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Page 4, News, Tuesday, February 4 1992 'Editorial Tel.: 825-3747 : The Terrace Bay - Schreiber News is published every Tuesday by Laurentian Publishing Limited, Box 579, 13 Simcoe Plaza, Terrace Bay, Ont., POT-2W0 Fax: 807-825-9233. Office hours Tuesday-Friday, 9-5. Second class mailing permit 0867. Member of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association and the Canadian Community Newspaper Association. Single copies 50 cents. Subs. rates: $18 per year. Seniors $12 (local); $29 per year (out of 40 mile Editor..... accageuwteues radius); $38 in U.S. Add Advertising Rep GST to yearly subs. Admin. Asst........ Publisher............ Advertising Mgr....Linda R. Harbinson ....Darren MacDonald peas Chery! Kostecki ea Gayle Fournier A. Sandy Harbinson CNA oO; cn -- Angus would do well to walk before he takes the train Judging from the turnout at last week's hastily arranged meet- ing in support of restoring train service along the North Shore, people haven't forgotten about the train. What I remember about Via service is that the trains. were slow, the food and drink was ridiculously expensive, and arriving on time was, at best, a long shot. But compared with taking the bus, Via rail was an absolute luxury. If you were tired of sitting, you could walk up to the dome car, go to the bar car, or just go for a walk. It was ideally suited for conversation among passengers, but you always had the option of moving to another part of the train if the person next to you, well, hadn't taken a bath in a while. No doubt the bus is usually faster, but for someone who's at all tall, leg room is a sorry joke on a bus. And unlike trains, when a bus stops, it's not a smooth slowing down motion. It's a jarring, eye-opening (literally) experience, and it usually happens when you've finally managed to achieve something like a state of sleep. So I was with everyone else at the meeting who would like to see train service restored. But the problem with last week's meet- ing is that it was long on nostalgic--and sometimes bitter--remi- nisces about the train service, but short on just how restoring Via service would work. Nobody wants their taxes raised any more to pay for restored service--we're already taxed to death as it is--and the debt is already out of control. Yet most people still agree that train service should be restored. What I would like to see is people like Iain Angus coming up with feasible proposals outlining how a restored service could work. For example, the trains lost lots of money before, what could be changed to lessen the economic drain? How many people would likely use a restored service? Would it be a daily run, or a periodic run? A seasonal run or a year-round service? What is the likelihood of convincing the government to reverse its decision? Before people can be expected to jump on a restore- Via band- wagon, practical considerations such as these will have to be worked out. Give Angus credit for sensing the popular mood, and for sticking with this issue long after it disappeared from the front pages--indeed, he's helping to bring it back to the political agen- da. How much better it would be, however, if he had a plan rather than just a desire to see the service restored. fe Se ee eee Subscription Order Form PLEASE SEND ME A COPY OF THE PAPER EACH WEEK Enclosed is my cheque Bill me later NEWS Box 579, Terrace Bay, Ontario POT 2W0 Within 40 miles...$18 Outside 40 miles...$29 USA...$38 Seniors...$12 Inside 40 mile radius only I j r I I I ! I i : I I I I I : I : Please add 7% G.S.T. I "__- AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF PENNIES FROM) HEAVEN 1¢ Aap 1% THIS YEAR, 2% NEXT YEAR AND- ------ _ i" oo Being overweight no big deal I've been on a diet for twenty-one days and all I've lost is three weeks. I don't know who said that, but let's face it: chances are pretty good that it could have been you, or me, or that lady over there with her nose pressed flat against the bakery window. Seems like everybody this side of Twiggy is on a diet these days. Or planning to go on one. Or picking themselves up after falling off one. The statistics are telling. At any given time, 50 per cent of North American women are on some diet. Men are only slightly less neurotic about fat--only 30 per cent of the males you meet are cutting back on calories in one way or another. And such ways! There are low-cal beverages, "Lite" foods, and a plethora of over-the-counter appetite suppressants. a Your friendly neighborhood ¢ bookstore offers a whole flotilla of ; paperback diet options. You can } choose from the Hilton Head, the Hollywood, the Pritikin, the Beverley Hills and the Drinking Man's Diet, just to name a handful. And if printed assistance isn't enough, there are always the surgical options: wired jaws, stapled guts and even liposuction (A.K.A. Diet by Hoover). But the saddest dieting statistic of all? This one: the fact that after three years, 95 per cent of all the people who lose weight on crash diets or through radical surgery regain every pound they lost--and usually more. So let's have some good news. Number one: medical authorities are coming around to the point of view that being a few pounds "overweight" is no big deal--unless you're a fashion model or a jockey. Number two: You Are Not That Fat. I don't care if your kids call you Jabba The Hut and you haven't seen your toes since World War II. Let's face it: next to Walter Hudson, you're build like a garter snake. Mister Hudson first made the news back in 1987, when firemen called Arthur Black to his New York apartment to free him. He was wedged in the doorway to his bathroom. The firemen must have felt,like they'd stumbled into a horror movie. It took nine of them just to lever Walter Hudson back to his specially re-enforced bed. They brought in an industrial scale to weigh the man, but it broke down. The scale only went to 995 pounds. | They got a bigger scale, used for weighing vehicles. They manoeuvred Mister Hudson on to it. The needle showed that Walter * Hudson, who was five feet ten inches, weighted 1,190 pounds. Which put Walter Hudson in the Guinness Book of Records--and brought him to the attention of Dick AY Gregory. The black ex- " comedian-turmed-nutrition- ¥ guru flew to Walter |; Hudson's bedside and vowed that he would help the man return to normal size. Dick Gregory made good on his claim, too. Over the next two years, thanks to a special diet devised by Gregory, Walter Hudson melted off an unbelievable 670 pounds. Imagine--the guy shed the weight of four normal-sized men! So here's Walter Hudson at a relatively svelte 520 pounds able to walk and go outside and lead a normal life after three decades of crippling fatness. Did he live happily ever after? Alas, no. Walter Hudson fell off the diet wagon. In less than a year he nibbled his way back up almost to the level that got him in the Guinness Book of Records as the heaviest living human. But Walter wasn't living any more. He died last month of a heart attack at the age of 46. And when they rolled his body into the Nassau County Morgue, it tipped the scales at 1,125 pounds.