WHITBY FREE PRESS, MONDAY,DECEMBER_23 1985 PAGE5 "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson f d 4il wu> THE CROW'S NEST by Michael Knell I'dlike to take you for another visit to downtown Whitby this week. Last time you and I got together I was critical of Whitby Town Council for failing to provide leadership when it came to problems faced by the downtown merchan- ts. After that cqlumn appeared, I was speaking to a member of council who promptly took me to task for what I wrote and opined. The question that the councillor put to me was a simple one: "Just what do you expect us to do?" He then went on to point out that council has never turned down a request for help or action from the downtown business community or, more specifically, from the Whitby Downtown Improvement Area Board. This councillor also challenged me to cite one act of neglect on the part of council when it came to the downtown core. He noted that when the downtown community asked for free parking at Christmas - they got free parking at Christmas. They asked for more parking downtown and got it. Council, he mamitainet, has bent over nackwara to nelp the downtown core whenever and however possible. Although he sympathizes with many of the concerns expressed by the mer- chants - both individually and collectively - council's hands are tied in many situations. Last week, I reported that many of the merchants I've spoken to are upset because of the fungus-like growth of shopping plazas around town. However, my friend on council noted that if those developments meet the requirements of the town's official plan and those of the Planning Act, council is powerless to refuse their application simply because they believe it will be detrimental to the downtown core. Council does not have, nor should it have, such arbitrary power. This member of council also pointed out to me that the Special Area 3 study would be undertaken next year. The Special Area 3 (that is, the downtown core) study should give council some idea of the current situation while making some concrete and positive recommendations for specific action. However, when pressed, he agreed with me that council should have done the study years ago. He also reminded me that the merchants themselves must accept a great deal of responsibility for the current situation. For example, despite calls by Ed Buffett, this newspaper, me and council the downtown merchants have yet to agree to common operating hours. They all open and close at different times, which is very confusing to the shopper. Sioppers are tempted to goto the mails because they Know wnat nours tne mail is open - they don't have to puzzle out for themselves when each individual store they wish to visit is open for business. In addition to that criticism I would like to add one of my own. The downtown merchants do not market themselves aggressively. For example, look through the last few issues of this newspaper and note the number of advertisements you see promoting a downtown Whitby business. There aren't too many. Do you remember the last aggressive marketing program launched by any downtown business or group of businesses? Other than those put together by the downtown improvement area board, there have been very few. In today's highly competitive marketplace, those who adopt and execute sound marketing strategies are those who are going to survive. The downtown board has developed a long term marketing plan for the core and i can only hope they get the approval to implement it as soon as possible. While both the town and the merchants themselves have an obligation to ad- dress the problems faced by the downtown core, neither should be held com- pletely accountable for the current situation. It is simple to compile a shopping list of things needed in the downtown core. I've done il myself. Such items include: a major employer; a major commer- cial attraction; a complete facelift; etc., etc. But there is one other thing the downtown core needs: people. What's more, people have to want to shop down- town. That means, the merchants downtown have to create a demand for their goods and services, and that is not something council can or even should do. There are no simple solutions available to the downtown merchants. They exist in a highly complex marketplace that is subject for forces over which they have no control. And, believe it or not, no one has control over them either. It was not my intention to misconstrue the situation faced in the downtown core and, perhaps, some of my criticisms were harsher than they might have been. To me, downtown Whitby is a treasure that has to be preserved. It is the heart and soul of our community - it gives the town character. Many modern communities neighbouring Whitby don't have the character and sense of being that downtown Whitby has. (Can you tell me where downtown Ajax is?) I think we should all be grateful that Whitby has that heart and sense of character. Now all we have to do is revitalize and rejuvenate it. Don't forget our early deadlines this week. Al1news and ads must be in by Friday noon December 27. WITI OUR FEET UP By Bill Swan Christmas belongs to the past as much as to the future (note how 1 avoided saying, "or to the present(s)"? Each of us brings to Christmas some of the traditions of families, welded together in curious ways. When I think of Christmas i think of years gone by. my own childhood not too far away (south- western Ontario) in a time long, long ago. Those days gone by and the people who peppered them are further now away from the electronie computer age than my imagination could take me forty years ago. We lived in a fairy-tale world, sort of the before part of the classic tales: the Cinderella wisking the hearth, the church defining poverty. the ugly duckling before the metamorphosis. This is the day in a rural village, before everyone had flush toilets, before running water, before cen- tral heating, before television. These are the days, in the late forties, when the depression still clung to parts of the country. A young boy in these days carried water from the neighbors well across the street, carried coal from the bin in the basement, learned early how to bank a fire, and learned to carefully, very carefully, empty an ashpan that he always allowed to get too full before emptying. These are the days when a ten-year-old boy would come home from hockey practice on Saturday mor- ning (on a natural ice arena) and would hang out his shin pads and hockey stockings behind the coal range in the kitchen to dry. Among the coals of memories, a few still burn brightly. First of these is the Christmas of the shin pads. When you are ten and graduating from shinny to organized hockey. the thing you want most in the world is shin pads. And yes, boys and girls, we did wear Eaton's catalogue before shin pads. None of the boys on our team had full equipment, of course. Just skates, gloves, and now, if Santa recognizes justice, shin pads. We lived and breathed shin pads, for we lived and breathed hockey in those long-ago days. Syl Apps and Turk Broda decorated our room in Quaker Oats photographs; the whole Leaf team hung suspended in time. And we lay away nights and dreamed of hockey games and shin pads. Christmas morning came and the gift opening began. And when it came my turn, I knew from the feel of the package that my dream had come true. I tore open the package, ripped at the covering, and pulled out... My shin pads. With no knee caps on them. The cane padding was fine, but without knee caps, well, what was a guy to do. Disappoined beyond belief, I picked up the pads and threw them down in disgust. "What good are they?" i yelled. And I looked for the first time at my parents, and saw on the face of my mother such pain that my disappointment shrank to nothing. They had bought what they could afford. They had bought the only pads they could find. I forget now the explanation. But the reality of Christmas, and the ugliness of wanting, wanting, wanting, burned through that morning into the mind of a ten.year- old. i learned that selfishness can hurt others, deeply. Other memories linger: The Christmas of the ring. That was the year in second grade, when Christ- mas shopping was done with pennies, when little made us happy and the world was always full of sunshine because we didn't realize that we were poor. And I bought for my older sister a five-cent ring that was the prettiest I had ever seen. But a little ring is hard to wrap and hard to disguise. So I hid it in a peanut shell, and wrapped that carefully in the discards from other Christmas wrappings. And Christmas morning my sister opened the package. And saw only an empty peanut shell, and flung it across the room in a rage. i retrieved the shell and handed it back to her. Wordless, she looked again. I cracked the shell further open and the ring popped out. Still. after forty years, I can stab my sister in the Sec page 5 F do