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July 27,.1967 CKPR-TV personality Hal Lee and Sales Manager Steve Van Duffelen at the reception given for local business men and merchants by CKPR-FM. Photo by J. Whiteley. Acting Reeve Sinotte presents Council pin to Mrs. Sandy Craighead of St. Paul, Minn. the Leader of the Girl Scouts who were in Terrace Bay last week. Photo By J. Whiteley. "So much for our bigger pa y cheque demands, now what?" "Sorry, Mr. Kahn . . . no pets!' TERRACE BAY NEWS AND SPICE a7 ai Smiley I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that I am the 'stupidest English teacher in Canada if not the whole of North America. I may add that I am the most dunder-headed columnist between Vancouver and Marysville, Newfoundland. Why? Aside from the things that naturally spring to mind, it's this crazy column contest, that's why. English teachers spend their' winters muttering and cursing into the small 'hours as they read and mark what are jocosely called essays. At the end of June the intel- ligent ones begin their holi- days, or run off with some- body's mistress, or get roaring drunk. The stupid one starts a guest-column contest and spends his whole summer mut- tering and cursing into the small hours, reading columns that make him extremely inse- cure about his future as a col- umnist. Well, I guess you know what all this is leading up to. That's right, chaps, I still haven't picked the winner of that fan- tastic prize of 50 fish. Like a jerk, I didn't put a deadline on entries, and the damn things are still coming in. But that's not the problem. They're all so rotten GOOD. Readers of Sugar and Spice, or at least a couple of hundred -of them, are among the most literate, articulate and witty in the land. How would you like to be asked to judge a beauty con- test in which every entrant was a knockout and also the daughter of one of your best friends? That's how I feel. A person with some method in his madness would probably sort the entries into groups: Excellent, Very Good, Pretty Good, A _ Definite Potential, Lousy, Stinks, and so on. Then he would put an elastic band around each group. He would then put aside all except the Excellent. He would peruse them for the eighth time, narrowing down to two. And he would make a decision. And everybody would be un- happy ever afterwards, except the winner. I don't operate that way. I am racked, harrowed, tortured. One day I think I have the winner. My wife agrees. The kids don't like it, or I suddenly remember a better one that I read last week, and spend two hours searching for it, only to find that it should have been in the Stinks' file. Another day I _have every- thing narrowed down to the TOP TEN. I place them care- fully on the floor beside my desk. And my wife, tidying up while I'm. not around, puts them back in with the others, shuffles them, and I have to. read the whole ruddy lot again, in the process discovering sev- eral which were much better than the TOP TEN. My ears are already burning because I can hear the shouts of indignation from right across the nation, when the winner is announced. It will definitely be, for all other en- trants, the worst column they've ever read. Ah, the hell with it. Here I am, an old fighter pilot who dived into the blazing flak at Caen, scared stiff because 199 people are going to think I'm a clod for not picking their col- umn. Next week, the winning col- umn will appear in this space, even if I have to write it my- self and donate the prize to the Stupid English ,Teachers Asso- ciation: Now, here's what to do. If you want your manuscript back, and have not already in- dicated so, please write to me at 303 Hugel Ave., Midland, Ontario, and it shall be sent. Then, take it to the editor of your local newspaper. Just say, "This column won Honorable Mention in the Smiley-to-Expo Contest." He'll print it. If he doesn't he's a cad, and you can tell him so, from me. There is some _ absolutely first-rate stuff in the heap, and in almost every case, it should be printed.