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c%t After years of blowing evéry nickél we made. the old battleaxe and I decided to start saving some money for our old age. - _ _ - _ --- There is something delightfully inconsistent about most women which can make strong men moan and gnash their teeth but provides a certain amount of inadvertent hilarity to those of us who have given up long ago. Neither of us will make it; I because the old corpus will likely cash its ticket before that time, and she because she'll never grow old. But it seemed a goodridea_at_the time. I had no idea what it would lead to. -But it did. First thing I noticed was that it cut down severely on my extra-curri- cular activities. "Hey, sweetie, is it OK if I join the poker club this fall? They need me. They play so many old women's games that they want someone to teach them how to play real poker. It would practically be the same as teaching night school." No use reminding her that on the couple of occasions I played with these infants of the game I came home with so many quarters in my righthand pocket she thought rd broken a leg as I limped in the door. "Bill. you know perfectly well the answer is no. We can't afford it. We're trying to save money. not throw it away." That formula changed this year, losing municipal- ities Sill million that they would have received under the untampered formula, certainly nothing to be sneezed at. But Mr, McKeough showed little sympathy with the municipalities problems at a meeting with area and local officials in Kitchener last week. "Clean up your own act - and I don't care how you do it," was clearly his unwavering gospel, unveiling a new fiscal era for govemment. The cause of his unpopularity: his unilateral chang- ing of the Edmonton Commitment, tt tour year old revenue sharing scheme that tied provincial grants to municipalities with the annual increase/m provincial revenm. It wouldn't be true to say that Darcy McKeough's friends in Ontario's municipal council chambers don’t amount to the number of fingers on two hands; it just seems that way. , But then the Provincial Treasurer has never pre- tended to be running in a popularity contest. Thank Mass; in a poll of municipal officials, his popular- ity could fank below that of St. Louis encephalitis. "Uh. dear, there's to be an old fighter pilot's reunion in How to start a new column? Who knows? Who cares? Read on. If you don't find this offering from a budding jour- nalist amusing, don't bother calling to complain. 'iiiiiiJi'rii"y'iiian to comptainUoet die content of this column. I won't answer. If you call to say how dis- gusting it is, I'll just give you a loud, rude, raspberry. b‘"’""n"--v - --w- o , There's poetic license (or is it licence, or is it lysol) involved in writing a column, and this time the Editor even told me he wouldn‘t censor my material. so long as it's not libellous and doesn't contain bad words. So there. If you want to call to compliment the writings apo pearing in this space, well. that's a crayon of a differ- ent color. Then you can invite me over for dinner. Or out for a drink, Or even, (heh, heh) trust me to take out your teen-age daughter. Or even take me to a Leafs or Blue Jays game. (De- pending on the season, of course. But I certainty wouldn't object to a March escape to Dunedin. Fla just to see the Jays practise. t So there you have it. Or dor? little bum»; my. walrus moustache Oncle Hans was depressed when I dropped in on him He, the symbol of Oktoberfest, what with his cute CO. pudgy features. Edmonton this October. Golly, it would be kinda nice to sneak away for a few days and see some_of the old., , "What do you do at those reunions? Besides tell lies and drink?" lllCl . Wt " act an“; [Iv-l. .. w.-. "From what all? You mean from me. You know I would- n't be caught .dead at a fighter pilots' reunion. A bunch of boozy old men standing around, half-pickled. waving their hands in the air. What would it cost?" "Well, there's just the air fare. And the hotel. And the convention fee. And a few odds and sods. For the two of us, it would come to only about $700. And if you were sure you didn't want to come. I could make it alone for $500." Stony silence. Not a word, a gesture of encouragement. She went off. rather tight around the lips, to watch TV. I sat and pawed rather wistfully through the reunion litera- ture. Next day. when I came home from work, it hadall disappeared. There was a small pier of ashes in the fire place. . . - _ .. __1_-. u--- in... "tra-tmd Fm not “Well there's a whole program. Speeches. And dances. Wives are invited. Howja like to go? They're a great bunch. Guys‘ll be there from all over Canada and the States. Australia. Britain. We didn't do a thing all gum- mer. Let's get away from it all." ___ -- - - --. A 'r-. In..." I nun-III- Heavy govemmeni expenditures are part of the rea- son we're in the economic mess Ive-are in today, he reasons. And people want - government costs held iGJriihiiGaiGi-amrmedin last June's election, feels Mr. McKeough, when the Tories were returned to power on a cost restraint platform. plant. But that's not all our saving binge has affected. rm not that selfish. rm not going to kick up a fuss just because Mr. McKeough is clearly pleased, however, at the way municipalities have reacted to the financial times. “I should have been, tougher," he joked after last week's meeting. An appropriate indication that the message is get- ting through was Regional council’s action last week. They adopted a guideline to keep increases in Regional department budgets next year to the maximum in- crease in assessment, expected to be 3 per cent. If met, the Regional taxes would not increase next year. The Treasurer feels the positive municipal response is due to two reasons". their own responsibility and the loud and clear message from constituents to keep costs - and taxes - down. iiiiiii a "iifiiiiiiiiGiiraaT,- ninvst vcreate shivers" down the backs of Regional department heads who must face such insignificant factors as inflation and em- He had just beer-barrel-polka-d his way through nine days, count'em he said, nine days of Oktoberfest, and he was just about as broken a man as you could imagine. And could you blame him? . His wife Frieda had just run off with the handsome looking bearded dude on the front of this year's Okto- berfest buttons. and lederhosen, the Grand Old Man of Canada's Great Beer Bash, was nursing the world's biggest hangover. He had been up, greeting people, officiating at official-type functions, and generally acting nice, as Oktoberfest goodwill ambassador since day one, at the official opening, when he and Jonas Bingeman had a bet over who could jam back the most of the 40-foot long sausage on a bun. He had lost. After the first bite, after the CBC immortalized him on celluloid, little fat lrauleines pleaded for him to autograph inch-long sections of sausage. Then-on Monday he challenged Raymond Burr, grand marshall of the parade, to a wheelchair race. Andlost. To say nothing of being snubbed by Miss Oktoberfest when he tried to kiss her. She gave him a well-placed kick. Oncle Hans offered me a Heineken. But those weren't the only reasons Hans was de- pressed Waterloo Chronic“. WM. October 19. 1977 - Pa. 7 ployee wage demands when they prepare their 1973 budget. But the tough guideline represents the mood of local elected officials who are probably accurately reflecting the feelings of their constituents. my social life has been wiped out so that I can hasta hamburger and a half, instead of splitting one. when rm an old dodderer. _ No, there's a lot more. My Wife, in her zeal to save money, has started reading the food ads for the first time in her life. But that rhetorical onslaught has seemed to work; in fact, Mr. McKeough tears it has worked too well. Consumer spending this year will not be " high as expected. Besides having a detrimental effect in creating Jobs, the Provincial cashbox suffers too as it will not receive as much revenue through scum such as sales tax. It seems you just can't win. Could any of my readers use 20 pounds of flour'? The old lady uses approximately five pounds a year, for frying fish and stuff. The other day; because it was half price, she bought a 25-pound bag. It sits in the kitchen. moved from one location to another, like one of the seven dwarfs sleeping off a hangover. msiicapectatiGs We turned around, feels Mr. McKeough. Little wonder with the continual state- ments from Ottawa that we must lean! to live with Oh. one p.s. to Mr. McKeough: I noticed a picture of you in the'K-W Record last week enjoying the liquid fruits of Oktoberfest. Now that you have lent an air of respectability and official status to the fine art of beer drinking, does that mean, Mri Treasurer, that we can expect you to lead the fight in cabinet to have beer served to long suffering Toronto Blue Jays fans next summer? We have two beaten-up old cars. It was always a decision: which one should go in the garage. No more problems. Now they both stay out on the street. The garage is full of turnips, squash, vegetable marrow and cabbage. every one a bargain. , There's no question. Were saving money right and left. And just the other day, my wife announced the coup de grace. If we move quickly, we can get a terrific deal on a new dining room suite. It's been knocked down from $1.800 to $1.500. Any roaders who are having trouble saving money in these troublous times need only drop a line. At Smileys'. The Price Is Right. Let's call it the Oktoberfest Commitment. "All the Inn's gone out of it," he whispered, holding both hands to his temples after adjusting the ice pack on his head, the one with the Oktoberfest crest on the front. ($9.98 at most popular stores, $2.98 during the off-season, without the crest.) . "There used to be a time when we all had fun. Squareheads, roundheads, deadheads, and meatheads. Why, we all got together, sang a few songs, slurped a bit of schnapps and suds, and now this. "Everybody just comes out and gets drunk. Then they go home and come back the next day and get drunker." I grabbed another Heineken. Another reason he was depressed, Oncle Hans ex- plained, was that he was never stopped once for lm- paired Driving. No matter how many chug-a-iugs he took part in, or how many tables he slid under. And the milling crowds of festival revellers had him so upset and nervous, that his whole body broke out in Oktoberfesters. But Oncle Hans, the eternal optimist, shrugged his shoulders and readjusted his drooping ice pack. “We can always look forward to next year," he mused, and then started babbling incoherently about sausages and Steins, iGi'riiiG, -my empty Heineken bottle and quietly slipped away.