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pitt 2 the tribune tauriday november 18 1971 b hw j established 1888 chablks h nolan pubtober t jamts thomas associate publisher and editor kobebt mccausland advertising manager published every thursday by inland publishing co limited at 5i main st stouffville ont tel 6502101 single copies 15c subscriptions s500 per year in canada 900 elsewhere member of audit bureau of circulation canadian weekly newspapers association and ontario weekly newspapers association second class mail registration number 0896 editorial appreciation for firemen no group is deserving of more credit and appreciation in the recent fire destruction in town than our local fire brigade while this is a volunteer brigade the effort and determination put into such a catastrophe make them every bit the professional the number of calls made on these men is growing steadily as the population rises and one wonders how long the service can be maintained over such a wide area on a volunteer basis cooperation is excellent among the various neighboring brigades and their immediate response to the local call for help is certainly appreciated fire protection like police protection is often little appreciated until it is needed the firemen risk life and limb on their job and are constantly called out at most unpopular hours the tribune on behalf of the community extends its thanks homeless need your help in times of tragedy community residents are quick to close ranks and render aid stouffville we trust is this kind of community the need is urgent in the nov 9 fire eight apartment tenants lost their homes their personal belongings everything all have been temporarily reestablished and provided with the immediate necessities of life this is not enough stouffville can and will do more while smoke was still swirling up from the fireravaged site a committee representing a crosssection of town was meeting to set up a fund and render financial assistance these are energetic men and women but enthusiasm alone will not gain them the goal they seek the campaign must encompass everyone send in your donation today large or small to stouffville box 502 or to the following banks torontodominion nova scotia or either of the stouffville or claremont branches imperial bank of commerce making life a little happier for others will make you a little happier too student cooperation needed last week three boys suspected of peddling drugs were taken in for questioning by officers of the york regional police department they were apprehended in the area of edward street where each day hundreds of students some as young as twelve walk to and from school obviously to the pusher a potential market place but what could the police do nothing for they had no proof the lads were released likely to ply their trade again at another time perhaps at another location the frustrating thing about this practice is that young people now being used by these parasites are unwilling to identify the persons responsible although they are apparently known to almost everyone the police are not the only ones facing this communications problem parents too are finding it difficult to get through to their sons and daughters mums the word on the teen drug scene these days although why no one seems quite sure if the straight kids of which there are many would band together and co operate with the police their teachers and their parents a solution might soon be found without this help no end is in sight deserve your support it is seldom we lend space in our editorial column to support something we know little or nothing about the talent for acting is one of these even on the amateur stage but we still enjoy it particularly when the actors and actresses are people we know so it is this week nov 19 and 20 when the stouffville players take to the stage in the auditorium of whitchurch highlands school in past years this community has not given this organization the support they deserve in fact there have been times when they have come close to dropping the program entirely only through sheer determination and enthusiasm have they carried on but better days lie ahead with the completion of the new community centre in the stouffville park the players will soon have a permanent home this friday and saturday however the location is cone 5 and the bloomington road not by choice only by necessity childrens lives at stake its no particular secret that ontario drivers dont regard speed limits as sacred for this reason we agree with mrs william mcgregor mrs mcgregor who lives near the 5th concession recently asked council to raise the speed limit on that road to 40 from its present 35 she pointed out as others have that school buses cannot use their flashers to stop traffic in an area with a limit of 35 or less mrs mcgregor claimed that children have almost been hit several times and asked council to pass a bylaw raising the minimum we think her request is a reasonable one the limit on that stretch of road was until this year 50 miles per hour it was lowered after some complaints but apparently no consideration was given to the school bus problem at that time along with mrs mcgregor we are disappointed that council chose not to act they have the power to do so at the same time mayor laushways point is welltaken the department of transportation is pretty slow about approving bylaws this municipality is still waiting for an answer on the musselmans lake road request passed months ago there is however no reason to believe that the department will be any quicker to change its regulations as council members hope we feel it is up to the municipality to immediately pass a bylaw of the sort requested by mrs mcgregor and send it on for approval if the law is changed then the bylaw wont beneeded but its definitely needed now editors mail dear sir on behalf of the president mfc brf lemaitre and the board of directors of the york county branch of the ontario humane society i wish to express our grateful thanks to you for your very generous donation of free advertising for our tag day september 28 1971 your assistance in our animal welfare work is most deeply appreciated miss j a neher hon secretary newmarket ont wmmjmw sugar and spice man is human after all by bill smiley at time of writing there is a wind howling out of the north and a wrack of clouds tearing across the sky but you wont hear a word of complaint from me in the first place the wind has blown the remainder of my annual 20000 cubic feet of leaves right off my front lawn and onto my neighbours and in the second this has been the most glorious autumn i can remember the foliage was ineffably beautiful and lasted longer than usual we were swimming right into october on november 1st we entertained friends on the back iawn after a twomile walk through the hushed expectancy of a beech forest over stone walls that looked as though they had been built by the same chaps who knocked together the pyramids and across rolling pastures that reminded bittersweetly of the english downs let dread winter do its dangdest the lord or whoever runs the weather department has given me a fall i will never forget mind you take that with a grain of salt man is a fallible creature and within a week ill be cursing the snow getting my snow tires on too late trying to pry the garden hose out of the ice and wondering why i didnt get my storm windows on during that glorious dear sir the toronto star carried this news item recently york region director of education sam chapman has received a 1500 pay raise approved at a board meeting this week his salary now becomes 34000 while i wish in no way to minimize the ability of the said sam chapman i do question whether anyone holding a position such as this is honestly worth 34000 if school boards can no longer be practical and i fear that they cant then let them be a little bit realistic or even sympathetic on we the poor taxpayers who are continually called on to pay the shot somewhere there has to be a limit but just how high is up a taxpayer whose reached her limit autumn i was raving about man is fallible indeed we are born equal but some of us become more equal than others we are born fallible but some of us become more fallible than others i am content to be in the latter category if theres anything that raises my hackles it is the person who is in fallible or thinks he is or she in the case of my wife for example did you read about the way that jackie exkennedy has that poor greek aristotle onassis tied up financially he made himself a billionaire but despite his first name and the wisdom it implies his marriage contract with her makes him look like a real hick who has come in contact with a very shrewd horsetrader she is guaranteed 10000 a year for clothes i forget the other items but theyre in the same vein even my wife was appalled she couldnt spend it she said i merely raised one eyebrow but wouldnt you agree that aristotle is fallible the political experts are just about as fallible as they come premier davis would have a real battle on his hands in ontario joey smallwood would have some opposition but no real problem in newfie the upset of the longentrenched alberta government was impossible davis won walking in ont joey got licked i think in newfie and the long- entrenched boys in alta were turfed out the cops are fallible hundreds of them stood around with red faces when some silly young punk burst through their serried ranks and put a halfnelson on premier kosygin the mighty us is fallible for the first time in the history of the united nations the states got a real jolt in the ego on the admission of china vote its fallibility was showing even more blatantly when it persisted in the face of world opinion in the great nuclear test off alaska but this is the way of the world if man were infallible he would have no need for a god the earth would be crawling with automatons and life would be very dull if weather forecasters were infallible for instance thered be no spice in life wed be able to batten down for a storm instead of having the roof blown off when they predicted light winds ive come a long way from my opening words about the beautiful autumn weve 40fimini 3buunp my split personality by jim thomas when the fire sirens sounds im gone out of the house like a shot leaving one distraught mother five wideeyed kids and the bathroom door a priority sidetrip fairly spinning in the wake prior to the nov 9 conflagration on main street this had been the weekend story of my life barns and houses were burning all over the place so it was on the tuesday morning i had worked up to 3 am the night before and boy was i beat suddenly without warning son paul came bursting into the bedroom dad dad he hollered i hear the siren get up get up but i paid no heed i had the paper half filled with fire pictures anyway and besides i hoped it was just some torontobound commuter with an over heated rad i hauled the covers over my head seconds later the phone rang it was john nolan he had seen the smoke from his home just a block away and for tunately for me took a few minutes time to investigate its in the ratcliff block he said i thought youd want to know looks pretty bad there i was eight oclock in the morning still clad in my pyjamas no film in the camera and half the downtown commercial area facing total destruc tion what a fix while it took a couple of seconds for the seriousness of the situation to sink into my sleepbound brain i responded faster than on any previous occasion in fact i flew combing my hair with my hands as i went at the ninth and rupert thick columns of smoke were already visible above the trees i pressed the pontiac to the floor which in six cylinder terms means a maximum of maybe seventy i veered around a couple of temporary barriers and came to a skidding stop the front wheels blocking the sidewalk by now the bleachers on the north side of main were jammed with spec tators many of them students i strolled over kind of casual like trying to impart the impression id been there from the start a premonition but strange enough no one said a word in fact no one even noticed the fire scene was obviously much more spec tacular more spectacular that is until i bent over to sneak through a police- erected barricade rip my pants split j from stem to gudgeon oh the terrible embarrassment of it all however i pressed on clicking and snapping shots of the inferno from every side and angle but at the same time mindful of the fact that the problem up v front was no more personal than the one behind with every horizontal shift i could feel the damp cool midmorning air sifting in likely mixed with fragments of ash for this reason i remained innocently erect as much as possible after all with tv cameramen buzzing all around my torn trousers could become the centre of a national catastrophe an international incident flashed into every home across t the country save me from that it was 530 pm that same afternoon when i finally reached home and then only long enough to grab a quick snack and get back on the beat you look awful my wife said as she t opened the front door tell me what happened havent much time i answered just make me a quick sandwich and put a stitch in my pants you need more than that she replied and the kids broke into a hilarious laugh aside from being iishevelled and unshaven my belt had missed two loops my tie was overtop my collar my socks were mismatched and my shoes were on the wrong feet and you dont need to worry about anything here my wife concluded snipping off the last thread you forgot to take off your pyjamas nov 9 1971 what a day had but theres metnod in my madness man is fallible maybe i just think weve had a beautiful fall i could quite easily wake up tomorrow morning discover that it was the middle of sep tember and that wed just had a 4foot fall of snow and that the whole thing had been a dream i hope not but im not discounting the possibility