The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

PAGE 6 â€" WATERLOO CHRONICLE, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 1985 Second Class Mail Registration Number 5540 Add this corner to the legion of supporters applauding Kitchener Chamber of Commerce manager Jack Middleâ€" mass for chastising Canada Post‘s performance in a letter last week to corporation president Michael Warren. While Middlemass, completely fed up with the lousy service, sent off the letter in a fit of anger to protest on behalf of both local chambers and the businesses they represent, the aftermath could be even more effective than the letter itâ€" self. In receiving so many letters and calls of support, Middlemass has achieved what so many of us would like to express collectively that we are sick and tired of knashing our teeth while being held hostage to a crown corporation‘s every whim and mood shift. The sorry standards maintained by Canada Post have degenerated further in recent weeks with threats of strikes, blatantly illegal walkouts (including one on our very doorstep) and a renewed flareâ€"up of corporation turmoil sparked by the reinstatement of a fired employee, whose only crime was an attempt to reveal publicly examples of waste and mismanagement. A gesture, notably that fell on deaf ears when raised internally. It is sad indeed that the situation can‘t get much worse than it is, only a short time after Warren appeared to have stabilized a sinking ship. Now it appears the house is again in a terrible state of repair, and we all know who is going to pay for that â€" even more than we are now. Don‘t worry about the comparisons drawn between our bunch of sad sacks and the postal service south of the border. Never mind that Americans are provided with more and better service at a cheaper rate without threat of strikes. Forget the fact that at the same time, the American posties are pumping out a profit instead of a loss statement that any Canadian postie would refuse to lug for fear of getting a hernia. And lose no sleep over the recently announced postal increase, which, by the way, Canadians would be only too glad to pay if they were shown that positive steps are being made to improve the service. Fret not either that feelings between Mulroney and Warren are likely as amicable as those between Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns. Consider only this: what Canada Post is now offering us is tantamount to discovering a quart of milk has turned sour. Upon returning it to the store where purchased, you are then told that not only do you have to keep the milk, but that your next quart will cost you more, and will also likely be sour too. It will only be possible to purchase it, by the way, if the store decides to stay open for your arrival. Yes, you are excused if your confidence dipstick is low. Ours is. In the past six weeks, we have on occasion a) received invitations to press conferences which occurred two days previous, b) not received at all specific information on local events, c) received twoâ€"weekâ€"old mail labelled to our former address, stamped "address unknown""‘ (we pay for reâ€"direction) and d) received government releases less than a day after posting, in the same heap as 10â€"day old personal pieces from Toronto. Let us be the first to point out that on occasion, the postal service has come through for us with flying colors, and that for the most part, the folks we deal with locally are courteous and attentive to our needs. But on a national scale, the service stinks, and we wholeheartedly endorse the criticisms of Middlemass. If management and unions involved can‘t get their act together, then for sure we have no alternative but to seek an alternative. The worst cut of all is that we are all shareholders of this mess. Yes you and you and all the rest of us. Gag us please, with a spoon. Stamp of approval Letters welcome published every Wednesday by Fairway Press, a division of Kitchenerâ€"Waterioo Record Ltd., owner â€" 225 Fairway Rd. S., Kitchener, Ont. (fFam) address correspondence to Waterioo office: | cn 45 Erb St. E.. Waterioo, Ont. N2J 1L.7, telephone 886â€"2830 L é Waterioo Chronicle office is located in the Haney, White Law Office C Building (rear entrance, upper floor) Parking at the rear of the building. Open Monday to Friday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m Publisher: Paul Winkler Manager: Bill Karges Editor: Rick Campbell established 1854 For some reason, and I‘ve no idea what it is, this column is going to be about girls‘ names. ‘There are several possible reasons, any of which might be the right one. First, it might be just an unconscious reaction to the worst cold spell I can remember. The names of girls, exotic or otherwise, seem to help fight those Jan./Feb. winter blues or blahs. Secondly, I might simply be getting senile. Who knows? A couple of years from now I might be turning up at playgrounds with nothing on but a raincoat. And thirdly, the more I thought about it, the more I thought about it. I don‘t know whether this happens to you, but every so often I get some silly old song in my head, and I whistle and sing it, inaudibly, of course, because I don‘t want to be put away, for perhaps fifteen hours. It could be Colonel Bogey, and 1 play it, with variations through my head all day. No other tune interferes. Just a few days ago, I got one into my skull that must date back to the Twenties, and it went on all day, through conversation, eating, shaving. It was: You can bring Rose, with the turnedâ€"up nose, But don‘t bring Lula. You can bring Kate with the partial plate, But don‘t bring Lula. % Some oldâ€"timers might remember it. I‘m sure it goes back to the days of vaudeville, or the gramophone, as we used to call it. But I‘ve no idea where it came from, where I heard it, why I remembered the tune, or what was wrong with Lula. Anyway, I began to contemplate the names of girls, and whence they derived. We chose the name Kim for our daughter, because we didn‘t know whether she was going to be a gaughter or another son, and the name fitted either sex. There wasn‘t a Kim on the horizon then. Now, you can find one on every street corner. In my home form, I had two Kims, two Karens, and a Carol, and until I knew which was which, I‘d ask a question and start sounding like the old song, "Kâ€"kâ€"kâ€"Katie." Girls‘ names seem to go in cycles. One year I had five Debbies in one class. Hardly ever hear a Debbie anymore. _ _ e Aside from the fads, when every third gal has the same name, there seem to be some basic roots from which beleaguered mothers and fathers label their offspring. (I‘ve known a Robin Bird and a Pete Moss, but those were exâ€" ceptions.) _ _ Some girls are named after jewels, but there aren‘t many Pearls, Rubies, Opals, Sapphires and such around these days. They‘re as ‘"I always used to be in awe of my brother Patwho had a great slapshot." Waterloo Siskin Steve McGrinder on his tying goal Sunday vs. Bramalea. It is written Bill Smiley Syndicated columnist Names "OK, aut your yEppy stave on your siDe of yie BEp / " oldâ€"fashioned as Elmer and Gordon for boys. Girls are named after some months, but not others. We can label a girl May, April or June, but you don‘t hear too many Februaries or Novembers floating around. I think Febbie would be kinda cute for a short girl born in that short month. _ _ Strangely, I‘ve never heard a girl called Diamond, though I‘ve met a few hard enough to live up to such a sobriquet. S Then there is the practice of naming girls after flowers. We have Iris and Ivy and Pansy and Daisy and Marigold and Rose, and even, on the occasional farout encounter, Tulip or Virginia (if her last name happens to be Creeper). But they, too, have pretty well gone by the board. I don‘t know why. A girl is just as pretty as a flower, and often smells even nicer. Why don‘t we go back to that and call girls Petunia, Begonia, Phlox, Crocus, Daffodil? Think of the sweet little abbreviations they‘d acquire. Pet, Beggie, Flocky, Crokey and Daffy. Once in a while there is a flareâ€"up of oldâ€"fashioned or foreign names. Then we have a rash of Samanthas, Marthas, Ingrids, Fleurs, Leslies. The trouble is, with our fondness for nicknames, even these august names become Sam, Marty, Ingy the dingy, Flour and Les. Thank goodness there is a solid element of parents who stick with the good old Biblical and fundamentally Angloâ€"Saxon tags: Ruth, Mary, Rebecca, Margaret, Elizabeth, Jennifer, Susan, Jane, Sophia, and such. Not for them the exotic and subtly suggestive stuff like Sylvia, Sonya, Roberta, Giselle, Juanita. Those are the sort of names that can get a girl into trouble. How about Carlotta?® Or Vivien? Trouble, trouble. Personally, if I had six daughters, Lord forbid, I‘d try to get one into each category. Emeralda for jewellery. September for a month. How does September Smiley sound? Sweetâ€"pea for flowâ€" ers. Sweetâ€"pea Smiley? Ursula for an oldâ€"timer. Once had a slight fling with a girl by that name. Mary for the solid virtues and the religious connotations. And Diana, goddess of love, for the dangerous group. â€" Thank goodness my daughter has two boys, one Nikov, after a character in a Russian novel, the other Balind, a name she made up. She‘d drive us crazy if she had a batch of girls. If I suddenly and unexpectedly had a seventh, I‘d name her for one of the great women in myth or literature. Perhaps Circe, or Cordelia. Everybody happy with those? â€" SEE PAGE 24