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PAGE 6 â€" WATERLOO CHRONICLE, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1995 Why would a 72â€"yearâ€"old man want to walk 2,100 miles in the mountains from Georgia to Maine with a 50â€"pound pack on his back? Or, for that matter, an 84â€"yearâ€"old grandmother or indeed, a 20â€" yearâ€"old university student midway through his studies? Because it‘s wonderful. That‘s what I‘ve discovered after spending the last month or so with my 16â€"yearâ€"old son, Freddie, going through that part of the fabled Appalachian Trail from northern New Hampshire through Maine. 1 had also better admit right away that backpacking and walking can in the end become an addiction and that it is then as deadly in its fashion as heroin or cigarettes or television. Itnsamadness,veryg"oodforsanityandlremmmenditwitha passion. als â€" _ â€" It has renewed my spirit. It allowed me to really get to know my son. It has made us the very best of friends. We lived life simply during the time we were away and we both became the better for it. If you think of it, our world has become very complex. We have at our fingertips more riches than anyone has ever had: books by the zillions, records and movies and TV by the ton, the opportunity to move around almost as we please. What you realize is that backpacking in the wilds is trying to overcome the fear of the unknown. You become totally free. Free to go out when the world will let you slip away, into the wildest places you dare explore. Free to walk from dawn to dusk and then again from dawn to dusk, with no harsh interruptions, among the quiet and soothing cathedrals of a virgin forest. Or free to struggle with a peak that has captured your imagination. Or free to follow a wild river to its You soon learn to feel a real sense of awe in all of this. We emerged from the wild country, happy and whole and secure and content. But the sheer complexity can sandbag you. You sometimes long for simplicity. You yearn to take a respite from the eternal wrestling with the abstract and tangle, tight and long and sweaty, with the tangible. So you start walking. And before long the madness has taught you that from this kind of sanity, you have learned many simple and valuable things. In everyday life, taking off your socks is an unnoticed chore; peelâ€" ing them off at the end of a strenuous day‘s hike is sheer delight. At home, drinking water is so easy; when you have to slowly pump it out of a filter, you suddenly realize just how good the comforts of civâ€" ilization can really be. Or there is the matter of money: 10 days or so beyond the last sign of a town, you open up your wallet and see that the little blister package has $2.79 marked on it and suddenly discover a forgotten and useless $10 bill. Or your appetite suddenly grows sharp for salad. Or ice cream. You begin to discover new meaning to things. You begin to appreâ€" ciate fabulous conversations with others that you meet on the trail and share supper with. Delicious and provocative talks about poliâ€" tics, economics, music, books and all the other good things that life has to offer. And you learn that those who love life â€" and I mean really love it, health permitting â€" would put a pack on their backs any day regardless of how old they are â€" whether they‘re 84, 72 or any age at it In a world filled with so many people old before their time, it was good for my son to see people like this and to share this kind of experience. I hope his mind and temperament will stretch because of it so that he is ready to explore life and all it has to offer. Waterloo Town Square 75 King St. South, Suite 201 Waterloo, Ontario NJ 1P2 Telephone 886â€"2830 News Line 886â€"3021 They have zest and spirit and life. And they love every moment of Fax No. Just start walking &\ M feanwhile Fred Sagel Melodee Martinuk (Sports Editor) Maureen McNab Major Accounts: Welfare crackdown necessary Pierre Trudeau said that government has no busiâ€" ness in the bedrooms of the nation. Of course, he didn‘t dream of what Ontario would be doing with sinâ€" gleâ€"mother benefits. But, wonder of wonders, the Mike Harris governâ€" ment is canning what amounts to a shackâ€"up subsidy. Yup, single mothers have been permitted to shack up with men for three years and get full benefits. You could say it‘s been a taxpayerâ€"paid dowry for single mothers seeking liveâ€"in companions. Maybe you‘ve been unaware of it, but it‘s been a crying scanâ€" dal for a lot of people in the know. Two examples: A single mother called her lawyer to sob,"You‘ve got to help me. I‘m two months over the threeâ€"year limit and they‘re talking about cutâ€" ting off my benefits. And we‘ve just bought a new house and had a swimming pool put in..." The woman‘s liveâ€"in love worked at Ford and made about This one is from a nearby community: a woman, who worked in an accountancy office, left her husband and took her youngsters to live with an accountant. He earns about $175,000 per and they bought a $450,000 house. And get this: she applied for and got mother‘s allowance because she didn‘t have $5,000 in the bank. No word on why her husband wasn‘t kicking in to supâ€" port the kids. _ Locally, the canning of the shackâ€"up subsidy means a "substantial" number of the 7,000 single mothers won‘t be eligible for aid if they stay in those relationâ€" Still, Frank Pizzuto, the Region‘s director of income maintenance, seems to defend the taxpayerâ€"subsiâ€" dized romances. Quoth he: "The threeâ€"year waiting was put in place so that strong relationships would develop and the single parent would hopefully get off the system in the long term." What a hope. And those violins you hear in the background are playing Moonlight and Roses while the Prince sets out to fit the glass slipper on his beloved. « It‘s Simple Justice: Honest, I‘m not Harry Hardâ€" heart about deserving people on welfare. But surprise home visits? Informer hot lines? All the other stuff to catch welfare cheats? I‘m all for them. Andrew Pearen Circulation Circulation: Mary Baycroft Jerry Fischer Paul Winkler Waterloo Chronicle is published every Wednesday by The Fairway Group Subscription rates 215 Fairway Rd. S., $45 yearly in Canade. : Kitchener, Ont. $90 yearly outside Cauada. +GS8I. The views of our columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the newspaper. § We oi <<> SN1L > International Standard Serial First, because welfare fraud is theft â€" theft from all of us. Second, Ontario can‘t afford the chiselling. Not in these times of $10â€"billion deficits, we can‘t. Third, the welfare recipients shouldn‘t get bent out of shape at the checking and so on. No sir, not when they‘re asking us to pay. Sad to say, from all I‘ve heard, I‘m not convinced of the commitment of all social workers who‘ll have to enforce the new rules. And too many of the media in reporting on them betray their leftâ€"leaning, bleedingâ€"heart bent. They don‘t seem to know the difference between writing a news story and an editorial. Yule Want to See It: Kitchener‘s Victoria Park will sparkle with 65,000 lights come Christmas but, gosh it was only a Christmas or so ago that Waterico Park first glowed with lights. So somebody in Waterloo is bound to scream "Copyâ€" cat". Of course, Waterloo was far from being the first to light a park for Yule. [ aat By the way, Christmas seems slow in coming this year. Here it is almost Labor Day and I haven‘t heard a carol or a Christmas commercial: , Don‘t Touch That Deal: The efforts of a few top Tories to undo the pleaâ€"bargain with Karla Homolka will come to naught. A deal is a deal, morally as well as legally. The best chance was to add a new charge, one of assault on Jane Doe. That wasn‘t covered in the deal, but it‘s a nonâ€"starter. Chalk that up to victim unwillâ€" ingness. . There‘s no sense in fingerâ€"pointing, but it could be noted that the deal was made under the previous govâ€" ernment. All of which adds weight to view that Bob Rae was to governance what Bosnian Serb commanâ€" der Radovan Karadzic is to diplomacy. O nce over Tightly Sandy Baird Cc ts