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Whitby Free Press, 20 Mar 1991, p. 7

The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

WW PM FEEPIRSSWEDNESDAY, MARCE 20, 191PAQJC 7 PAG<E 'SEýVEN But back to pizza.' Being ùnable to deal with what sonie people cali ordinàry living may be a growing phenomenon. Our society has acclerated change to Warp Factor 9.9, approaching meltdown. I used to buy the odd lottery ticket. Ah, I icnow, a violation of my principles. Lotteries are a tax on ýfools. True, true. However, the-oddàÉof winning are infinitely better for thoee who have one ticket than, they are for those who have none. Back in;the good old days, wvhat? a couple of years ago? one could buy a Wintario ticket for a dollar. Plunk, there's your buck, okay, take your pick. Then soimrebody came out with the new improved Wintario. At double the price. With bonus numbers. Anyone understand what bonus numbers do? I neyer buy anymore because I don't know how to, and couldn't figure out how to win if I did. 1For most of.this century, cereal makers have been making special offers. Tha's how I collected the jet-plane catapuit ring when I was seven. They're stili doing it.* You can get everything from' Cheerios bowl and mug sets to Land Before TMme videotapes. Ail you have to do is send two boxtops (just like forty-five years. ago) p lus two UPC codes from specially-marked boxes. UPC codes? rve looked over those boxes a hundred times and more. Nobody explains. When I ask, they laugh. This is Future Shock in the present. The future has brought us, of course, a multitude of things. Including the computer on which I write this column. Wonderful things, computers. Made for people like me who can't But for every good thing the future brings, there are ten bad. Look, today we have a stunning choioe of children's books. What the Future hasn't brought is anytbing beyond the niundane. Even Walt Disney bas produced a series of books basud-on movies: Bambi, Snow WVhite, Pinnochio, Jungle Book and more. They are poorly written, difficult to read orally, punctuated by a crack-usn high school dropout, and an insult te the authors of the orgnlstoies. TV commercials: Why would anyone spend bundles on a commercial telling people -te buy photocopiers that will suit the paper-feeder-sorter-stapler-mangler freak? Should I be interested in sometbing that taines the jungle of airline travel? And what is that 'guy' from Bell really selling? To whom? And is telemarketing related te that gum-chewing girl who phones me at dinner tume every night te ask if I would be Inerstd 'na come pleat ruggen 'rapes champeauT' Yes, I can sure understand someone who after forty-six years decides he might like a taste of pizza, but doesn't know how te, go about ordering one. I mean, you phone up and tbey got all these decisions they want you te make. iàke,' on the spot. And how large is large, anyway? And do anchovies go with pineapple? We need a new servce, delivering products and service the good old-fashioned way. Hey! Why not? THE GOOD OLD DAYS! A new marketing sensation! Weill combine with Bell on a telemarketing strategy. Anything you want, we can get. Good for a limited time only, so don't delay! Phone, write or, better yet run dont walk right now tyour corner store. 653-3297 (OLD-DAYS). MATHISON AND HAWKEN, MARBLE AND GRANITE WORKS, C. 1897 John Tait Mathison and Horace Hawken operated tbis gravestone iraking business ini the buildinîg on Brock Street North, now occupied by the Chalet Restaurant. Mr.. Mathison retired front the business in 1926. Whiew ArdaI"M photo 10 YEA RS AGO fromn the Weneday . arch 18, 1981 edition of the Wn PREE PREOS " Strikes are occurring at Lake Ontario Concrete Industries and Consolidated Bathurst. " A lift for handicapped persons will be placed in the roquoïs Park swimming pool. " Brooklin Horticultural Society bas volunteered te maintain Grass Park. " Hannah- "Dolly' Beal of-Sunnycrest Nursing Home is olebrating ber lO2nd birthday. 25 YEARS AGO from the 'Ibursday, March 17, 1966 edition cf the .WITBY WEKLY NEWS . e DuPont of Canada will add 12,000 square feet te its Whitby factory and move its nylon monoflament plant from Kingsten te Wbitby. * A high-rise apartment complex is- propoeed for the buckle factory site on Brock St. S. * A Junior Chamber of Commerce, (Jaycees) bas been formed in Whitby with Dennis Stevens as president.. 75 YEARS AGO from the Thursday, March 16, 1916 edition cf the WH]TBY GAZEIT AND CIJIONICLE e Sam Trees is advertising for girls te learn te use sewing machines at bis blanket factory. e Wbhitby artist Florence McGillivray is exhibiting two paintings at the Ontario Society of Artiste? show in Toronto. * à- r à. ,.. .. 'à à I I ý4.4 , &ý'- L - - - - -- - - - 1 - ej- titi t"jýV#A àfàllàitb&lï A*New ol0 srvc persn I know confided recently that he had a liking for' pizza. But e has a problem. He doesn't know how to order one. So here is. a chap who talked his way into the army when he was seventeen, fought and drank bis way through Italy, saw conirades and brothers illed, invalided, blotched, cashiered, czaonized. Raised a family. Served bis country in peacetime. I can identi1fr with this guy. Each day I fini more tbings about my life I dont understand. I bave just devoted more than ton days te the reading of a novel so long and complex I cannot pronounce its title. Worse, I bave no idea what it was about. Someday soon I shall condense the 750,000-word best-seller down te a 750-word column, and save, WFP readers $16.95 and a month of reading. (The Quincunx is about five familles who lie, steal, cheat, murder, swindle and fondle each other over two hundred years. It deals with ... but whoalf Wait for the column by the sanie name. Coming soon te, a newspaper near you.) i ~ *1 "a

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