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THE EKA Serving Since DAVIE HASKELL TERRY go GO Bus schedule readers youd be surprised how many of us there are will be baffled by an advertisement from GO Transit which appears on another page in this weeks Era For example Bus number a bus leaves Newmarkets Water St stop at am and arrives at Torontos Union Station minutes later Bus number a GO bus leaves the Water St stop at am and takes the same amount of time to get to Union Station minutes Bus number a GO bus leaves the same point in Newmarket at am and reaches the same destination in Toronto by going express down Highway 100 in minutes Now going north Bus number 775 a no GO bus leaves Union Station at pm and arrives at Water St minutes later Bus number 775 a bus leaves Union Station pm and arrives at Water St minutes later Bus number a GO bus leaves the same point in Toronto at pm and arrives at the same destination in Newmarket by going express up Highway in minutes One wonders Why does it take the same amount of time to travel the same distance on a CO bus as it does on a bus Why doesnt the Gray Coach take into consideration that it takes more time to travel in rush hour than it does during normal periods Why does it take five minutes longer to go north than it does to go south Because its uphill maybe A mall for Main St Main St will be for walkers only for three days during the first weekend in October It will be turned into a shopping mall as part of the celebrations to signal the opening of Newmarkets newly- renovated arena Main St merchants hope to hold a corn roast for the kiddies a beer garden for the adults the Legion will hold its annual soap box derby on the Saturday and there will be searchlights and entertainment It all sounds like fun and we wish the projects sponsors every success We also hope that the mall will eventually become a permanent part of the downtown Newmarket scene One only has to open ones eyes to see that Main St One only has to drive up and down the street to know the frustration of looking for a place to park the car A number of town planners have suggested that Main St be turned into a shopping mall It could be accomplished quite easily with a minimum of expenditure of public funds recognizing of conducting immediate and extensive tests to determine the feasibility of slocking Lake Scott Young bad luck continued Im not a superstitious person at all but from time to lime I am forced to admit that some coincidences are more coincidental than oth ers And hope you will pardon me for referring just this once again to the filly foal I wrote about worlds greatest that if the hut is the most expen- It takes millimetre film ml produces either slides or prints As an old from hack I al ways felt very well dieted I wis wearing it camera my neck With it Ive taken gond pictures in icy cold weather miles the North and in steaming heat miles from Cape Kennedy When the foal was born we had fam ily con idei made the camera vital Her mother a fouryearold buy stand dined belongs body and weekends at a chainstore But last winter when she started to university she didn t hive the she needed to put Tinker then in foal into a box stall at a good horse farm for the winter as she I was driving her the or 60 miles to university after a weekend at home last au tumn when an answer occurred to me I dont like giving people money for nothing I said Look you dont have to do this But if you want to let us own the foal when shes born Ill pay for the mares care this winter Dont make up your mind right away but let me know it over for a couple of minutes and then seemed quite relieved Thats good idea she said Of course she knew that the foal would be kept in the family and shed really have almost as much to do with it as if it til when little Star was born We took three or four when she was only a few hours old That finished one roll We put in another and in the course of a few days finished it too On the night when we found Star with her neck broken and the vet had to put her away forever and is we buried her deep in the corral I kept thinking Well at least we have the pic tures When our daughter comes home she still will have that much to see I took the two rolls of film in one Fri ll i and called for them at the village drugstore the following week When I did so the druggist a friend of mine said Say Im afraid you had some bad luck with those films I opened the envelope Every film was blank Not overexposed or underexposed or blurry or anything Just blank For the first time in four years and for these pictures the camera had failed totally With the foal gone and the film blank it is as if that pretty little chestnut with the star on her forehead had never been on this earth at nil It was an eerie coincidence As I said I am not superstitious But at a time like that I am tempted to be just a little Centre so I thought Id voice views and give daughters with long hair and hippie clothes do not use the DropIn as I have belter things to da and it isnt my bag 1 fee that the DropIn Is a good thing but only for a certain kind of people There are a lot of kids going there so they obviously have nothing else with the drug problem the DropIn doesnt help Peo ple dont do dope because there Is nothing else to do you do it kids who do dope arent bad The adults I know respect me and con me sensible but If they knew everything I did they wouldnt understand and their attitude towards me would Immediately change You have to be sensible with dope or you go too far hut the same con happen with alcohol know most of the do know that what I have said is true Print this let ter and you will be giving the older generation some thing to think about If they dont understand may be their kids can explain If you are a teenager today you probably know whats going on you dont have to be a head to under stand this much Thank you RITA i is NOTEBOOK ON NATURE BY RON LAWRENCE Due to illness Mr Gamble was unable to supply his weekly Town Crier column this week He will return next week with his concluding remarks on the Crisis Centre Nature writer Ron Lawrence is filling in with his Notebook on Nature for the one week before the Smiley Good fences make good neighbors Thats what poet Robert Frost told us in The Mending Wall From tun experience this summer with all my heart though perhaps not in sugar and spice the way that Frost intended it We had two of the worst fences town One at the back was ours leaning at a neighbors vegetable den and killing it ruthlessly year after yi They understandably sug gested i new fence I was loath after pricing fencing we agreed to split the cost of a mu tual fence And heres the kicker Hes a builder 1 couldnt nail two bonds together without mu tilating myself So I jumped at it It was in inied would help him know Hold the bo irds fetch mils provide whole thing singlehanded I always seemed to be busy when he had time to work on it Didnt fetch a single nail I felt rather sheepish but not unduly so Ive been getting away with this for years Some time when he wants me to write a nasty letter to his creditors be glad to do it for him and well be even Then there was a big conference the color of the stain wed put on it Our wives did most of the conferring Jim said and I dont give a damn if you paint it purple iragement As if tied Painting began My wife painted one side We were away for a few days returned the whole fence was finished hope you dont mind that ho built the went ahead and painted your side I assured her Job I recall that I girls older when nest Tuesday rolls around My youngest child will be starting school Its only kindergarten but to little Haskell Its big step the hes been first day at school Its so long ago now but Im Mire my father must have felt entry into high school It was during the early days of World War II and I had Just passed were not just but Interesting to look at I recall too that I spent most of that summer playing and tennis at a nearby park and In the cool of the evening the hoys that played with sat around under the big oak of girls silling by themsel- As the summer wore on the boys began to talk to the girls and pretty soon we were all one big group under one big tree In those days I was quite shy and timid espec ially when in the company of girls In later years I became quite gregarious I wore short pants while most of the other boys wore long pants So day before go to high school my mother bought me a pair of long pants and a sports coat My father told me not to wear them be cause he was afraid I would pants and conversing as an equal to a grownup man suppose going to high school is a bigger step toward manhood than going to kindergarten I suppose going to college Is even big ger and 1 suppose getting married is the biggest But still that very first day of going to school walking along Old to board the school bus with his big brother and big sister I remember what tracts were and I answered leaflets yon see I had read past the headline But at that lime fait very adult walking along Clair la my long Hell a few behind them as he always Is and hell be running to catch up as he always Is Bat he wont be a boy anymore hell be boy And Ill be we were delighted My wife hid in shame for two days Now hes going to use his power saw to cut up all my old dry cedar fence and well have enough kindling for the fireplace for two years and the finest fence in town Hows that for neighbors At least on one side of the fence The second fence along the side is toothed wino Unfortunately it i the bird who owns it no other interest in his property than collecting the rent fro with the idea of arson but there are those small children to consider Hut its not only good fences that make good neighbors There are other things This week our neighbors on the third side showed what they mnde of Their son a university student works for the summer at a mental institution On a fine summer day he brought home two carloads of patients for a barbecue in their back yard How would you like a dozen nuts flumped in your back yard for a threehour pic nic Id probably go hide in the bathroom Yet his parents were out there talking to them hu moring them feeding them and simply being sympathetic and decent Can you imagine what it means to those poor devils the patients that is Some as well as the back lawn One of them said not word nil after noon but when It was over he shook hands with his hostess and Goodbye Thank you It was a great achievement for him ac cording to those who knew him Another examined all the rooms in the house verbally rearranged the hostess Including heart above her head and a swastika in basket She wonders If he saw her as a benevolent dictator It takes all kinds of neighbors but I think were pretty lucky Luckier than our neigh- bora are perhaps They have only a the colorful pause winter solstice when man directs his thoughts to fuel and woolen underwear and the geese and ducks wisely turn their back on Canada for another year There is something about autumn that does things to me I get a bit silly and my thoughts unaccountably take a trip back into time Thus today faced with an other week and another column I find myself thinking of an event that took place years ago in the northern Ontario wilderness My story concerns goose a Canada goose gander who could not find it within himself to aban don his partner after became injured by shotgun pellets I can only tell half the story for its beginning took place before I arrived on the scene The guns had been silent for five weeks when I entered into the life of that big old Canada It a day typical of December by the hoofs of deer and the pads of the Ontario backwoods green and snowladen trees that cling precariously to bottomless muskeg Beyond the trail a lake It is the homo of two beaver families and the drinking place for moose and whitetail deer and wolves and bear a place of thriv ing life from spring to fall li the tracks of the hunters mink fox bobcat wolves weasel an end less procession of imprints tell their story Emerging from the trail I paused to inspect the white surface before me wondering if there would bo much change since my last visit here two months earlier It wns early morning about seven oclock as I recall and the sun not long past Its point above tree level The snowglare was intense and because of it I at first thought the lakes surface deserted Then the noise A soft intense hissing accompanied now and then by strange flapping Squinting against the I peered move closely focussing my attention on a point by the large beaver lodge There I saw I went closer before I could interpret what lay ahead Now I could see Backed up against the snowcoated sticks of the lodge was a Canada goose neck stretched for ward great wings held outwards Before it was a red fox small cautions hungry Beside the goose a still bundle of black and white another goose seemingly dead I suppose I should have let nature take its course but I could not simply stand by and while the snowbound goose became dinner for the fox I moved closer and the fox ran and the goose turned his fury upon my person My coat served as a shield for the vicious wing blows which had kept the fox bay and I was able to pinion the gander while I checked its body for injuries There were none Rut starva tion and cold combined to weak en the bird Its wing feathers were iced Its bones almost protruded through Its skin Beside it lay the body of Its mate one leg mangled by shot one wing broken Nearby was a small area of open water Four five weeks earlier the two had probably been of a flock heading south when hunting guns opened Wounded the goose had yet been nble to travel some distance the while losing height while her mate partner of life had followed honking concern and encourage- At Inst the pair had reached the small take and descended to it There they had stayed for the goose could not fly and the gander gallant but useless elected to with her rather than abandon her for the sanctuary of winter range encroaching ice trying in vain ta maintain his patch of open water Slowly the two had starved Now and then judging from the pad marks around the two had been by predators Fortunately nothing larger than the fox had found them and so they had survived until thla day