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_ No two children are ever alike Waterloo should change local building standards The Aug. 24 City Faces Driveway Dilemma article by Dave Pink (The Record) was published just in the pink of time to help Citizens for the Protection of the Waterloo Moraine (CPWM) forestall the potential devastation of more of the recharge area of the precious remaining bit of the virginal Waterâ€" loo Moraine groundwater recharge area along Wilmot Line. The builders, developers and planners of the Activa Development in Columbia Forest in Waterloo have done the same sardining of small lots and narrow roads and insufficient parking spots as the Kitchener builders, developers, planners, staff and council of the Activa Development in Laurentian Forest have done. And I‘m told the same sad sarâ€" dining and lack of reasonable, livâ€" able planning has gone into Laurel Creek Village. _ _I‘m told anything less than 10 feet must have a minor variance registered against it, to meet code. However, the Waterloo decision makers may be the allâ€"time prize winners. 1 have checked, and am told, the standard acceptable width of a sinâ€" gle garage in Kitchener is 10 feet. \If a builder makes too many misâ€" takes in smaller width garages his credibility is questioned. s Kids aplenty: They say that life‘s golden age is when children are too old to need baby sitters and too young to borrow the family car. That stance, with respect to cars, is mostly the end of the long saga that begins with wool sockies. Those of us who have followed childhood to adult growth can join in some comments on it, and perâ€" haps you‘ll agree on some. You know, for example, that the easiest way to get a child to pay attention is to stand in front of the TV set. Still, it‘s hard. if not impossible, to get a child to pay attention, especially when you‘re telling them something for their own good. â€" â€" _ Of course, we all know that a grandchild is a pain in the neck when he‘s around and a pain in the heart when he‘s not. â€"Still, you have to watch the kid who‘s cutting classes â€" he may grow up to be a MP. A babysitter is a teenager you hire to let your children do whatever they are big enough to do. And there‘s this about it: children are unpredictable. You never know how high up the wall they‘re going to drive you. Of course, reasoning with children is what gives you something to do while discovering you can‘t The reason parents want the children to play the piano is because it‘s harder to lose than a violin. _ The only trouble with having an outspoken child is that the parents are frequently left holding the bag the youngster let the cat out of. _ Ah yes. the only thing that children wear out faster than shoes are parents and teachers. In Waterloo {including Columbia But, still, no two children are alike â€"â€" especially if Forest and Laurel Creek Village) the acceptable minimum singleâ€"car garage width is a shocking 9.2 feet, that‘s nine feet three inches â€" about the size of a yellow ringed outdoor parking lot open stall. Now if you drive a standard size car and you‘re a standard size perâ€" son, if you dare to park in this small garage, you better have a sunroof top to be able to exit the car, because you won‘t be able to get out via the car door. Now who, in heaven‘s name, practises parking their car in the garage before they purchase. They‘re told it‘s a garage and they believe it‘s a garage that will accomâ€" modate their car. As a result people are buying in newer Waterloo subdivisions, housâ€" es with what they think are single car garages. The unpleasant surprise comes after they pay their money and move in to their lovely new home, only to find it really isn‘t a garage as we understand it, it‘s a house with a storage shed attached. It‘s time for Waterloo to change those unreasonable standards now before they approve any more subâ€" divisions or plans of subdivision. Columbia Forest was built as an environmentally friendly communiâ€" ty where residents could walk to everything. & Hello â€" there‘s nothing to walk to... no stores and no bus stops for the next five or six years. It was also zoned for inâ€"home business including up to three employees... but there‘s no place to park their own cars let alone parkâ€" SANDY BAIRD COMMENT one is yours and one isn‘t. And take note: children are well organized these days. Some of them are running everything around the house except any errands. You‘ll remember the old days when a parent didâ€" n‘t have to take the child to a psychiatrist to find out he was a little stinker. C || Many children have grown up to be fairly levelâ€"headed hecause their parâ€" ents couldn‘t find the guidance book they were lookâ€" ing for. My grandson never misquotes me. He repeats what, alas. I said. word for word. It‘s incredible when we think how our parents knew about child psychology and how wonderful we turned to to be. But nothing creates a firmer belief in heredity than a good â€"looking child. And there‘s only one perfect child in the world, and he‘s my only grandson You know that infant prodigies used to be children of very imaginaâ€" tive parents. And, yup, there are only two things children will share willingly â€" comâ€" municable diseases and their mother‘s age. â€" But childhood is that wonderful period when all you need to lose weight it to take a bath. By the way, someday science may be able to explain why a child can‘t walk around a puddle. Of course, children are natural mimics; they cat like their parents in spite of every effort to teach them good manners. ing for employees or clients or visiâ€" tors. This is especially true when they can‘t park their own car in the garage. This area is on is on an imporâ€" tant recharge area of the moraine and houses the headwaters of Lauâ€" rel Creek. There is a ruling in Waterloo that a recharge area must not exceed 47 per cent impermeable surface in order to allow the recharge to conâ€" tinue. To allow rain and snow to seep into the soil to reach the aquifers below to continue to provide our groundwater source. Because of a lack of parking and narrow roads, which don‘t safely allow parking, most homeowners have doubled their single car driveâ€" ways, and therby increased the impermeable surface coverage and in doing so decreased the amount of recharge surface for the aquifers below. _ I‘m told that no known buyer was made aware of the importance of the 47 per cent surface coverage. There will be less water reaching the ground water aquifers and the lack of recharge surface will cause concentration of whatever contamiâ€" nants and road salt may have the opportunity to enter our drinking water system. It‘s not a winâ€"win situation Ginny Quinn Kitchener alling asleep with one eye on the 11:30 p.m. local televiâ€" Fsion news, I was startled awake by a loud noisy commerâ€" cial for the Paris fall fair. It normally is the type of advertisement that I don‘t pay attention to but for some reason this ad for a fall fair that included motorcycle stunts, demolition derbies, monster trucks and a big midway caught my interest (either that or the timing was so perfect that the commercial caught me between sleep and wakefulness and left a subliminal stamp on my sub conscious}. I don‘t know what it was but for some strange reason my son, my brother and I drove to the Paris fall fair on Labour Day Monday. â€" â€" â€" You know how you arrive at some place and you automatiâ€" cally know if the day is going to be a good one or not? Well we arrived and within five minutes we were seated with a crowd for a lumberjack show. At first my sevenâ€"yearâ€"old wasn‘t too thrilled about wood and stuff, but when he learned the axes on display were for cutting and throwing he moved slightly forward in his seat and his eyes started to sparkle. The lumberjacks from Northern Ontario, Whistler, B.C. and New Zealand thrilled and delighted the crowd with their hiâ€"jinks, pranks and skillful display of "lumberjackmanâ€" ship". We hit the midway next, and there is something about the smell of greasy food and cotton candy that feels like home. I probably hadn‘t smelled those culinary delights in about 20 years and it sure did make me feel like a kid again. Or, rather, it was the Himalaya, the Tiltâ€"aâ€"Whirl or the Ferris wheel that made feel like a kid... I‘m not sure which. The carniâ€" val barkers were out in full force. Maybe I‘m more wizened now but they didn‘t seem as menacing or as untrustworthy as 1 remember them. Some will take simplicity over a thrill any day of the week For the unfamiliar, Paris, Ont. is situated at the joining of the Grand and Nith Rivers and is a beautiful town. Located in a lovely wooded valley, the two rivers join as one and the Grand becomes wide and majestic as it rolls out of town and toward Brantford and eventually Lake Erie. Knowing some of the local geography, 1 was thrilled Great Lakes Helicopters (real helicopters) out of Breslau were offerâ€" ing rides for a nominal fee. 1 thought it would be an exciting way to end the summer, and up and away the three of us went. The pilot obligingly took us over the town and both rivers, and actually flew so close to the Grand that it felt like we could reach out and scoop up some water. 1 definitely thought the helicopter ride would be the top of the tops for thrills and excitement, but do you remember when your kids were toddlers and the expensive toy they got for Christmas wasn‘t nearly as exciting as the box it came in? Well this was the case with the helicopter ride. All my brothâ€" er and 1 could talk about was how much fun it was; my son, on the other hand, thought the helicopter ride was OK, but the real highlight for him was the demolition derby. 1 must confess it was my first demolition derby as well and I was suitably impressed. Big bangs, big crashes and a couple of cars actually caught on fire. Definitely not intellectually stimulating (my fatherâ€"inâ€"law thought it would have been better to take my son to the opera or Stratford)... but hey, for sevenâ€"yearâ€"old boys and the sevenâ€" yearâ€"old kid inside all of us. you can‘t beat the simplicity and fun of a fall fair. Check out the following fall fairs coming to a town near you by visiting www ontariofairs.com{/fairs/ : Western Fair, Sept. 9 18, Brampton Fair, Sept. 15â€"18; New Hamburg Fall Fair, Sept 15â€"18; Niagara Regional Exhibition, Sept. 15â€"18; Acton Fair, Sept. 16â€"17; Feversham Fair, Sept. 16â€"17; Stayner & District Community Fair, Sept. 16â€"17; Wiarton Fair, Sept. 16â€" 17; Beaver ton Fair, Sept. 16â€"18; Binbrook Fair. Sept. 16â€"18; Bracebridge Fair. Sept. 16â€"18. Eâ€"mail your questions/comments to sean@seanstrick land.com . Step right up and take your chances with a local fall fair