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Page 4, Terrace Bay-Schrelber News, Wednesday, July 2, 1986 ¥errace Bay Schreiber 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. EDITOR ADVERTISING eee oe re eee ee ee ee Conrad Felber see egos Sees --¢ es +. Gigi Bequanne (DEIR eas A Sor ng (capi es Gayle Fournier PRODUCTION MANAGER Single copies 35 cents Subscription rates per year y in-town -- $14.00 out-of-town -- $18.00 Member of Ontario Community Newspapers Association and The o Canadian Community Newspapers : Association. Editorial Tourism touche It's all well and good for the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation to spend $1.5 million on a brand new, province- wide program to, quote, "foster tourism hospitality and awareness," unquote, and the money is, no doubt, apprec- iated by the industry. There is a problem, however. A recent Ministry release has admitted that the object- ive of the program is to 'improve the quality of service to visitors of Ontario," including "friendly, courteous behaviour." Of course, such a statement implies that tourists are not getting such service right now. This may be the case here and there, but it is certainly not a province- wide problem. What the program is actually doing is in- sulting the majority of those in the tourism industry who do have "friendly, courteous behaviour" already. Therefore, the program should not be repeated in 1987. The tourism industry must be left alone to work out any of its so-called "behaviour" problems from within, while the provincial government, instead of wasting millions of dollars on what are really trivial projects, should use its resources to lure more tourists to the province, especially northern Ontario. This will work out in the end as a benefit for everyone in the province, including the government. By Conrad Felber It was Canada Day earlier this week, so therefore I feel I should say something about this country of ours, . since I passed up the opportunity with my weekly editorial (which, in case you did not realize, I also write for each and every issue). However, in- stead of glorifying the Land of the Maple Leaf, I think I will do just the opposite (as is my sardonic wont). The recent attempts at free trade with the United States...now there's something worth talking about right Off the bat. At first, I was all for free trade. I was of the opinion that since such an opportunity only comes once every 100 years or so for us, we should go for it while we can. But then I looked into it a little fur- ther and decided to change my mind. Free trade is not the way to go. Prime Black N' White By Arthur Black As near as I can figure there's on- ly one puberty rite left among stan- dard, white, middle-class, North American Familes. We call it leav- ing home. I went through it when I was 18. It was a mutually satisfactory parting. My parents, I'm sure, were just a teensy bit looking forward to having the resident know-it-all slob out of the house for a while, As for me, I was delighted. Imagine! Get- ting my own apartment! Playing the stereo full-blast... staying up as late as I liked... no more lawn to cut or cats to feed... I think it took about two weeks for the full majesty of my new-found misery to catch up with me. My apartment was a roach nursery, only one sheet of gyprock away from a pigsty full of bikers with a penchant for all night drunks and timber- rattling gangfights. My slumlord spoke two languages: Croatian and Obscenity. He insisted there was nothing wrong with a heat radiator that didn't radiate heat or with a ee ee Mary Melo THAT WE HAVE ACCESS JO IONE Y (QACHINEF ALL OVER THE PLACE --- oe THERE'S ONE THAT SEEMS 70 BE IN $HORT SUPPLY | Minister Brian Mulroney says he won't put our social programs on the bargaining table, but he has broken his promised in the past, and he prob- ably will again. Besides, even if we discount that aspect of the talks, I still have problems with the whole idea. I'm not the first one either. Back in 1878, Sir John A. MacDonald (does that name rings a bell?) said, and I quote: "No great nation has ever risen whose policy was free trade." Sure, things have changed since then, but even as recently as 1951, someone by the name of J.S. Wallace said the following: "/f we put all our eggs in a Yankee basket, we'll all end up in a Yankee casket." Next up is our Bill of Rights. Hah. Bill of Wrongs is more like it. The clause regarding "freedom of expres- sion" is almost constantly ignored by both the federal government, with its recent anti-porn bill, and the provin- cial government, with its Film and Review Board (notice how the name for that group of fascists is no longer the Censor Board?). I've gone on about both of these before, I will continue to do so until the rest of you Canadians come to your senses and call for changes in the Victorian attitude of our govern- ments. As noted in a July 21 Globe and Mail \etter to the editor: "*1'm embarrassed to be a Canadian, to live in a country whose legislators have the attitude of 13-year-olds who titter in social studies class at the pic- tures of naked aboriginies. One of the reasons why we are having so much trouble with the pomography issue in Canada is that as a nation we are emotionally stunted on the one hand, and continually brow-beaten by hys- terical minorities on the other. When are we going to grow up?" Speaking of growing up (he said, deftly switching to another topic), something also must be said about those who insist on talking in movie. houses. I had this happen to me just last week at the Towne Cinema here in Terrace Bay. I can't blame the management...after all, what can they do about it? No, I blame instead those who simply don't know when to be quiet. Along these lines I would like to quote the words of writer Harlan Ellison, who knows whereof I speak: "I've come to hate seeing films in ordinary theatres since the advent of television. People talk. Not at the screen, an occasional bon mot as response to something silly in the plot or a flawed performance, but to each il, other. Not sotto voce, not whispered, not subdued...but at the top of their lungs. They babble continuously, they ask moronic questions of each other, they make it impossible to enjoy a mo- tion picture." You! Yes, you! I'm talking about you here. And you too! Please, when you go to the show, SHUT UP! (This public service has been brought to you today on behalf of film fans everywhere, and the letter "C'.) refrigerator that incubated its contents at room temperature. But all these were mere fleabites (another feature of the place) com- pared to the overall lesson I learned by Leaving Home. The lesson I learned was that I was "utterly useless. Never mind esoteric skills like unclogging a toilet, waxing a floor or negotiating a lease -- I couldn't even sew on a button or poach an egg! It all came crashing down on me in about the third week of my in- dependence as I sat in Ling's Open Kitchen eating my Sunday dinner. I knew that right then, back home, my family was tucking Mom's Sunday special: steaming roast beef and golden potatoes smothered in gravy -- the very meal I had traditionally greeted with : "Aw jeez... roast beef again?"' Those thoughts occurred as I was gnawing through Ling's Sunday special: grey hamburger and ropey fries. Well, I survived. I'm only a little ~ more self-sufficient than I was back in those dreary days, but I think I'm . a good deal wiser about the trauma that kids -- particularly the useless male variety -- face when they leave home for the first time. I believe that move is a bit like Basic Training for Marines -- a whole lot meaner and uglier than it has to be. Particularly when you consider the book that's lying on my desk right now. It is called Leaving The Nest: The Complete Guide to Living On Your Own. It's written by a mother- and-son team, Dorinne and Richard Armstrong, and it covers every household disaster I encountered as a novice bachelor, plus a few I managed to avoid. Leaving the Nest has tips on everything form how to find a good apartment to when you should water your plants. In between, it offers ad- vice on bathroom cleaning, checkbook balancing, egg scrambl- ing, leaky faucet fixing, shirt ironing, landlord-dickering and living-room- furnishings. The book is a goldmine of nuggets of knowledge I never dreamed of. Did you know that February is the best time to get a deal on air condi- tioners, cosmetics, curtains and floor coverings? Or that a guy should wait until after July 1st weekend to buy men's shirts? The Armstrongs pro- vide a month-by-month breakdown of all the annual sales and off-season dis- counts available. But my favorite chapter is called "'Cooking 101 -- An Idiot's Guide to the Art of Cooking." What makes this chapter special is the fact that / can understand it. No talk here of saute and puree and paring and brais- ing. To quote the authors: 'To peo- ple who don't know how to cook, cookbooks are written in a foreign language. Our recipes use plain English... the most complicated word you'll find in this chapter is 'fry'." The authors make it simple. They provide item-by-item weekly shopp- ing lists and step-by-tiny-step daily menus specifically designed for the culinary inept. Here's an excerpt from the instructions on z scrambled eggs: "*Stir the eggs vigorously in a ver- tical circle so that your hand looks like it's reeling in a fishing line. This exposes the egg to the air and gives it a foamy, bubbly consistency. It's called beating the egg." Even I could follow that. I could go on and on because the book is a joy to read and a ball to quote, but I think you should buy your own copy. Better still, if there's a fledgling in your aviary who's about to try his or her wings, the biggest favour you could do for them is to stuff a copy __ of Leaving the Nest om their napsack. To borrow (and customize) a line from the American Express ad: Don't set up home without it. LEAVING THE NEST: The Com- plete Guide to Living On Your Own. Macmillan of Canada, $11.95.