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

PAGE 6 â€" WATERLOO CHRONICLE, WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1985 Second Class Mail Registration Number 5540 There wasn‘t much difference Thursday between the Montreal Canadienâ€"Quebec Nordique hockey game and the Ontario provincial election. _ o S Both contests vied for viewer attention on Ontario television. Both pitted archâ€"rivals in a doâ€"orâ€"die arena setting. Both went right to the nailâ€"biting finish, bruising battles if ever there were two. And both ended declaring a winner who before long could also end up a loser. Should the foundation of Queen‘s Park have been, or be, rocked by Thursday‘s result at the polls? Past the smokescreens was it really that difficult to see that like John Turner in the last federal election, the Tory machine waited too long to thrust into overdrive? Or that David Peterson had run the Liberal campaign fashioning skills not previously seen. And that Bob Rae, diving headlong into scrums and articulating in a manner that made his foes green with envy was at worst holding his own? Maybe, maybe not. Hindsight is marvelous, isn‘t it? The fact remains, however, that the election results speak far beyond extended school funding, environmental issues, dome stadiums and beer and wine, for heaven‘s sake. What they cry out is that the people of Ontario will not What they cry out is that 1 stand to be taken for granted. It was assumed they would, at least by Tory strategists, who showed that the federal Liberals hold no exclusive rights on campaign bungling. If Tory Ontario had wanted another Bill Davis at the helm, they would have elected a Bill Davis. They didn‘t though, they wanted a new man with a new image, and were delivered a new man saddled with an old image, instructed to conduct a holierâ€"thanâ€"thou, deadâ€"flat campaign. Ontario put the goods back on the shelf. The dunce cap over to you, Pat Kinsella. Popular vote notwithstanding, it should be remembered that the devastated Tories remain the party with the most seats at Queen‘s Park, albeit a delicate minority. We shall see if the talent is there in Tory ranks to exact a partnership with the NDP in terms of policy, which right now is akin to asking the Marlboro Man to be poster boy for the Canadian Cancer Society. * One thing is for certain midst the scenarios currently being trotted out. The Ontario taxpayer will not soon suffer another provincial election gladly. Not next month, or the one after, or the next few after. Neither the Liberals nor NDP have anything to gain â€" but plenty to lose â€" by engineering nonâ€"confidence motions, and should govern their giddiness accordingly. And Fancypants Rae isn‘t as cute as he thinks playing Humpty Dumpty on the wall. In theory, it may be a neat role to have the balance of power, but in reality, unless Rae plays his cards right, he‘s going to take a big tumble off his wall and all the king‘s horses and all the king‘s men won‘t be able to put the NDP together again. ® So it‘s minority government we have, and months and years of gameâ€"playing we don‘t need. It‘s time for the leaders and elected MPPs of all three parties to do some serious soulâ€"searching about what this situation means. In perhaps one of the most difficult â€" and certainly one of the most crucial â€" times in our provincial history, they have been given the equal opportunity to show the stuff they‘re made of. rinpord Goffapinut right to edit. â€" < ( ... â€" . m-?flu‘@w published every \f}‘dnesday by Fairway Press, a division of Kitchener+Waterioo Record Ltd., owner 225 Fairway Rd. S., Kitchener, Ont. an it work? address correspondence to Waterioo office: 45 Erb St. E., Waterioo, Ont. N2J 1L7, telephone 886â€"2830 Waterioo Chronicle office is located in the Haney, White Law Office 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 A long, hard winter. About fourteen feet of snow in these parts. A blizzard in March. Another in April. A cold, brutal spring, with a cutting wind every day, even when the sun shone. However, that is quite normal for people in this country whose ancestors were stupid enough to emigrate to Canada, instead of Australia or South Africa or Southern Califorâ€" nia. I got through it, somehow, getting up every day at the crack of noon to look out the window, see the snow swirling, say a bad word or two, and climb back into bed with a book, hoping someone would come to dig me out. Or, failing that, that everyone would leave me alone, to be found in June, in bed, and in extremis. It wasn‘t so bad, really. My daughter and grandboys came for the March break. And break it was. Ben seems to be hyper. He never walks when he can dance. He never shuffles when he can jump. He kicked out one of the spokes in my staircase. But he can‘t be hyper, because he can sit and watch TV for eight hours without moving a muscle or even blinking. So much for psychiatry. And my son, Hugh, visited every few weeks, when he wasn‘t off in Central America, not being shot or captured or kidnapped in Nicaragua. He wasn‘t even tortured. Yet, in Toronto, he was. Three druggies broke in on him, beat him up, poured boiling water all over him, smashed a kneecap with a hammer, and cleaned out all his hifi equipment. Funny world, eh? Of course, the kids love their father like a father. Always hugs and kisses, a tradition in our family. But I have to keep an eye on the bums. They‘re both always broke, and they know the old man has a few nickels in the sock. Kim sighs, "Boy, I‘d like to have a house some day."‘ And Hugh admits that he could get a $1,000 electric piano into his room. He has instant recall. But he also has instant forgetfulness. Like who supplied the funds for his Central American sashay. I‘ll give you a hint. It was a close relative. Butfil these things, and even the fact that I haven‘"t paid my 1983 (yes, that‘s 1983) income tax yet, have not created the malaise I feel this spring. ' There‘s something deeper. I‘m losing face. There‘s something deeper. I‘m losing face. Oh, I don‘t mean my physical face. It‘s disintegrating just like yours, and yours. No. I‘m falling bthind in the race. My pride has been badly bruised, and I can find no solution, even though my pride is pretty tenuous, I‘ve never It is written seen sucj: an unimpressive lineup in my life Bill Smiley Syndicated columnist Losing face Marg Cooper of Waterioo on why she declined her ballot in Thursday‘s election. ®® â€" SEE PAGE 3 and the solution seems simple. Every so often, one of my old friends invites me out to dinner. I don‘t know why, I‘m about as sociable as a hibernating bear. Nonetheless, I accept with gratitude and anticipation: the wine flowing, the political and philosophical converâ€" sation, the change from frozen chicken pies. ioh uh deindsich Alistcish l hvionitibs 1 Autlicinniaictiflrabsio d en ioi ind 0. n And every time it happens, I sort of slink into a material corner. Know why? Because every one of them has several things I don‘t have. o You name it, they have it. After a meal, l suggest helping with the dishes. ‘"No problem. Bill, we‘ll just put them in the electric dishwasher." I wash mine in the kitchen sink, in a prown plastic bowl. When I wash them, which is at least twice a week. _ Then we spend half an hour talking about dishwashers: price, quality, length of exisâ€" tence. Dinner is brought to the table, everything piping hot, and l learn, very quickly, that it was all cooked in something like twelve minutes, in the new microwave oven. That‘s good for another halfâ€"hour, as the ladies compare brands and recipes. Then, when I‘m hoping for nothing worse than a reâ€"run on TV, J find that mine hosts have a VCR, whatever that is, and we‘re about to watch a movie that at least three thousand people saw when it first came out, in 1939. Wow. Over brandy and cigars, we don‘t listen to records of Bach or Gershwin or Handel. We listen to tape recorders and compare prices and makes and decide on where the speakers should â€"I sit in a corner, nodding pleasantly. 1 don‘t have any of these things, and can‘t even discuss them with knowledge, let alone animation. Oh, I don‘t have a backhouse. I do have a television set and get the right channel four out of ten times. I haveé a stove and a refrigerator. 1 handle the fridge quite well. I, have electric lights and a furnace. _ But I don‘t have a dishwasher, except myself, nor a microwave oven, or a VCR, nor a home computer. I am a failure. o _ Perhaps it‘s because I am not too mechanical. My wife used to handle all that nonsense. She could change a plug in the flash of an eye, while I was looking for the flashlight. I do have a vacuum cleaner, and I can run that. I got an electric shaver for Christmas, and it took me four days to try it. I was scared. It‘s now broken. I have a food biender, but don‘t know how to work it. Pretty sad story for a guy who flew Spitfires.