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7| The IFP -H alton H ills | T hursday,M arch 29,2018 theifp.ca • your window & door professionals • 11 Mountainview Rd., N. Georgetown, ON L7G 4T3 905.873.0236 www.buy-wise.ca info@buy-wise.ca • awarded readers choice 27 times • Visit our showroom • Truck Accessories • Upholstery • Heavy Equipment Glass •Window Tinting 354 Guelph Street, Georgetown 905-873-1655 Wehandleall insurance work. We handle all insurance work. Furnace Air Conditioning Gaslines Boilers Water Heaters Radiant Heating 905-877-3100 proud local dealer of Canadian made products .ca THE WAY WE WERE This photo from circa 1930 shows 505 Guelph St., in Norval, associated with Dr. Samuel Webster, who opened his practice in 1865. Serving as the village doctor for more than 50 years, he began building Hope Cottage in 1868. While the structure has been altered and today contains several businesses, it still retains three gables in the front as well as two bay windows and is representative of a Gothic-style residence. It is listed on the Halton Hills Heritage Register. Text courtesy of Heritage Halton Hills. Esquesing Historical Society The recent decision by the Halton Catholic Dis- trict School Board to deny charitable work and dona- tions to any group that doesn't fall in line with church teachings is a re- gressive step for Canadian democracy. The hallmark of our de- mocracy is its inclusive- ness and tolerance for dif- fering views. I have taught as a sup- ply teacher for the Ottawa Catholic board and, as a Hindu, was always im- pressed with the board's open-minded policy of in- cluding different religions in their curriculum while maintain a steadfast core of Catholic values. At a time when sup- pressing dissent is a threat to Canadian mosaic, we should be promoting toler- ance and understanding of different social strands, which may be crossing our own creed. Sukhdev Walia Decision by Halton's Catholic trustees 'a regressive step' That satisfying sound of those pieces rattling into the shop vac. You know how a planned task enters your head, but before you get to that one, you're distracted, and then distracted again, and again? That was me last week. With the recent arrival of the first official day of spring, I had to admit, that was enough to get me in- spired. Sure it was cold, but dammit, it was spring. It started with using my Garmin GPS the previous Sunday. It's a nice unit, but somehow, a little piece of plastic on the mounting clip broke off. It's still func- tional, just a little loose. I mounted it lower on the windshield so it rests on the dash. It was time to fix it. When it broke, I careful- ly rescued the little piece and stored it away in the glove box of my trusty F150, so I'd know exactly where it was. Open the glove box - no piece of plastic - hmmm. I must have put it in the console. Opening that door dis- played a stack of invoices and gas receipts. Oh, geez, there's that re- ceipt for lamb grower that I'd been looking for. I also found my tire gauge - it's supposed to be in the glove box - geez, does no one ever put things back where they belong? I worked my way to the bottom of the console, and found a hellish accumula- tion of dusty little things, screws and bolts from something, and that invert- er that I used to run the PA system last fall. I wondered where it'd got to. Looking up, the sun shone through the win- dows of the truck that it al- most blinded me. They were filthy! I grabbed the bottle of window cleaner in the house (the bottle that was in the garage was still fro- zen) and armed with a roll of paper towels, I gave that windshield interior a ma- jor cleaning. Man did it look good. After a cold wet winter, the interior of the F150 was long overdue for a cleaning. Out came the shop vac and I pulled all the junk out of the side door compart- ments, the bottom console, behind the seat folders (so that's where the Sidekick's last year's birthday card had got to). I also yanked out all the carpets and floor mats, and after beating them with a stick, ran the shop vac over them to gather up the resi- due of salt, sand, gravel - you name it. I tell ya, I was on a roll. I vacuumed that interior from one end to the other, floor carpeting, sucked out the little bits and pieces in all the compartments, as well as the cup holders, which seem to accumulate unidentifiable crap of all sorts in the bottom of them. The final job was to vac- uum the door pockets on both sides of the truck. That was so satisfying, watching the little bits be- ing sucked up by that hose. I grinned to myself as I listened to the satisfying sound of all those little piec- es jingling up the pipe of the shop vac into the container . Hmm, I suddenly had a thought. Remember that little piece of plastic - you know, that part of my Garmin GPS that I mentioned way back at the beginning of this column? I opened up the tank of the shop vac, and looked in- to the pile of dirt, grass, dog hair, gravel, well you get the picture. Was that little piece of plastic hiding in there? I dumped it out on a tarp on the floor and sifted through it, searching for it. And you know what? It wasn't there. After cleaning up the pile of dirt from the shop vac, I decided I'm gonna take another approach. It's time to email cus- tomer service at Garmin . And buy one. - Ted Brown is a freelance writer for the IFP and can be reached at tedbit@hot- mail.com. OPINION That satisfying sound of those pieces rattling into the shop vac Sometimes you just have to stop looking, laments Ted Brown TED BROWN Column Letters See what our readers are saying about the issues that matter to them theifp.ca/letters