WHITfBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, DECEMER 7, 1988, PAGE 5 How long ago, you ask? So long ago that Toronto had a hockey team. THE hockey team. The Stanley Cup champions, three-times running. Jump in our time machine with us. Twenty years? Har! Try again. Twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, more. .. These are the days when an. nine-year-old boy can wear a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater to school and no one laughs. When Howie Meeker wore a brush cut, and Hap Day coached the Leafs, and Turk Broda stopped pucks. It sounds now like made-believe. But that is real snow on the ground, and real coal in the scuttle'and real ashes on the icy path to the outhouse. And that is real winter that blasts its way across the frozen pond, that nips noses and freezes the slush in the toes of rubber boots when they are goal posts on the pond. And that is really Mrs. McMillan there, at the front of the classroom, telling Grades 5-8 that stor time will be cancelledi today. "For today", she says, "today. ..le (The pupils always knew what was coming. Dici they always?" '*. today we shall get our Christmas tree." Shouts of 'Hurray!' and 'Wowee!' and other overt signs ofjubilation. "The boys," says Mrs. M., "will get the tree." "The girls will make the decorations." No one thought it unusual that twelve boys, aged ten to fourteen, would be sent out at one thirty on a Friday afternoon with a borrowed saw and only one uine of instructions: find a tree. For not only are we now fory years in the past; we are also in rural Ontario, on the edge of a village of 250 souls, ail Protestant; if a Christmas tree is needed, find one. Up the bill on the township line, heading south, the boys keep in single file. This is important; they are stili within view of the school, and, they know, under surveillance. At the top of bill each turns and before WITH OUR FEET UP by Bill Swan Tree Hunt disappearing over the horizon, waves one last goodbye to the girls watching from the schoolroom windows. Now they are on their own. "Let's try Allison's Lake," says Dwayne. "They've got some good trees there." Legend bas it that tree-hunting crews of three or four years or centuries ago had walked to Allison~s Lake, five miles away, and found the world's best tree. "Nah", they ail agree. "The reforestation lot on the tenth concession," pipes in Jack. "There's a lot in there would be just right. If we go inte the middle no one will ever know." The secret for finding trees lies in just that: you can go anywhere you want, take any tree you want. But don't get caught. So adept are these boys that no tree stump is ever traced te scboolhouse tree bunts. In fact, forty years later none will ever remember wbere any tree was taken. The legends, of course, will be remembered. The tree carried five miles from Allison"s Lake; the one from farmer Miller's wind-break. But it is the legends, the telling, that is remembered. The hunters themselves neyer remember, no more than- do the forests. The trea, finally reduced te a corpse, is carried triuniphantly along the concession roads, shifted from shoulder to shoulder, up hilI after bill. Darkness falîs before the boys mount the last rise and look down at the xiow-darkened school house. 'We'1l leave it outside," one says. "If the door's open we can put it inside," says Bobby. 'Mrs. Reisberry might be there," says David. "She cleans the school and she~s there every night." David was right, but no one ever knew how. At the side. door the boys put down their burden. Before even the first knock on the door tbey could bear the sound: a low, moanful cry, of pain, of misery, of an aduit crying. "It's a ghost," says Billy. "It's Mrs. Reisberry," says David. David knocks on the door, then tries it. It is locked. "Go away," says the moaning voice on the other side. "Go. away." "Can we help?" Surely someone said that. "Go away. Go away." The boys park the tree upright in the vestibule, a five by five shed attacbed te the side of the old brick building. They go home. It is, after ail, past five o'clock and village boys have papers to deliver and farm boys have chores to do. It is not until the next day they learn that Mrs. Reisberry had broken her leg. It is a complicated fracture that keeps her leg in a cast for several months. T'he girls and the teacher are properly impressed with the tree. No one ever mentions the tree hunt again for forty years. Town requests grants for Centennial Building restoration Whitby council bas asked the Province for $400,000 towards the revitalization of the Cen- tennial Building and reconstruc- tion of Coîborne and King Sts. in the downtewn. The Town will apply for the money under the Program for Renewal, Improvement, Develop- ment and Economic Revital- ization (PR1DE), formerly known as the ONIP (Ontario Neighborhood Improvement Pro- gram). The provincial program provides funding for community improvements in older areas of a community. Council's application bad to be forwarded to the Mfinistry of Municipal Affairs by Nov. 30. The actual cost for the work is $890,000, of which the Province will fund $400,000. If the application is approved, the Town would contribute $420,000 while the Region would be asked to contribute $70,000. Work te the Centennial building includes interior renova- tion to the entrance stairs, lobby, areas of the second floor, new doors and screens and eisting wasbroom renovations. A recent study on the building indicated total renovations te the building could cost $1.2 million. Coîborne St. would be reconstructed between Byron and King and would include resur- facing, sidewalks, curbs, gutters, sterm sewers and proper curbside parking. Deficiencies in the watermain capacity and deteri- orated sanitary sewers would also be improved. King St. between Dundas and Dunlop would also receive similar SEE PAGE 9 00 ll Rotary Club of Whitby Saturday, December l7th, 8:00 a.m. ta 11:30 a.m.e Panc Brakfst being hML at 4 551 Ti<:onBroMIll'(Ju«set kn nrth ofTaunton d)6530' Aduits - $300Chîldren>"' $22ê 0 ______ A COMMQNITY EVENT N0T TO BE MI$$EO ___ HOT APPU IDEO *HMY RWYSD On December l7th, O.G US. Garden Gallery Support the Rotary Club of Whitby wiII donate $5S .0 O ta Rotary, with the Poinsettia Drive - they'll purchase of any cut* or ife-ike* Christ mas trees be visiting your home Barcan~on the afternoon i~ VahJ0of Dec. l7th *PurÇhase a eut Christmas tree on Dec. l7th, T -and became eligible ta win as weII as helping-M UNT,' O.G.S. Garden Gallery. donate $5.00 to Rotary ewý