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By Geooff Hoile A man‘s home is his castle, right? And the bigger the home the mightier the Lord of the manor, right? Maybe not. There is a Toronto developer who has his own idea about who makes the rules. His project, the Manors of Cedar Mills, is nestled in the hills north of Bolton, Onâ€" tario, with homes ranging from $135,000 to $145,000. For this kind of money you get to choose from 400 variations of eight basic designs in the hope that your mansion won‘t be a carbon copy of any of the other 199 "manors‘‘ in the 600â€"acre development. There is a list as long as your mortgage of the superâ€" special goodies you get as lord of your new manor. There is also â€"a list of conditions that tells you what you can and cannot do. Your home can sit on anything from two to six acres, but if you own a pickup truck you have to keep it parked out of your neighbour‘s view. All boats have to be kept enclosed in a garage. (that can be hell when you‘re towing it up to Muskoka on a long weekend. ) No clothes can be hung out to dry and no living tree can be cut down without the vendor‘s written permisâ€" I‘m only halfway through the list and the charm of country estate living is beginning to wear thin on my Talk about yer‘ absolute monopoly. I think the Canaâ€" dian government has at last overstepped its bounds in trying to protect ourrstgteowned airline, air Canada. This winter, Canada Pacific air Lines (CP Air) inâ€" stituted an economy flight program called CP Skybus. CP Skybus is a program in which passengers book in advance, do not get meals on board the plane and pay for their booze. I guess it‘s a matter of taste, but I for one see nothâ€" ing wrong with that type of flight. The idea of fiying someplace is to get there in a hurry, for the lowest possible price, I think, so the Skybus service was a great way for me to take my vacation. _ Problem is, I‘m taking my vacation in October, and the government recently told CP to cut out all Skybus flights by October. â€" The government‘s rationale. according to reports, is that such low fares take business away from Canaâ€" da‘s other airlines. As far as I can see, the only thing Mr. clark‘s government is worried about is the state of air Canada Every year, when July rolls around, I breathe a pretty heavy sigh of relief. Not because school is over and there‘s a long holiday ahead. That‘s nice. But I can teach English with one head tied behind my back And I‘m not that wild about holidays. No, the reason for the relief is that I have managed to wiggle my way through another year of being a department head without having any deaths, suicides or nervous breakâ€"downs among my staff Being head of a large department in a large high school would seem to be a rather enviable position You are paid extra for it, and usually teach one less class than the other teachers Those are the good aspects. But there are others. and they are not all a piece of cake. I won‘t bother moaning about the incessant paper work. the scramâ€" bling to stay within a meagre budget with cost of books soaring steadily. the taking of inventory of about twenty thousand books Those are the drudge jobs. and everyone has some of this in his work " Andc fls Mn e ad 2 It‘s the personalities involved that make the job something less than a sinecure A department head must be a combination of Momma. Polonius. Machiaâ€" velli. Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. a priest. Napoleon and a touch of a psychiatrist For one thing. English teach ire a bit more crea tive. articulate. and rebelliou> n not of their cor temporaries. perhaps because they continually deal with ideas. not facts Ideas are shifty things. and the conveying of them to students is mere slippery than the teaching of more pragmatic subjects scsence math. gengraphy. shops As a result the English department head must serve as a wailing wall for his ‘eachers who loudly and sometimes tearfully vent tho _ {rustm . ons at their Howard Elliott ire a bit more crea n m t of their con they continually deal ~hifty things. and the is meore slhppery than ic subjects> science. baronial aspirations. How can any redâ€"blooded Canaâ€" dian wouldâ€"be kingâ€"ofâ€"theâ€"castle possibly explain to his kids that he will get into trouble if he leaves his motor boat out on the front lawn overnight? And how can you explain away their mother‘s stranâ€" ge behaviour in sneaking out after dark to hang her dainties on a secret clothesline strung behind the swimming pool? Can you imagine the indignity of going into the venâ€" dor‘s Toronto office to own up to violations committed during the term of owczership of your castle in the country? You pace up and down the outer office, tryâ€" ing to work up enough courage to burst in and shout "I cut down your goddammed cherry tree! I didn‘t like it in the middle of my driveway." The builder has also put a limitation on the miniâ€" mum number of square feet of living space on each level of the house. These structures are so big some of the new owners will have to put all five bedrooms on the upper level if they want to keep the billiard room and the banquet hall on the main floor. And finally, they won‘t let me have any more than two dogs or two cats or other domestic animals in my home for fear that it will lower the tone of the neighâ€" bourhood. This, of all the restrictions, bothers me the least, since I have a prepared list of 57 reasons why I don‘t want as many as one dog or cat or other domesâ€" tic animals hanging around the homestead. But I In fairness to the stateâ€"owned airline, Air Canada also has some reasonable flight prices such as their ‘nightâ€"hawk** plan. But I discovered while shopping for the best deal that Air Canada doesn‘t have any passenger flight as cheap as what‘s offered by CP Air Air Canada already has well over 50 per cent of the total air traffic in Canadian skies, so why the possesâ€" sive attitude towards the remainder of the traffic? As usual. the federal govérnment seems to have one rule for everyone else, and one for itself. That seems pretty unreasonable to me, since Air Canada probably has the worst service of any Canadian airline. What puzzles â€" and angers â€" me is that the governâ€" ment is monopolizing Canadian air travel and that it‘s so blatant. CP Air is a privately owned airline, and Air Canada is owned by the government. It doesn‘t take a comâ€" puter to figure out what‘s happening, in my opinion. inability to impart their own skills to their students. He must oil the joints of his department frequently, when some of its members seem about to come to blows with each other. He must act as a buffer beâ€" tween them and the administration. And he must stand up for them vigorously when someone is trying to shaft them. Now, I hope you are not expecting me to say that I do all these things. A pat on the back here, a word of praise there, a shoulder to cry on, long oneâ€"onâ€" one talks to restore their confidence, a stern reprimand when necessary, frequent department meetings where we "talk things out. Not at all. If 1 tried to do all those things. 1‘d have been committed or had a heart attack long ago. I just leave them alone, let them crack up or break down. and try to show them. with invincible calm. my old theory that there is nothing. absolutely nothing in this world to get excited about It seems to work pretty well I am rather shy and don‘t get involved in their personal lives. except to lisâ€" ten once in a while. if I can‘t avord it. When they are seriously ill. I don‘t bug them. don‘t even go to see them We‘ve had three department members with serious heart trouble in the last three years They‘re all back on the job. better than ever Probably because 1 left them alone didn‘t show any particular sympathy. and let them solve it themselves When a couple of members are at each others throats. | tell them to sort it out themselves. not come running to me for help We‘d never think of having a meeting at which we let it all hang out * We have the shortest department meetings in the school Most of them are taken up with ribaldry. a little business. and a quick acceptanâ€" One of Joe Clark‘s mandates was to put some life â€"According to Hoil Bill Smiley always wanted it to be my idea, not my real estage agent‘s. I‘m pot sure who is nuttier, the guy who dreamed up the deed wording or the rich suckers who sign them. T‘d hate to think there are very many of these prospecâ€" tive country gentlemen signing away their personal freedoms and rushing to become a charter member of some super neighbourhood. It seems to me that reguâ€" lating living conditions in an attermpt to manicure the wide open spaces should be about as rewarding as tryâ€" ing to keep the baby‘s toys in his playpen. I wonder how they plan to police this weird setup. I wonder how they plan to police this weird setup. Are there monthly surprise visits from the real estate agent? Or is it left to neighbours with highâ€"powered binoculars on the adjacent fiveâ€"acre lots to spy on regular offenders and report the number of times the family wash goes out into the fresh country air? Are you permitted to graze a couple of horses on the back four acres as your domestic animal quota? But what if there is foal play? Does that constitute a violaâ€" tion of their lease and do the horses have to move out? The only consolation in this bizarre situation is that once the properties are all sold and the new owners become established in their new community, the real estate company won‘t give a damn where you hang your laundry, and the country gentlemen will be so busy cutting all that grass they won‘t have time to keep a running inventory on the next guy‘s trees. back into Canadian independent business. Hate to add to your troubles, Joe, but it doesn‘t look like you‘re getting off to a very good start on that promise either. Had a great few chuckles recently while on a weeâ€" kend trip to northern Ontario. Our hosts took my wife and I to see Toronto‘s Second City at a local discot palace. me abroad . Got the obvious impression that the poor guy wasn‘t too happy about flying on an infamous DCâ€" 10 _ "Oh M Gawd," one of the skits began. "This is a DCâ€"10."‘ distressed man says to a harried stewardess. ‘‘Bring me some booze, bring me some valium...bring As the stewardess ran off to get some comfort for the guy. he delivered the punchâ€"line. ‘Ladies and gentlemen. this is your captain _ ce of a motion for adjournment We have quite an assortment. Three working mothers. One artist. One student who has been taking extremely difficult courses for several years. One poet. One guy writing a novel. One syndicated columâ€" nist. Three of us are former newspaper people. One lady teacher is a dogged and determined member of the salary committee _ We have a devoted Catholic and a couple of agnosâ€" tics We have a mixture of racial backgrounds: Poâ€" lish, Scottish, Irish, Greek . Frenchâ€"Canadian and Gerâ€" man Occasionally. one or two members of the departâ€" ment need a good blast from their head for recalciâ€" trance. mopery or gawk. But I am psychologically unable to ream somebody out. and the trouble usually goes away. like bad weather Once in a while. when I become a little depressed at the way they are draining me. without knowing it I take out a booklet entitled. ‘"Duties of a Department Head* This gives me a good laugh, when I realize that I am a lousy department head. and I feel better There is only one area in which I fulfil my function And this is a holdover from wartime A good officer always defends the men under him Unless. of course. they are hopelessly incompetent When somebody climbs on the back of a member of my department. the usually benevolent Bill Smiley unsheathes his claws. and the attacker backs off _Some departments have lengthy meetings. termific infighting. and resultant smoulderings We have the happiest. most relaxed department in the school Just want to say thanks. guys. for a good year. And next fall. don‘t tell me your troubles Tell your husâ€" band or wife or mother or kids, and we‘ll have another great year mw&.w,.’u_wfl, tm1m7 t xt o k Miya" d ~ scleql ween Aie >