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The Acton Free Press Wednesday April 1973 Bill Smiley It a long time since I read as much misdirected garbage as I have In the past weeks concerning meat prices Directed garbage is when you hit the target Most of this hit the wrong target the fanner For some mysterious reason a lot of people look on the farmer as a flinty moneygrubbing character who takes a particular sadistic pleasure in gouging the poor workingman not to mention the Its Just the apposite For years generations In this country the fanner has been gouged by the rest of us and here one consumer who not only believes but knows that the average farmer has had a tinier share of our twentieth century than any other segment of our com munlty including those on welfare proper There area few exceptions There are a few wealthy farmers Just as there are a few wealthy school teachers In the case of the farmer It Is the man whose forefathers were lucky enough to clear a farm near a big citytobe His land has become valu able for building and he can sit on It and The real farmer is the fellow who works week that would have an In dustrial worker screaming for the union owns one suit hasn thadanolldayin years owes money at the bank and has a net Income of about 000 a year He got to be a gambler a fatalist and a man In whom hope springs eternal He gambles on the weather and the market must accept disaster with a shrug and must begin each new season with optimism More and more In regions of marginal farming and small mixed farming see that the farmer must have a job in town If he is to enjoy more than a frugal living More and more we see that it is only the big farmer or the specialist who can meet the bills and make a decent living More and more we see that farming has become an industry In which the In vestment In land machinery supplies and labor Is Inordinate In comparison to the returns If an average farmer charged himself wagea for his own work he show a net loss He be better to put his money Into a hot dog stand Let take an average beef farmer He has no sock of gold under the bed He must borrow money to buy stock machinery teed fertilizer He must pay Interest on this money to our established banks which are no than they were in the They merely have a better image because they have a big public relations program While beef Is becoming beef this farmer has nothing coming in except in terest charges on his loan When beef Is ready does he set the price He does not He sells it at auction Who drives up the price The beerhungry consumer that s Who Marie Antoinette of illfated fame said of the peasants who protested that they had no bread Let them eat cake I d reverse that a bit and say of people who say they can afford beef Let them eat barley It s very nutritious Perhaps Im prejudiced I grew up during the depression If we had beet once a week it waa probably As a kid I was sometimes sent to the store for some dog bones These were beef bones with some meat on them and they were free The butcher knew dam well what they were for a good pot of soup but he winked at Many a time our dinner was pea soup and homemade bread with some pre serves wild berries picked by ourselves for dessert Nobody suffered nutrition in that family Sometimes our meat was the ground up skins of baked potatoes mixed In with onion and fried potatoes They gave It the appearance and roughage of meat It not the flavor Jolly good stuff In prison camp meat was merely some thing you Thought about like going to barley Im afraid it rather irks me to listen to a workingman who will buy a case of beer and a bottle of liquor on Friday night for whining the supermarket on Satur day afternoon about the exorbitant price of meat And even more disgusting is the executive type Hes just finished regaling you with the details of his holiday in the eouth snorkelling rum punch cocktail parties works when wife starts like hyena because their food bill is up three bucks a week There are some holes in the chain of food price But dent blame the farmer He the last to benefit when prices go up the first to totter when they go down Show me a rich farmer I U show you a rich weekly editor or a rich school Old steam locomotives fiery dragons It is fashionable nowadays to take a poke at anything that moves suggesting the environment will be polluted noise intensified and people discomfited Nevertheless we were prised as we are sure the representatives of the Ontario Rail Association were when their proposal to run a railway museum on rails from Cheltenham to Georgetown was attacked so vociferously by the reeve of and a member of a citizens group from Terra Cotta opposed to the scheme We had figured the sight of the steam locomotives pulling passenger and freight cars through the most picturesque parts of would more than compensate for the small amount of noise smoke and vibration weekend trains would cause We were wrong Those steaming engines are really fire breathing dragons anxious to swallow houses spew pollutants into the air and spread misery everywhere they go Never mind the historical mish mash nor the preservation of a way of life which has almost vanished and attracts an increasing number of steam buffs This is dangerous stuff man Perhaps it is because we have lived near a railway for most of our lives seen the big steam giants replaced by diesels that never did attract like those steaming gleaming iron horses we cant get too alarmed about the revival True they quite possibly will bring many city people to the country eager to take a ride into Canadas past with as much of the authen ticity as possible And why not It is their country too We can t believe people can be too upset if their city cousins visit Surely those of us who live in the countryside don want to deny people from the city the ad vantages many of them miss through necessity in their concrete jungles and antiseptic heavens did they ever do to be refused a passport into the coun try If these steam trains were going to be a daily feature that rocked the old northern rail bed with noise and vibration and spewed soot over the countryside then it would be an iron horse of a different color However the steam buffs who intend to operate this page from the past are taking many precautions to ensure few people would ever be annoyed by infrequent weekend trains The average speed of these iron monsters will be a pacifying 10 to 15 miles an hour hardly enough to rock too many houses off their foundations The coal they use is a special blend of sulphur something or other which falls well within the air pollution control laws Crossings will be suitably guarded and these steam buffs declare the trams will be preceded by a man with a flag if necessary The tranquil countryside will be disturbedbut only momentarily Perhaps they will even create some pleasant diversion for those in the country who find the days long without any artificial stimulation We can find little wrong with the Ontario Rail proposal to use the old CN peanut track a tourist trail We doubt it could ever be as bad as painted and first hand observation of the Gold Coast Railway in Florida a similar operation confirms our belief Free Press Back Issues 20 years ago In or skies that wept all day and cold spring winds that made any shelter bctar Peanut Day of Acton Rotary Club had the spirit of the show must go on and the funds must be raised It appears Peanut Day netted between MOO ana Acton Citizens Bond started things off with parade and between showers the Peanut float with the Peanut Queen and dancing peanut men paraded and made headquarters at Mill and Willow President Johnny and fellow carried on till six clock Winner of the Force hot plate was Pat Patrick with a guess of peanuts on the float Walker Lodge ladles night was held In the parish hall There were cards and en tcrtalnmcnt by Bob tied fern and Crawford Douglas and accordion solos by J Candler The Rhythm Ramblers orchestra provided music Snow headed the committee Acton lost one of Its wellbeloved citizens when the I A passed to his rent at his homo Thursday after a long illness patiently borne He was the minister of Knox church from 1930 1M2 and following his rctircmeni In ho came to Acton to live llmchmsse hall board sponsored the final euchre of the season with Hull or chestra playing or dinner Norman Perong held he lucky ticket In a draw The Duke of Devonshire chapter of I D entertained the Basic English class at high school at the conclusion of willing Gardeners Leader Is Doris Fines 50 years ago Mr Fred Blow addressed Council proposing erecting a factory He requested a free site free power and a fixed assess His motor parts factory would em ploy 12 hands It was decided to coll a public meeting to ascertain the views of citizens In commemoration of the fourteenth anniversary the organization of Wood green Ixidgc or the Sons of England a banquet was held at the Station Hotel last Thursday evening or sixty of the members visitors and Supreme Officers partook of he following elaborate menu canapes of anchovies consomme royal baked fish a la croquettes of veal roast beet Yorkshire pudding petlts pais potatoes deep apple pie in whipped cream Welsh rarebit cheese biscuits dessert coffee Mr Fred Coles a member of the local lodge was caterer ably assisted by the members wives and lady friends Bro J Precious was toastmaster and toasts were proposed by Thctford tiro G ana J Scarrow Mr Roy Brown son of John Brown Esq Willow St has completed his course In electrical engineering at the School of Practical Science He won honor standing He has bright future before him and Co wish to Install water in all their houses They hope that mains will be laid to Cameron St A newspapermans dream no typo errors Sometimes this newspaper runs into a period when typographical errors have us almost tearing out hair in large gobs to feed to the computer that grinds out reading matter for this family journal They occur in the most em placesin headlines peoples names sometimes disrupting the entire passage or paragraph or putting a slant on the story the writer never intended When it is deemed necessary we run corrections because the pain they produce here must be worse than for those who read them We were almost glad to see they are having problems in other places as well as an editorial in a recent issue of the St Marys Jour rial Argus attests What this means says the St Marys paper is that human beings when setting type make mistakes Their eyes skip over lines miss words see the same thing twice or press the wrong letter key When the typesetter sits locking at printed material all day and part of the night the chances for error increase The truly remarkable thing about the whole process is that relatively few errors do get into print Newspapers operate against deadlines so the whole matter of setting type proof reading and correcting it is carried on under pressure Because of the way new machines space type a single word error sometimes needs an entire paragraph reset so when one error is corrected another may occur Despite the most rigorous efforts to control them some typographical errors get by everybody Alas we have seemed to run into more than our share in the last few weeks It has caused us severe embarrassment But we continue to fight the enemy of all news papers and like the Journal Argus dream of the day when we all become perfect and errors are no more The subtitle of that dream is A Newspaperman Heaven MiniComment The Staff of the Georgetown Herald bid publisher Walter Biehn adieu last week after 33 years of association with the towns only newspaper Walter has left the Herald a business he bought in 1940 and then sold to Thomson Newspapers Limited although contmumg as publisher They have been rich years for a highly respected member of the Georgetown community decades in which the town grew from a relatively small 3000 people to a population of over 17000 With the growth came expansion and the attendant problems Walter took in his stride There has always been a pleasant and close association between Walter Biehn and all of us at the Free Press which we hope will continue as he takes over the as manager of the North Halton Golf and Curling Club We wish him every success in his new venture The good wishes of his many friends and admirers go with him Although the scores of the Stanley Cup eliminations favor Montreal Canadiens and Chicago Black Hawks at this writing many of the road hockey games in town and country are coming out dif in one case a band of eight yearold Toronto Maple Leafs clinched Lord Stanleys Basin When the Credit Valley Con servation Authority finishes its purchase of land in the Silver Creek area for another large con servation park this town and dis trict will be ringed by parkland operated by the various authorities The Credit Valley Authority has the Terra Cotta and Silver Creek areas the Grand Valley Authority has the Rockwood Conservation Park another dam planned for Everton and the Halton Region Authority has Kelso near Milton as well as the new Hilton Falls reservoir and the land adjacent to it Much of the conservation of land is being done along the Niagara Escarpment in conjunction with the provincial governments plan to preserve it along its length from Niagara Falls to Tobermory Although budgets at most municipal councils are set with much discussion and explanations the usual procedure at Esquesing council is to strike the null rate by simply passing a by law Figures have been perused by council at committee meetings we presume and only legalities are observed at the regular meeting This method has a lot to commend it but the public sometimes could use a few explanations of the budget which we also presume can be obtained by contacting any member of council The provincial government s new property tax stabilization plan is also an incentive for municipalities to hold the spending line Any mumcipalities which keep 1973 expenditures growth rate to eight per cent or lower will receive a grant of six per cent of its municipal levies in the next year The rate for municipalities which increase spending by percent or more will drop to two per cent 75 years ago One Acton oldest and best known landmarks had ruthless hands placed upon the past week No building in our town has more hallowed memories clustering about it then the old edifice used by Knox church us a place of worship for half a century and many will feel a pang at its demolition Mr John Cameron Mho dismantled It will put It to a good cause The front section on Main SI will be converted into very comfortable homes The f rst stacks of limber for the building were brought to town in 1849 and the building was finished in 1847 In time to collect a gratuity of offered by a Mr Buchanan of Hamilton to each of the first ten Churches erected after the date of his offer or three years the pulpit was filled by resident ministers In the vicinity and students from Knox College Rev John McLochlan was Ihe first stated minister in 1851 The first elders were Duncan Ken James Lindsay and John McKinnon The first addition to these pioneer elders was Donald First deacons were Lindsay and Archibald Camp bell A score or more of big dogs are to be seen in Acton which are worthless to their owners and a nuisance to everyone else The Toronto morning and evening papers are in great demand and the latest news of the S Spanish war is eagerly read THE ACTON FREE PRESS PHONE Business and Editorial Office