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c p 4 tribune december 11 1996 st comment sms email address stouffvilletribune pressnetnet this will be a year of major change when we look back on 1997 it can be safely predicted that it will be a year of great change this will be the year when many of the structures we have all come to know will be either dismantled or remodeled in education for instance ontario will see mindboggling changes everything from advertising on school buses to increased commercial partic ipation to even greater cuts into the budgets of schools and most of all the likely elimination of school boards lets not forget the equivalent of grade 13 going the way of the dinosaur changes will be profound at the regional level there may not be the sweeping changes predicted before the release of the who does what report but it appears the dye has been cast it seems a matter of time before the regions will fold and municipalities will amalgamate municipally changes to the struc ture will come by the november elec tion but the nature of these changes remains to be seen even the faces of community will change with further development and growth it promises to be a contentious year because of all these areas spending power jobs are on we can expect personal the horizon were told and changes as well wages are for those willing to grab it expected to climb and we are the brass ring will be there supposed to have greater predictions are just that the year ahead will be full of change whether the changes will be for the bet ter will be stuff of future soothsayers stouffville tribune 6244 main st stouffville ont l4a 1e2 905 6402100 905 6492292 classified 905 6402874 fax 905 6405477 publisher patricia pappas general managereditor andrew mair editorinchief jo ann stevenson director of advertising debra weller retail manager mike rogerson classified manager stacey allen distribution manager barry j goodyear administration vivian oneil operations mgr pamela nichols questions news andrew mair editor joan uaaslxjrry kathleen griffin mike adler reporters sjoerd witteveen steve somerville photographers julie caspersen copy editor retail advertising joan marsltman catherine dunkeld classified bonnie rondeau real estate joan marshman distribution arlene maddock reception ruth le blanc the stouffville tribune published every wednesday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publish ing and distribution group of community newspapers which includes ajax pickering news advertiser alliston heraldcourier barrie advance brampton guardian burlington post cityparent collingwoodwasaga con nection east york mirror etobicoke guardian george town independent acton free press kingston this week lindsay this week midlandpenetanguishene mirror markham economist and sun milton canadian champi on mississauga news newmarket aurora erabanner northumberland news north york mirror oakville beaver orillra tbday oshawawhitbyclarington this week peterborough this week richmond hillthom- hillvaughan liberal scarborough mirror todays seniors uxbridge tribune contents cannot be reprinted without written permission from the publisher bui travel medical insurance dont leave home vacations hate me every time i try to get a little rr i nearly always wind up in the er faithful readers of this space may recall two years ago this week i was on the cruise to hell the week before my depar ture i got a hangnail which laid me up in the hospital for four days and required emergency surgery i was able to go on holi day but i had a huge bandage on my hand and was unable to do anything short of keeping score on the shuffleboard court last summer i lost my keys in the lake while returning from a disastrous canoe vacation and had to wait three hours for my wife to pick me up from the mid dle of algonquin park in 1990 1 went to florida and wound up spending four days in bed with the worst flu of my life in 1982 a trip to ixtapa had to be put off for a month because i broke my thumb when on a family trip to scot land in 1969 1 wound up in hos pital after receiving a concussion on a seaside wild mouse roller coaster last week i booked a trip to the baja peninsula saturday i fell while skiing guess what ill likely be making good use of that cancellation insurance reports are still sketchy but at press time my holiday is once again beginning to look like an irwin allen movie i dont think ill go on a trip with a fulllength leg cast the tan line would be hard to explain as i write this there is some debate as to whether i severed a large and particularly valuable minute with mair sssssss- andrew mair tendon or just knocked a big chunk off my tibia stay tuned xrays at 11 i wish i could relate the spec tacular wipeout that may have me sporting a cast instead of sport casting but it really was rather an innocuous fall lets just say it involved one of those darn snowboarders a hill lit tered with banana peels and a complete lack of ability on my part it wont be seen on the opening segment of wide world of sports to be sure after sliding on my face for a while my ski caught and i heard a little piece of me snap surprisingly i was able to stand up and avoided the unbe lievable embarrassment of being carried down the hill on a stretcher which is what hap pened in 1986 when i cracked my pelvis after skiing into a rope strung between a truck and a building i actually skied down the rest of the hill and until it started to rain continued as if nothing was wrong it wasnt until i took off my boots and bent my knee that i realized i had experienced a phe nomenon similar to that of peo ple who get limbs bit off by sharks they claim they feel no pain and that they can still sense their phantom limb not until later is pain an issue such was me i am now on a cane awaiting the pronouncement of a team of orthopedic surgeons now at the full mercy of jesters of all stripes my only solace comes from the fact that i didnt go into the travel business coffee injuries bean there done that from a spoonful of granules in nuked tap water to java junction starbucks and the second cup is a long and wind ing road until about three years ago the inmates of le chateau were woefully ignorant on the subject of real coffee then mr wallethead coffee maker extraordinaire saw an ad for a cappuccino maker and a new era of urban sophistication dawned in the little house on main street at the end of one of our amus ing little dinner parties he could now pose the hitherto unimaginable question regu lar cappuccino or espresso our friends were suitably impressed and one adventur ous soul requested espresso without so much as a glance at his life insurance policy my husband retired to the kitchen to grind the beans yes vir ginia we even bought the req uisite coffee grinder and steam the milk a few minutes later there was a loud hissing noise followed by a strangled bellow of pain i rushed into the kitchen to find mr wallethead running cold water over his scalded hand and an interesting art nouveau arrangement of coffee shrapnel all over the ceiling and walls it reminded me of the time granny pat tried to make raspberry jam in the pressure cooker you learn something new every day and that day my sig nificant other learned where the steam came out of the machine for a while we went back to black cream only or regular but the old man has never been one to duck a chal lenge and he soon returned to living on coffees grinding edge his efforts improved immea surably but the machine was so compact that it took about two hours to make three minute cups of specialty coffee kates corner kate gttderd at e and in the last couple of years our cappuccino maker has sat on the shelf gathering dust however even i have become aware that a cup of instant is hardly the thing to offer the educated gourmand and we have now graduated to a bodum one of those glass thin- gies in which you allow the cof fee to brew before pressing down gently on the beans and eureka coffee that not only tastes good but doesnt strip the enamel from your teeth all these wonderful innova tions notwithstanding theres nothing to beat the taste of a cup of real coffee from one of the burgeoning army of trendy cafs a rare pleasure which for some strange reason has not yet been banned in the nasty nineties on a recent trip to queen street west clare offered to buy me a coffee at starbucks i settled for a latte mocha tall which to her horror set her back almost three dollars but what a threedollars worth it was slathered with whipped cream generously topped with cocoa and must have contained a years supply of bad choles terol not to mention my total calorie and fat intake for janu ary this was not so much a cup of coffee as a decadent dessert my own growing appreciation for real coffee meanwhile has persuaded me that it is worth the odd lifethreatening injury to my nearest and dearest to taste the subtle delights of the versatile bean as opposed to ingesting the old dishcloth aroma which is the province of instant karma