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Page 2, Thursday, December 9th, 1971, WHITBY FREE PRESS essence of a county town -egeoewees EYE OF THE BEHOLDER There i s something indelibly quaint a n d a t mospheric about Whitby's often discussed downtown which is intensified by the pre-hol iday season. T e c h n i c ally speaking, you have a clusterof little shops housed in ancient bui Idings, and peoplôd within by mer- chants, some of them, the descendants of town tradesmen back in the 1800's. Certainly there i s no doubt that the modern day malls have much to offer in t h e way of p r o g ressive retail trade, c o m p r ehensive merchandise and cen- t r a I i z e d shopping. But the downtown and the malls can hardly be compared, on a practical basis at least, in para- 1 lels. A I t h o u g h the downtown merchants c a n n o t c o mpete wi th the comprehen- siveness of the malls, they can well do in fr i endliness, as theirs is a slower p a ce. Downtown shoppers usual1ly l1ive w i t h in the community, while the malls w 1 t h a w i der appeal, are apt to draw shoppers from surrounding areas. If you're looking for flaws, the char- acter of the downtown is not always tan- gible. But it can sometimes be felt in an unexpected meeting of old friends at thefourcorners, in the respite of cas- ual window shopping while waiting for a bus, or in the homespun sight of chl- dren's noses pressed against the win- dow pane of the local pet shop. There a r e those who simply cannot see the beauty in a sadly tarnished but still lovely old piece of silver. It's a pi ty that one cannot analyze charm on a drafting table. P e r h a p s that intangible something about the downtown core of Whi tby rests in its very flaws. To Mr. & Mrs. Durkee ON YOUR CHRISTMAS PARTY You have made many merrier, By your party for the Free Press Car- rier. For what you did for us today, We have many nice things to say From the fireplace by which i sat, You very kindiy took my hat. Next you showed how the paper is made, Un t i iit was time to e at the food for "lt's me, Todd!" Ask any coachof minorsports. I mean, you spend the first few games of the season trying to recognize the dif- ferent pieces of equipment each player wears, whichnamegoeswithwhichnum- ber, andwhoplayseachposition, so you justbegin to remember who's who when the convenors decide to switch some players tobalance the teams. You start over again, and pretty soon you're able to adapt when Billy turns up in his big bro th er's helmet, or the boys switch sweaters on you. Even in the big game, y o u f i n d y o urself yeiing, "Come on Scott!" "Check him Scott, get that man behind you.I" "You missed him Scott!"' "What's thematter with Scott he doesn't i isten to me at al1I ?" Whereupon a smal1 v o ! ce halfway down the bench squeaks "I'm not out there Coach. That's Todd!I' "Don't you remember me?" A f ter many year s of coaching and man ag i n g teams in softball, soccer, fo otball, hockey and lacrosse, i'm of- ten stopped in the street by some smil- ing young warrior who says, "Hi, coach, remember me'?" No helmet, no number, no mouthguard, and his strange face on athin littleframe with no shoulder pads and no t even a ball, bat or stick for a c i ue. Now, I usually remember faces, b u t I've seldom seen the entire face of some of my p iay er s . Occasionally th ou gh , certain faces will always be recognizedbecause a warm personality shinesthrough any camouflage. Like, i c an always spot little Kenny Tran in a crowd, or Dennis Jacobs or Nick Noso- wenko. So there i was one recent afternoon, supply teaching for a Mrs. Marr at St. John's School, and i had just been tes- ted by a mysterious face who reminded me that he once played on the BIue Team in house league hockey in Brooklin in 1967, and didn't I remember? The c i a s ses changed at the sched- u i e d t ime, and a grade five class re- placed the grade sixes who either went on to another class, or skipped out on therookyteacher. As the students took t h e ir seats, (and how was I to know if those were their regular seats?), I s p ot t -ed one easy face who had played on my lastlIacrosse team. I remembered t h a t h i s name was Eddy Derks, but I purposely avoided any hint of recognit- ion. Christmas Carols Quite straight-faced, I informed the class that the absent teacher's day book ic uded the instructions to practice s i n g ing cer tain Christmas carolis that the c I a s s would be singing in a forth- *c om i n g schooi concer t. As the song- s he e ts were distributed, I suggested t ha t each per son should try to sing as well as he could so that I could assess the q uality. Giving them no chance to d i vert their attention, I asked them to b e g in w ith "Hark, the Hera1d Angels Sing", attheir own speed, in their own voice range. They weren't the County Town Singers, but There followed the most pitiful sounds of agony as each singer star ted in a dif- ferent key, at varying speeds, without animusic or leadership. As each suf- feringpairof eyes pleaded with me, my look told them to continue through to the end. The "old college try" N o w , you had to know Eddy to ap- preciate this. There he stood, painfully straining to sing along with the louder and sweeter voices of the girls, know- ing that i was watching and listening to him especially. i remembered how many times i've watched Eddy, in the midst of of a tough lacrosse game, break down t h e right side, t w ist and turn to fight his way in front of the goal for a shot, andbounce off players intent on break- ing him in half. As often as not, he would land on h i s backside under a defence- m an , then jump up to get right back in the game. Not a loud o r boisterous player, he just did the best he could every time. Literally suffering, the few stragglers who completed the carol knew tha t they had been trounced by a last- pl ace team, in front of fifty million spectators. Ail together now Then th e old coach in me broke out with the familiar "all together now, "like a team", "do your best, you can do it", ph rases every coach uses to rally his p 1 a y e rs. It's been a long time since I s a n g i n the church choir, but the ol d c o nfidence led the way, and suddenly, the sounds had really improved. Every student was trying harder, keeping to- gether, and enthused when they real ized that they really could sing. After smooth- ing out the words "wi th the angel i c hosts proclaim" that had sounded like angel- like ghosts", we moved to the attack and conquered three other carol s in a row. A coach can tell when his team is playing above its head on those rare occasions, and this was one of them. Afterwards, i learned that all the other classed had heard u s, and some of them had joined in in their own rooms. During the last song, and just before the class dismissed, I still had not ac- knowledged my relationship with Eddy, so i strolled around the class to listen to my a n gel ic hosts. As I came up be- hindhim, i could see Eddy's neck mus- clesvibrating asheharmonized with his teammates. When i passed behind him, I caught him with an inconspicuous el- bow alongside the ear, just hard enough t o say "hello" in his language. When I reached the front of the room, out of the corner of my eye I saw the big smile on Eddy's face. "Hey, coach remember me!" On his way out of the room at the end of the class, I muttered three words to him under my breath, " N i c e g am e, c hamp. " Suddenly he was repiaced by an o ther mystery face with a big smiie and one tooth missing. "Hi, coach, rem- ember me?" EDITOR'S NOTE: ED ITOR'S NOTE: This is the first pub I i cation of a feature column which wil l be run regularly in the Whitby Free Press. Story matter to be found in Mr. Gibb's column is strictly of interest to Whi tby readers, and in the author's own words, "will deal lightheartedly with everyday life in a town like Whitby." which you paid. Everyone had a very good time, That is why I wrote this rhyme. Yours Sincerely, Debbie Wolters, 1110 Centre Street S., Whitby, Ontario. E D IT OR 'S NOTE: Dear Debbie your "rhyme" has been the cause of much delight at the WHITBY FREE PRESS. '7 7-77777777= 7- Ï7 1 ý"-2