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Students are supposed to go and get help in their weaker subjects. Teachers are supposed to be on hand to help them. But everybody spends most of the day talking about the weather. and feeling slightly heroic about plunging through drifts, getting noses frost-bitten. trying to get the car started. The school, for the first time in my association with it, is closed on a week- day. Blizzard. high winds. drifting snow and choked roads have done the job. Usually. regardless of weather, the school is open. even when only a tenth of the students are able to get here. Days like that are euphemistically called "snow days", and are greeted with delight by both staff and students. On those days we go through a Charade in which those students too dumb or too keen to stay at home, and teachers in the same categories, are supposed to carry on meaningful work. It's not really a shoe factory, but a high school. However, l always think of it as the shoe factory, and it looks like one, from the outside. Two stories high. miles of red brick, and churning out a product that ranges from classy to shoddy to cheap to "seconds" that have flaws but will do for knocking around in. It's an eerie feeling, sitting here in this vast shoe factory writing a column, completely alone. Sounds from a shoe factory Perhaps Trudeau wousd be wise to learn a lesson from the University of Waterloo, which has taken a commendable stand on the issue. What has been Trudeau's response to military rule in P0- land? On Dec. 18 he said: "If a military regime prevents a civil war, Iaran't say it is inherently bad." Three days later he said: "It it has prevented Soviet intervention, it was a positive step." This stand is a far cry from that of Prime Minister Trudeau, a man who has maintained in the past that a charter of human rights is essential to a humane Canadian society, as Wa,terloo MP Walter McLean points out in this week's column'. PAGE 8 - WATERLOO CHRONICLE. WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 10, I”? Dr. Tom Brzustowski, vice-president, academic of UW who proposed the resolution, called the actions of Poland's military "gross violation of human rights (which) deserves the condemnation of all free peoples." The Senate of the University of Waterloo (UW) recently approved a resolution condemning the arrest of faculty, students and researchers as well as the closing of institutions of higher learning by the military regime in Poland. The resolution has been sent to the federal government and calls "for the immediate release of those arrested, the re-opening of Polish universities, and the restoration of free inquiry, free study, free speech and free association" in Po- land. If Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and the federal government of Canada stand unwilling to take the initiative in condemning the imposition of martial law and the complete annihilation of human rights and liberties in Poland, it is at least reassuring that a local group has elected to take a strong stand against such oppressive acts. T)Rtttttflttttatrtttii'tller- Today. after a weekend of wild weather University takes a stand established 1854 published every Wednesday by Fairway Press, a division of Kitchener-Waterioo Record Ltd., owner 225 Fairway Rd.S.. Kitchener, Ont. address correspondence to Waterloo oMce: ' a: King SLSouth, Waterloo. Ont, telephone new W.tortoocttr-omcomtocatottooitoattoorottttootq WOW 'yroff'te'of'.tr" "t"urte"tmrst"otottro"mrtorrtr- Open Monduy 1:)me tr-tio an to s6ovm Back to the shoe factory at two, Prepared some lessons without a single soul interrupting to whine about his Grade 9 four-year level who can't even read. Went out and had a leisurely lunch, with a pre-prandial drink. Nobody to smell my breath when I got back. Amused during lunch by group of adjacent truck drivers telling me of the horrors they'd been through in the storm. while they slogged down the beer. Read my morning paper, which I seldom get to see between my wife yammering during breakfast. and my teachers snatch, ing up sections the moment I arrived, Enjoyed a cup of coflee. Realized I should go home and get at the weather-stripping I'd bought in October Laughed aloud several times. And I've had a most enjoyable day, No rotten kids to teach. No rotten teachers bugging me about their latest hang-nail, or whatever. No memos from the adminis tration categorically stating that this must be attended to yesterday. But teachers are supposed to go to work. even though they are in a plane on its way back from Hawaii, or a nuclear war has begun. So I wont to work. I and two custodians. and one little girl who didn't know the school was closed. I actually listened to the radio. and was stunned to learn that our school was closed. First time in history. Though: briefly about the English de Publisher: Manager: Editor: Paul Winkler Bill Karges Karla Wheeler Why do airmen wait until they're practically doddering before they write a book? This one was "Boys. Bombs, and Brussells Sprouts" by Doug Harvey. and it's a treasure of wit, warmth and poignan CY. " he'd written " 20 years ago. it would have sold like the proverbial hot cakes to all the ex-bomber-force types In Canada Trouble is, half of them are dead now. But I think it will sell anyway. It gives a marvellous feeling of what things were Doug went overseas as a sergeant pilot when he was in his teens, and with what seems like total recall. conveys the flavour of what it was to be young. virginal. and a little rough around the edges. a typical Canadian kid. in wartime England. And sat down and read with immense pleasure a book I'd brought along. just in case the incredible were (fur. and the school was closed. Banged out a note to old friend Don McCuaig. ex-newspaporman, ox-army pri- vate. who has withdrawn from the whole hurly-burly, Wrote a letter to my brother. the retired colonel, who seems a little frantic in retirement, his big moment of the day walking his dog on the beach in Florida, after a lifetime of working about In hours a day and playing the other 16. partment meeting I'd had planned for the like for bomber crews. And it doesn't have first Snow Day, and promptly dismissed any hindsight piety about what they were the silly thing from my mind. doing. Smashing German cities. Killing Wrote a letter to my brother. the retired Germans. BILL F SMILEY _' Harvey, whom I know slightly. had the publishers send me a copy. and I'm glad. While I was reading it, all about the pubs, the English girls, the hilarious omcers' mess parties which often wound up more like a ruggér game than a party, all the old songs, mildest of which was "Knees Up, Mother Brown." and polyglot glamour of war-time London. the grim and sardonic humour of aircrews. the devotion of ground crews. made me feel like 2t again, Thanks. Doug, The Chronicle welcomes letters to the editor. Writers must iden- tify themselves through their name, address and telephone number. We reserve the right to edit. Letters policy