Whitby Free Press, 17 Aug 1988, p. 5

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WITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1988, PAGE 5 Lucas Letterpress sits at his desk, scratching his head. He is thinking about imponderable issues, issues of great weight and import. Who, for example, invented the tiny twinkly lights that people install in the rear windows of their cars? And why? A third brake light Lucas could understand; it has function and statistics on its side. Nothing beats having statistics to back you in this world, Lucas long ago concluded, whether at the race track or buying lottery tickets or dating young girls (not that Lucas ever did, not this side of thirty.) But those twinkly lights, which blink at random in anemic colors, like mauve Christmas impulses, seem to him to defy common sense. He drops his pen, retrieves it. Did the inventor of rear-window twinkles retire a rich person to the islands to the south? Or was this a merchandising ploy which, like all merchandising ploys, found people in sufficient numbers bereft of good sense or taste to become profitable? Or some invention as twisted as the syntax of the previous sentence? Do other inventions match the tackiness of twinkles? Lucas scratches his head with his pencil. He recalls the fifties, years of his teens, and wraparound windshields; fishtails on. cars; little puppets with springy joints who would dance in the rear windows of 1957 Dodge cars. First prize for worst of the lot, ever: a dancing crucifix, complete with eyes that lit up every time the brakes were applied. Lucas makes a mark in his note book; yes, yes, those would do. Something more up to date? He purses his lips, pushes the pencil into his left ear. Elvis Presley etched forever on a canvas of black velvet; starving artist paintings; all Elvis Presley records. Ho ho! And never forget pink flamingos on front lawns, an idea so exciting that frequent repetition and WITH OUR FEET UP by Bill Swan Tacky insensitivity , parody can never dim its soul; and speaking of lawn ornaments, Black Sambo fishing, surely nothing could match that for tacky insensitivity; and marigolds. Lucas now perspires enthusiasm, his eyes dancing, his lip curled in contempt. What could be Norse? Brass house numbers, brass door knockers, *rass picture frames, brass anything? Dark cork walls? Etched glass mirrors, the stick-on type that you glue straight onto the drywall? The interior decor of steak houses carved out of failed service stations, proving that wrought iron and scarlet wallpaper can make anything look like a brothel? Nay, strike that. Tacky it may be, but never a personal affront. Surely no one person could have such monumental bad taste. Only a committee could have designed anything that gross. So what else, Lucas wonders, could go on his list? Sports shirts with little alligators over the left breast pocket? Any product with the trade name emblazoned in large letters? Nope. Lucas strikes that. Tacky, yes, but perhaps- only to his own generation. People buy stick-on letters to put on their windshields to declare the make of car; pay for t-shirts which carry the name of a sporting goods manufacturer; have their skin tattooed. But is that monumental tackiness? Pitiful, perhaps, that anyone would identify with inanimate objects. Was this sexual perversion? Lucas slashes the last six items from his list. Keep to the tacky items that someone could carry home, and many do. Johnny Cannuck, mayor of Beaver, Ont., enters the newsroom of The Flat Tail. He strides to Lucas' desk, ßbers over his shoulder. "What's this, Luke, old boy," oozes Mayor Johnny, "your Christmas list?" Lucas smiles, impishly. "As a matter of fact, yes." To the list he adds: politicians on the make. Then he crosses out the words, carefully, with his black pencil. "What's the matter?" says Mayor Johnny, "Am I not good enough for you?" "Just pay your subscription and go home," Lucas replies. "I have work to do." With that Lucas fires up his trusty computer. terminal and begins a file which will grace this week's Flat Tail. "Did you ever notice," Lucas types, "that the nineteen fifties were the golden age of tacky trinkets? Velvet paintings, fishtails cars, plastic stars like Elvis... "No trinkets of today can compare. We've gone beyond all that. "But talk to people about tackiness, and they'll start talking about our way of life. The way we treat each other. How we hog the highway and salute with a middle finger and pull up behind traffic in the fast lane and flash our lights while we light a cigar. About fat people wearing shorts in public, stars selling soda pop for a quick million. "The tackiness of the fifties you could take home, point a camera at, steal, paint, sell. But the tackiness of today is our way of life. Today, we have looked at tacky and we is it." Local candidates for future federal election ONTARIO RIDING (Ajax, Plckering, South Whitby) PC-- Rene Soutens orAjax NDP-- Jim Wiseman of Ajax Liberal- No candidate as yet DURHAM RIDING (Uxbridge, Scugog, Newcastle, North Whitby, North Oshawa) Liberal - Doug Mofatt, Kendal Greens -Harold Tausch, Port Perry PC-- No candidate as yet Liberal - No candidate as yet LASCO berm FROM PAGE 1 brief, preliminary report, expressed concerns over the use of valuable industrial land for the berm; potential expansions of the bérm which would sterilize additional industrial lands; impacts on adjacent residential and industrial land uses; envi- ronmental impact; responsibility for leachate monitoring and shoreline erosion. A full staff report and recommendation to regional council have yet to be made. LASCO's Ron Deeth, a consu- ltant on the project, told The Free Press that many and various tests had been performed at the berm site. Results of the tests will be released next week. Ball to head Conservative Party policy wing Former Durham Centre serves on the board of directors candidate Stephanie Bail will of the YWCA, the Durham co-chair a new policy arm of the Community Legal Clinic and the Ontario Progressive Whitby Chamber of Commerce, Conservative party, leaer Andy along with former Lincoln MPP Brandt has announced. Phil Andrewes, will head the Ball, an Oshawa lawyer who policy coordinating committee which recently held its inaugural meeting. The 16-member conmittee, made up of former Conservative MPPs and candidates, will make policy recommendations to the leader, caucus and the party executive. The PCC's recommendations will be based not only on input from committee members but also from party members in each riding across the province. Si., t. .. -iIt ' .' *i I t * I *V1 S ri i II~Va .' x"5 'à à ht .~- 30P

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