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THE HERALD Wednesday February 28 1990- Page LETTERS- years ago A member of the Knox Presbyterian Church Jim Ritchie became the guest of honor at a din ner in the church ahJI for church board members and their wives Mr and Mrs Ritchie were there to say farewell to the church since they are leaving for Orillia The clerk of the session William extended good wishes on behalf of the gathering to the Rit- chies for their new work and new home A senior elder Herb Cleave presented the couple with a silver tray which bore an inscription noting their years of faithful ser vice in various capacities to the church Dave Copperauld the new presi dent of the Canadian Legion Branch 120 presented a cheque for at the same time BUI Hewitt Jr presented a cheque for from the Kinsmen Club to the Georgetown and District Memorial Hospital campaign fund The cheques were accepted by Thomas A Dillon the general chairman of the campaign The Canadian Bandstand is set to host a cross section of Georgetowns teen population on March The Club Midtowners will be occupying the tube for the se cond time The television program will be beamed over Kitcheners channel The two busloads of Midtowners will be transported by the Georgetown Transportation Service years ago A member of the Georgetown District High Schools staff for the past 22 years has decided to retire at the end of the term Alexander McLaren Baxter will retire in June His resignation was ac cepted by the board of education on Thursday March 5 Mr Baxter taught science at the school bet ween 1948 and 1957 He became viceprincipal in under Lambert and has served there ever since As well as being the vice- principal at GDHS he also serves as the principal of night school 10 years ago Georgetowns Evelyn Walker celebrated her birthday in grand style with special greetings from the mayor The greeting were conveyed by Councillor Walter Congratulations were also handed out by two of her Kincourt neighbors Emily Jesie Williamson both of whom wit also turn 90 this year Every fourth year the triplets get together to celebrate their Feb 28 birthdays and their mothers Feb birthday This year the trio joined their mother to celebrate her 18th birthday at the family home on Fifth Line near Nerval Barb Mary Lou Ransom and Linda Hillhouse were the first triplets born in Peel years ago Mrs William 5 years ago Plows led the way for an am bulance during a snow storm that dropped over 24 centimetres of snow in one day The plows made their way from Prestons in Glen Williams to Sideroad between Ninth Line and Tenth Line to clear the way for an ambulance Clean ing up after the severe storm will cost the town public works director Bob Moore said It was a pretty severe storm Environ ment Canada climatologlst Denis said It has been a long time since we had something big like this He said high winds up to kilometres an hour combined with the heavy snowfall made drifts that were hard to clean up on the highways and roads Language tensions high in US Continued from Page 6 The Hispanic population in the US is now about 12 million about five per cent of the overall popula tion and is expected to exceed 16 million by the turn of the century No state has officially recogniz ed but that hasnt stopped them from offering ser vices in Spanish or other languages whenever the need is felt Even in states that are officially English- only the laws havent stopped the spread of bilingual services Chris a researcher for the National Conference of State Legislatures surveyed all Englishonly states two years ago Every state that had an English- only amendment couldnt tell me how it applied she said were actually nonresponsive Two officially English states are California and Florida In both though services are offered in Spanish as well as English to com municate with the growing popula tion of Hispanics However the states do not have formal guidelines on when nonEnglish services should be offered COMMON SENSE Its a commonsense ap proach said Bob Gore press secretary to California Gov George Managers in individual government offices hire people who can speak other languages when the need for bil ingual services is obvious A constitutional amendment making English the official language was approved by 73 per cent of California voters In 1986 but Gore said he was unaware of any restrictions on providing bil ingual services California is a state where the minorities are rapidly becoming the majority so you have to have lt he said That attitude enrages English Firsts Tryfiates I think one of the problems were seeing in this country is an effort to impose bilingualism from the top down he said Thats the kind of obstruction we are facing Its frustrating that we have politi cians who dont care what the peo ple are saying In Florida in a constitu tional amendment giving English official status was endorsed by 84 per cent of the voters Despite the vote services are still routinely delivered in Spanish Not all significant minorities receive bilingual services Despite the large population 300000 of or Cajuns in Louisiana the state has nothing on its statute books man dating bilingual services said Kate Lemon an information specialist with the Louisiana state assembly Louisiana is poor and is having trouble providing basic services so any provision for services like that would be few and far bet ween she said in an interview Most Cajuns can speak English but Louisiana also takes an in formal approach towards bil Government workers in areas be able to speak French when the need arises Lemon said The Louisiana legislature con sidered an Englishonly bill in but lawmakers did not take it seriously because of the large population of minorities she said States that have Englishonly bills or constitutional amendments Include Arkansas California Col orado Florida Georgia Hawaii Illinois Indiana Kentucky Mississippi Nebraska North Carolina North Dakota South Carolina Tennessee and Virginia Over 550 kids wait as musician walks on late Dear Sir This letter is in reference to the recent performance at Club 2000 by Young and Maestro Fresh I will attempt to offer an ex planation to those concerned about the delay in the concert Due to the popularity of both artists we at Club 2000 chose to provide two shows one show for teens which would be a nonalcoholic event and a show for adults The interest in the performers was evident with many tickets be ing purchased for the matinee show We were sure of a success therefore provisions were made There were 22 security people on duty as well as strict regulations being enforced upon entering A metal detector was used to search out items considered dangerous and unsafe All precautions were taken to ensure a safe concert Everything was in order on the morning of the concert The truck carrying the sound and lighting un fortunately broke down causing it to arrive five hours late The ar tists must complete a sound check and a rehearsal before the doors open This was not possible as the equipment was not in the club at 315 neither the performers nor their equipment had arrived A decision was made to open the doors to allow youngsters in the building out of the cold Finally the lighting and equipment arrived Every effort was made for a speedy setup Maestro Fresh Wes arrived and was ready to perform Young was not on the premises He was claiming a disruption in the con tract as a result of the sound equip ment not available when schedul ed His manager was suggesting that he would not appear Maestro Fresh Wes took the stage at 7 pm We were informed that Young MC would perform shortly after At 715 I received a phone call from the manager of Young requesting to be paid more After several conversations the show finally continued It was apparent that there were many disappointed youngsters and angry parents The anger is very understandable as the show was planned for the sole purpose of entertaining young fans of ar tists When delays oc cur it is going to create some con cern We would like it known that the events leading up to the delay were no fault of Club 2000 We would like to apologize to the disap pointed fans Young and his manage ment had no compassion what soever for his young fans Their at titudes were beyond belief and the language backstage deterred us from allowing autographs In an attempt to compensate we will be offering to those whom attended the concert a reduction in ticket price for the next All Ages concert We humbly apologize- on behalf of the stars and trust that your compassion will lie with us If you have any comments please feel free to contact me Sincerely John Fisher General Manager Doing Time A survey of people shows that In a lifetime avera person will spend 6 Sitting at slop lights Opening junk mail year Looking lor misplaced objects Unsuccessfully reluming phone calls 2 years years Doing homework 5 years Walling in line 6 years Ealing Write us a letter The Herald wants to hear from you If you have an opinion you want to express or a comment to make send us a letter or drop by the office Our address is 45 St Georgetown Ont 3Z6 All letters must be signed Please include your address and telephone number for verification The Herald reserves the right to edit letters due to space limitations or libel Its me or the orchid There are certain fears which are difficult to confess without leading people to believe that you are down to your very last marble But Ive come to suspect that my potted orchid is plotting to kill me This may take some explaining Please be patient It all began with an eerie little news item concerning an Ed monton woman whose apartment was nearly set ablaze by a cactus Apparently Elizabeth was asleep when the caretaker smelled smoke coming from her apartment Firefighters were call ed and they noticed a partially melted plastic flowerpot contain ing the aforementioned cactus The problem they explained was decomposing soil It seems the decomposing process had produc ed enough heat to ignite combusti ble material in the soil which would eventually have caused a fire Ms Finnegan is quoted as obser ving It kind of makes you scared of your plants Now granted were all familiar with the phenomenon of spon taneous combustion This has been welldocumented in the super market tabloids According to these reliable jour nals people burst into flames quite regularly I believe Elvis did so at a Burger King in Des Moines last week But until now there had been no reports of spontaneous combustion involving house plants So this news item was pretty unnerving for someone like me whose rela tionship with plants has always been dismal Until recently I had owned just one plant in my life This was a fern named Fred given to me by a friend who promised that ferns are nearly indestructible no matter how little one knows about plant- care Fred lasted three weeks As such you can imagine my alarm when I was subsequently roped into housesitting for a vaca tioning friend who had two dogs three cats and several dozen plants Dont worry she told me cheerful Just water ther plants until theyve had enough This of course was not very helpful Plants are sophisticated organisms but they tack the cvapacity to say when In desperation I actually phoned the CBC Radio gardening pro gram The resident expert had Just completed a dissertation on soil nutrients when I called in to ask Urn how do you know when a houseplant has had enough water There was a slight strained pause When it feels heavy he sighed and hung up Naturally this didnt help much either How was I supposed to know whether a plant felt heavy How much was it supposed to weigh in the first place And what if it had a thyroid condition It soon became clear that my friend was going to return from her vacation to find a houseful of dying plants I was agonizing over ways to break this news gently when one of the cats died instead This was sad but it did solve the immediate problem When my friend phoned from the airport to ask how her plants were doing I was able to smile bravely and ex plain that they were doing a little better than the cat was All of this may setae to explain my feelings last week when another friend gave me a potted or chid It was a lovely orchid and a kind gesture Naturally I couldnt tell my friend the truth which was that the jig was already up for this unfortunate plant So I named him Oswald and put him on the shelf in my study Sure enough be started to droop the next morning Three days later he was turning brown Thats when I read about that cactus in Ed monton and a thoroughly unsettl ing thought began to dawn What precisely is Oswald think ing up there on that shelf Is Oswald the sort of orchid who can remain brave and stole in the face of certain death Or has be begun to realize that his only chance is to get me first Im trying to avoid plunging Into utter paranoia But if this column doesnt appear next week youll know that Fred the fern has been avenged