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MiniComment Although there have been several store closings along Actons downtown section it is encouraging when longtime such as the Royal Cafe show their faith in the future of the downtown by making expensive renovations The interior of the renovated cafe Is most attractive Other stores who have renovated recently include IGA and AB Supermarkets Milady Boutique Acton Pharmacy and Moss Hardware which has a new gift on the premises which is sure to please customers Several the other downtown merchants always keep their premises attractive for shoppers and are pleasant places to deal Shoppers generally will regret to see the Family Store losing its doors after nine years In business in Acton They are the second clothing business to close their doors in the last few weeks The Esquire Mens Shop packed it up recently and that store is still vacant Now with the Acton Community Credit Union moving to a new location on Queen St the downtown will not be quite the same Some of the unoccupied stares are being reopened with new businesses The former finance company offices at the comer of Mill and Elgin Sts has a new tenant Chiropractor M Telford The store immediately back once occupied byDavis Jewellers wiU soon have Watsons Music Store moving In but this will leave another downtown store vacant The changes are indicative of the unsettled condition of the downtown where once a business move was an occasion Looking back over the years It is not hard to remember when the downtown had a theatre as well to bring people there Of course there are many new businesses in other parts of town which have added much to shopping enjoyment The Ontario Safety League opines that as you grow old inevitably you become bald and lose your grip especially if you are a tire Weve had our share of freak fatalities and happenings this year and the bowling alley fire and silo collapse the flour nulls can be added to the list Acton Citizens Band acquitted themselves well at the CNE again this year Although the band won no awards they gained high marks which were only seven behind the leader in the class It is worthy of note that the Acton band is one of a few from snail communities without high school instrumental programs and yearround paid direction It is a feather in the cap of this town when the band can compete against communities which have these advantages and give them keen competition And certainly a credit to the directors Two quarry owners have said this newspaper is guilty of bias in reporting on pits and quarries at Nassagaweya council Bosh Its the old case of shooting the piano player because be is playing the music Reporters record what happens at a meeting and their personal feelings do not enter into it at all unless the article is on the editorial page Thats where this newspapers opinions appear Thank you for the many expressions of congratulations for the three awards this newspaper won in the Canadawide newspaper competitions This newspaper is a community effort and it is the combined work of many hands and minds that leads to awards Work important human value THE ACTON FREE PRESS PHONE Business and Editorial Off THE SPOTLIGHT has been on the downtown business section lately so it Is interesting to see how Actons main stem has looked In the towns early years and progressively until it achieved its present look The pictures are from the Free Press historical collection and the most recent Monday is at the bottom OUR REAPERS WR i He put away his wheels My friend has bought a pony I know just how he feels lb change the pace of this ratrace Hes put away his wheels Hes living in an era Where the pace not too fast No income tax with heart attacks And things were made to last nag quite a Jumper though It sometimes clears the fence Then leaves a trail of horses tail And keeps us In He sits upon the animals back And plays a huge guitar He rides along and sings a song He doesnt need a car He saves on car insurance No tires and things to bust He aits up high while trucks roll by And keeps out of the dust I envy all his dreaming And wish him lots of luck I give a sigh as be rides by If he keeps the MUFFLER shot Victor Smith 2 Rockwood It is popular today to look for more leisure as the cureall for society Its stupid to believe there is any inherent virtue In labor the line goes leisure Is the thing the more of it the better Labor Day is a good time to question this assumption Automation fortunately has removed a great deal of drudgery and saved us collectively an immense amount of time but work has tremendous human value that no amount of leisure can replace Even In a highly spec allied mechanical society where ones rote is to provide only a part often a tiny part of some process rather than sharing in the whole operation a job has Importance that far transcends the pay cheque It keeps the wolf of insignificance from the door provides the worker with the knowledge that he Is a necessary strand in the total fabric of the life around him Ask any Invalid any unemployed person any oldster what they miss though theyll phrase it differently it Time to move on arena Residents tend to view statements about the condition of the community arena with a grain of salt but the moat recent pronouncements by an engineer at Parks Board last week should be noted carefully The engineer claimed the arena is unsafe during periods of high wind and it would cost to fix He told the board that wind analysis was not included In his firms original report on Inadequacies in the building which understandably raised a few eyebrows We have dealt with the arena before in articles of some length and dont propose to repeat them since arguments advocating he allocation of more funds to the community centre seem to raise hackles on some members of council We do not want to resurrect any of the old antagonisms However we would be remiss Indeed If we did not again propose that both the Parks board and council take a hard and realistic look at the arena There may be a In the fact that the arena has been designated as the towns centennial project but quite likely nothing will be done until That leaves an entire season of use in between In addition both the centennial commissions plans for the community centre and the towns must be coordinated in order to avoid duplication Wc think the engineers report is xrkXXxXS With the best Intentions in the world to do so Ineverquitegetaroundto answering all my mail There always seems to be some or other crisis that Interferes In almost every case the letters I get are both friendly and interesting The exceptions arc business letters and bill collectors Form letters and promotional letters I dont even read just tear them once across and toss into the logical de positorythe garbage pall Anyway this column seems to get around quite a bit and the letters pile up and I keep making new resolutions to answer them and the pile keeps growing If my wife would leave me for a month and I worked eight hours a day I could clean them all up and start a new life relieved of guilt and shame Just to give you an Idea heres a cross- sampling Just got a card from The Twins and Kath Postmark- Venice Theyre two former students When they were in Grade 13 and I couldnt find a boy to clean up the estate they took It on and did the best ever had done Unlike boys who dont get into the corners they crawled into the bushes and dragged out leaves with their bare hands They garnered plastic garbage bags of leaves and twigs gave them their pay and an illegal beer and weve been buddies ever since According to the card theyve covered seven countries in three weeks and are now heading for Spain Poor old Madrid Heres a letter from R County Eire An excerpt Your column holds for me a note of sanity In a mad world and ranks in my mind with Greg Clark Double thanks F Greg Clark is about six tiers above me but I appreciate the sentiment Mr went to high school with my older brother and sister Just grabbed another one from the heap Holy smokes Its dated Feb 1971 Thomas A Smith Rouleau Sask He noticed a reference in the column to Calumet Island in the Ottawa River where my mother was Bill Smiley born He was bom there too and remembers In Shawville Que where my dad once ran a store Its a long interesting letter from a real who went west in 1910 at the age of 17 went overseas in World War I Mr Smith I hope you are well though you must be BO and Ill write a proper letter Heres another from White Plains New York Holy Old Dated June 24th Its from A Leslie Hill Captain Army Nurse Corps US Army Reserve retired Born in Fergus Out three score years ago graduate of Kingston General Hospital served In World War and Korea and read my column to a group of Negroes in the laundry room How that Letter ends Thanks for your column dull or not Heres a self addressed envelope from Mrs Walter E Dorsett Smiley But I cant find the letter And another one from Gordon Fairgrieve publisher of the Ob server He has a subscriber called Bill Smiley who lives In Massachusetts and asks that I drop him a tine I will Bill and Gordon A note from G R McCrea publisher of the Herald Alta He agrees Its a mad mad world has been years in the newspaper game started at a week and recalls with nostalgia For in those days you could take your best girl to the local dance buy a mickey of rotgut rye and still have money enough to buy the gal a lunch at midnight and some left over for a will almost certainly be the sense hat they are now outside the mainstream of society onlookers rather than a part of it Currently great deal of thought and money is going into an attempt to help them recover their sense of worth Leisure is precious but it Is the Icing of life not Its solid food Working to get ahead in the Id competitive sense may have lost some of its motivating power but work that secures one a place In what Kahili Glbran calls lifes procession is a valid a value as it ever was Important enough also to consider calling in another engineering firm as a consultant especially if there is any doubt about the validity of what has been proposed as there was the last time the issue arose Now is the time to thoroughly investigate all phases of the building and determine the direction which should be taken bo that any doubts about the safety of the building can be erased would hope this would be done to avoid interrupting any scheduled events and the approaching ice season If at all possible and to avoid any alarmist talk that the structure could topple at any time kXXXxx package of on Monday Boy was that ever Thanks G for a grand letter From a lady in BowmanvUle She thanks me for my salute to the housewife and has some good advice I have learned slowly never criticize what someones doing unless you have tried it yourself And it turns out the lady lived next door for eight years to the lady who wrote me a beautiful letter from New Zealand In a column this summer I compared my wife to that bird the flicker Ron writes from Port Elgin comparing husbands to bobolinks Before marriage the bobolink has a beautiful slick yellow- striped suit and sings a mateenticing Bobc- linkalinkallnk After marriage In late summer he dresses in dull brown and his song is merely a dull clunk Aa a middle- aged hubby I keep seeing a parallel Woop3 Its not all sweetness and light Just reached and read two letters giving me hell I must have written a snarly column about teenagers back In 1970 for one of the letters is dated then One is from a teenager unsigned blasting me in no uncertain terms The other is from a senior citizen Mrs Jessie Slater of One pungent comment You must be a Dag- wood at home and a rotten father How else could you have such a family Well Mrs Slater my mlxedup daughter happens to be living in right now and Ive a good notion to call and tell her to go over and give you a good punch on the nose Im kidding Mrs Slater Kim wouldnt step on an ant if she could avoid it Shes a delightful compassionate beautiful and Intelligent young woman who is no more than you or I And Im no Dagwood When I put my foot down around here I break a toe Well all I wanted to say was that you meet a lot of Interesting people in this business Back Issues of The Free Press 20 years ago Taken Iran the Issue of toe Free Press Thursday September It assistant deputy minister of agriculture for the province of Ontario J Carroll will open the Acton fall fair being held this year on Friday and Saturday in Acton park The Acton local of the United Packing house Workers of America voted Tuesday night to accept an offer by the Beardmore company that followed negotiations Important points in this offer was a seven cent an hour increase for female employees and a five cent an hour increase for all male Five northern municipalities bowed out of assessment equalization on the opening day of the and Burlington appeals against a county equalization bylaw passed earlier this year That is they bowed out provided Bronte does not register the only opposition today Equalization Is necessary beca use Oakville and Burlington objected to the share of county expenses they are required to bear At the opening of the hearing in the court house Milton Wed nesday morning Judge D N Robinson suggested the five northern municipalities withdraw since he felt they were not concerned with the appeal as stated by ville and Burlington Local police like those all over Ontario have kept alert this week for any signs of the four bank robbers who escaped from the Don Jail in Toronto With many clues proving false one had the gang somewhere in the Brampton district New linoleum flooring has been laid In the library recently 50 years ago Taken from the Issue of the Free Press Thursday September Present indications give reasons for relief from anxiety about the serious shortage of coal this coining winter and also remove all possible grounds for fixing fancy prices for wood on the part of dealers The strikes are no w practically over and when the anthracite miners begin to dig coal the operators will find plenty of cars on hand to take care of the output Announcement Is made by the Canadian Post Office Department that a COD service In connection with mail matter will be established In Canada whereby charges due the sender up to may be collected from the addressee and remitted to the sender by Post Office money order Since the beginning of the year about 20 bams in Halton County have been destroyed by fire many of them containing the seasons crops livestock and implements The number said to be a record breaker for the first eight months of the year The trustee board had flUed the coal bunkers at the school building last spring and has 60 or tons thereenough to keep the ten rooms at the school comfortable until next spring To all school pupils who had grown tired of long summer days the ringing of the school bell Tuesday morning made sweet music Acton carpenters and builders are crowded with work The Georgetown Lumber Company Is also taking contracts here now The long continued dry spell interfered with fall seeding years ago Takes front the Issue f Free Press Thursday September I A royal visit to Canada will probably be made next year It Is stated that the Duke and Duchess of York have accepted Sir Wilfrid Lauders invitation to visit Canada next spring The Marquis of Salisburys latest proposal for the settlement of the terms of peace between Turkey and Greece baa been accepted by the powers The powers desire to Insert dates in the treaty but the British ambassador Sir Philip suggests that they leave the dates to be determined by an International commission The fine weather In this area of the past week has enabled fanners to complete their fall seeding The garden party held In aid of the UP church held at W Scotts last week was a huge success with receipts totalling over The industries of our village have been languishing of late The attraction of the Industrial Exhibitions at Toronto have proven too much for the The crop of plums hereabout Is the largest ever grown here The most successful Civic Holiday celebration that Erin baa ever bad wax held last Friday to Stanley Park The crowd which gathered resembled la numbers Erins well known Fall Fair It is estimated that were present Today the steamer take from Montreal for the London market quantity of Canadian tomatoes pears apd peaches fa cold storage as an