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THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2007 THE NEW TANNER 7 GRAPEVINE with Mike OLeary The Way I See It Unity service Acton Christians are invited to pray, sing and play together on Sunday morning at the annual Ser- vice of Christian Unity, hosted by the Acton Ministerial Association at three locations. The theme this year is Be Opened and the guest speaker at the main service at the Legion is Commissioner Christine McMil- lan, Salvation Army Territories Commander for Canada and Ber- muda Territory. For the first time, organizers are staging a youth concert for teens and young adults at Knox Presby- terian Church, featuring the Youth Worship Band from Oakville and Rockwoods Glen Soderholm, a singer, song-writer/recording art- ist and pastor. As in past years, there will be puppets along with prayers at St. Joseph Catholic School, where the childrens unity service also includes games and a guest per- formances of the family act, the As For Me and My House Family Ministry. All services begin at 10:30 a.m. Harmony Bandstand Tickets are half sold for the March 23 and 24 performances of the Royal City Ambassadors at the River Run Centre in Guelph. The Ambassadors will present songs from the 1950s and 60s in a show billed as Harmony Band- stand lots of laughs and great singing, according to Actons Don Lindsay who has been an Ambassador for more than 25 years. Lindsay, a member of the Area Code 519 quartet that will perform during the shows, can be reached at 519-853-2057, or at Home Hardware. Caregiver support Support for people caring for schizophrenics is available on the third Thursday of each month at the North Halton Mental Health Clinic on Willow Street. The Halton-Peel Regional Of- fice of the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario hosts the Family Sup- port Group for friends and family members of people with serious mental illnesses. The monthly sessions offer help and information on resources available in Halton in a safe and non-judgmental manner. The meetings begin at 7 p.m. Call 905-876-1647 for more information. Teacher award Nominations are now being accepted for the first Premiers Awards for Teaching Excellence, an award designed to acknowl- edge the teachers, principals, vice-principals and education sup- port staff who excel at unlocking the potential of Ontarios young people. Nominations for the award, sponsored by the Ministry of Eduction, will be accepted until January 31. For details, visit www.ontrio. ca/teachingawards Andrews excels Not wanting to get rusty while waiting for her university com- petition debut this weekend in Texas, while home for Christmas, the Acton High grad Kaitlyn An- drews competed at a University of Toronto track and field meet where she won the 20-pound javelin toss with a throw of 13.94-metres, her personal best in that event. Andrews also won the shot put with a toss of 14.19 metres. She is studying kinesiology in Texas, and competes at her first indoor event in Arkansas this weekend. Farm summit Maverick Halton MP Garth Turner is convening an emergency agricultural summit on January 23 in Milton to pressure Ottawa to help family farms that are facing a crisis for survival. A press release from the Inde- pendent MP said the point of the meeting is to reinforce the key role of the agricultural industry locally, and to prompt Minister Chuck Strahl to fulfil election promises. The Peel, Halton, Wellington and York Federations of Agri- culture will have officials at the summit, along with representa- tives of the chicken, beekeepers, fruit and vegetable growers as- sociations. The meeting runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at Heritage Country Park. Bottle drive Leave your empty bottles on your porch this Sunday morning if youd like to help a local select hockey team with players from Acton, Eden Mills, Rockwood and Georgetown raise money with a bottle drive. Sports store closes High rents prompted Inside Edge Pro Sports to close its Sobeys plaza store last week. Actons Phillip and Nathan Marzo, father and son partners have consolidated operations at the Milton sports store they opened in September. The Acton Inside Edge opened in April 2005, and Nathan Marzo said they never intended to close, but an opportunity to sub-let came up just before Christmas, and they didnt have enough time to find and open a new location in Acton. Marzo said they faced rent and maintenance fee increases of 25 per cent this year, and Acton isnt growing by 25 per cent a year, and lower rent in Milton has reduced their overhead by 60 per cent. All gift certificates and skate sharpening cards will be honoured at the Milton store. And for another thing Several topics have been ac- cumulating in my file and this week appears to be a good time to address them. My confidence in being able to pick a winning sports team is sagging. Take my beloved Leafs Please! Consider last Saturdays blow-out at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks. I switched channels after our boys were down 4-1. The final score was 6-1. Its a bit early yet to start practising Wait till next year. But I am becoming somewhat depressed. Things didnt improve much in the New Years college bowl games. One of my much an- ticipated contests was the Sugar Bowl matching my favourite Notre Dame (naturally) against L.S.U. Although the Irish looked good in the opening minutes, L.S.U. came on strong and creamed my lads 41-14. There was no joy in Mudville. Notre Dame missed so many tackles I suppose we should be grate- ful the score wasnt even more lopsided. Notre Dame has now lost 9 straight bowl games. Big sigh here. The big news in the soccer world is that David Beckham is jumping ship from Real Madrid (is there a Just Joshing Madrid?) To the Los Angeles galaxy for yet another maniacal sports sal- ary. Beckham will obviously sell some tickets in star-struck L.A. and wannabe-seen-in-Toronto. It says here that soccer, as a spectator sport, will stay off the fans radar in North America. That prognostication should pretty well assure soccers suc- cess given my track record. For your information surveys of American sports fans report that pro football is No.1 fol- lowed by baseball. Pro hockey is tied with golf in 7th place. This being Canada our hockey num- bers would be higher and curling might beat out golf. Soccer (foot- ball as the fans insist on calling it) isnt even a blip on the survey. *** I am tired of playing gas sta- tion roulette. The price swings this past month have been outra- geous. On several occasions the posted price per litre changed as I was driving by. Its bad enough that the price changes between the time I drive to Milton and when I return 20 minutes later. To change it on the fly just adds insult to injury. I sympathize with our inde- pendent gas station operators. While the corporate stations get a credit when the price drops, the independent operator gets bup- kus. Independents buy their gas at a fixed price on delivery and pray the corporate stations dont drop prices the next day. To stay competitive, independents have to match the lower price and lose money on every litre or sell at their regular mark-up and watch sales plummet. Either way spells disaster for the little guy. I have some bitter experience with this type of predatory pric- ing. My Dad had a service station in the late 50s and early 60s. He was wiped out in the gas wars of 62-63. The look of utter devastation on his face when the end came is forever etched on my mind. Big Oil profits the last few years have been obscene. Government doesnt help with their exces- sive taxes. For government to say there is no collaboration between companies, no price fixing, they must assume we are all mentally deficient. No won- der we only have two outlets selling gas left in town. In this computerized world it wouldnt be that difficult to level the playing field. There are only two or three refiners that distributors purchase prod- ucts from. If prices are going to change let the independents get the same price subsidy as the corporate outlets. All thats needed is the political will to get tough with these oil cartels. Alas, so far all weve seen is political wont. I despair that nothing will change and the independent op- erators will gradually fade away. When my Dad had his service station gas was 39.9c a gallon and seldom changed more than a penny. Last week on my trav- els I saw a spread of 15c a litre between an independent and a corporate outlet. While I admit thats the exception to the rule, it demonstrates the underlying problem is re-occurring and must be fixed. I dont ever want to see a look on some other fathers face like the one I saw on mine. We must lobby our politicians before its too late. *** I watched with some sadness the official ceremonies for for- mer President Gerald Ford over the holidays. I remember him as a decent, principled man who had greatness thrust upon him rather than one who pursued it relentlessly. It was said that when Presi- dent Ford pardoned Nixon it WINTER WHITE: It didnt take long during Sundays storm to turn the creek by the library into a winter wonderland. Frances Niblock photo Continued on page 8