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WATERLOO CHRONICLE The Waterloo Chronicle is published every Wednesday by The Fairway Group, a division cf Southern Ontario Community Newspapers Inc., a division of Southam Publications, a Can West Company The views of our columists are their own and do not necessarily represent those of the newspaper 75 King St. South, Suite 201 Waterloo, Ontario N2J IP2 Publisher: Cal Bosveld 886â€"2830 Fax: 886â€"9383 Eâ€"mail: wehronicle@sentex.net Ken Bosveld _ Deborah Crandall Associate Publisher . Editor, Ext. 215 Dwayne Weidendort . Gerry Mathice Group Sales Direcâ€" . Retail Sales Man Reporter, Ext. 227. Sports Editor, Ext. 229 <> SK\ Letters Policy 136379 International Standard Serial Number Circulation Circulation Manager, Ext. 225 Assistant Regional Classified Classified Manager Sales, 623â€"6617 The Waterloa Chranicle welcames letrers to the Editor. They should be signed with name, address and phone number and will be verified for accuracy. No unsigned lerters will be published. Submissions may be edited for length, so please be briet Copyright in letrers and other mate nals submitted to the Publisher and accepted for pubhcation remains with the anthor. but the publisher and its licensees may freely repro duce them in print. electranic or other forms Our mailing address is 75 King St S . Suite 201. Waterlos N2J IP2, our eâ€"mail address i» wehronicte@sentex net. and ont t ax pumbeces Aits t Ved Audited wrculation: 26.056 Andrea Bailey Bob Vrbanac Canacian Publicatiuns Mail Sates Pruduct Agreenient Number Advertising Sales, Ext. 223 Deb Outtield Narma Cyea Lynn Bartol ISSN OB32â€"3410 Cal Busveld Melissa Hounslow Launce Aidgwas Karen Dwver Advertising Sales, Fxt. 222 en I was a little girl growing up in Wingland. we celebrated Easter in what I believe is a fairly traditional manner. My older brother and [ would wake up Easter Sunday, and Mum would help us decorate some hardâ€"boiled eggs which we, along with dozens of other children, would gently roll down the hills in a nearby park following church service. The Easter what? Then we‘d head home for our tea (some here might call it dinner)}, as well as chocolates and other sweets to celebrate the holiday.. â€" The rolling of eggs down the hill, our Sunday school teacher explained, represented Christ rolling away the stone from His tomb after His resurrection. Made sense to me. And the chocolate treats, Mum explained, were just a nice way of furâ€" ther celebrating the holy day, much like treats and gifts are enjoyed at Christmas time. Made even more sense to me. A few years later, and a few days before Easter, my new friends in Canada and I were discussing the upcoming feStiViliCS, . mm and one asked if I was I T | excited that the Easter | & ANOTHER | Bunny would soon be | THING'” ‘ coming to visit. ‘ | "The Easter what?" | h The friend, astounded _ | ‘ that 1 obviously had no i idea what she was talking | trom. ol } about, went on to explain . |f TR t about the giant bunny ‘ that walked upright and | Cc snuck around to homes in _ | i fi the middle of the night k _ | (much like Santa did) to | deliver chocolate eggs ' DEBORAH and such to good little CRANDALL boys and girls. "Yeah, fight. Pull the A chicken other one. But the friend went I could ' on insistently, growing angry at my gdoubt. understand â€" and warning me that 1 you know, the would not enjoy the o generosity of the great chickeniegg wh!tg bunny if I kept up connection, this insolence. Later, at home, 1 preâ€" and all that. sented my mother with the story my friends had But a bunny? told me. "The Easter what? Don‘t be daft." And J went on to tell her about how the bunny would not leave the treats in one place, but would scatter them about so I‘d have to embark on a kind of hunt to find them "Must be a Canadian thing." she puzzled. Turns out that even though | was a kid "fresh off the boat", as they say, and wasn‘t altogether conâ€" vinced of his existence, the Easter Bunny found his way to my house, and delivered the goods, as it were. But the whole legend never really sat well with me. 1 mean, how come a bunny? A chicken 1 could understand â€"â€" you know, the chicken/egg connecâ€" tion, and all that. Yes, I might have bought the story more readily if legend had a giant chicken peck her way in the front door to lay chocolate ova for me to enjoy. But a bunny? They don‘t lay eggs‘ And even if they did. the Easter Bunny is male so my coâ€"workers tell. And he has a name, apparâ€" ently. It‘s Peter Cottontail. Now, I‘d heard of him â€" heard the song about him hopping down the bunny trail. But I never put the twa together â€" never connected him with the Easter Bunny Ah, but I‘m no fool. Well, not so much back then. I learned quickly never to look a gift bunny in snout, even if he didn‘t make the least bit of sense Happy Easter® |& ANOTHER \ THING... _ * | | ( _ T1A \ DEBORAH CRANDALL VIEWPOLINT olice have nabbed a... How do you say Pil?... a gunperson in connection with almostâ€"daily bank stickups in Camâ€" bridge and Guelph. No gun was seen, and it‘s a good bet she didn‘t get much from her endeavors. One theory was that the bandit was a junkie and needed the stickups to finance her daily fix. Say, she‘s supposed to be about fiveâ€"feet tall which means that she couldn‘t emulate John Dillinger and leap over bank counters. Say, apropos of nothing, isn‘t it wonderful the way people are helping one another? As with the bank mergers? Think of how many hours it‘ll save the stickâ€"‘emâ€"up artists. That figures because when you stick up a bank, the odds are that they‘ll give you a preâ€" pared pack of money which doesn‘t amount to early retirement. Or else they‘ll give you a package doctored with explosive red dye. Tory Tedium: You can count it as a Saturâ€" day afternoon wasted. The hours spent watching Tories vote couldn‘t hold a candle to an afternoon of watching cur|â€" _ _ ing. Or of seeing grass grow. The ballots lacked any real drama since polls gave you the tesults in advance. And the disâ€" appointing showing of Liz Witâ€" mer also cast a pall over proâ€" ceedings. The choice of Ernie Eves as leader still leaves the PCs with a couple of years to overcame a 20â€"point Liberal lead. It can be done, but it won‘t be because of Eves‘ charisma. It‘ll be because he has tacitly said he‘ll be less heavy handed than Mike Harris. But he‘ll still have a tough row to hoe. Amended View: In last week‘s column I brazenly suggested that Waterlon councillors should admit that the job of governing the city was beyond them and they should yield jobs to their Kitchener counterparts. I added that the recent series of booâ€"boos was proof that the job exceeded their talents. That point of view isn‘t likely to appeal to them, so I‘ll offer an alternate reason. $o, OK, we‘re giving them credit for having brains enough, but let‘s say goodbye to them because we can‘t afford them. Just look at the losers they have engineered: The Waterioo Square fiasco, the RIM Park financing, the probe into the Rim Park highâ€"jinks, the merryâ€"goâ€"round about the new library and so on And not one of them inexpensive! Come to think of it, with the amount of happy cabâ€" Crime really doesn‘t pay CHRON bage they‘re expending, it‘d be cheaper to have Canada‘s MPs and senators do the job. Gosh, Waterloo councillors are lucky there‘s no municipal election in the offing. If there were, the incumbents would be buried under new candidates eager to end the careers of the incumbents. Granted, the passage of time will dull some of the taxpayer rancor, but there will be enough feft to make the election of incumâ€" bents anything but a sure thing. Of course, you can depend on some counâ€" cillors to put their best foot forwardâ€"as soon as they can get it out of their mouth. More Of Same: The Canadian Alliance has a new leader in an election that produced two winners: Stephen Harper and Jean Chreâ€" tien. Harper won the right to run the Alliance, and Chretien likely won the right to continue running Canada after the next election. Yes sir, Harper has shown that he‘s more than cool to a merger of Canada‘s rightâ€"wing parties. Absent the merger, there‘s not a ____ _ snowball‘s chance of the Liberals losing the next election. Not a â€" chance. mm Harper is more of an intellecâ€" tual than a politician, and he will have to talk on the level of the average voter. Somehow policy wonks find it hard to cut it. There‘s something disconcerting about hearing your egghead leader for the 100th time delivering his favourite dinner oration that there isn‘t any free lunch. Eggsâ€"ceptional: The coming week brings some of the most meaningful days in the Christian calender. From the solemnity of Good Friday to the exuberance of Easter Sunâ€" day, the observance marks a special time. My mother used to predict rain for Good Friday on the basis that the elements were weeping, too. Come the Sunday and the day was glowâ€" ingâ€"whether or not the sun chose to shine Havea good weekend, eh? And take a hittle time to reflect on the meaning of it all. Happy Easter‘ THESE THINGS WOULD O A LOT FASTEL Anot ge morE PEODUCTIVE If WE DIDNT Invite THE PUBLIC . The New Alliance chief may lack charisma, but he seems preâ€" sentable in all other ways. He‘s a good speaker and promises to make things warm for the Liberâ€" als in the Commons question periods. Say, in voicing his skepticism about any merger he seemed to put it well beyond doubt. For example, he specifically said (to goodly cheers) that the Alliance is a party in place for the long haul. §