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First off, 1‘d tip my hat if I had one, to the folks who organized the threeâ€"daylong Waterioo Days program. Granted, it wasn‘t that big or extravagant, but the orâ€" . ganizational work behind events of that type must be tremendous. And all in all, I‘d say it was wellâ€"run and deffinitely an enjoyable experience. Being relatively new at this business of tipping, we North Americans have a tendency to either selfconsâ€" ciously fold a dollar bill into a wad the size of a spit ball and surreptitiously smuggle it into the waiting hand of a bell hop with all the finesse of a secret agent passing micro film to a fellow spy, or wander around a hotel rpom waiving the maid‘s tip during the process of seeking the ideal hiding spot â€" one that a stranger won‘t stumble upon, but isn‘t so cleverly chosen that the tip gets thrown out with the bath towels. A recent dispute between waiters and maitres d‘hoâ€" tel in two prominent Toronto restaurants ended with the waiters handing over about 20 per cent of their tips to the head waiters. In most places the maitre d‘ gets 10 per cent, however the arbitrator who settled the difference of opinion in this case felt the personalities of the two top men justified a double shaft of the rank and file. Everybody likes recognition for a job well done, and I don‘t blame waiters and waitresses for looking under the plates for money to pay the rent. If we earned their basic wage we might be tempted to look under the tables, the chairs, the carpet ... . The ageâ€"old argument still holds; the patrons shouldn‘t have to add a portion of the restaurant manâ€" agement‘s payroll to their dinner tab. Restauranteurs get the advantage of advertising meal prices that don‘t include this hidden cost of tipping, while the staff are forced to beg for their wages. * By Geoff Hoile > There are several European customs that have enriâ€" chened the Canadian culture but, for my money, tipâ€" ping is not one of them. It‘s not too many decades since you could send your daughter off in fine Style for a couple of hundred bucks. Her mother made her dress. The church and the preacher were free You rented the community hall. and the ladies" Auxiliary catered the food. You could hire an orchestra for $25. And you still had $50 left to give the bride. your daughter. a little nest egg This opinion is a direct result of three middleâ€"class weddings I have attended in the past two years. As an innocent bystander. I am aghast at the cost â€" finanâ€" cial. emotional. and stressful â€" of the modern straight. or traditional wedding I‘m often glad that I don‘t have four or five daughters waiting in the wings to be married. If 1 did I‘d soon be in the poorhouse. as we used to call it. Or on welfare, as we call it now. Or mumbling my gums and my pension in one of those Sunset Havens, or another atrociouslyâ€"named place for old â€"people who are broke. I also tip my nonâ€"existant hat to the 2,500 brave souls who participated in the Waterloo 10 Kilometre Classic. Mind you, I mean no offense when I say you‘re all nuts. It must take a certain type of inâ€" dividual to come out on a Sunday morning at 10 a.m. in 28â€"30 degree Celsius weather to line up with 2,499 other individuals all eager to face an approximately sixâ€"mile run, fatigue and heatâ€"stroke. The start of the race was an impressive sight though. And if I thought the runners were nuts, I can imagine what they must have thought of the jerk crouching in the middle of Albert St. madly fumbling with his camera while 2,500 pairs of track shoes dashed towards him. We‘re fortunate that Waterioo‘s outside workers â€" set to go on strike any time â€" decided to hold on till after Waterioo Days, as without them the problems of supervising and maintaining the operation would have been complicated indeed. s While taking pictures of Waterloo Days over the weekend I had a number of interesting experiences. One or two were very nice, one or two were not so nice and a few I wouldn‘t wish on my worst enemy. Maybe. Bill Smiley Howard Elliottâ€"â€" Would it surprise you to know that some bartenders refuse tips? I can‘t speak for that many barmen in Canada, but English barmen will sometimes say no. Mind you, if you are pulling pints in an English pub the tip is more likely .to come in the form of a drink than cash on the bar top. After a few nights of drinking your tips, adding shillings and pence in the old British money system and wondering what 10 shillings 39 There is a great deal of psychology on both sides of the tipping game. Why are women diners shunned by waiters and waitresses alike as being poorer tippers than men? While the waiters are preparing their little con lines to get you to eat whatever is easiest to serve and still generate the largest tip, do you speculate silently as to whether they remember you as the big tipper on your last night out? Would they remember you next time if you didn‘t leave a tip this time? Would you have the guts to risk it? Dining out and paying by credit card is fraught with a new set of problems. If you take too long squinting in the dark at an American Express invoice calculating the tip percentage of your preferance, the waitress is bound to increase the pressure by coming over to see if there is anything wrong with the bill. At this point everyone at the table, including the waitress, is watching your every move. As you suavely dispense with the mathematical hurdle and sign the form, â€" stuffing a copy into your pocket so you can later check to be sure you haven‘t given the girl a $50 tip â€" she inâ€" forms you that you‘ve taken the management‘s copy, and t’e customer‘s is at the back where it‘s always I felt like â€" and probably should have â€" related a story I once heard to his father. A naturalist I once knew told of a camper in Algonquin Park who was feeding a friendly bear from a pack of jelly beans. The camper tired of the game and walked away after stashing the candies in his back pocket. The bear apâ€" parently enjoyed the sugar, because he followed the guy and took a swipe at the area where the bag of goodies was concealed. Needless to say, the camper earned himself a rather damaged posterior. In any case, Waterloo‘s zoo now has a bear and a deer with dental problems. Another disturbing experience was my attempt at covering the soapâ€"box derby. I say attempt because I got there one and oneâ€"half hours before the set comâ€" pletion time only to find a small number of entries had Wt admit, it was a rather thin excuse. "Also, a loud Bronx cheer to the airhead at the zoo who stood by smiling as his kid fed candy to the bears and deer. I suggested to the kid that he shouldn‘t realâ€" ly feed all that sweet stuff to the unsuspecting critâ€" ters, and he told me he had already used all his popâ€" corn feeding the raccoon. One enthusiastic raceâ€"watcher suggested I‘d get better photos if I ran along with the group instead of walking to the finish line at Seagram‘s Stadium. Told him I had a bad knee that prevented me from doing so, but he just winked and jogged off after the group. I My own wedding cost almost nothing. We were marâ€" ried in the chapel at Hart House, U. of T. No charge for the facilities. Five bucks for the preacher (larceny was creeping in ). The organist was a schoolâ€"mate who played in a burlesque house, so no fee. Borrowed a car from a friend for the honeymoon . $20. My wife bought a suit and her own wed‘sding ring. I had supplied diamond. courtesy of a friend who had been jilted, at half price. No ushers, no reception, no drinks. The best man and maid of honour got a kiss â€" And away we went. just as married, with the same words (and still married). as the modern bride whose old man has forked out a couple of thousand miniâ€" mum. whose mother has been brought to the verge of a breakdown over invitations, guests, hairâ€"dressing. and a hundreéed other details, who is herself everâ€" increasing demands of her position as the big day apâ€" proaches With my own daughter. I was crafty I asked her According to Hoile Re tC Waterioo Chronicle, Wedn4 Pow. The cork came out with no trouble at all. In fact it bounced off the ceiling with enough force left to stun my surly friend with a hard shot between the eyes. He started shouting too fast for me to underâ€" stand, but I gathered he didn‘t want any more service. I didn‘t wait for a tip. I finally found his room on the third try. Considering he was on vacation and about to be drinking champagâ€" ne for breakfast, he struck me as being a grumpy sort of fellow. He grunted something in French and pointâ€" ed to the bedside table. I put the bottle down, wrapped the napkin around the neck and, giving my best imitaâ€" tion of a maitre d‘, I released the cork. The damned room numbers didn‘t go high enough. The hotel spread out into four wings in a complicated nu_!r‘lper_i_ng system that went into four digits. Panic. Then there was the time I was working as a waiter in a hotel high in the French Alps alternating between dining roogn service and room service. One gentleman known for his liberal tipping tendency ordered a bottle of champagne delivered to his room for breakfast. I grabbed the vintage of his choice, raced up three floors and down a long corridor to the other end of the hotel. * The hill was too steep, I believe now, and the number of accidents was ridiculous. I ended up crashâ€" ing into someone‘s rock garden, totalling the car and my collarâ€"bone. I maintain to this day that it was my childhood friend‘s fault. He built the car, and was supâ€" posed to race it only he was too fat, and would have put the car over the weight limit. Being skinny at the time â€" and stupid â€" I volunteered. I remember losing control of the car just before the big smash, and I remember the reason for losing conâ€" trol. I turned the wheel to take a curve, but the front wheels kept right on going into that rock garden. We later discovered that the apparatus holding the steering chord had pulled away from the axle, which I believe caused the spectacular crash. And I think it was my overweight friend‘s doing, because I never had anything but bad luck hanging around with him. He even barfed all over me in first grade. Now that i‘ve expounded on the perils of soapâ€"bex racing I‘ll get back to the point. It was a good weekend and everyone I met seemed to be enjoying themselâ€" ves. So keep up the good work, Waterloo Days orâ€" ganizers, and I‘ll look forward to next year. ® pence should really be, you start refusing anything after the first four or five tips. Some experienced barâ€" men (or barmaids) will keep topping up a half pint of beer on the lower counter, take a casual sip and juggle the cash register entries to get the cost of the beer inâ€" stead. It takes a cool nerve and a sober brain for anâ€" yone not brought up in pounds, shillings and pence to engineer that kind of monetary manoeuvre. On second thought, $3,000 is modest, the way today‘s middleâ€"class wedding has built up its hidden costs. It‘s $25 for the preacher, unless he‘s lost his dogâ€"collar or been disbarred. Ditto for the organist. Gowns for the bridesmaids. add $300. A donation to the church for the oil heating. Fifty bucks for invitations. Five hundred minimum for new duds for him and the old lady. A "little" goingâ€"away cheque for the bride, anâ€" other five hundred whether she‘d like a church wedding and the usual reception, or a cheque for one thousand. A chip off the old block, she opted for the cheque, knowing she‘d get the other, too, if she wanted it. I squeaked in just under $1500. She invested the cheque in a car, which she totalled in a rollâ€"over on their honeymoon. No pun intended. At a moderate accounting, today‘s dad is going for at least twice that before he sinks into his chair on Sunday night with a, ‘"Thank God, ‘sallover." Actually, I don‘t blame the kids for not wanting to enter the derby. While I‘m sure it was wellâ€"run, I can remember one that wasn‘t. Years ago I entered a siâ€" milar race in my home town with a huge red racer that was as ugly as sin. * caused the event to end earty.