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Now, everyone is pretty aware of what has happened in 1977. But here are a few things which didn‘t occur over the past 360 and some odd days (and there were plenty of odd ones ): Old man ‘77 is going down for the final count. The last grains of sand are drop&icng out of the decrepit man‘s life as the new kid on the block â€" 1978 â€" anxiousâ€" ly awaits his turn to take over center stage. The Toronto Argonauts did not win the Grey Cup. I had to throw that one in for our own athletic supporter Rick Campbell, a loyal double blue fan from way back for some irrational reason. I did not go through the fall without receiving any parking tickets on King Street or in the Square parkâ€" ing lot though I did utter some colourful Canadian expressions upon receipt of such notices of violations. Brian Turnbull did not become chairman of the reâ€" gion of Waterloo. _ Ontario Tr;asqrer Darcy McKeough did not win the Man of the Year Award from the Association of Muniâ€" Christmas has come and gone for another year. After months of preparation, the day just seemed to whiz by. I used to think the celebrations should carry on for at least a week, but after stuffing down four turkey dinners in two days, I hate to jimagine what I could accomplish in seven. With the new year knocking at our door, it‘s time to sit back and reflect on what has happened. The city of Waterloo has seen a number of changes. Early in the year R. Jack Middlemass was named manager of the Waterloo Chamber of Commerce. He replaced M.W. (Speck) Turner, who was chamber manager for 15 years. * City residents watched the papers regularly when Waterloo Alderman Brian Turnbull ran for the posiâ€" tion of Regional Chairman, which in the end went back to Jack Young. In August evei‘y&ne became sports enthusiasts when On the one hand, we have people screaming that the cops with the red coats are a bunch of scoundrels. On the other we have an equally vociferous group defendâ€" ing their every lawâ€"breaking deed. Canada is split right down the middle these days And I don‘t mean the Quebec thing. It‘s the Mounties. I agree with both sides, for a change. I hate the thought of living in a country where my phone can be tapped, my mail opened, and my property broken into by a secret police. But I think people who believe that any police force, in any country, that can combat terrorists, kidnappers and highjackers without breaking the red tape of the law occasionally, are extremely naive. Every soâ€"called civilized nation in the world has its secret police. as any spy story reader can tell you. The only difference lies in their eptitude, and the degree of deviousness and ruthlessness employed. They run all the way from the bumbling British M.LS5 through the slippery American C.I.A. and the sharp French Surete to the Rugged Russian K.G.B. and the brutal. simplistic sadists of some South Amertiâ€" can countries Among the secret police of the world, I imagine the RCMP are probably ranked about 48th, coming just after lceland and New Zealand. They simply are not ept. devious or ruthless enough to stand any higher Despite all the thundering fulminations of the hot air artists in Parhament, the idea of the Mounties as a secret lurking terror in this country, threatening the civil liberties of all of us, is almost hilarious They haven‘t enough money, men or brains at the top to be anything more than an irritant. They are probably outnumbered by members of the Opposition looking for publicity. dissident former Mounties who have quit â€" the Force because they had to get their hair cut. and smart journalists who seem to have no trouble 2 t e aiset . se w22 22y I be enA ns on e sn asten, l o s‘ ;‘% s % ns :v\;':.‘:‘%n- en cipalities in Ontario though he did earn the role of Scrooge in their annual Christmas presentation. _ _ Brian Turnbull did not become mayor of the city of: Waterloo. â€" Rene Levesque did not repudiate separatism nor smoking. Pierre Trudeau did not repudiate_separatism with Maggie T. The Progressive Conservatives did not repudiate separatism with Jack Horner. â€" “fieâ€":l‘gronwbvl;;‘)lebeafs did not win the Stanley Cup. â€" The Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association did not ban Paul Marck‘s column, despite pleas from our editor. > Joe Clark did not become a strong leader of the federal Progressive Conservative party â€" he just thinks he did. Parliament did not cure the economic problems of the country â€" except for their own by hiking their salaries. Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo hosted the Ontario Summer Games and Waterloo residents seemed to enjoy it so much that they put in their bid for the 1981 Canada Summer Games. There were a few disappointed peoâ€" ple when Thunder Bay was named as the host. In June the city said goodbye to Herb Epp as their mayor and welcomed him as their representative in Queen‘s Park. On June 27, city council elected their first woman mayor, making Mayor Marjorie Carroll our leading lady for another year. Instituting a fire byâ€"law, considering a smoking byâ€"law, turning thumbs down on the chlorination of our water, and downtown reâ€"development have been major issues this past year. _ ~ aloppmg facilities have also seen a facelift with the extension of Waterloo Square and the construction of the Conestoga Mall well underway. _ _ Even the Chronicle has seen a number of changes. As most people know we‘ve moved into a bigger and turning up the redcoats‘ latest caper whenever they feel like it. It‘s true they have been accused of all sorts of dreadâ€" ful things, most of them illegal. They have tapped phones and planted bugs. As do industrial spies and the Mafia and probably a lot of other organizations we don‘t know about. They have opened private mail. I‘d like to know how they go about this, unless they stand by a postâ€"box and snatch the mail from your hand as you‘re about to drop it in. Otherwise, they could wait three weeks to get their hands on a likely letter, the way our postal serâ€" vice works. They have committed arson, so they say. So have a lot of merchants, but the latter call it having a fire sale Burglary. They stole dynamite, go the charges. No pun intended. Not a bad idea, really, when the dynaâ€" mite belongs to some bad guys who are known, with good reason, to be about to blow up something they should not with it. on them. So what? If they told the politicans everyâ€" thing they were going to do, the latter would either try to grab some votes by stopping it, or try to grab some votes by taking credit for the act, if it worked. fl'i'tvleiy have withheld, deliberately, information from the politicians who are supposed to be keeping an eye This is some crazy country, when it comes to secret service work. Remember that poor Russian spy who tried to turn himself over. with a load of documents, to Mackenzie King. back in the cold war days? He was told to go peddle his wares elsewhere, and the poor guy walked the streets in winter, looking for someone to defect to. Somebody finally took him off the streets. and he uncovered a huge Russian spy ring in Canada. Then we had the massive overkill when a twoâ€"bit Waterioo Chronicle, Wednesday, December 28, 1977 â€" Page 7 outfit in Quebec, the FLQ, pulled a couple of kidnapâ€" pings. What a shemozzle! Hundreds of ordinary citiâ€" zens were arrested with nary a habeas or a corpus, the army was called in, and the kidnappers made monkeys of the mounties and the Montreal gendarmes. After strangling one of the victims and turning the other loose, the hoods were escorted by police to Montreal airport and flown, free, to Cuba. And thus Canada‘s police forces, with incredible ineptitude, announced to the whole world that the way to deal with terrorists is to buy them off. It‘s been going on ever since. Sorry, but I can‘t get all worked up about the RCMP, and its alleged trespasses. It‘s great stuff for the Opâ€" position, but it‘s more like Gilbert and Sullivan than the Gestapo. That doesn‘t mean I‘m not aware of the potential gravity of the situation. Sometimes I hear a soft click just after I‘ve picked up the phone. Maybe it‘s the Mounties. But most likely it‘s my wife, on the upstairs telephone, trying to catch me making a poker date when she‘s going to be out to sewing class. (I usually let the other guy talk, put down the receiver carefully, race upstairs and catch her in the act.) He probably has a dossier on me. When I was 17 I wanted to go and fight in the civil war in Spain. Years later, 20 years before anyone else in this country, I urged editorially that Canada recognize Red China. I once inadvertently voted NDP. And you know what those add up to. And when I took my grandboys to see Santa Claus at the big department store, I warned them, ‘‘Don‘t say a word to that guy in the red coat with the beard, even if he asks what you want for Christmas."‘ ‘"He‘s a RED!" as they‘d have said 30 years ago Today the Mounties probably have me down as a "po tentially delingquent liberal with leftist tendencies," in a file marked TOP SECRET Howard Elliott, a Conestoga journalism student who has worked with us for the past month, did not write a column on what did not happen in 1977 â€" beâ€" cause I stole his idea. _ â€" â€" Brian Turnbull did not get over the Blues for a long time due to Don Meston‘s Jayâ€"ded senses of prioriâ€" The Toronto Blue Jays did not win the American League pennant. â€" Toronto did not overcome their nickname as the City of Losers. Editor John Schultheiss did not change his name to ‘Smith‘ to make it easier for us to spell his name. The City of Cambridge did not separate from Waâ€" terloo region â€" it only seemed that way. + It did not snow this year. â€" I did not win $1 million. If I had I wouldn‘t be here writing this drivel. I would have become the Chronâ€" icle‘s Hawaiian correspondent. Another Mai Tai please? better office and increased our staff from five to nine with the intention of serving you better. â€" With so many changes taking place in 1977 one can‘t help but wonder what‘s in store for us in 1978. Have you ever wished you could look into the future? Given the opportunity I think most of us would turn it down. After all, what fun would there be in following an elecâ€" tion if you knew who was going to win. Think of the fun you had guessing what stores were going into the addition to Waterloo Square. How could one enjoy a Siskin‘s gampe if you already knew who was going to come out on top. Even worse, nobody would bother reading the Chronicle anymore. No, given the opporâ€" tunity to see into the future I think most of us would turn it down. Without this power, however, we‘re just going to have to sit back and take what comes. All we can do is hope for better things in the future. So, to you and yours, I wish a very happy and prosperous New Year. Happy New Year.