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Former owner of the Murray House Restaurant Peter Kirk writes from the Dordogne, France A lot of residents of Port Per- | ry will recall Carol Morrow and | Peter Kirk when they founded and operated the Murray House Re- staurant on Queen Street. After giving up the restuarant business, they headed for Europe, and recently Peter Kirk sent the following note to Star publisher Peter Hvidsten, along with the ac- companying article. It's a fascinating article about a fascinating region in France. Peter Kirk 18 as skilled with a pen as he is with a skillet. Dear Peter: Carol and I have been living in Germany since July of last year, on assignment with the Canadian Department of National Defence. We will be here for at least two more years. We are still in touch with relatives and friends in Port Perry and it was while writing to one of them that the following thought occurred to me: "I recalled that even in its modest days (I imagine that the Metro-driven boom must be sweeping Port along in its wake), Port Perry had a, perhaps disproportionately, large number of people who were very in- terested in travel. That, I suspect, is even more the case now. Travel was one of the incentives for our accepting assignments here, and, being in the geographic centre of Europe, even a normal weekend gives us access to a radius that in- cludes Paris, Vienna and the two Rivieras. Longer holidays, of which there is an abundance in- cidentally, permit us to go much farther. And we do. I have sent you a piece on a recently-taken trip to the Dor- dogne region in France. THE DORDOGNE, FRANCE " Some six hundred kilometers South of Paris and a couple of hun- dred.east of Bordeaux, the Dor- dogne River, flowing swiftly along a torturous, dizzying path, has sculpted a valley that is the cradle of prehistoric Europe. Recorded time - human history - is the life-blood of the European continent but in the Valley of the Dordogne time is measured on a watch with no hands and a thou- sand years between each tick. It was here in 1940 that four boys chased a dog into a hole opening into a damp, dark cave. They were disappointed when they found no treasure, nothing of any value, and they eventually told their elders of the discovery. Four years passed till the war ended before tHe cave, which had been sealed for seventeen thou- sand years, was thoroughly ex- plored and a treasure was found for which no value could ever be determined. We can imagine the suddenly-stilled voices of that first exploration party, their eyes opening as round as moons, fighting against the darkness and trying to comprehend what the locks and beards that gave them torial - dignity; and. horses ng fre .or rolling on the the weak and swift, "That" the 'paintings of the se high grase; and deer picture in Lascaux caves near Montignac survived for seventeen thousand years is but a part of the miracle and only the beginning of the mystery. If these drawings were the pre-occupation of primitive people, there would be very little interesting and perhaps nothing at all disturbing about them, but they are not. The artists render emotion and expression deftly, us- ing a difficult medium with techniques that we can only guess at. 'They had a sure knowledge of perspective which was lost and was not re-discovered (discovered we had thought) un- til the Middle Ages. The paintings of these animals are so reflective- ly human that looking at them makes one long to touch the forever-invisible hand that painted them, to gaze into the eyes that concentrated on them - and to know the smallest something of the purpose of it all. It is like trying to fathom the thoughts of someone from a foot- print he has left in the sand. They disturb our confidence in the in- evitability of progress and, in an age of information overload, we might chillingly wonder what other knowledge has been lost and not yet, if ever to be, re- discovered. We might wonder, too, how critical that forgotten knowledge might be to our own uncertain path along the sand. It is possible to imagine that all the time, as they worked in the flickering shadows of the cave, they had us in mind, for art, after all, is always made for the future, for those who have yet to see it. Why did they go into caves, where they no longer lived, to.leave their paintings if not to take the greatest measures for their a long-dead conqueror are indeed approaching and, for an instant, one may be tempted to linger for a century or two and wait for the moment to happen. The Dordogne and its tributaries have cut great gorges into the earth and into the steep walls of the most magnificent gorge a hermit named Amadour, seeking solitude and sanctuary, escaped the world of men and waited for God, sometime after the millenium. Years later the Catholic Church followed, unear- thed the - they say - undecompos- ed body of Amadour, declared him a Saint and, under the massive rock that leans out ominously from the plateau above, erected the Basilica of Saint-Sauveur as a testament to their faith. The fortress of Rocamadour, the rock of St. Amadour, suspended between heaven and earth, quickly became a centre of pilgrimage for the faithful and today its church and bishop's palace, its small stone houses, its single main street full of shops, and its near- vertical stairway of two hundred steps that lead straight to the sky constitute the second mos: heavi- ly visited site in France rivaled only by Mont St. Michel. One hopes that Amadour has, over the years, been able to acquire a strong sense of irony. From the road, one comes suddenly upon - the sight of the town rising like a giant man-made stalagmite per- ched precariously on a wide ledge. At times Rocamadour is choked with traffic and a tun- nel is being cut under its solitary street to divert cars from the small town. Rocamadour boasts several good restaurants and, miraculously enough in this age, hotels with rooms no higher than $50 or so without breakfast. The rooms appointment, of course, reflects their price. As it occurs 80 often in France, the character 'of a region is nowhere better reflected than in its wine. Here, the rich dark wines of the Cahors area are almost jet- black in colour, as dark as the deep outlines of the prehistoric animals of Lascaux's walls. It is easy to taste in this wine the in- spiration for a drawing so certain that it is made in the bowels of the earth to last forever. The more you drink, the more you hear in your mind's ear reverberations of that ancient language of the region, that other French, called "Oc," which exists now mostly in the suffixes of place names and is the derivation of the word "oc- cidental."" It is an almost sacramental wine: serious, mysterious and as eternal as the River. Surely the dates on the bot- tles are all B.C. The best way to sample it is free and in abundance in the many wine shops in Domme, the Medieval town south of Sarlat du Caneda (no relation) with its buildings of yellow stone so oddly reminiscent of the Cotswolds in the west of England. Well-fortified, you may be able to PORT PERRY STAR -- Wednesday, October 12, 1988 -- 45 forget its grizzly origins and con- sider investing in the region's main product, Pate de Foie Gras de Canard. Light-years from humble liverwurst, Foie comes in mind-boggling variations and adulterations from a downright cheap 2 percent mixture to an aristocratic 98 percent ("entier") which, when combined with truf- fles, another product of the area, reaches a price range wherein the average person is more ac- customed to test-driving something rather than serving it on thin bread and eating it with two fingers. Sarlat has what must be one of the world's busiest, most varied and longest street markets in the world. It coils its way endlessly in and out of the old town centre. - From there it's a short distance towards Suillac and, rising above the currents of the Dordonge, the Chateau de la Treyne. Con- structed and reconstructed bet- ween the 14th and 17th centuries, it has been converted into a cas- tle hotel with a degree of luxury that the original chatelaine could not have dreamed of. It's private helipad is good enough to ease any concerns had by people who are able to have such concerns, whatever they may be. The Chateau has one room that rents for 600 Francs, about $137, more than modest under the cir- cumstances, but two people in a larger room with dinner can pay a more reassuring 1,500 Francs or about $340 per night. Old and new, the Chateau is a perfect symbol of the Dordogne. There are two superhighways that rush towards the Dordogne and, mercifully, stop just short of it, leaving the area as unspoiled as anything surrounded by modern civilization can be. Perhaps the most important knowledge that the Dordogne holds for us in the depth of its stillness and the sense that the strict time that governs our lives is, after all, a distortion: Lascaux...Rocamadour...La Treyne...tick...tick... Individuals can learn io manage stress from work by Dr. W. John B. Cocker, MB, BS. Medical Director, Healthcall Whether it is mental or physical, work has always had stress connected with it. There are two aspects of work and stress. First there is the actual degree of stress that goes with the job and second, there is the . capacity of the individual worker to manage that stress. Every worker should have a reasonable idea of how much stress is routinely expected on the job. Increases in the general level of job related stress can then be recognized. Though limits vary widely from person to person, everyone can reach a point where he or she can no longer manage job related stress. If the level of stress does exceed the expected load for an extend- ed period, signs of overload will begin to show. This is sometimes called "burn out." The worker may lose interest in the job, and then in his or her family. Sleep becomes broken, with a characteristic pattern of waking in the early morning to review work problems over and over. Eating patterns may change and a general sense of discourage- ment fills the worker's mind. Physical symptoms may include headaches, backaches and stomach troubles, such as ulcers, or there may be the mental symp- toms of irritability. One of the most harmful responses to stress occurs when the sufferer tries to hide the signs of stress behind chemicals, such as over the counter analgesics, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, am- phetamines, marijuana or harder drugs. This will only cause more problems and confusion about the stress. There are a number of steps that may be taken for stress management. Physical exercise in the outdoors, with that accom- ying feeling of healthy fatigue at the end of the day, is one exam- ple. For continuing stress, it is wise to start by deciding if the normal stress of work has chang- ed. Is it a new supervisor, or a new agreement? Once an idea of what is causing the symptoms has been established, the worker should try to find someone to discuss the problem with - a trusted fellow worker, a relative, or if it is more serious, a trained counselor or a doctor. Stress is normal with work, but excessive stress is not. It is un; wise to ignore work related stress in the hope that it will go away by itself. The healthy response is to stay in touch with stress through daily evaluation of how much you can productively handle. Manage your stress - don't let your stress manage you. For more confidential informa- tion about Work And Stress, use Obituary: Ethel Hicks Miss Ethel Hicks passed away peacefully at the Parkview Home in Stouffville on June 27, 1988. She was in her 89th year. She was the beloved daughter of the late Eli and Margaret Hicks. Miss Hicks was born in Leaskard, Ontario. She spent most of her working life in Toron- to until 1968, when she went to Millbrook, Ontario to care for her brother Frances who was in fail- ing health. Later she moved to Port Perry until she went to the Parkview Home in Stouffville. Miss Hicks was a faithful 'a Touch-Tone phone to reach Healthcall at 1-976-3333, pause for instructions, and then enter the 4-digit code: 1341. Codes for related topics are: Anxiety (1107); Depression (1366); 'Nervous Breakdown' (1369) ; Stress in General (1339). Each call lasts several minutes and costs $1.99; this charge will appear on your next phone bill. To receive a complete Healthcall Directory, free of charge, listing 350 health and medical topics, call 1-800-268-4209. member of the Bethesda Em- manuel Church. She was the dear sister of Sadie Hamilton of Orono, and predeceased by George and Frances Hicks, and Mary Arm- strong. Loving aunt of Betty Hicks of Blackstock, George, Esther and Andrew Hicks of Nestleton and Shirley and Don Prosser of Nestleton, sister-in-law ,of Margaret Hicks of Port Perry. A private family service was held at the Wagg Funeral Home in Port Perry on June 29. Rev. James Echol officiated. Inter- ment Yelverton Cemetery. GROWING UP. 78 (ORIV i IES AC p Tir v ZOMING SOON TEXAS CHAINSAW oafrmiee t 3 \ 1 ~ < I'M GOING TO HAVE MASACRE 11 Ti / y. WW NIGHTMARES FOR MONTHS! LEN