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g2 th acton free pren wednesday september ii 1968 the high cost or housing has come jn for some devastating criticism from buyers who in many cases have been dropped completely from the market because of the price spread between income and wages there arc many reasons advanced for- the spiral but the brunt of citicism has been directed at the high cost of labor there is a- fallacy itxtarit that wages are the real reason for high in the building industry it avas probably fori that reason that the windsor building trades unidris figured the actual costs of a typical 22o0o three bedroom brfck house out on paper it appears v to exonerate labor in the windsor district would be very similar to the picture here these arc the calculations bricklayers tllesctters si4s0 carpenters 706 electricians 325 hoisting engineers 120 laborers 200 painters 285 plasterers cement finishers 34480 plumbers 14320 sheet metal workers 250 that comes to a total of 3824 construction costs including labor and materials went up 137 per cent between 1956 and 1966 but the big gain was in land costs and carrying charges land costs went up 413 per cent between 1956 and 1966 and mortgage carrying charges went up 348 per cent in the same period mortgages have really colored the picture differently in the last decade from a relatively high interest nlte of six per cent in 1957 mortgage- rates jumped a whopping two andd quarter per cent to eight and quarter by 1 967 here are the 25year mortgage costs on a 1050 square foot three bedrooni brick house v toown nha vnha year ot payment mortgage rale 1957 12000 1200 s10ho0 1967 21500 3500 lrt000kw 1957 1967 monthly total payment cost 25 vrs 69ll2tf7u m026 4207h land costs and carrying charges went up 761 per cent over he ten year period while construction and labor costs rose a relatively modest 137 percent memorial to john mccrae guclph guolph the- author of the worldrenownod poom and admirers in flanders fields stands beside the rounding mccrac birthplace on walor st in hrinc has many visitors of tho immaculate sur- staff photo editorial page sugar and spice by bill ley tmej hace changed- it is not unusual to sec husband and wife shopping together for the family groceries a sight which might have slighted the male ego a few generations back another radical departure from customs of a few years ago is the male doing the shopping alone for the entire farnily this is so common now that life magazine compiled some interesting facts from a variety of marketing studies for instance eleven out of 20 men who shop alone in a supermarket dont carry a shopping list one man out of three shops for food alone at least once a week fiftyfour per cent of wives prefer their husbands to share the food shopping when husbands use a grocery list it usually doesnt specify brand names when husband and wife agree on a brand of food its chances of being bought are 60 per cent greater than if only the wife prefers the brand when a family fails to agree on a brand of food the husband will win one third of the time one of the surveys reported that 50 per cent of the women say their husbands enjoy grocery shopping how times have changed iflcjej kacfa uwrftfw ft a young st catharines girl was sentenced to three days in jail for stealing goods from a store the magistrate had come to the conclusion that a fine or a suspended sentence would not do any good she came from a fine family with good parents and yet she stole she did not steal because she needed the goods she probably stole because it was a smartaleck thing to do there has been a tendency for the courts to condone stealing from merchants apparently on the ground that if the merchant is well off his monetary loss is not of any great consequence that thinking is gradually being replaced by the thought that it is the moral loss to the thief that is most important there is an t even broader implicationtile moral loss to the community and the state if thievery is allowed to go on unchecked the young woman will carry the stigma with the wisdom of her parents and the kindliness of the community she should be able to live it down stealing is a crime and has been at least since moses came down from the mountain f wetej frm the pam even a banker couldnt find a bad czech these days as those brave and sturdy people international underdogs arc the cynosure of the worlds admiration it takes guts to shout insults at a man holding a gun on you as in any other country of course there are bad czechs as cell as good ones but good and bad they have been giving big brother a hard time of it remembering hungary the czechs had enough sense not to tackle the wolfe with bare hands for the same reason they knew there would be no help from elsewhere if they did but they managed to make themselves as indigestible as possible for that same wolf its not the first time the country has been thrown to the wolf in the late thirties the british and french threw them to a german wolf while the big slavic brother to the cast turned a blind eye it must be a bitter thing to be a czech here you are a good honest bohemian after world war 1 you are thrown in with those lousy slovaks and told you are now a citizen of a brand new country so you work like a dog for 15 years and turn your country into one of the finest examples of democracy in the world then you arc betrayed by whom by the great democracies then you arc bullied and tortured and starved for seven or eight years by the german invaders the war ends and the germans leave the russians dont when they finally get out you try to put the pieces b3ck together it looks as though it might be possible but you ai on the wrong side of a certain curtain so the communists stage a coup and for the next decade or so you are a communist but you have a love of freedom and independence and you chip away at the iron blanket until a crack of daylight appears and you arc betrayed again by whom by the great communist powers its enough to make a saint cynical and dont think the czechs arent but dont give up on them they are tough passionate and practical and some day theyre going to come up smelling of roses tough theres a czech dcptisl in toronto who was tortured by the gestapo hung up on meathooks and has the scars to show it he was going home for a visit this summer i hope he didnt passionate put four czechs together start a political discussion and in five minutes youd swear they were going to kill each other i had some czech friends in prison camp and they fought furiously czech against slovak communist against republicanbut they turned a solid front to the rest of us and to the germans practical one of these friends was andros his second name had no vowels something like mrckzy when the germans marched into czechoslovakia he stole a plane and escaped lie fought with the raf was shot down and captured he expected to be shot any day did he sit around and brood not he from empty powderedmilk cans he manufactured a magnificent still and when the rest of the camp sat around on new years eve drinking their stinking prune wine he and his friends sipped pure potato whiskey ive always been glad i was one of his friends it was like vodka he was an avowed communist then but a good chap he wasnt shot not then not by the germans they didnt gel around to it i wonder what hes doing these days and i wonder about two other friends of those days rostislav kanovsky of bucklovice 74 murava and joe zvolcnsky of galanta i just looked up their names in my tattered old poav diary and said a little prayer for them freedom lighters of a generation ago perhaps their sons are shaking their fists at russian tanks or running an underground radio lets say a little prayer for them mwuc school hnnu lined up at the front door of the old school for this group photograph the year mutt have been about 1904 some of those in the picture with prin cipal w h stewart are cam clark ann harvey ella mac- pberson ada clark bessie johnstone alice cook edna anderson edna mcpherson len worden gertrude john stone bessie coon nellie williams erie white lillian williams ida graham bessie husband gert swackhammer ethel clark laura wiles daisy folster beth anderson eva cook gladstone husband the acton free press phone 853 2010 bovvsi j edicjnal 0ico fiuijtj in l- jnt nuhi ihd tl ljjs irs 1 l ih tuuil uur ifv han jnj im v 1 s nn pjuh ji wik n aujj i jl jl j ilk 4 j j ninj l u uj f ouu iarlmu liuuj il ttrpirj hi n ihjl n ik- pf jph j urjt 1n1l porikid rw awls n sri m upj uiil run tv thjritil h the ruuru irw tivrtimtticnl will iv fu fr jl irw jnrtti jhe rale- in ihf tnt ul j 1 rw r jpaj jl mil jjtr ltng mvj j j wluif p hi nut rvil hr u 4ilcl a vu jn olttt lo h j mat tv hithj jwn jl nv timr bill imailnj wul puubutfj c lu oiiij r mu publuhrfr luriuv col lw ft4r editor copnhi imt srtt jurtss back issues 20 years ago taken from the issue of the free press thursday september 16 i94h a new machine the only one of its kind in canada went into operation recently at the baxter laboratories in acton its purpose is to provide pure distilled water for the solutions prepared by this firm in greater quantity than previously the new machjnewll deliver 240 gallons of distilled water per hour against the former 100 gallons per fiour capacity in ihd twofifty gallon stills formerly used friends will he glad to heat that mr wilfred mcfacherii is progressing favorably following an operation for appendicitis- in st jjnephs hospital guclph innjorfday- miss daisy folster had the misfortune to ffactiiie her left wrist 01v monday when sle slipped on the floor acton lias 14 advanced studentsgaining education at eight different centres hay arblcarmand llraida and john apr are at oac don ross joan somcrville jack maiupric george elliott and phil pickering arc at thctj of t aid braida add mary sirrs are at western shirley elliott is at toronto normal school ernest west is studying law at osgoode hall eleanor ross is taking a nursing course and doug maplesden is in his fourth year at ovc jack mainprize returned home this week from an allsummer cruise with the university naval training division to bermuda cuba jamaica canal zone mexico usa and vancouver island 50 years ago taken from the issue of the free press thursday september 19 1918 two trucks filled with whiskey passed through guelph on saturday morning from montreal to biyth inspector obrien learned of the contraband an hour after the goods had left here but notified the railway officials at biyth the owner of the trucks secured them at their destination but they were later seized by the inspector in that district since excouncillor bailey returned from his trip to the northwest he has negotiated the purchase of one of the finest farms in this vicinitythe wellknown lasby farm- owned for many years past by mralexander mcdonald mr salf and mcdonald has prospered there and is retiring from farming miss reta nelson guclph 1 talented graduate of the conservatory of music will receive pupils in acton after october i mrs w hall main street has sent the free press a fine sample of irish cobbler potatoes one weighed 13 ounces grain chopping well done and quickly at only 3 cents a bag harris 3c co ltd rockwood 75 years ago takftfr from the issue of jhe free press thursday september 14 1h93 the list of premiums and the potters for acton horticultural and agricultural exhibition have been issued the fair on the3rd and 4th oct- promises to be the biggest and best cverthe gtr will issue tickets lo acton for the two days rira fare and a third acton cornet band will play and there will be a grand concert there was 3 large gathering at the methodist church to hear the rev j hector whose subject was the devil dressed in white he is a colored man and opinion is divided on his merits when his meagre advantages are considered it must be admitted he is a man of more than ordinary ability a large number of granite monuments have recently been placed in fairview cemetery which exhibit much taste on the part of those who selected them and reflect credit on the manufacturers among the finest are found the family names of stewart lasby warren anderson sayers mcdougall and smith ad we recommend every household be provided with a bottle of higinbothams cholera preventive so that on the approach of the first symptoms you will have an infallible remedy 25 cents per bottle a couple of eden mills village volunteers started out on a bicycle tour of neigliboring towns and villages giving exhibitions of fancy riding etc however an accident to one of their wheels brought the performance to an abrupt termination since rev father haley was appointed to the charge of st josephs church there has been considerable improvement in the services an important change was the reorganization of the choir and increase in its numbers pepper by hartley coles although the united states is technically at peace a visit there on the second week of a vacation virtually assured us our neighbor to the south is partially mobilized for war it is evident by the number of servicemen you see the attitude of the people you meet and glimpses of military might by chance on the way down the hudson river from newburgh hugging precipitous cliffs that took us to west point and then to new york city we saw an impressive military display by cadets at the point we also saw what must have been almost 100 naval ships moored together in the hudson they were referred to on roadside signs as the hudson river naval reserve fleet no attempt at subterfuge there must be as many ships in that reserve unit as there are in the entire canadian navy for someone from a small ontario town who gets excited by the appearance of a large skiff in fairy lake it was an eyerubbing sight all the ships stretching across the river inlong lines were painted battleship grey which gave them a decidedly ghostly appearance in the river mist the ghost ofgeorge washington who had his headquarters in newburgh and hung around the hudson in what was to become west point during the american war of independence must have stirred at the sight of so much military might it was a far cry from the ragged continental army he commanded against the hessians mercenary troops the british had 10 use since they were busy with old napoleon in tutopc george would have been equally delighted with the military precision of the 4000 west point cadets who marched out in eight large formations of approximately 500 men and performed the retreat ceremony on the drill field for a retiring professor at the academy headed by a large brass band instruments reflecting the setting sun the cadets bore rifles in the front ranks the rear ranks brandished gleaming swords if you have ever been to west point youll know what i mean when i say there are few settings to compare with it the hudson glides along between rocky cliffs at this point while a few islands one with what looks like a castle on it give the area a rhinelike appearance on this occasion the president of the united slates had ordered the presentation of the distinguished service medal to the retiring military teacher the band struck up the slar spangled banner everyone rose a nearby gun which looked like a civil war relic went off with a roar that nearly sent an entire canadian family tunbling from the top row of the bleachers which supposedly afforded them the best view in the place it was hard lo believe we were foreigners in the stands the people around us looked very much like us we have an affinity with the yanks the men on the field young slim strung could have been from the canadian equivalent of west point at kingston we were leassured we were awe struck canucks when no one son asked what tune the band played when they struck up the american national anthem this yawning gap in his education must have occurred because weve never let him watch the end of the late late show or the beginning of the world series it has now been filled but nol before some nearby yanks who assembled from every state in the union to watch the show had given us some suspicious glances it was time to continue down highway 9 for little old new york before he asked whether george washington who is commemorated by several signs and plaques might be related to bobby washington and the soul society to make a long story short we reached the great american metropolis without further incident if you call getting lost in new jersey and a four cornered fight about where we were no further incident we bunked in one of ho jos motels no ho jos not the emperor of japan hes the american tourist king howard johnston we toured manhattan on a city bus ferried out to the statue of liberty look in a show at the immense radio cily music hall tripped through central park visited st pats gawked at the bright lights in times square ran out of money and then headed for home before we ran out of gas new york may be a very large cily but one incident at the motel just before we left showed us there are some small minds in residence the bell hop an older man took our paraphernalia to the car lobby while we awaited delivery of the family limousine during some small talk about the best way lo get out of ihe cily he nudged me and said whats this country coming toeh he pointed to a couplebehind ui im a little alow on the draw i didnt get it at first then it slowly dawned on me he was black she was white