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The Acton Free Press Wednesday May 25 A beautiful weekend The Victoria Day weekend was hot and sunny and unusually pleasant for being outdoors Swimmers and boaters were en joying Fairy Lake as if it were the middle of July A hundred years ago we read in the files the holiday produced a memorable community program Those days are gone Rockwood Campbellville and Georgetown are neighboring communities which organized fireworks displays this year with good crowds and par ticipation Acton shoots off fireworks for Dominion Day Aside from a few backyard displays of fireworks here the event was not especially observed Many were away at cottages battling the hordes of bugs Some came back to Acton early deciding they d lost the war Still it was a very satisfactory holiday with pale winter skins turning beautiful sunset red and the fumes of barbecue starter rising in the steamy air Outdoors was the place to be and Actomans made the most of the holiday we thank Queen Victoria for Regional government issue Of particular interest here is Lib eral leader Stuart Smith s promise that The Liberal party is the only party that will get rid of regional government He was speaking in Hamilton when he promised to tear down the Hamilton Wentworth regional government structure Voters in Hamilton are con cerned over their increased tax bills which are reported to aver age more this year and they blame duplication of services under the regional government sys tern which was imposed three and a half years ago Dr Smith said he would replace regional government with a regional planning authority whose members would be appointed by local councils After the meeting he told re porters that wherever people really want regional government to con the wishes of the people would be respected Regional widely considered to be an issue in the last provincial election here too when PC candidate Gary Dawkins lost out to Liberal Julian Reed Cougars near extinction There much interest here in the new 12 cent cougar stamp de signed by artist Bob Bateman There are about 100 members of the species living under constant threat of extinction by destruction of their environment and hunting The stamp pictures the eastern cougar in the remote forested area of New Brunswick and the Gaspe There are million stamps printed This was the only stamp portraying endangered species issued at this time The cougar is also known as the panther painter puma mountain lion catamount Indian Devil and pi the long tailed one It is one of five cougar races living in Canada The eastern cougar and its colleagqes evolved during the hey day of the sabre toothed tiger and spread from Atlantic to Pacific and from northern Canada to southern most South America The white man drastically trans formed the cougar s environment and because of fear or a desire for status as a hunter killed the animal whenever possible Soon everyone concluded the cougar was extinct in eastern Canada Oddly enough mans activities inadvertently saved the eastern cougar from annihilation Logging farm abandonment and fires changed the character of the New Brunswick forest making it ideal territory for deer the cougars favorite food The naturally solitary panthers took to the remotest parts of the backwoods where there was plenty to eat and little human activity The cougar population stabilized and even increased somewhat although as few as 100 of the creatures now survive in Eastern North America outside of Florida Of this and that We cannot all be great but we can always attach ourselves to something that is great Theres one thing to be said for inviting trouble it generally ac cepts A fine is a tax for doing wrong while a tax is a fine for doing 0 K Why is it that there is never enough time to do a job right but there seems to be enough time to do it over again Every notice that you don t spill gravy on clothes you don Industrialist to judge in court As God is my judge I do not owe this tax The judge said He not lam you do What next department instant movies will be the new thing soon The movie camera will be loaded with a cassette and this same cassette subsequently loaded into a projector Its a Polaroid project EARLY MORNING MIST lingers over picnic tables in Prospect Park until daylight burns it off Sunny weather is making the Park a popular area this spring Who says its a dogs life For years I been hearing about Canada Day an annual event at which Canadian writers come out of the woods or from and allow themselves to be pestered for autographs lauded lo the skies and otherwise tortured by hordes of starryeyed students and eager teachers It was Jim Foley a man who spawned the idea originally when he taught high school Fort Why students have a chance to meet some real live writers irst it was done on a shoestring Foley students raised money by collect beer and other nefarious means A few authors and poets lumed up talked to the kids It was a great success Since then it has grown in both scope ambition and is now a singular event In Canadian literature circles with hundreds of students busing hundreds of miles and a pretty good accounting of Canadian writers good bad and indiff turning up for their accolades who is no dummy when It comes to raising money got publishers a notably reluctant lot when it comes to spending money set up displays He tapped every possible cultural well from departments of education to Canada Council This year I attended along with a colleague who Is budding poet and we had a good time and came dropping names all over the place and buffing our cultural fingernails all over ourselves very ostensibly Well after Margaret Laurence gave me a big kiss I noted the whole week end was Just one mad whirl This made my students sit up Michael Ondaatje beard is neater than mine contributed my friend but I m a better poet and I told him so At least half the writers there are regu lar readers of my column I commented smugly Three or five of them actually are but We had breakfast with Moore and drove him to his seminar Roger tossed in And so we went on As a matter or fact some of those things did happen that Ihaveno intention of revealing Some rather interesting contrasts popped up For example the novelists seems to be rather a steady lot incompar to the poets who had a tendency to get into the grape Age seems to have little to do with ability Leslie the grand old man who wrote the Hardy Boy and received about 50 each for them as total royalties away back when was honored at the same time as young Jack from Vancouver Island who has just pub lished his first novel There close to GO years difference In their ages And by the way there a young fellow to watch He was exhausted from a combination of Jet lag and too many inter views in too short a time But he gave It everything he had In panels and quiz sessions He very handsome very eloquent and very enthusiastic and I Imagine the teenagers were swooning over him Let hope he t get caught up in the snarling and backbiting that too often stains the Canadian culture scene Canadian publishers on the whole their usual coming out of what seemed a deep tudeonly when John of the federal cabinet said something about more help for publishers That the only thing that Sugar and Spice by bill smiley seems to stir them area few small publishers who show some verve and imagination in design and quality of books I Mowat beard is almost as long is he Is but ht has a nice wife Pierre still combing his over his bald spot but looks and self sat as ever Hugh Maclennan makes mos ot the other writers sound as though they just left Hayfork Centre Yves Therridult Juebec writer has new and charming second wife who seems lo like him Person novelist still thinks I should devote a column to a of his book if he sends me a copy Moore comb his sideburns over his spot and looks fine just as he John has eyes like two boiled eggs at a certain point in his pro gress Some of the young fellows from Newfoundland put on the liveliest show or the weekend with music and poems Max and charming wife fit and tanned are just back from California and they re making movies of a couple of his books let see Irving la getting old just is he threatens in his poems I don know why Mrs Jim Foley doesn go out of her nut runing interference for Jim Politicians about eight of them insisted on ng everybody to everybody smay I urdy looks as though he needs a week rest home Poet Don Gutter Anne enjoyed driving us back to the motel when my driver ran out of steim There you are Just a few notes from the literary scene by a non heroworshipping weekly columnist who knows that when peek behind the talent the writer Is just dogsbody like the rest of us OUR READERS WRITE Expresses gratitude for award The I ress Dear tor Through the pages of our Acton Press I would like to think sincerely the Ontario Division and the local Acton group of the Canter Society for the honour on me with the lion of my icitc of Service This I feel a very great honour but I must repeat and r peat the success of our service St Abans Dr and Detroit The tor The Acton Free Press Acton Ontario Dear Mrs Dills St Drive is a narrow short street fitted to be one way street It his blossomed out being used two woys but also used as by pass road where long trucks with the utmost difficulty negotiate the narrow turns so far without accidents It is no help now that it is being used as a main street that parking Is allowed on the south side mostly occupied by the overflow of cars waiting for servicing at the garage since their area is occupied by new cars On Ihe north side are no parking signs often ignored by those who can find no parking space on the south side while awaiting servicing While meditating on this continuous theme It goes on from dawn to dusk except over national holidays I chanced to read In that most prestigious of American period Saturday Review of the re habilitation that is taking place In down town Detroit where formerly the murder rate was twenty times that of Toronto where unemployment was 14 per cent where tourists in stalled cars on express ways were robbed a new idea has emerged it is from Henry Ford and Is re sulting in the construction of Renaissance Centre costing million all private money politicians please note and Is intended to lure the population that fled De troit core back from the suburbs The astonishing thing Is that the Idea emanates from Henry Ford that It Is a better idea and forgetting the highly un true jingle he did not put It on wheels Are you not astounded Thanks George Views on immunization l sick and tired of reading how the Immunized child Is a threat to public The people In this country are just a lot of sheep following a leader right over a I rom my own experience I have found it to be exactly the opposite Its the child who Is threatening my child health I don t condemn anyone for giving shots to their children and that in eludes my own grandchildren That their own business but I will not be pushed Into shoving germs Intoo perfectly healthy body just so those said germs won find their own way there by accident My children all had whooping cough because they played with a child who had been Immunized Ho whooped all over our nek yard but his mother vowed he wasn t contagious He had had his shots It t my children who spread it all over the school They knew they were contagious and stayed home a cousin who is crippled for life and has had numerous operations because he caught polio from his second shot He was only two at the time and the doctors ad milted it came from his immunization His mother still saw to it he got his other shots As I say I would not say one word against any mother or father who feels safer with immunization and I want the same con sidcratlon If Immunlcatlon Is such a mar vcllous protection why is the child such a threat anyway He can t do them any harm They re protected If they make this compulsory they had better be prepared for a lot of lawsuits We may only be a per cent minority but we are citizens and have a right to protect our families from harmful germs as well as any other threat to the best of our abilities The rest we leave to God Mrs Atkinson could not have been so praiseworthy if the dozens of local volunteers had not come to our aid in time of need In expressing my gratitude for this award I would also like to express my great ad mi rat on and gratitude for the innumerable volunteers without whom our efforts would bo in vain and with whose help we will val carry on the Fight Against Cancer The Free Press Back Issues 10 years ago Taken from the issue of A threecar collision at Dublin Sts In Thursday morning Involved two Terry and his passenger Mrs Robert Anderson Camer on St The two returned home following treatment In St Joseph hospital Construction In Acton Is going all out to meet the tremendous demand for houses subdivision Is experiencing a boom which will produce half a hundred new residences It a hive of activity with shovels bulldozers chain saws block layers cement trucks carpenters and bricklayers all contributing to the din Quite a few of the buyers of the new houses in are from Toronto and will likely be commuting Miss Barbara Norton flew to Winnipeg to spend the holiday with her aunt Mrs John Valby Mr Vaiby and daughter Peggy Ann In appreciation for the work he has done here for girls Charlie Thomson and the girls Softball teams are arranging a Howard Pearce Night at the park on day June 2 Despite cold and rain that turned to snow many opened up their cottages or went north to cabins on the holiday week end The veteran campers stayed out des pite the abnormally cold weather 20 years ago Taken from the Issue of the Free Press of Thursday May 30 Acton was Invaded with a television camera set up In the Bank of Montreal corner last Friday at noon tele vision Kitchener sent Jack Phillips photo grapher and Ron Hill director and inter viewer tointerviewsomeActoncitizensfor their program Gadabout A Dills editor of the Free Press first to be inter viewed reviewed the history of Acton and gave the estimate of the population of He was followed by Wm whogave a brief ouUine on a few of Acton indus tries Misses Esther Taylor and Lorraine were also for their views on Acton A very quiet ceremony last Monday saw the cornerstone at the new Z Bennett school laid with Miss Z Bennett and members of the public School Board officiating Johnson daughter of Mr and Mrs Johnson of Acton received two fractures of the skull a broken collarbone and lacerations to the right temple when she was a passenger In a car that was In collision with a truck at the corner of Churchill and No 7 Highway last day morning 100 years ago Taken from the issue of the Free Press of Thursday May Mr John Maney has fitted up the stone hotel in this village in handsome style and is now prepared to accommodate travellers and boarders Queen s Birthday in Acton May Base ball match games Grand Parade Uncle Tom s Cabin at the drill shed will be the principal attraction tonight The Acton Social Club purposes having a dance after the close of the Dramatic entertain to which they respectfully invite those inclined to participate Ice Cream Pine Apples Lemonade and other refreshments will be furnished A bill was lost on Main St Monday evening Finder please return It to Mr M Speight The post office will hereafter be open from 7am to m A mammoth egg was laid a few days ago by a hen belonging to Mr Swack We are informed the egg measured seven Inches in clrcumfer The fine bell for the Congregational church arrived from Troy last week and has been put in position In the tower It would be a boon to the village If somebody could be paid to ring the bell at certain hours The long looked for atlas of Hflton county is completion THE ACTON FREE PRESS PHONE853 2010 Business and Editorial Office it Ltd MmtDH Copyright