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' Page 4, Terrace Bay-Schreiber News, Wednesday, September 4, 1985 The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published every Wednesday by: Laurentian Publishing Co. Ltd., Box 579, Terrace Bay, Ontario, POT 2W0. Telephone: (807) 825-3747. y ice Bay tehreiber > i515 | | Soa es et a wer ee ee oa ee ee Cae David Carswell . NE ech Are, ony. . ised be ca Fe Se Gayle Fournier Gg PRODUCTION MANAGER.............. soil Sct Boho Mary Melo The Back-to- School syndrome "WANNA SEE (9Y BABY P/CHURES ?" by David Carswell Well, it's that time of year again, when the days start getting shorter, and the nights start getting colder, and the kids head off to school. - Ah, school. I don't know, but either young people of today are getting much more sophisticated or maybe I wasn't quite as normal as I thought I was when I was their age. You see, I spoke with a number of elementary school students in the last couple of weeks and their overwhelming response was that they were actually looking for- ward to going back to school and seeing the end of the summer vacation. When I was their age I dreaded the thought of going back to school in September, and, at least I thought, that every other kid felt the same way. Could I have been that wrong? It always seemed that the people who looked forward to the end of summer vacation most were my parents. On that fateful first day of school my mother was always pushing me out the door and down the street. There were very few terrors in my life quite like the first day of school - would I like my new teacher, would my new teacher like me, would I know any of the other kids, would my friends from last year still be in my class? All of these questions would run through my head that last week of summer vacation. But now it.seems that young people (for some reason I can't seem to call them kids anymore) actually look forward to going back. As a matter of fact, a few of them even told me that they had found summer vacation boring! I get the feeling that in this age of computers and video screens, young people have become better: adjusted to the idea that summer has to end and you have to go back to school. Maybe they seem a little more sophisticated about it but those are not the words I would use. I tend to think that the young people of today are being stoically fatalistic about the whole ordeal. Oh, their putting up a good front, telling everyong that they're looking forward to school, but I know, these kids are really just like I was when I was their age, except they have accepted the fact that you can't fight it so you may as well enjoy it. Seriously though, I am very encouraged by the attitude of some of the students I spoke with and they do strike me as being much more sophisticated than I ever was' while I was in school, I wish them all good luck with their studies and I congratulate their parents on making it through another summer. : Ld Remember folks, drive carefully, school's open and the kids are going to be walk- Did Vou Know ing by the sides of the road, so keep an eye open. If you believe you have been discriminated against by a federal government department or agency or an employer under federal jurisdiction, the Canadian Human Rights Commission can help. Discrimination is prohibited on the following grounds: race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, marital status, the fact that a person was convicted of an offence for which a pardon has been granted and, where employment is involved, the fact that a person has a physical handicap. Editor's Quote Book Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world. --Ralph Waldo Emerson The South My, my, my...-a Northern boy sure has a lot of things to learn when he first moves south. A couple of sweet, short months ago, I was a sim- ple son of the tundra, living in Thunder Bay, wrenching a living from the soil like thousands of unlet- tered souls before me. (Okay, okay, had a government job with pension, OHIP coverage and a dental plan -- but we're trying for romance here.) Then suddenly my vocation developed the symptoms afflicting many government jobs these days: Budget Cutbackitis. The office cleaners bypassed my cubbyhole, dis- daining to remove the layer of cigar ash, popsicle wrappers and old press releases from my carpet. As a mat- ter of fact, my carpet disappeared. Along with my key to the stationery cupboard, my carefully hoarded six year supply of paperclips and a pot- ted geranium by the name of Wilmer. When my 1986 supply of per- sonalized business cards arrived bear- ing the legend "Mister Occupant', I knew the time had come to move on. So I did. To Southern Ontario. Where life is, well... different. Let me list the ways: Item One: Distilled Water. There are rows upon rows of it in the super- market. -- Perrier, Gerolsteiner, and Rocky Mountain Pure.to name just a few brands. I'm not sure if it means that Southern Ontario groundwater is polluted or if it just means there are many more Yuppies per square inch here. All I know is somebody somewhere is getting rich by selling a commodity that our forefathers would never have believed people would pay for. Item Two: Trout Farms. They have trout farms here! You'll see the sign at the end of a farm lane. You drive in and find a regular farmhouse and barn and driving shed, plus a muddy brown pothole pond. You pays your money aid you catches your trout. Every ticket gets a fish. Guaranteed. Even if tiiey have to net it for you. Item Three: Mining. Yep, it's true. Metropolitan Toronto is seriously: thinking of getting into the Precious Metal Mining Business. Have they hit a motherlode in Mimico? A Hemlo South in Etobicoke? Not exactly. They are thinking of mining... the Toronto sewer system. Really! They figure there are enough trace deposits of elements like gold and silver in Toronto sewage to turn a buck. As one official put it: "If gold hits five hundred dollars an ounce, we'll be sitting on an Eldorado!"' Item Four: Fishing. One of the big surprises in moving south was the size of the fish you can catch down here. I mean. I just assumed that southern Ontario waters had been either poisoned, paved, or fished out long ago. Imagine my surprise to find the Toronto newspapers routinely displaying photos of proud fishermen holding up humongous trout and salmon caught, the cutlines said, in Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario? | thought Lake Ontario was so polluted it glowed in the dark! **A lot of good eating there" I enthused to the fellow next to me on the bus. '*Eating?" he said. "Oh you can't eat em, You just catch them. You'd probably die if you ate one."' Item Five: Mayor Morrow and Hamilton Harbour. This item sort of goes with Item Four, because Hamilton Harbour is on Lake On- tario, and that is where Hamilton Mayor Vic Morrow took a swim last week. Now that may not sound like very big potatoes to a reader in Sud- bury or Kapuskasing but that's only because they don't know Hamilton harbour. It really does glow in the dark. Hamilton harbour was brand- ed one of the three most polluted areas in the entire Great Lakes system three years ago, by the International Joint Commission. Nevertheless Mayor Morrow pinched his nose, said a Hail Mary and swam all of three metres -- ten feet -- justto show that, as he somewhat oddly put it: "the harbour is getting cleaner."' You've got to admire Mayor Mor- row. He's got a lot of blind faith. Much more than, for instance, Ian Cunningham. Doctor Cunningham is the Medical Officer of Health for Hamilton. Reporters asked him if he thought the mayor needed anything for his swim. '*Maybe shots for hepatitis and transient diarrhea," opined the doctor. Personally, I figure if Mayor Mor- row was really savvy he'd have put the exercise off for a year or two. By that time, Hamilton Harbour will be . so polluted he could make it a walk instead of a swim.