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For weeks I‘d been telling her. I said. ‘‘The jungle is .coming in on us. I‘m not kidding. It‘s a bloody jungle out there, and it‘s going to get us. â€" _ Canada kept coming along durmf the 1970s at fourâ€" year intervals makes me slightly less than optimistic about the immediate financial future. Obviously the majority of adults in this country were seriously conâ€" cerned about where the last government was leading us, but what I am feeling under this new one is someâ€" where between nationalism and economic panic. Since I won‘t get a chance to exercise the awesome power of my vote for probably another three or four years, I have decided to get to the seat of the nation‘s problems by writing an open letter to my contact in Ottawa. E The Right Hon. Joe Clark, 24 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1A OBA Dear Mr. Prime Minister, â€" 5 She thought I was hallucinating again. Jungle. Creeping in. Rubbish. And then I took her out and showed her. She hadn‘t taken a good tour of the estate for a couple of years And what she saw shook her. ‘"You‘re right. It is a jungle." A few years ago we had a kaleidoscope of colour out there. Now it‘s almost solid green. relentlessly creepâ€" ing in from all sides We had two rose beds We had actually planted some roses in them. and some of the roses actually grew Peace roses Dypsomaniac roses Red roses. As soon as they bloomed. I‘d cut them, put them in a vase. and we‘d sit around looking at them as though we‘d borne children. You don‘t know meâ€"in fact I didn‘t even vote for you in the federal electionâ€"but I write a weekly coâ€" lumn for the Waterloo Chronicle (you‘ll never guess what it‘s called) and my friends and readers asked me to drop you a line to find out what‘s going on in Ottawa Everywhere you look these days things are on a downer. The three weeks of silliness surrounding the chance of Skylab dropping on us and the prospect of Niagara falling are small news compared to acid rain and the further downward plunge of the Canadian 80â€" cent dollar. a 3 The amazing regularity with which recession in I cut them back dutifully. piled dirt around them in the fall. and a couple even bloomed the second year The roses were planted cheekâ€"byâ€"jowl with a fine healthy row of peonies that produced almost obsceneâ€" ly. The second year of the roses. the peonies were a little sick. The third year they were definitely ailing This year that particular flowerâ€"bed has produced two peonies. three rosebuds, two elm trees about An open Letter to the makers of Dr. Pepper: I‘m writing this letter, Dr, Pepper, to tell you what I think of your radio commercial regarding the Dr. Pepper pop music contest. _ Not the one with the idiotic jingle: I‘m a pepper, she‘s a pepper, we‘re a pepper, your‘re a pepâ€" perâ€"everybody‘s a bloody pepper. No, I mean the commercial featuring the dumbo who goes to the variety store to get some Dr. Pepper and ends up enthused all to heck about your contest. Young teenage boyâ€"big on soda pop but small on smartsâ€"goes to the variety store to get some pop. The dialogue from that sequence is nothing short of ridiculous. The store man says to me, hey man, I bet your into Dr. Pepperâ€"right man? Yeah, manâ€"I says to the man. So he says well have you heard about the Dr. Pepper pop music contest where you can win 69 albums of your favourite artists, blah, blah, blah and Now, I don‘t object to the fact that you‘re running a music contest, doc, but why do you have to have that poor kid talking like a moran? |___ _ _ For anyone who‘s had the good fortune not to hear this particular commercial, it goes something like this. Howard Elliott By Geooff Hoile eight feet high. a healthy young maple, and enough hay to feed a herd of cows. The jur}gk. â€" Our other rosebed was somewhat of a failure from the beginning, despite all the fertilizing and fussing. Therefore. when a couple of acorns the squirrels had missed sprouted. I thought, ‘"‘Why not? It‘ll add a nice touch of green.‘‘ Almost overnight, it seems, those acorns have grown to sawlog dimensions. _ That‘s not a quote, nor is this one that marks a welâ€" come end to this audio atrocity. â€" _ _ Hey, man, the Dr. Pepper music contest is somethâ€" in‘ else, I know just where it‘s comin‘ from. First few years here we had tiger lilies and all kinds of other exotics. This year we had tigers. You could see them sitting there in the jungle at night. peering with yellow eyes Some people might say they were cats. I know they were tigers Why, good Dr. Pepper, is it necessary for you and your marketing people to go to so much trouble and expense to air a commercial for the functionally illiâ€" terate? j Surely we have enough trouble getting the younger ségment of our society to speak reasonable English without trash such as this cluttering the airâ€"waves. A few years ago we had brownâ€"eyed daisies galore This year we had brownâ€"eyed children galore. slashâ€" ing and galloping through the jungle that once was brownâ€"eved daisies _1 don‘t mean to imply that Dr. Pepper is the only ofâ€" fender, but rarely have I heard such a latant exâ€" ample. â€" â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€" From a marketing point of view, it‘s necessary for a company to appeal to the ageâ€"group at which the proâ€" duct is aimed. By producing a commercial of this type. Dr. Pepper is obviously trying to appeal to a Now I don‘t want you to think, Mr. Prime Minister, that I‘m one of those hardâ€"nosed, brassâ€"necked re porters who keeps bugging politicians. I didn‘t take any of those "Joe Who‘"‘ cheap shots at you when you were trying to get elected. For most of last year I didn‘t even know who Joe Who was. I want you to know, Mr. Prime Minister, that ! think you‘ve got a good sense of humour. That Richard Nixon imitation you did on election night, with the hunched shoulders and the victory sign, was just great stuff. > o _ Now tht I‘ve thoroughly shafted Dr. Pepper, I should point out that the principle behind such a comâ€" mercial is basically sound. _ Even the woodpiles are creeping closer. At first they were orderly woodpiles. in their place. ready to be thrown into the cellar, adding rather a quaint touch of rusticity to the backyard, as it once was Then we started piling fallen branches on top of them Now they are horrible wdodpiles, crooked and beckoning. festooned by vines and other creeping green things. What ever happend to that nice girl, Maureen Whatâ€" sername? ‘You remember, Mr. Prime Minister, she was always hanging around you during the election campaign. I was waiting for you to introduce her on election night and tell us how much she helped you get where you were. So you forgot. That‘s understanâ€" dable ; it‘s not everyday you get to be prime minister, ch Joe. I hope you noticed, Mr. Clark (may I call you Mr. Clark?), that I didn‘t write one word of criticism in the Chronicle when you kept your promise to the Jeâ€" wish voters in Toronto to move the damn embassy. And I didn‘t quote that guy who said you came off looking like a horse‘s Atkey over the whole embassy issue. t midâ€"teen age group And another thing, Joe, my friends and I want to congratulate you for not being arrogant like that other guy and for listening â€" like you promised â€" to what your ministers have to say. I bet you hear some pretty funny stuff. Like the employment and immigration ”'Butiwhy is it necessary when sending a message to that age group to abuse our language and their mentaâ€" According to Hoil Jnt tm cal d3 ) Bill Smiley And what‘s all this talk about acid rain? If we race ahead with the energy program, Joe, will HzSO+â€"drops be falling on my head in the next 10 years? Some group of natureâ€"lovers is claiming that more than 140 lakes in central Ontario are already dead and at least 48,000 more, including those in the Muskokaâ€"Haliburâ€" ton cottage country, are immediately threatened. I sure hope by the time you receive my letter that you‘re settled into the job, Joe, and not listening to too many inexperienced ministers; lakes are a helluva lot harder to move than embassies. minister‘s remark about the Arabs‘ bark. were proud of you in Tokyo. That hardâ€"line stance on reducing oil imports to 600,000 barrels a day between now . and 1985, and making Canada energy selfâ€"sufâ€" ficient by 1990 was great copy. The thing is, Joe, how are we going to do it? There‘s this Science Council of Canada threeâ€"year studyâ€"that just came through the wire service claimâ€" ing we would have to spend $860â€"million in the next five years on research and development alone, and another $3.8â€"billion in the next 30 years to become energy independent by the year 2025 at the very earâ€" liest. Have we got that kind of money, Joe? _ lity? I‘m sure there are many teenagers who have a fairly good grasp of the English language, and who don‘t open and close all their conversation with hey, man and I can really get into that. Something‘s rotten in downtown Waterloo. Where were all the lovely parking bylaw people during the downtown Waterloo sidewalk sale? But during the sale, not a single chalk mark apâ€" peared on any one of the hundreds of cars that park in the Square every working day. And young people who do use those colloquialisms aren‘t going to get any better ideas from trashy adâ€" vertising. I may be a pepper, she may be a pepper, they may be a pepper, but you, Dr. Pepper, are a jerk. They were conspicuous by their absence. Usually we can see them from our office windows as they march up and down the aisles in Waterloo Square with their deluxe chalk markers. Is it possible that the bylaws officers decided to lay off\ticketing while the sale was in progress? Wouldn‘t want to discourage business, would we? Have no fear, the loyal officers are back in force now. Welcome back ladies. Used to be a fine young spruce growing near the garage. Top of it would have made a nice Christmas tree. It‘s grown so fast in fifteen years that it‘s a hazard to lowâ€"flying airplanes. We have squirrels so big and so bold they 1i jump up on the picnic table and snatch the second half of your peanutâ€"butterâ€"andâ€"honey sandwich without so much as a ‘"Do you mind?" * * We have robins who pull out worms as big as rattâ€" lesnakes. and then have to surrender them to grackles as big as seagulls, strutting about the clearing in the jungle in that ugly, pigeonâ€"toed gait of theirs un ic on e Sn m L Bs d Bees as big as beavers buzz around our beer bottles Huge black ants hoist themselves up the hair on my legs. spit in my eye. and waltz off to attack a starling Every day we move our lawn chairs a little closer to the back door i \" , . ) Waterloo Chronicle, Wednesday, July 25, 1979 â€" Out front. our mighty oak grows ever greater. peers in windows. rubs his nose against panes, chuckles with amusement. gives the brick a smack with one of his huge hands. and goes back to waiting for the next north wind. so that he can drop a dead branch across our TV cable wire Up the back of the house crawls a great green vine . (Continued on page 9). Speaking of the tk‘vrrocketing cost of oil, Joe, we ere proud of you in Tokyo. That hardâ€"line stance on e Viile Sincerely,