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Page 4 TERRACE BAY/SCHREIBER NEWS Wednesday, September 20, 1989 | Editorial Page The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published every Wednesday by Laurentian Publishing Limited, Box 579, Terrace Bay, Ont., POT-2W0 Tel.: 807-825-3747. Second class mailing permit 0867. Member of the Ontario Community-Newspaper Assn. and the Canadian Community Newspaper Assn. It's hard to believe, but... . How do you like these for headlines for attention grabbers? "Girl Raised by Sheep - She didn't see another human for 50 years." "Chicken boy born with giant beak - Docs give him a new face." "Werewolf that's half dog and half crocodile attacks village." "Boy killed by hospital bed that went berserk." "The incredible shrinking man: He drinks 6 pints of beer a day, and it makes him shrink!" "Antique grandfather clock is time machine!" Where did these headlines come from you ask? No, they're not from this week's issue of the Terrace Bay/Schreiber News . They're from those weekly tabloids such as the Sun, Enquirer, Star and others. Amazing stories to say the least. Unbelievable? For anybody with common sense they are. Yet, these magazines have some of the highest circulations of any newspapers in North America. It's hard to figure out why these papers are so popular. Maybe it's because the stories are so incredible, so totally unbelievable that they are so entertaining. I have to admit it would be kind of fun to write some of these "stories" though. Just sit down at the keyboard, come up with any crazy idea, and plop it down on paper. And if anybody claims the stories are untrue, just point out all the "highly placed, anonymous, confidential, key sources" where the information was obtained from to back up your story. How about these stories? "Loch Ness Monster sighted off Terrace Bay beach - Officials say Nessie stowed away on freighter to find new home." : "Man catches 400 Ib. Salmon in Lake Superior ' It ate my boat but I killed it with a spoon' says fisherman." Incredible you say? Unbelievable? Maybe - maybe not.» General Managet... EOF ci ceenstcinpenese:. Admin. Asst...........Gayle Fournier Production Asst....Carmen Dinner AN" LEAVE US NoT FORGET _ THE SMALL MATTER OF Q% ! WE WOULDN'T WANT TO DISAPPOINT Mr. WiLGon Now, WouLD WE ? ....Paul Marcon .David Chmara Single copies 40 cents. Subscription rates: $15 per year / $25 two years (local) and $21 per year (out of town). Unorganized areas The News welcomes your let- ters to the editor. Feel free to express comments, opinions, appreciation, or debate anything unpleased with tax The following is a letter sent to the premier of Ontario, David Peterson. Dear Mr. Premier: In further response to our letter of November 30, 1988 regarding School Taxes paid in the Unorganized Areas (Localities. of The Lake Superior Board of Education District), we would like to inform you of what has of public interest. Write to: Editor Box 579 » Terrace Bay, Ont. 13 Simcoe Plaza POT 2W0 Terrace Bay/Schreiber News transpired during the last year. Copies of the final letter by the Continued on page 5 So we may verify authorship, please sign your letters and include your phone number. Consider the Goodyear Blimp. I don't mean the craft itself. in all its bulbous majesty. I'm talking about the name emblazoned upon its whale- like carcass. GOODYEAR Sure, it stands for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio. But they took it from a remarkable 19th Century inventor by the name of Charles Goodyear who, though a bit of a certifiable nutbar in real life, changed your life and my life in thousands of ways. Charlie, you see, invented rubber. Well, that's wrong. Mother Nature , invented rubber -- it's the sap of various tropical plants, particularly the wild rubber tree. Humans have been fascinated by natural rubber for centuries. Ancient Egyptians amused themselves by bouncing gobs of the stuff off the flanks of the Sphinx. Back in the 1700s, scientists fanlad araund with the idea of "rubberizing" clothing. They made such things as rubber- coated leather boots and capes to take advantage of its water- shedding abilities. The rubber-coated articles worked swell -- at room temperature. As soon as they got cold, the natural rubber turned as brittle as a Margaret Thatcher smile. The heat of a summer day reduced natural rubber to a glob of oleaginous goop. Enter a Connecticut Yankee by the name of Charles Goodyear. Charlie too, was obsessed with 'the potential of "India rubber" as it was called. In the early years of the 1900s he conducted. hundreds of experiments, searching for some chemical or combination of chemicals that would render the gooey sap into a stable compound that could withstand extremes of temperature. On a chilly winter evening in 1839 a weary Charlie Goodyear finished off another day of useless experimentation. This time he'd been trying to combine native rubber with sulphur. No luck. Dejectedly, he brushed his hands over a wood stove. Bits of rubber and crumbs of Arthur Black | sulphur danced on the hot stove lid.. Suddenly bits of the rubber and flakes of sulphur came together and congealed to form a kind of blob that -- miracle of miracles -- was not melting on the stove lid! Eagerly Charlie Goodyear had It's the least we can do for Charlie just invented vulcanization, the process that would turn relatively useless rubber into literally millions of essential products. And that should have been the traditional Hollywood fadeout: a long shot of smiling Charlie Goodyear standing by his kitchen door, a slab of the world's first morsel of vulcanized rubber in his hand, looking forward to a future of fame and riches. -- Alas, life seldom takes its cues from Hollywood. The rest of the world wasn't nearly as thrilled with vulcanized rubber as Charlie was. His discovery was met with massive public indifference. Folks couldn't figure out why Charlie got so excited about this "vegetable leather" as he called it. And he did get excited. Charlie was to rubber as Don Cherry is to good hockey. He boasted the potential of vulcanized rubber tirelessly, night and day, to anyone who would listen. Charlie even took to walking around -in a three-piece rubberized suit to demonstrate the versatility on his invention. Eventually, of course, he made his point, but not before he carved himself an image as a megalomanical wierdo. And not before other American opportunists glommed on to his idea and claimed the invention as their own. Today, rubber is a multi-million dollar industry. Many a tycoon made his fortune in rubber, but not Charlie Goodyear. He spent his last years embroiled in costly court battles, fending off patent infringements. Charlie Goodyear's discovery has given us everything from beach balls to moon buggy tires, from whoopie cushions to artificial hearts. But it didn't do much for Charlie Goodyear. He died in 1860, exhausted and a pauper. Seems like putting his name on a blimp and flying it over the Super Bowl is the very least we can do.