The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Page THE WEEKEND OUTLOOK Friday May Editorial Country music fills head and heart My latest wanderings through out community over hill and dale around Roy and Dale took me to Norvals Riviera Produc tionsClub 2000 late last week The late lamented Riviera Club has undergone numerous owner ship changes over the years and similarly the entertainment packages offered to the public have also undergone numerous facelifts The location now goes under the moniker Riviera Produc tionsClub 2000 and caters almost exclusively to the country and western crowd In this endeavour those in charge are doing a bangup job of providing topnotch entertainment Johnny Burke a Canadian country and western music legend and treasure it should be added was the featured per former the night I attended and although the crowd was sparse he was full value for a night on the town Quiet and unassuming off stage he comes alive once he straps on the guitar and steps into the limelight on stage You might say hes a cross between Tex ter and Buck Owens with even a little bit of Roy Clark thrown in in a sort of way I had a chance to sit and chat with Johnny and glance through his bio Of undetermined age Johnny was born Jean Paul Bourque in the French Acadian community of New Brunswick One of 13 children Johnny came from a musicloving family and encouraged by a cousin he learned to play the guitar In the Johnny packed up his six string and trekked Toronto His big break came when he performed at the famous Horseshoe Tavern with a group which called itself The Blue Valley Boys For the next four years he backed some legendary country and western music performers including Lefty Frizzell Tex Lynn Red Foley and Charlie Pride to name just a few He backed Carl Smith on the CTV national network program Country Music Hal and it was through Smith that he became fluent in English albeit with a southern United States accent with hints of the Cajun dialect His hit record Wild Honey was chosen the top single in and he is still doing studio work and taking his show on the road I enjoyed Johnny Burkes com pany and his music and over my usual fare of milk and cookies reflected back on the time many moons ago when I had aspira tions of being a star of stage screen and comedy As it turned out mostly comedy I worked the road for about twc years doing the northern circuit My erstwhile music career took me to such bastions of civilization as Larder Lake Lake Cochrane Kapuskas- ing Smooth Rock Falls and Sudbury to name the high points With my guitar and rented equipment I usually just hoped to make enough money to make it to the next stop All the while hop ing to be discovered I did get to meet Gordon sister while playing in a Barrie night spot and in retrospect that might have represented the high water mark I remember leaving one wintry evening broke because I had lost most of what little money I had the night before in a poker game I was hoping to make it to my parents home in Cochrane where I could at least get some decent food and a warm place to lay my head I made it to the outskirts of Kirkland Lake when the storm got so bad I knew I couldnt con tinue pulled into the first hotel I came to and after jawing with the bartender struck a deal where I would be fed and housed for a few days by doing a couple of sets a night for the mostly uninterested patrons of the place This worked out alright until I got into a fight with the same bartender two nights later and he proceeded to break my guitar over various parts of my anatomy leaving me combat not to mention sore I hocked my rented equipment eventually made it to Cochrane contacted the store where I had rented the equipment and reported its theft Another time I was working a hotel in Sudbury that in an understatement was pretty rough Believe it or not there was sawdust on the floor Not for the dancers but because the sawdust soaked up the blood from the numerous fights that would break out and it made it easier to clean the place up I also had a strange arrange ment worked out with the manager Whenever a fight broke out I was to get off the stage and out of range until things calmed down Some nights I got away with playing only a few songs Maybe my songs had something to do with the fighting One night this little old guy bowlegged and buckled over ap proached the stage and asked if I could play San Antonio Rose Always the cool type I said loud enough so everyone could hear Id sure like to try Pops He beckoned me down to the floor and again being the cool type I thought it was because he was hard of hearing I never saw the punch he threw but I remember sliding through the sawdust and coming to rest against a wall The old fellow came over to me stuck out his hand as I was lying on the floor and said in a loud voice Now can you play San An- tonioRose Which key do you want it in was all I could reply My music career lasted roughly very roughly two years This all came back as I was listening to Johnny Burke per form Riviera productionsClub 2000 has another treat in store this coming week for country and western fans when BIG Terry Sumsion rolls into town Country and western music goes right to the head and heart Especially after youve partaken of milk and cookies As I see it anyway 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 Guelph Street Georgetown Ontario L7G 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 The Halton Hills HERALD Home Newspaper of Halton Hills Established 1 866 A Division of CanadiantJevvspaper Company Limited Street Georgetown Ontario 3Z6 K ROBERT Publisher and General Manager 8772201 Editor Mylaa Suaanna CLASSIFIED Joan Manna 1 1 CIRCULATION Mai la Shad boll ACCOUNTIHQ Aeeounlif and Ing RATES Slug I a Copy In Slot 5 Canada 19000 MS all I Ha month SO Una month la on all original and adiartlilng malarial by Ita ampler and In nawipanat National St Toronto Onlaito MSH IMS or Calhcart EL Montraal Tha I hat It pubtlihar for artilng of In adiarU- paid lor tha actually which in attar attot bay and National exams would build character Ever since politicians took up the current debate about whether Canadas school kids should have to face national exams many of you have been writing in to ask Ian what do you think about this crucial issue Well actually you havent This has been a bit disheartening but Im trying to rally In any case Id just like to take this opportunity to state my opi nion Which is that Canadas school kids most certainly should be writing national exams They should be writing them at the end of each school year from Grades 1 to 12 and occasionally during the summer holidays This is very important since its an excellent way to build their character Now granted I havent always felt this way As recently as years ago I would have argued hotly against the concept of na tional exams This is partly because in 1974 the nation just wasnt ready for it And mainly because I was still in school National exams and I wouldnt have been wellsuited to each other considering that my ap proach to high school was always predicated on the theory that absence makes the heart grow fonder Rather than boring teachers with my presence I favored making brief and thus I hoped welcome cameo ap pearances But m the intervening 17 years Ive reassessed my position In particular Ive recognized the danger in the common misconception that education should be enjoyable or even educational Now that Im safely out of Weirs World by Ian Weir Thomson News Service school I can see the majestic truth of the great dramatist Sophocles observation we must suffer to grow wise This was certainly the central premise of the great British educational system as any reader of Victorian novels knows In Victorian novels parents didnt stop to worry about finding a school that would nurture their childs capacity for self- expression They just shipped him off to Headmaster at This was a hit hard on the boy But it built more character than you could shake a stick at Naturally I didnt have any personal experience With this sort of thing But I was threaten ed with it It got to be quite a regular oc curence actually My father would gaze sorrowfully at my mother and say If Ian doesnt want to abide by the rules of this house perhaps hed be happier at boarding school The specific boarding school he had in mind was one run by the Anglican Church somewhere up in the Arctic Circle I never found out what this school was really like But I got the impression that the cur riculum consisted largely of kilometre runs through the Arctic tundra under the watchful eye of mad monks In retrospect Im sure it was nothing like this at all But my father never seemed inclined to correct my impression The closest I ever came to a Traditional British Education was amazingly enough in Bri tain I did a years graduate work at the University of London An in itial shockY was discovering that the whole degree rested on four days of exams A special bonus shock came when I was sent a list of exam regulations My favorite clause was the one stating that in case of illness a student was welcome to submit a note from his doctor explaining why he hadnt done as well as he might have on the exam In other words illness was no excuse for missing an exam If you were undergoing openheart surgery on examday the surgeons were expected to wheel you into the Hall and help you mark an on your paper Your doctor would then write a letter to the university stating Mr Weirs analysis of Chaucers Canterbury Tales might have been more insightful if he had not been under a general anesthetic And after surviving this I discover theres strong opposi tion to the notion of national ex ams for Canadian Life is just miserably unfair