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

the stouffville sun tuesday feb 18 2003 page 7 dont vote for me on nov 10 please in spite of a massive grassroots campaign i will not be running for mayor councillor or village idiot in the nov 10 whitchurchstouffville election with the announcement that mayor wayne emmerson will pull a mel lastman and vamoose from the political stage this fall the door is open in whitchurchstouffville not that emmo as his trucks licence plates read is a mel as far as we know he doesnt chomp on cigars hang with the hells angels or get saddled with paternity suits i will not pull a fran sainsbury its hard to believe its been nine years since she announced her reelection plans on the final day of nominations only to be defeated by mr emmerson i will not run people are now lining up to fill the mayors fourthfloor corner office in the imperial centre stouffvilles answer to the cn tower its the office with the shower and the nice view of all those new houses approaching from markham former councillors dog catchers and cab drivers wanna be mayor im not in the group thankfully but ive heard the name of just about every other person dangled as mayoral material with apologies to the large gathering of supporters that nearly filled a booth at jugheads diner in downtown stouffville last weekend i will not run the nomination committee took it hard ordering another round of omelettes and coffees as they went through the stouffville phone book in search of 1 jim mason off the top another suspect twenty years of covering or at least watching municipal politics in this town has meant viewing four mayors mr emmerson mrs sainsbury tom wood and eldred king ive seen taxpayers call for their heads people at public meetings scream at them and heard their ancestry questioned if wayne emmerson returns to fulltime employment at schell lumber its hard to believe anyone in the hardware section acting this way towards him but im used to public humiliation some say i get off on it write a column in a small town over two decades and youll get ripped while waiting in line at the a p or slammed on your own street in front of your kids goes with the territory but there are far better reasons why i will never run for office golf i dont play golf i commit golf as one of my playing partners once said ive seen the summer schedule of mayors in york region they play more golf some weeks than tiger woods then again if i played more maybe my game would improve public speaking i dont mind getting up in front of groups and talking but to do it several times a week the internet only has so much material id run out of jokes and starting telling the same ones to the catholic womens league that i used on the kindergarten class at ballantrae public school ribbon cutting disdained by every newsroom on the planet it remains a necessity for every mayor its an ageold routine if youre opening up a new business roll out 12 feet of ribbon and line up every dignitary you can get to show up hand out multiple pairs of scissors on three everybody cut not that i didnt play well with scissors as a kid the whole routine is a little hackey for the 21st century dont you think id like to introduce a new tradition have the mayor throw a rock through a window or spraypaint his name on a wall or maybe using swords to cut ribbons would be a good thing baby kissing hand shaking is dangerous enough what with the number of infectious diseases out there but planting a kiss on the head of a small child is just wrong what possible enjoyment could a baby get from being kissed by a middle- aged stranger i dont get it the chain of office i thought men in loud jewelry went out with mr t and the disco era not so mayors haul out these chains of office that look they came out of the bible and weigh more than a toyota im not into this look id have to introduce a mayors turtleneck and ball cap to replace this hideous waste of precious metal but thats just me and ill never be mayor jim mason is managing editor of the stouffville sun an ageold answer to thawing out have a newspaper route three newspaper routes in fact and sometimes five ive been delivering the tribune and more recently the stouffville sun nearly 16 years something of a record i suppose i inherited this thriceweekly service from daughter marylynn she like most teens back then didnt consider it cool trundling paper bags up and down streets where most people knew her name so dear old dad agreed to take over but only temporarily the year was 1987 ive been doing it ever since the 140home stretch includes part of rupert avenue and elm road westlawn crescent glad park avenue glengall lane and maystone court jean helps too in other areas of town she also assists with the tucking in of inserts a timeconsuming task on occasions if someones sick ill extend myself further walking up to 15 miles in a single day ok call me crazy but i love it for not only do i meet personable people along the way but enjoy the benefits of mostly pleasant outdoor form of exercise however theres a limit to ones endurance i came close to reaching mine saturday why because the cold was close to being unbearable in all honesty my nose felt and undoubtedly looked like the raw end of a carrot and the fingers on both hands felt like icicles in an effort to lessen the hardship i divided the distance in halftdoing part in the morning and partin the afternoon by 5 pm i was close to collapse being cold is one thing thawing out is anotherdespite all the gadgetry in todays modem homes theres no place to get warm jim thomas roaming around im talking the old snuggle-up-beside-the- stove kind of warmth instant thermal gratification so to speak oil heat gas heat even electric heat dont fill the bill give me an old fashioned findlay oval a heatbelcher like the one we had on the farm and ill show you warmhand satisfaction unmatched anywhere our iron maiden sat a few feet offcentre on the kitchen floor the sides and top were polished black steel with a yellow enameled warming closet firebox front water reservoir and oven a thing of beauty difficult to describe this popular product originated out of the findlay foundry ar carleton place ont whether or not it was shipped in sections im not so sure i dont recall its arrival it just always seemed to be there a family friend like nothing else we ever owned the price tag was something like 35 which back in the dirty thirties represented several cans of milk or crates of cabbage regardless it paid for itself a thousand times over in toasty warm hands and taste- tempting meals i vividly recall how after games of pond hockey or foxandthegoose wed crowd around the old findlay and soak up the heat when the weather turned really cold dad would toss in a mix of alberta coal and fence rails transforming the firebox to a ruby red the pipes and chimney too fortunately no catastrophe ever occurred that father couldnt control before going to bed mother always mixed up a big pot of oatmeal porridge and let it simmer overnight this warmed our innards before a twomile trek to school the findlay had other uses too when foster hewitt or joe lewis were front and centre on the deforest crosley radio we kids with mom as our tutor would turn space behind the stove into a kitchen classroom this cozy environment was a scholarly experience in more ways than one we learned to learn from each other as time went by and years turned to decades the findlays firebox grew dangerously thin exposing several menacing holes on occasions hot coals would pop out scorching areas of floor where they fell this bothered no one least of all mathilda our bobbedtailed cat because during the winter much of the house depended on body heat the kitchen and old findlay brought everyone together intended or not this was a family melting pot whatever the activity all took part none were leftalone yes winter nights were long and cold but thanks to old findlay every nook and cranny was filled with warmth thats what i sought on saturday without success yet im told the tradition continues carried on by heartland of cambridge glowing embers from a distant past that hopefully will last forever jim thomas is a stouffville resident who has written for area newspapers for more than 50 years stouffville says by hannelore volpe what would you like the next mayor and council to accomplish for whitchurch- stouffville mike vlachopoulos the number one issue for me is the water situation i would like to see some smart development keeping in mind the limitations we have due to the water last summer there was an outright ban on outdoor watering dolores kroupis keep an eye on the growth dont just satisfy the builders needs to increase the money in their pockets i was really happy when the pool and library were built because they offer a lot of activities for all ages bp wil su jl jj wmm sim ft 1 3 jjpblll beverley breedon it would be nice to see a sewage system in place in the musselmans lakeballantrae area instead of septic tanks ways have to be found to cut back pollution at the lake and throughout york region because of all the expected growth odette paul i like stouffville because it is small i dont want too much development i like the farmland and the village of stouffville i dont want toronto in my backyard that is why i moved here z jim mccron i would like to see more housing for seniors the waiting lists are too long i would like it to be possible for extended family members to live with their families