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ea a ye a IE PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, June 17, 1986 -- § Vi = Wf P (® i mh by John B. McClelland Whatever one may think of the people who inhabit the land south of the 49th parallel, there is no denying their ability to slap themselves heartily on the back from time to time. A marvellous case in point is the latest edition of TIME magazine. It's a special edition, with almost all the 104 pages devoted to one theme: American the Good. Indeed, the front cover, printed in red, white and blue ink, with a picture of Old Glory superimposed on the Grand Lady of New York harbour, offers more than just a subtle hint of what's to come on the inside pages. In huge type, the TIME cover tells the reader that this issue is all about 'American Best."' There is nothing coy or understated about that. Turning the pages, one finds articles on everything American: the national parks, movers and shakers on Wall Street, the wonder-kids in industry and commerce, modern day Einsteins in the field of science and medicine; books, the arts, cinema, culture and even a cleverly crafted essay on what de Tocqueville would say should he pay a return visit to America in 1986. Of course no celebration of America would be com- plete without something about Disney, and this edition of TIME serves Lhe reader four full pages complete with colour photos. 'If Heaven Ain't a Lot Like Disney" is the modest title of this section. Walt would have been pleased. And the writers and editors of TIME have not over- looked American culture. They devote seven full pages to images which over the years have become as much a part of the American way as the Stars and Stripes "AMERICAN BEST" From Sinatra to Springsteen; Satchmo, Marilyn Munro, ET, Jimmy Dean, Rambo and Father Knows Best. Dynasty, Superman, Fred Astair, and of course the two images that are instantly recognized in every corner of the world: a bottle of Coca-Cola and a box of McDon:' "5 fries. There is even an article on how the American language has replaced English throughout the world. Did you know.that the authoritative Oxford English Dic- tionary has added such words as yuppie and zilch? Is it any wonder that Germans talking about das Joggen, and Italians refer to il body building? I read the entire magazine from cover to cover, and even those segments which touch briefly on the pro- blems facing America (crime, poverty, race relations, etc.) almost seem to paint them as being an essential part of the nation's fibre, just another mountain to climb, war tq fight, river valley to explore and settle. Incidently, I could not find a single reference (even a passing one) to Watergate or Viet Nam. Why should there be any skeltons dragged from the closet when one is celebrating? My initial reaction on reading and re-reading this "American Best" special edition of TIME was to laugh at the lack of modesty. Just about the only thing miss- ing was a segment devoted to Apple Pie and an in-depth essay on the value of cheer-leaders at inter-collegiate basketball games. My second reaction was to realize that the initial reaction had been so typically Canadian. Can you im- agine a major national publication in this country devoting an entire issue to un-abashed waving of the Maple Leat" Heavens No. We Canadians are too sobre, modest, introverted and reserved to do something like that. Our national publications feed us a daily and weekly dose of the really important things going on in this land: name calling the House of Parliament; a nasty little confrontation between doctors and the Government of Ontario; the resignation of yet another Cabinet Minister; strikes at western meat packing plants; pro- posed changes in the laws which could declare National Geographic obscene; a national emergency over a tariff on shingles and shakes; the wife of our ambassador to Washington slapping an assistant on the face; the demise of the Blue Jays; the dome stadium debate; . hockey violence; beer in corner stores, free trade with the Yanks and so on tedium and nauseum. If I was an American, this special edition of TIME would make me feel pretty darn proud to wave the Stars and Stripes. I say 'bravo' to TIME for taking the time to give the people of America another reason to feel kind of good about themselves, despite the problems that plague that country. I guess that's the big difference between us and them. We wallow in our problems, blow them way out of proportion, let them drive us crazy, and then put the raps on the Yanks for being too blatantly patriotic. Heck, if some major Canadian publication decided to print an entire edition devoted to 'Canada Best,' they'd argue a year at least on what is best about Canada, the Government would get involved and ap- (Turn to page 6) itself. Yesterday' mB Memories 60 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 17, 1926 The Ashburn Boys, playing on home grounds Saturday-defeated Goodwood 3-0 in a football game. The game in Claremont recently ended in a tie. The Sea Hawk, featuring Milton Sills and a supporting cast of 3000 including Enid Bennett, Lloyd Hughes and Wallace Beery will be shown at the Port Perry Picture House in the Town Hall, June 17th, 18th and 19th. Among recommendations to County Council, from the Provin- cial Secretary, regarding the County Goal was: "that the practice of male prisoners being allowed to smoke in the sleeping quarters be discontinued..." ' 35 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 14, 1951 Port Perry chalked up win number two at the fair grounds on Monday night, when they handed Sunderland a 7-1 setback. . The Township Hall in Manchester was filled to capacity on the occasion of the Music Festival. All were delighted with the enter- tainment and congratulations go to Mrs. Hastings and teachers and pupils of Prince Albert, Prospect and Manchester schools. 25 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 15, 1961 Lioyd Trewin, son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Trewin, Blackstock won frist prize and five dollars in a contest for a fair book cover design. 24 runners-up all received two dollars each. The local cancer campaign chairman, Mrs. S. Cawker announces a total amount of $1,737.45 raised in Port Perry, Reach, Scugog and part of Cartwright. Patricia Midgley, a grade 13 student at Port Perry High School, and a qualified swimming instructor, will take charge of swimming classes sponsored by Brooklin Lions Club during July and August. 20 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 16, 1966 From Sunday, June 19 until Sunday, June 26, Prince Albert United Church will celebrate a full week of centennial services. The present church was dedicated on Sunday, September 30, 1966 and the total cost of its construction was $3,627. Lynda Heayn, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Heayn receiv- ed her Gold Cord, highest award in guiding. 10 YEARS AGO Wednesday, June 16, 1976 An oily slick of scum that covered hundreds of square feet of | shore-line on Lake Scugog last week has residents worried. Durham Health Unit was called in and found the substance to be harmless pollen blown to ti.e surface of the lake from dense stands of pine trees in some areas of the lakeshore. | A barn on the farm of Keith Ashton, R.R.1, Port Perry was raz- ed by fire killing over 20 head of young cows. Mr. Ashton was in the house at the height of a severe electrical storm when he heard a loud crack as a lightening bolt smashed the main barn starting the fire and putting out telephone lines. Letters Wonders why school was lost ? Dear Sir: | As is the case with many private citizens of this town, either being.too timid or afraid of making bad feel- ings among other members of the community, we have waited until it is far too late to write this letter ex- pressing our feelings. After reading your article "Board pulls plug on Port school" we have finally decid- ed we need to express our views openly in hopes that other residents such as ourselves can read this and say - "Yes, we wondered that, too." We live in Cawker's Creek in close proximity to the group home being built for Central Seven. We have never received any notices from the Township calling our attention to council meetings for zoning changes for any of the building going on in our area, but by word of mouth and reading this paper found out about and attended a council meeting in the fall concerning the group home. Nervous as we were at that time, we attended the meeting with another neighbour feeling that we were do- ing the right thing by voicing our opinion. We came away from that meeting feeling frustrated and as if we had just wasted our time. Coun- cil members and Mayor Taylor were most courteous, but it was ob- vious at that time that certain coun- cil members were biased in favour Speeding on Simcoe Dear Sir: Recently, I received a phone call from a man who said "your children should not ride so close to the end of the driveway. I was afraid they were going to ride out onto the street, and I had to slow down." Then the caller hung up. We live on Simcoe Street, and if the driver had looked, I'm sure he was doing well over the speed limit. Almost all the drivers along Sim- coe Street are over the speed limit. The sign says 50 km/hr. That's on- ly 30 mph, really not that fast. The only thing that has slowed down traffic on Simcoe St. was fixed last week. That was the bump in the road at Paxton and Simcoe. I never complained about that bunip. The bigger the better, as far as I'm concerned. There is no sidewalk along Simcoe St. and less than a foot of space along the side of the road for children to walk or drive their bikes. I have lived here for five years, and can count on one hand the number of times I have seen police radar on this street. I would suggest that either the speed limit on Simcoe be raised to 80 kmh. (Most people are driving that fast, anyway) or better control the speeds there now. As for the gentleman who called "us. He must know who we are to have our number. I would like to tell him to mind his own business and the next time he drives past the end of our driveway, he should take a look and see if he is driving 50 kmh. Yours truly, ~ Janis St. John, Sincoe Street, Port Perry. of the group home. It was at a later point in time from reading this paper that one of the council members was in my opinion *'in con- flict of interest" because of being closely associated with the Board of Central Seven. Please don't misunderstand - we 'have no fight with the people of Central Seven - it was phrases used at this council meeting such as "we can change the bylaws to accommodate that' and "we can get around that somehow' that upset us so much. This was in reference to the size of the group home in relation to the relatively narrow strip of land that the builder proposed to place it on. It is much closer to the road and lot line than would have been allowed if bylaws hadn't been changed. Recently we talked to the building ~ inspector about building a- vehicle garage on our property with a breeze-way between house and garage and were told that we must adhere strictly to all bylaws when placing the garage on our property. Why the double standard here? Enough about the group home, because the point that we want to make is concerning the new school, or lack of, which is now the case. With this issue, because of the way thai town council presented itself to us, we were confident that with their almost God-like way of being able to (Turn to page 6) to the editor. Letters to the Editor our policy It has always been the policy of this newspaper to encourage our readers to make use of the letters to the editor column. Our readers have a right to freely express their opinions and view- points on just about any subject, and we feel that a lively letters column helps make a better community newspaper. We insist, however, that a letter writer sign his or her name. On rare occasions, we will agree to with-hold publication of a letter writer's name, if we feel there are very good reasons to do so. Under no circumstances will this paper print an anonymous letter While we enjoy receiving letters from our readers, we must continue to insist on knowing the identity of the writer.