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Georgetown Acton Wednesday Jan 26 TELEPHONE and Founded Don Ryder rector of Advertising Ken Bellamy Publisher Hartley Coles Ed tor The s one the and Ltd coup ban which includes The Whitby a Banner The Enterprise Guardian The The Weekend Poll The Guardian The Georgetown Independent The Post Ma Thornhdl end Sun The Hon Champion The Mewl The Newmarket Economist and Sun The Mn on The Mavuauga The Newmarket Ed The North Ma of Oak Be Bejver OakvJMF Beaver Tha Weak Weekend Tho II Tho T he a The Sloulfvdle Tnbone The Newt EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Editor Murray NM Editor Helen Murray Sport Dan Darkroom Nancy ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT Ratal Advertising Manager Cook Sale Kirk Davy CiaaaMad Advertising BUSINESSACCOUNTING OFFICE Office Manager Jean Fowl issue settled It was good to see the Fairy The birds have been a pain Lake swans were moved to Hills inherited from open water quickly last Acton for some time a pro- day after Councillor Rick they have never per Bonnette raised the matter come to grips with at council It was also because too many held the heartening to hear from false hope that if one well Mayor Peter Pomeroy Mon known resident quit feeding day night that a permanent them they d generally solution to this annual pro- appear in winter It hasn is close at hand We 11 happened because the simple be waiting to hear the truth is that many many Ac tion detail tomans andvisitors feed the For too long matters birds not just one person A involving our fowl have been recently in this news treated Is a joke or some KnfrH matter too tnval to worry feeding the birds And why must the birds municipal minds leave It long past the time that pleasure to many people here council nailed down a policy rollno some dealing with the care of the swans as well as other fowl to the fowl They Staff certainly need the also a plus albeit a small guidance in these matters as in efforts to make Acton evidenced by the fact the a tourist centre It true they recreation director seeming can a bother and some- aware even if the expense but for birds werent fed they aey provide the com fly south and dis mumty worth played such an un the fuss and cost sympathetic to Halton HlUs wards a subject near and e to dear to many Acton hearts enforce the bylaw posted on It was hard to capture warnlng lake print the light hearted jovial advls people not 0 feed manner in which BoSnette Hopefully this at raised this Issue For a will continue rookie politician he showed as great forethought in winter here we might as well proaching it in the way he care for them properly did While he gave everyone may not in the council chambers a outside good laugh he was still able tnen f a to convey his deep concern few thmgs pe- ln for the birds to his colleagues Halton hoW and it resulted in prompt ac which Our congratulations mignl llnny bone too IT FOR GAME Back issues From the editors desk Rumors of my death exaggerated Our readers write Post office impressive Dear Sir As a supplement to Ben letter to the Free Press re the old Post Office a few facts The price to the town was to The hen town clerk told that the council thought it would take more to alter for the r use After the council refused to buy and it was put up for tender Ben and I bought it for nets The council then raised the assessment to which we appealed Judge Elliott reduced it to The town then appealed that to the Ontario Municipal Board where It was turned down They had then to pay all the costs of two men from Toronto a stenographer and pay far the of the proceedings The post office was an im structure cut stone for four feet above grade pressed brick above that There were three levels each 500 square feet and lots of headroom In the basement There was also a good hot water heating system which we converted to gas Ben and I had a fair revenue out of the building until We got an offer then which we accepted To sum up one council thought that the building was not worth The people of today seem to be going to spend to MOO on a scrubby looking building on a side street Geroge Robertson Lornas memory plays tricks Dear Sir I should like to thank Mr Ben Rachlin for his good wishes on my retirement and offer my apologies for the remarks made that the Town of Acton was outbid on the old Post Office property I admit that my memory is rather vague regarding the events surrounding the sale and I am happy that Mr stills keeps in touch with Acton via the Aclon Free Press and was able to me straight on this matter Sincerely Lorn a Clarke by Gord Murray editor I think it was Mark Twain who wrote or said I not sure which reports of my death are greatly exaggerated Well I have the same message for all computers which happen to have my name stored in their memory banks The reason mentioning this is I just saw a mildly humorous movie about the reams of information computers have about all of us as well as the revelation from Helen that she old a major magazine book publisher that I m deceased least she thinks that what she told them to get my name off their lists Let me digress a bit Like many people I wound up on mailing list and have found myself deluged with Junk mall I ignored the stuff always threw it out but then one day my wife got a hold of the junk and decided she wanted to enter some magazine sweepstake as well as subscribe to the publication While I was sure I wouldn t find the time to read the magazine much I dldn core if she took it as long as she paid for it and it was In her That when the problems started Pretty soon our mailbox was stuffed with lots more offers to subscribe to this magazine other products books we asked for began arriving Helen enjoyed the books and was more than willing to Toot the bill The problem was this junk con tinned to come in my name No big problem as long as Helen continued to foot the bill and the firm would be willing to take back publications she didn want and not charge me for them This was something 1 suspected wouldn happen though I had visions of Helen returning these things and with help from Canada Post the products not arriving back at their source on times Bills bills bills all to me for things Helen t want insisted Helen make every effort to have my name scratched and hers inserted And she did try Every she had to return something she stroked out my name and replaced it with hers Besides all the cheques were signed by her on her personalized cheques which makes no mention of Now I figure these subscriptions are run by computers and the computet was either unable to read the label change or wouldn Anyway the company and Its computer didn get the message Despite ample evidence that I had nothing to do with their products everything kept coming with my name on if For months and months and months this went on Then last week two packages arrived with Helen s name on them 1 asked her how she finally got It changed and she laughingly in formed me she marked the last lobel deceased At least she pretty sure she marked It deceased She also recalls considering marking it divorced anything to get the message across without going to the bother of writing a letter which wouldn likely have been read any more than the previous label changes were It t occurred to me there be any problem with having some computer think 1 m dead Then we rented the movie proper Channels over the weekend and I was reminded how the computers can all talk to each other and assemble lots of bits of unrelated information about a person and then put it all together make a perfectly Inaccurate picture of you Mariette Hartley and Alan Arkin starred in this about how computers put together an erroneous picture of and the subsequent humorous dilemmas the machines put him and his family In A comedy of errors human errors initially resulted In his losing his Job cards revoked his child taken away from him and assorted other problems In the end fixed the behind the machines but good He made he computers go wild The results damaged the reputations and credibility of the agencies and people working for them which owned the computers and he even succeeded wiping himself and his family completely out of memory banks Now I have to admit I haven t had a lot of problems with computers fouling up my life though they have sometimes been a bit of a pain But I have heard an awful lot of horror stories about the damage to people lives which computers and the information agencies feed into them can cause It incredible the amount of in formation the government financial Institutions companies and cies compile and store about us I think the worst story ve heard is that some company puts out a directory about everyone living in Acton and of course people living in every other community as well which is used by sales people This directory Is supposed to contain your name age the closest intersection to which you live where you work how much you owe how much you make and lots of other things which are none of anyone business other than those you have authorized to know such things I never seen this directory so I can t prove it exists but 1 ve heard about it enough times to Tee certain it no pipe dream So 1 can imagine the problems I may face If some computer spreads the word that I m dead Sound far fetched As thought about this column I thought it was then I remembered someone pointed out to me recently we re now just a year away from I read the book about 15 years ago and began thinking about all the improbable things in the book which have come true in the succeeding years telling a computer I dead might Just open a real can of warms I expect 1 11 soon see how close to Orwell 1984 we really are Coles slaw Go get em Arlene lets have quality TV Hurray for who has decided she t like the Playboy programming planned on Pay TV and wasn I afraid to come out and say so No doubt there will be live comments from some people but somebody has to come out and say enough is enough It is always better when someone in public office has the Intestinal fortitude to call a spade a spade and let the chips fall This scribbler Is hoping that that the presence of new TV channels and their upbeat marketing will Improve programming on the regular channels so hey an keep the audiences and the advertising As Ive said before in the columns lot of the programs they are putting out for viewers now are about as appealing as last year catalogues Its rut surprising considering the number of hours TV channel mutt operate but it discouraging for ordinary viewers like myself who like to relax occasionally to front of the boob tube and see something worthwhile beside violence and sea What is surprising la that tome of the smaller stations seem to be getting better programming than giants of iadnstry If you are tired of the pap you are served on TV neighbor Jack Car penter recommends you flip your radio dial to his Sunday afternoon radio program on CFCA Stereo where there plenty of fun and lots of laughs Jack music hall has been a feature of he station for a decade and is becoming in popular Jack says he is dedicating a whole program to St Jacques the patron saint or laughter on a upcoming program It a new saint to me but Jack promises nothing but laughs and good music Motorists from Acton and district have been getting a bargain at the gas pumps in the last couple of weeks as a price war rages betw oil companies Regular gas- went down as low as cents a litre at some stations and not far off that figure in others It Isnt hard to ell the stations with the low figures they have line ups at he pumps arent low at this writing MUton or Georgetown where they have been sitting at cents per litre but that could change at any minute as operators tell you Some of them have been manning their signs than the pumps As a story in this family Journal pointed out a few weeks ago It is the oil companies not the service station operators who set the prices and the price war has been precipitated by the glut of oil and gas In the market place where two years ago they were telling us we could look forward to St a litre gasoline What a difference a few months makes If both the federal and provincial governments didn bene fit so much from price increases no doubt the prices at the pump would be even lower Isn it odd a year ago everyone was worrying that prices would soon be out of sight Now the financial community is worrying that they may come down even further A similar situation exists with the glut of grain In the United States Some countries have starving people but they are asking farmers in the to voluntarily quit planting to much grain so prices wont fall Why not trade the grain for pro ducts the starving countries could supply Any answers out there BUI Cook the enterprising retail Journal on one of his periodic forays into the bottom end of Hills spotted a ground hog one warm January day out of his burrow three weeks ahead of time Everything has been scrambled this year We had buds budding grass growing and green showing In the flower beds as unseasonable weather fooled even Mother Nature That s ancient his lory now when the bonechilling arctic air swept in and gave us January Jolly back In any event the groundhog Bill spotted t supposed to poke his nose into the air until February when legend assumes he comes up to test the weather and predict whether we will have another six weeks of winter If he sees his shadow the legend goes we will If not he stays up and the weather turns mild Or vice versa Up in they are again cele brating their annual Grout Festival February A They have a ceremony honoring a Canadian groundhog who is sup posed to hare started all year ago His descendant Willie another hog from the old ground has been com pared to bis US compatriot Phil from Pennsylvania As a forecaster he Is even more accurate correctly predicting six more weeks of winter last year The goes like this believe It or not In the Indian legends of the Grand River valley around what is today the city of Brant ford there Is a strange tale of Klionda a venture some brave of the Mohawk tribe and how he was saved by the groundhog on what is today Groundhog Day tale refers to the Great hills and rivers of the beaver which it thought by historians to be the territory around Mount Forest and Durham in Grey County also to the great place of falling waters and long neck of water this is thought to be Inglis Falls and the Owen Soudd Bay while his great forests and stone cliffs and frozen bays and lakea describes the Bruce Peninsula So we may conclude that Groundhog Day actually originated in the neigh of on that fateful day many years ago And that tall folks 10 years ago January The Ontario government has proposed a Joint North municipality composed of Acton Georgetown and most of and Nassagaweya In four unit Hal Diane Spiel vogel was elected chairman of the Joint Acton Parks and Recreation Committee at the Inaugural meeting Monday night Junior Farmers from this district Joined over 1500 more from all over Ontario at the Talent Festival at the Royal York Hotel Toronto on the weekend Acton Delicatessen proprietor Ed Bendicks was named to succeed Roy Goodwin as president of the Acton Chamber of Commerce at the an nual meeting Wednesday night New condominiums at Kingham Hill Estates are continuing to rise though winter weather ham pers construction The Acton Youth Council Is hoping to stage a Winter Carnival in town February 14 19 years ago January John was named first chairman of the newly formed recreation committee during the second session of the year Acton brought honors to the community this week when it won second prize in the Fire tion scrap book competition A popular grade student Anne Bennett brought honors to Acton High School when she won the Indus trial Accident Prevention Assoc la public speaking contest at Guelph Monday evening Mrs George Green and her nephew Mr Frank Holmes are home from a 17day visit with relatives to London England Max Storey was elected President of Branch Acton for his eighth term Water from the new reservoir system on Churchill Road North began flowing through the town mains last Wednesday Ken was appointed chairman of the Acton Planning Board at its inaugural meeting last Thursday evening 50 years ago January 19 A good crop splendid ice is being harvested at Corporation Pond now On Tuesday evening Ted Hansen had the misfortune to fall from his bicycle and fracture his ankle He is in General Hospital Sleighing has been rather unusual this winter Specials this week at Nelson and Company on Mill Street are 10 lbs of granulated sugar for small oranges 1 doz for 29c 1 pkg of Super Suds for Heinz beef broth 1 tin for 15c and tea with Tea Plate 1 lb for Hog shipping on Saturday Price and grade We have trucks for service Cattle shipped to stock yards per hundred Call Holmes Acton 75 years ago January The attendance at the High School is over this term Bark is coming in very plentifully for Bcardmore and Company at pre sent There are cars in ihe T yards on Tuesday Half a dozen more Russians arrived in town last week and Joined colony here Mr Morris Saxe is looking after their comfort A hockey match between the Juniors of Georgetown and Acton on the rink here on Monday night was won by the home team to During the fall and winter Mr Wilds Main Street has been more than usually successful In trapping Mr John Davidson son of Mr Davidson is now on agent of he Canadian Northern Railway at Hum bolt Sask February I Scotch English and Canadian Suitings in great variety at East End Clothing store J Acton Have you seen the new skating rink on Main Street yet Miss Eliza Cameron left on Friday last to spend a month or two with friends In Walkerton Mr A Green has disposed of his grocery business to Mr Howell of Water down who takes possession on the 15th Mr Thomas T Moore Principal Acton Public School has purchased three lots on the corner of Young and Mill Streets near the Driving Park The ice men are busy The cohere it first class and in sptedid condition The G T R employees are having a big time keeping the several tracks and platforms clear of snow this past month