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

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 1996 THE GEORGETOWN GEMINI GLAND WINE New owner at Dominion Seed House? Plans to redevelop the Dominion Seed House property in Gecrget- own are on hold as the prime piece of Guelph Street land has been sold conditionally. Town planner Glenn Wellings said staffhas met with the new owner and that "they are going to prepare a master plan and after an initial meet- ing with us they know our require- ments under the Official Plan." Recent plans by ICPF (Loblaws Food Stores) to locate on the site have fallen though. "We knew there were a lot of people interested in the site because we would get the inquiries, but we don'thave details of this latest plan," Wellings said. Boa says Aloha? Halton Police happily reportno new sightings of the large, slithery snake that scared the you-know-what out of a maintenance worker at the Halton water well in Cedarvale Park last Tuesday. The six foot long, six-inch diam- eter snake may have been a boa constrictor but so far no one has reported their reptile missing and one police spokesperson, who said it might have been a water snake, said she sure wouldn't go walking in the park with a small dog or cat. New 800 number Crime Stoppers of Halton is hoping their new national 800 number an- nounced last month will continue to enhance their performance. The civilian volunteer-managed company reports an increase of 36 per cent in the number of anony- mous crime-solving tips received for the first six months of 1996. Crime Stoppers Chair Ted Acheson says the main reason for the surge in calls is the new after- hours call answering now offered by the company. You can reach Crime Stoppers from Georgetown phones at 1-800- 222-TIPS, 24 hours a day. Callers do not have to give their names, and any tip that leads to an arrest quali- fies the caller for a cash reward of between $50 and $1,000. Pinball hits town Georgetown cable subscribers are invited to meet Toronto Argonaut football star Mike "Pinball" Clem- ons at Halton Cable Systems' first open house on Saturday, Aug. 10. Pinball Clemons will help kick off the open house by signing auto- graphs between 11 am and 12 noon. Halton Cable was purchased by Western Co-Axial Limited in June and the new management team wants all ofits subscribers to drop in and meet the staff along with reps from many featured channels. The cable headquarters is at 21 Main St. N. in Acton. HEY! "I went to see Independence Day last week and I enjoyed it very much" Marilyn Scuralli "Independence Day was great. I liked it a Jordan Scuralli Have you seen any summer movies? (Asked at the Fairgrounds Park.) "We all saw Independence Day. It was good, but the President bugged us." Aimee Burns, Leah Cosgrove, Kristen Clow "T saw Independence Day. I also went to see Phenomenon, but I thought it was boring." Brad Whitteker lot." | HOME-BAKED PIE! Ellwood Payne purchases a lemon meringue pie from Fair Board Member Ruth Kelly at the bake table Saturday during the Ag Society's annual beef barbecue. (Eve Martin photo) Thought Id introduce myself For my first column in your new Georgetown Gemini, I' dlike to take a few minutes to introduce myself. I also thought you'd like to know what type of topics you can expect to see discussed here each week. The Way I See It pretty well tells you what I do here. My agreement with Publisher Nolan is that I am free to write about anything in the world that I find interesting. Obvi- ously, I hope you will too. I enjoy putting my sometimes quirky view of things into the public eye and hopefully, promoting some debate. If I were reading this paper for the first time, I think, right about now, I'd be saying "So, who is this guy and why should I care what he thinks?" It's a good question. I'm not sure I can fully answer it, but let's give it a try. I'm a 39-(metric)-year-old, self- employed, harried father who has lived in Halton Hills for over 22 years. Like many of you, I moved here to escape the city and because I thought this would be a better place to raise my kids. I am not opposed to growth in our town, gen- erally, but am opposed to anything that would decay the small town community feeling which we have. I will be, for example, the first on the ramparts to fight any move to force us to join any kind of super- G.T.A. I have been happily married for almost 28 years (I was a child- groom). Did I say "happily?" Imean ecstatic, grateful, blissful, en- chanted, halcyon years. After all this time, I know how to suck-up. My long-suffering wife is a small town (Picton) girl who had deliber- ately moved to Toronto to get away from a small town. When I dragged her out here to live, she thought Acton was a suburb of North Bay. She came to accept country living, but I doubt her enthusiasm is going, to be long-term. I, for instance, see us retiring to some secluded lake. She reminds me you cansee the lake from Yonge and Bloor and you don't have to walk down to it. "We could take the subway," she observes. Oh The Way | I See It} With Mike O'Leary well, you can take the girl out of the city, but you can't... etc. loften write about my family and the trials and tribulations of living with five females. I had hair when I was single. I don't think it fair though, especially for the girls, to put their names in print. It's tough enough being a kid in a small town without your name being in the pa- per regularly. As a compromise, all the ladies have a "nom de plume." Let me introduce them to you, since they have a big influence on my atti- tudes. Obviously, for instance, I'm a feminist. We draw the line though at most of the proposals of the radi- cal N.A.C.-types. I refer to my wife.as "the Bride" since I still see her that way. Our youngest is 16 and is in high school. Which school is unimportant -- I think teenage problems are system- wide. You'll come to know her as "the Kid." Our next daughter is 21 and has just finished two years at Carleton University in Ottawa. She's "the Big Kid." Daughter Number 2 is 23 and is in her fourth year at Laurentian U. in Sudbury. She's "the Old Kid." Our oldest would kill me if I put her age in here, but suffice it to say the actors on Friends can soon start calling her "mi'am." She's left the nest and is an econo- mist working and living in Guelph. She's "the Ancient Kid." That's my crew on life's voyage and I write about them for two rea- sons. First, I dearly love them all and am proud of their accomplish- ments. Second, I think we adults have to stick together and share in- formation. The kids, you see, are meeting in the schoolyards every day and are plotting against us. If you're looking for a politi- cally-correct, mushy, feel-good commentator, you are definitely on the wrong page. Not that you' Il find any superficial reporting anywhere in our paper, mind you. I think this whole P.C. attitude has damn near ruined our country. I don't think there should be any issue we can't discuss in an open, honest and con- structive way. Particularly if some level of government expect us to pay for it. l invite Letters to the Editor, es- pecially when you disagree with me. That's what opinion columns are for -- to promote dialogue. I -Should advise you that if all you're going to do is write and call me names, you may as well save your crayons. I've been called better names by the people I live with, and who love me. I write a lot about current events and politics. I'm an equal opportu- nity political basher. I've written both for and against all the major parties. (To be honest, I'm hardly ever forthe N.D.P.). I'm notamem- ber ofany political party. I'm mostly Liberal on social issues but fiscally, I'm pretty Conservative. I think defi- cit spending is stupid. We have to live within our means. I refuse to be pigeon-holed in any party, but think ofmyselfas a Liberal whocan count. I'ma law and order type guy but although I usually support the offic- ers on the street, I have reservations about the direction the department is going in. I'm not impressed with the cop-as-social worker program. I favour life terms for murderers with no chance of parole. I'm fiercely Canadian, but I must admit to enjoying my Irish heritage; usually on St. Patrick's Day with a pint in my hand. I don't like state sanctioned multi-culturalism and the attendant idea of hyphenated Cana- dians. I think old hatreds have no place here. We're a young country. Let's go forward together to the future instead of re-fighting long past battles. Thank you for having us into your home. We hope to hear from you from time to time.