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Page 5, News' Tuesday, October 16, 1990 My cat Malcolm goes abso- lutely mental over chicken bones. If Malcolm were a contestant on Let's Make A Deal (hey, I've seen worse) and had insider information that behind Door No. 1 was a steaming Black Forest ham, that behind Door No. 2 purred Miss Mew in a black teddy and in heat and that behind Door No. 3 was a bag of old chicken bones he'd grab the microphone and scream - "Door No. 3 Monty! Door No. 3!" Then I imagine Monty Hall would offer Malcolm a brand new 1990 sports' sedan Popemobile and an all-expense paid trip to Egypt to visit his ancestors for whatever's behind Door No. 3 and Malcolm would crawl up Monty's pant leg and get his claws into whatever's behind William J. Thomas Zipper No. 1 and hold on until Monty orders a security guard to bust into Door No. 3 with a fire axe and give the little $.O.B. the bag of bones. Obsessed is this two-toothed cat that irrationally covets the dried and meatless remainder of a dead and dumb fowl. I can wrap them in plastic and put them in a lid-locked garbage pail behind a kid-proof cupboard door and in the morning there will be chicken bones all over the kitchen floor. I can't smack him because I can't catch him doing it. And, of course, in the morning he gives me that "Oh my gosh" look, like the Chicken Bone Burglar Just say no to chicken bones broke in again last night and he's just as upset about the whole thing as I am. I've tried everything to no avail. If I put chicken bones in the crankcase of a John Deere tractor chained to a flat-bed truck on its way to Lincoln, Nebraska, Malcolm would intercept the shipment at the Fort Erie border and the next morning my kitchen floor would again look like a bird cemetery. : If Amelia Earhart had of taken off in 1937 with chicken bones in her bomber jacket, Malcolm would have forced her to land by now. If they'd have buried chicken bones under the Berlin Wall when they built it, East Germany would have been free a decade ago and Malcolm would have been nego- tiating unification with Helmut Kohl. So my options are; 1 Give up eating chicken 2. Eat only de-boned chicken 3. Disguise a German Shepherd as a chicken bone and have him attack Malcolm 4. Write a bedtime story that will impress upon Malcolm the dangers of chicken bones. Well "de-boning"" sounds like some kind of punishment for repeat sexual offenders, so I went with the bedtime story. I sat Malcolm down on the bed and pretended to open a book using two record album covers (Hey, he's a cat. What does he know about hardbound children's books?) "Once upon a time," I continued on page 6 Happiness is ; "What makes you happy, Baba?" asks local Sharon of local Saunder's Store. "We know the many things that get your dander up through your essays, but what. really turns you on happy-like?" Well, Sharon, I'll tell you. As with everybody else,-I'm sure, it's a whole bunch of little things. And some not so little. Such as my two children. John and Stacey. They are the two Big Happies in my life and I'm so glad that, despite all the difficul- ties of growing up in this day and age of temptations galore, they've turned out to be responsible, car- ing adults of whom any parent could be justifiable proud. They're married to two good mates, and they're doing a terrific job bringing up their kidnicks and my grandkidnicks, Tobin, Kyle and Lara. Yeah, that's real 'happy', and worth any wealth of monies, jewels or precious: met- als. Then there are trusted and true friends. To have even a couple in one's life, is to be rich indeed. To have such people who accept you, warts and all, and to whom one can turn in moments of emotional stress and strain, well, as far as Olga Landiak I'm concerned, that's more 'jewels' of happiness. Good books, good music, good sports, good conversation. Good books, well-written, enjoyable, stimulating, informa- tive - these are pearls indeed and, to a book-a-holic like me, almost an absolute necessity of life, in the on-going self-educating pro- cess of garnering knowledge. Not wisdom, just knowledge. Wisdom lies not in books, but elsewhere. Good music, be it classical, operatic, Big Band, balladic, schmatlzy, reduces yer old Baba to tears of over-emotionalism. "One Fine Day" from "Madame Butterfly" will do it every time and, as for Gregorian Chants because they remind me of one great highlight in my life, they will do equally the same. but, sometimes, with all natural scenic things - they catch me by the throat every time also. Good sports. The trained body physical in all it's endeavours be lots of little things ae: it dance, gymnastics, hockey, swimming, etc., is one of the most beautiful things a person can watch, but only if you're into the physical thing yourself like yer ole Baba, a physical nut from birth, I guess. Just love that sweat, toil and tears bit! Good conversation. Oh, that must surely be the most stimulat- ing thing on God's earth! To range through a.variety of topics in a good interchange of ideas,- opinions, arguments, agreements, is to open oneself to the impact of other minds whether humorous, serious or just inbetween. Everybody's got their own ver- sion to tell, so it's a learning expe- rience all around, and what else is life for but to live and learn. Yes, good talk, is precious. Meeting new people whether young, old, in between, all shapes, sizes, ages, of differing ethnic, cultural and working backgrounds, and getting to know them for their individual worths and experiences. Oh, most defi- nitely a 'jewel' of happiness. The blessings of living in a reasonable peaceful place such as Canada where all the comforts of life are available, to greater or lesser degrees, to one and all. It all depends on how much a per- son thinks they need in the way of material possessions and 'com- forts' to make them happy. Yer old Baba has learned through the many impecunious years to be content with the _ basics. Anything, after that is pure gravy and in the 'treat' category. The opportunity to do one's bit, again to greater or lesser degrees, for the community in which one lives. We can't all be heroes, heroines, or in the lime- light, but, by gosh, we can make some small contribution to the small corner of the world in which we live, which benefits everybody. That's a real 'happy' in my books. It is blessed to give, as well as to receive. The knowledge that there is an Almighty Creator. Just to look at the marvels of the make-up of the human body, the incredible make- up of all things in the natural world, is to refute the evolution- ary theory as incredulous non- sense. It is yer ole Baba's greatest happiness of all to put herself. in the hands of The One Who Created All, and leave everything up to Him. I feel it puts me in my rightful place as a mere breath of life passing through this incredi- bly beautiful and wondrous Infinite Universe. Beyond the expiration of that breath is....whatever the Creator wills it to-be. : Happiness, therefore, dear Sharon and other readers, for yer old Baba is....living....experienc- ing...learning....and not being afraid to die when my time comes. Beaming ahead into the future On Star Trek, it looks easy. All you need is a set of co-ordi- nates, and you can beam your way instantly to any destination. Canada needs some device like that, badly. This nation has a lit- tle bit of history, and a lot more geography. Depending on how you measure us, Canada stretches more than 7,400 kilometres from east to west, and even further north to south. When Brian Mulroney's cabi- net cancelled half of VIA ail's passenger service a year ago, he set up a Royal Commission on National Passenger Transport- ation. In part, the move was designed to take some of the political heat off Ottawa for can- celling the trains. Instead of directing angry letters and briefs at the government, anyone who wanted to sound off about trains could be referred to the Royal Commission. But it was also an attempt to look ahead - to admit that we hadn't really studied our transportation systems for decades, and they needed atten- tion. The background papers that accompany the Royal Commis- sion are deceptively simple. They elaborate the obvious: as Canadians, we're dependant on our transportation systems for our national well-being. We started with horses, moved to rails, then to cars and planes. We now have a hodge-podge of federal, provin- cial and municipal transportation systems.. All of them need mas- sive investments in new infras- tructure, at a time of shrinking | government budgets. Municipalities fix potholes and run public transit systems at a NORTHERN INSIGHTS by Larry Sanders loss. Roads between towns and cities get fixed, not enhanced. Bridges built after the Second World War are still holding up, but just barely. The railway road beds are privately owned, and restricted to those who can pay. Airports are straining at the seams with old buildings, obsolete tech- nology, and massive passenger increases. The Commission was set up to look at the year 2,000 and beyond, and examine the poten- tial for an INTEGRATED passen- ger transportation system. The* systems we have now are disinte- grating, not integrated. For example, if you take the bus from Fort Frances or Atikokan to Thunder Bay, and then want to switch to an airplane, good luck. You will likely have to stay overnight. Then, the chaos at our city airport will deter you from flying again.. Thunder Bay has the third busiest airport in Ontario (after Toronto and Ottawa) and yet we still lack the basics: no closed ramps to meet the planes, only one baggage claim area, and nothing other than a humiliating fork lift truck to handle wheel chairs. Thus, when the Royal Commission held its public hear- ings in Thunder Bay recently, it heard an earful of local com- plaints. One of the Commissio- : ners, Jim McNiven, the Dean of Management at Dalhousie | University in Halifax, said "we've heard a lot of this before in other parts of the country." But McNiven also asked the crunch question: "We've heard proposals in our hearing across the country from some 450-500 billion dol- lars in infrastructure. Yet we all know the trend in government expenditures for the last several decades has been to spend money. on services, and not infrastruc- ture. How would you suggest we reverse this trend?" McNiven happened to ask that question while Iain Angus, the federal NDP Transport critic, was giving his presentation. McNiven got the standard NDP response: put the railway roadbeds under public ownership, so the railways will be forced to use their ser- vices for public service, not pri- vate gain. Angus estimated that the public treasury would get a 3- continued on page 6