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We say this with tongue in cheek but It would be castor for a sports fan In Hamilton to drive to a game In Acton than to fight Torontos formidable traffic It would probably be more convenient for someone In Metro east end to reach Acton than It would be attend a game at Inhibition Park The old idea that sports or other large attractions must bo in a city centre has been discredited Large cities in the United States and Europe have already built ball parks football stadiums and mammoth new sports complexes beyond metropolitan centres Getting away from city centres and attendant heavy truffle hasnt hurt attendance Fans appreciate the opportunity to flee the smog and smoke The day may come when the Toronto Maple Leafs or Toronto- Argonauts or the Hamilton Tiger Cats play home games well away from city centres in choice locations with plenty of open spaces It sure doesnt hurt to get a bid in early Remember when some people laughed at the idea of a large race track at Campbell vlllc Olympic double standards Winter shadows Bill Smiley Well what do you think of the CBCs widely touted series Please dont answer that aloud There arc ladles present Ah with what hopes wo looked forward to a truly brilliant allCanadian grand slam in the world of television AllCanadian cost allCanadian material and a decent budget V It would astonish the world the screen and all of the worlds great networks would beat a path to the CBC door clutching millions of pounds francs dollars and lira begging and pleading for the right to reproduce it So much for hopes The result merely shows that you can have on hand champagne caviar and filet but if the cook know what he doing It end3 up as water limp and lukewarm hash We have the champagne In the shape of gorgeous sets We have the caviar in a collection of firstrate actors And we have the filet in the rare beef of the original Jalna novels But what emerges on the screen is the most ham fisted clubfooled distorted downright dog of a series could dream up Or nightmare up The champagne has been watered the caviar has been fired from a shotgun and the rare beef has been minced into hnmburg warned the before the series began that I would roast it if it werent at least reasonably good Its not even reasonably bad Can you roast hash 1 watched first episode with mixture of disbelief and horror The second whs little belter and hope sprang eternal The flame was quickly smothered by the succeeding wet blankets I nought I knew the novels inside out But the series is so baffling that were it not for the names of the characters Id be willing to admit that it was the Twins series I was thinking of The most coherent parts of the Sunday rught show arc the commercials But even here you have to keep a wary eye because you re not quite sure they aren part of the plot so dense and unwieldy is the latter faint screams you hear from your set ore not static They are Miss Ma de la lioche author of the novels shrieking epithets at the CBC the director and everyone else connected with the mutilation of her manuscripts Perhaps the most appalling aspect of the whole dreary business is that the has actually sold the series to some retarded British network on the understanding that It the will product another episodes in the series Ihls Is not Just flogging dead horse It Is giving castor oil to someone who is dying of dysentery You may have picked up the mis conception that I don like the Quite wrong I love It Its he best comedy mystery hour on the air Mind you the comedy is of the black variety Its rather like making as the British Empire on which the sun never set sinks slowly into the sunset But the mystery though there la ob viously no solution is fascinating Sorting out the characters alone Is more fun than reading a Russian novel Who is married lo whom Why When Which ore brothers which cousins Is second wife Eden first mistress When Is going to get new Hie ramifications are endless And hopeless Its a soap opera with a schizo phrenic at the helm 1 wish they sell the dam estate and put Gran in a nursing home and give Sullivan a ring This is the last episode In the months long commentary about this fuay faced fella two week long trip to Florida with a side excursion to the Bahamas One close acquaintance remarking on the length of the series noted he was glad I never away a month since I had already written 10 volumes from a piffling two weeks tour to places most people had anyway Another lady said she never read any thing about the because she thought this was a cooking column with a name like Coles Slaw Well it is true I do a bit of cooking now and then but fewpeople care to comment on the quality of the food Anyway as you will remember last week we left the Miami docks with the car headed for northern Florida and home with not the foggiest notion where we would lay our heads We struck out for the border but the Infernal heat slowed as down so we only got as far as Melbourne the first day where a Holiday Inn with a swimming pool proved too cool an attraction to be avoided Melbourne if you dont know is just off the coast and one of the main centres close to Cape Kennedy home of the space shot But after a couple of weeks In that heat we t particularly enthused about seeing anyone take off for the moon or prepare for it so we avoided the space centre content to lay heads in a bed which didnt rock after nights on a ship We were greeted in the motel lobby by a distinctly Canadian voice seemingly genuinely pleased to see some real Canucks She was the desk clerk fed up with Florida its heat soggy weather and large bugs which she said only ceased to fly around for a few days each season Die lady came from Winnipeg surely one of the coldest spots outside the Arctic but she said she would trade the Winnipeg climate an day for that of the sunshine state Her husband moved to Florida to work as a scientist at the Space Centre and she took a parttime job at the motel to while away the sunshine which everyone tried to escape from in airconditioned rooms Nonetheless a short trip Into the city proved it to be a very clean looking centre with polite people The next morning we were up early and heading for South Carolina where we hoped to reach Myrtle Beach Most of the trip was over two lane highways clogged with slow moving traffic but we travelled the distance and arrived at the beach around six in the evening where we immediately jumped Into the ocean The sunshine of the past few days cooled off under the influence of some rain and by the time we started out for Washington it was warm again Some tire trouble slowed the safari up in North Carolina and we quite make the US Instead we bunked in a small town in Virginia or miles below the Potomac Id been there before nosing around civil war relics but we were content this time to eat and arise early the next day to start the last leg of the journey through Maryland and New York good time the next day until we to go in and out of a small city on the west side of Washington and got hopelessly lost about live tunes which developed into U arguments about direction The station wagon finally found its own way back by itself and north of Pittsburgh we decided to take the short cut through the mountains since it was a glorious autumn day and the colors on the hills were running not Hie hours later we emerged near Buffalo soaked in color but dixzy with turns and curves through those hills and Penn sylvania coal towns Crossed the border at Buffalo meeUng Michael there a former Acton resident who was stationed on the bridge as a customs official since transferred to on immigration The first thing to greet us In Canada was dense pea soup fog which persisted right along the Queen Elizabeth We stopped at Burlington for some Chinese food ant came and agreeing with whoever wrote that old song about there being no place like homebe it ever so humble Anyone naive enough to believe that everyone involved with sports is a sportsman or that as something done for self satisfaction and entertainment snorts in general are not the deadly serious business that say politics or world finance are could not have been watching antics of Hie International Olympic Committee in Sapporo Japan Headed by Avery the 81- yearold anachronism who has threat to disrupt Olympic games hummer ami winter for the past decade or so the IOC proved Itself worthy of its laughingstock image when it denounced lone Austrian skier Karl Schranz in order to save face Accused of cashing in on his excellence In his chosen field of sport Schrnru was drummed out of the games without so much as a hearing Of course he was guilty according to the written word of the Olympic code but then so is just about every other athlete competing at Sapporo The only difference between the Austrian skier and any member of the Canadian ski team is that Schrnn was paid individually for his advertising while Canadians receive support as a member of the national ski team and he was paid much more handsomely But the fact remains in the real world of global competition and costly equipment and travel not to mention the necessity of while training such a saint as a Simon pure athlete cannot live unless he happens to be a millionaire Canada pulled out of world hockey competition because it could not tolerate lie double standards of profes sional and amateur status Had It not been for the fact it would have financially ruined the city of Sapporo in order to force the issue It would have been best for every ski team at this winters Olympics to have with drawn en masse As it stands the future of the 1976 winter games is very much In doubt The halftruths and double standards being perpetrated by and the IOC are not beneficial to the Olympics or sports in general To the common man the only person involved in last weeks pre- exhibition making much sense was the ousted Schranz when he told the worlds press that nineteenth century altitudes favoring rich competitors over poor ones could no longer apply Now until Mr Brundage is forced to retire and the remainder of the IOC see the light we will be faced with the spectacle of skiers skaters runners etc walking around with manufac turers names carefully inked or taped out on their equipment and state supported athletes allowed to compete with those who must drum up their own support How ridiculous Banner you get Short comment Speaking at the opening of the new nuclear powered generating plant at Pickering Premier William Davis pointed out to all some ingenious firsts Canadians hove bestowed on the world Our firsts over the years have included the discovery of Insulin and the invention of suchthingsas the first television camera the electro- microscope the washing machine as well as Pallium and Instant Mashed Potatoes Mr Davis said probably choking on the last two We go along unreservedly with the Womens Institute and Mr Bennett in their attenipta to retain that wedgeshaped piece of land at as a roadside park High way s redirection left the former picnic spot stranded and really only accessible from Halton Road formerly the Seventh Line The land is an oasis 20 years ago Taken from the Issue of the Free Mayor Itachlin announced that work on he sewage disposal plant on the third line cist of Acton began Alan I who is with the Ontario Provincial Police has been transferred from Borne to Friends gathered at the home of Mrs Cam Irishman Mill St and presented Mrs Irishman with an aluminum tray and her mother Mrs Guj with a brooch Two chartered buses took couples to the Brant Inn Burlington last Friday evening for the fifth annual part of Baxter laboratories Special guests of the honor Gerry and Betty Candler About 150 ladies joined in the World Day of Prayer service held in the Baptist church last Friday Leader was Mrs S Crippsand Miss Nellie Anderson returned missionarj from South America spoke Prayers were given Mrs Armstrong Mrs V Bnstow Mrs A Brown Mrs Ethel Hanna and Mrs S Snow Miss Franklin played the organ and Mrs John Davidson sang Mrs HelwigandMrs were ushers In charge of the service were Mrs Wm Denny Miss M Z Bennett and Mrs H Mainprise A practising physician for over a quarter of a century J A McNiven passed on Sunday in London He was old He left Acton when he retired in and was succeeded G C He came to Acton in from Oakville We have often thought of him as typical of that picture The Family Doctor that hung in his office what he night or the weather he made his way to the bedside of his When he came the the motor car was of no use for winter travel and many the lonesome trip he made to reach those who required his attention His friendly guidance and counsel were sought as well as medical advice 50 years ago Taken from the Issue of the Free Press of Thursday March 2 A couple of weeks ago the Free Press advertised for a stenographer and bookkeeper and ten bright young Acton girls applied Miss laura has been engaged in he position Miss Annie McCow and Mr of Nassagaweya were married a week ago Miss Mary of Corners attended the wedding list week storm was serious for Oak For three days the town was without power light and water The water famine was serious Acton is fortunate in having an auxiliary gasoline pumping plant Miss Bessie Woodhall spent a few days this week at the home of Inspector Stewart Milton Ad Palmistry and Phrenology Madame noted as one of the best exponents of these sciences will be at the Station Hotel Tuesday to Friday Feb 28 to March Gives accurate and scienUfic advice on all matters pertaining to business health investments and in life marriage etc Misses Nellie Hall Margaret and Master Maurice Starkmon were the ones in the prize contest at the THE ACTON FREE PRESS PHONE Business and Editorial Office Copyright 1872 matinee Saturday in guessing the number of beans sweet little shamrock will be on deck in a couple of weeks Toronto subscribers write beir papers are delivered regularly on Fridays 50 years ago the Free Press was mailed out Thursday afternoons 75 years ago Taken from the Issue of the Free Press of Thursday March treasurer books are again in a muddle and an expert is being called in to put hem right the skating rink business is over for the present season According to the last report of the inspector of county prisons there were commitments to Halton gaol last year Of these but four were women Of the number 251 were discharged without trial they were tramps and vagrants were returned as intemperate Mr GnndelJ is getting in the machinery for his new machine shops and when the new building is up will have everything in readiness To hear the talk in some quarters about going to to shovel gold and to the Northwest to harvest what by the thousand bushels a big exodus from Acton might be expected within the next few weeks Guelph now has three onecent daily newspapers The rumor is again current that a project is on foot for the erection of a new Baptist church here and that subscriptions are being sob cited Officer Graham reports frequent guests atthetownhaUdormitories They have been more than usual the past winter owing perhaps to the cells being comfortably wanner now The Star our young ladies in a stanza Burlington girls are neat and sweet Acton girls have largesized feet If the fair yotaig man of the Star comes to Acton again he will not only take his own largesized feet home with hta but a pair of very largesized ears as well War clouds hang heavy over Greece and Turkey