mesmerize them with equivocation and loss every cliche in he at them about the effects of drugs Rut we are extremely cau tious when it to mentioning the cause Ihe motivation Sure we nod at each other affirmatively when one of us pinpoints Ihe motiva tion as idle curiosity Rut we are far too mature really it We know that he handful of youngsters who dabble in drugs out of mere cur iosity seldom continue and almost never become addicts In an mid sort of way where curiosity is motiva tion a bad excess often contains with in it the seeds of its own correction Our most embarrassing rea lization is of course that what aits he teenagers what motivates them take drugs lias been put there by us They have watched from infancy while we taught hem how to avoid Ihe small cares and fears of every day life by swallowing a pill the same cares and fears that the human body was designed to cope with They have learned through us that it is impossible face any form of emergency or crisis today without the aid of a pill They have found out from us hat it is possible to blot out financial worries fear of which is the tiling that us go as the commercial says he challenge of social responsibility and in fact the soi died strain of exist simply by swallowing a tranqui lizer Hut what he have failed to notice and what we have very carefully concealed from hem is that all these problems do no really go The pace of jet set living hits turned us into a pillswallowing nation Our bathroom cabinets their myriad bottles of pills in vary ing sizes and colors represent horri fying evidence of our tendency flee from reality at the mere drop of a tension We have in other words divorced ourselves from our capacity lo adjust any situation which is And what is worse some of us have been feeding these things to our youngsters thereby robbing them of the chance to find out whether or not they are capable of coping with the problems of Ihcir We wallow in he comfort ing knowledge that we are being rea sonable in not permitting ourselves to suffer the small anxieties of nor mal life while there is a way out We kid ourselves we are not avoid ing he blows of modern living just moderating them by means of tran quilizers 11 Shaw said hat unrea sonable men try lo change the world reasonable men change themselves to fit Ihe world and so is only un reasonable men who ever get any thing done Perhaps the teenagers be ing in our estimation unreasonable are best left alone with their drug problem They will get things done in own way in time Around the county JOHN Unclassified ads NEEDED A refresher course m democracy for the several York County councillors who in formed me that the press and Ihe public have no business knowing what goes on behind the closed doors of committee meetings They stated id rather indignant terms that their rcpiiBibiliiv to the people ends when they stop into the proverbial smoke- filled committee room where the im portant decisions are REALLY made RECOMMENDED A short course in method acting for those same politicians who claimed that most of what they say in public coun cil meetings is simply for the benefit of the dubbed Canada tor rnrntnt To employ time when and Corn- are preaching r- tit- as a hi EMPLOYMENT WANTED For Presbyterian minister John Pace who resigned after his con gregation censured him for encourag ing the activities of a church rock band called the Celestial Connec tion Seems a sharpeyed lady caught two members of the teenage group kissing in the church vestibule Lend er of Ihe church board that evaluat ed Rev Pace was an elder and also happens to manage the town liquor store The elders told Rev Pace they liked his sermons Its OK for him to TALK from the pulpit about loving your neighbor just dont do it in church ARTICLES NEEDED tablets inscribed with Ser mon on the Mount for the sharpeyed lady and tho liquor store manager WANTED Some initiative on the part of area municipal lead ers to analyze the seemingly excel lent Dam recreation pro ject proposed last week the Hol land Valley Conservation Authority On the surface its an appealing idea but itll cost roughly three million dollars part of which would have to come from the taxpayers Some poli ticians have their hearts set on devel oping the County Farm as a regional recreation complex Such a project might cost ess than the Pleasant- idea But at last weeks the the failed lo take a up a committee to relative merits of the two This area desperately need area for all type THE ERA York County Since Incorporating THE POST THE HERALD DAVID HASKELL Publisher WILLIAM J Associate Publisher TERRY CARTER Managing Editor GEORGE WALDEN News Editor Published every Wednesday at Charles St Newmarket Ontario by Inland Publishing Co Limited Subscriptions for two years for one year Single copies or by carrier per month Member Canadian Weekly Newspapers Association and the Audit Bureau of Circulation Sec- Class Mail registration number 1908 Phone Aurora