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Acton Free Press Wednesday 1978 In favor say Canadians are a nice bunch eh Sure we are and the eh proves it A Sociologist Marian Johnson the University of Western Ontario told a seminar of Canadian anthro pologists and sociologists that eh expresses a willingness to ac commodate others It makes our conversation friendlier and folksy and reflects the Canadian character Eh is common only in Canadian speech patterns People who use eh a lot don t like to be aggressive or Impose themselves on others and I think that goes with the Canadian character said Ms Johnson In adding eh to an order such as Wash the dishes eh the speaker gives the listener an op portunity to respond either way and reduces the chance of con frontatlon she said She added that there are several situations particularly official functions in which producing an element of doubt as expressed by eh would be advisable I now pronounce you man and wife eh Solutions soon The importance of the postal service in Canada as a com munications link should never be minimized It is vital to every level of business and to most citizens individually as the link of friend ship or business on When there is a disruption in service two things in particular happen First business seeks an alternative and second citizens generally develop a strong animosity to those who they can best determine to be the cause of the disruptuA MP Frank following an incident in one of the Ottawa area postal terminals told the post master general in the House of Commons the Canadian people have just about had enough They are fed up with this kind of irresponsible behavior We applaud that kind of straight talk We cannot attribute the blame for these recurring incidents that slow our mails or impede anticipated communication Pre sumably there are problems with management and there are problems with workers The incident that was the centre of all the distress at Ottawa was the wearing of a disparaging button by the workers aimed at manage ment Management ordered the buttons removed or the workers to leave their work Some did remove the buttons and stay some left the buttons on and left work Certainly the incident could be termed petty and even childish Frank Philbrook summed it up when he said in the House People in my riding are puzzled about all this as I think the rest of us are They are frustrated because we do not seem to have an answer After all we have been at this for several years They are angry and demanding some kind of action a resolution of this problem and of course they look to the federal government for the answers Postmaster General J Gilles expressed the com of the problem Some people have a tendency to think that we should be ruthless and more intransigent in our dealings with our unions Others feel that we should be lenient and give In in order to achieve peace at any cost Nothing is achieved by extremes Dealing with human problems requires a lot of under standing tolerance and patience However one must realize that we have to accept our responsibilities toward the Canadian who are entitled to an efficient and reliable postal service We can accept the complexity of finding the middle ground which would ultimately provide the kind of postal service Canadians keep hoping might return In the meantime alternatives will be sought and the postal system will suffer further United Parcel Service is already in hearings before the Ontario Highway Transport Board seeking rights to provide an expanded package delivery service in all of the province south of a line running east and west through the northern boundary of Kenora The solicitor for UPS told the Board There can be no question that if UPS is licenced it will be in direct com petition with the service offered to the people of Ontario by Canada Post The UPS proposal is to offer next day package delivery service over wide areas of the province and delivery to the most remote areas will require no more than three business days That is an appealing proposal and it will cost something to plement and expand With such a service if it is approved many businesses will utilize it because of its dependability and Canada Post will diminish if the flow declines And who wins on this merry go- round Clearly patience with in and interruptions is close to exhaustion Frank sensed It when he told the House I believe Canadians are reasonable people They want to treat everyone well including these inside postal workers But they want these issues resolved soon It is an essential service and the public wants some an swers Of this and that Face it repairs must be made at the town hall where brickwork is loose The former village of Crystal Beach wants a divorce from Fort Erie One of the two Crystal Beach representatives on the eight member Fort Erie council says he intends to ask Premier Bill Davis to give them back their old icipal status A note with a subscription renewal from Sudbury comments Enjoy getting the paper though the people I once knew are thinning out Enjoy George s articles on the townhall Keepit Acton I m proud of my home town The years marks the an mversary of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind Today the CNIB provides services for more than 30 000 blind Canadians of all ages and in all walks of life Sup port the CNIB campaign for funds now under way in Acton and dls Does anyone have any old pic tures of events which took place in the town hall There weren many flash pictures taken in the days of concerts there and we have very few on file Pictures loaned to the Free Press are rephotographed and returned We would like to have more pictures to go with the new series of Town Hall Tales A sign outside a little town reads Please drive carefully Our child ren might be disobeying us Senior Citizens week begins June LEGION AND IODE MEMBERS took part in Decoration Day at Cemetery Sunday Legion members came in full uniform Both groups plant flowers at the gravesides of members who have died Other private citizens also came and paid tribute to loved ones brimming grass planting flowers and laying wreaths Sugar and spice Some of Hie most refreshing thoughts about education I read many a day are contained a recent article In the Toronto Star by a new private senior high school In Hog town As he points out our educational system today consists of people blaming other people for the slipping standards of lion The universities point the dirty finger at the high schools the high schools at the elementary schools the elementary schools at the parents Only the bewildered parents don t have anyone to point at All they know is that their educational tax bill goes up every year and their kids don seem to be nuth n Mr would launch holy war against the present sludgy system a war that must be fought or our intellectual spiritual and economic vol He would moke French English and mathematics compulsory subjects Grammar would be an Integral part of any language course The compulsory French would not be for the political reasons now attributed to its study but because we cannot be called educated without the knowledge of a foreign language How right he is I can well remember the days when high schools offered Latin French German Spanish Today Latin has almost disappeared French and German ore hanging on by their toenails and it is a very rare school that offers Spanish And what does that say about our teachers I d be greatly surprised if more than 10 per cent of the teachers in Canada know more than one language The man wants a powerful stimulation in the arts from the federal government He says the soul is undernourished in our schools and the emotions ore not ad dressed He s not far off For too many years there has been the attitude that only a talented few have an ability for the arts Any good teacher or drama music dance and fine arts knows this Is a lot of There can be a spark of artistic fire in the most unlikely lump of a kid He d push this further and have every province establish schools for the artistic elite The system has swung to the extent that it is now the brightest and best wh ted who wither on the vine in frustration and boredom Mr would like to sec a return from mediocrity which is now the back to the excellence which It once But his article Is not all just pie In the sky an airy fairy repetition of what most progressive hove been saying He has some practical suggestions One of them is to cut the provincial governing apparatus in half As he points out a move of the government In Ontario at least merely shifted Its top civil servants Into the newlycreated positions of directors and superintendents Their enormous salaries now come out of the pocket of the local homeowners That argument has a hole In it but he s on the right track He claims that a per cent reduction In administrative jobs would not make the slightest dent in the quality of educa ion And he adds that the wall towall airconditioned palaces of these adminia Ira tors should be rented out to somebody who can afford Ihem Right on baby He suggests that boards of education are more than a nuisance that they have grown into small empires that schools should be run by schools not by a bom outside apparatus 1 11 buy that There so much paperwork Involved that teachers will often give up on a good and valid project rather than wade through It He thinks teachers and principals should be carefully examined before they are hired and should be ruthlessly fired when they don do an excellent Job Fair enough Industry does It Most and principals give it their best shot but they might give a little more If they were less secure Mr Franke would eliminate faculties of education He says the universities should be the Judges of those who have mastered their subject I don agree there are for too Impersonal to know a brilliant academic who would moke a lousy teacher from a less brilliant type who would make a fine one by Bill Smiley But he has a good idea for training teachers After doing away with teachers colleges he would select young teachers from among the best university graduates put them In a school on nominal pay for a year wth half a teaching load This would be an excellent training for the asp ring teachers t cost a fortune and would provide jobs He feels the same about training students for specific industrial Jobs He th industry should train Its own people as they do in Europe Again must agree A first rate apprenticeship system would give Canada the large pool of skilled workers we don have now one of factors that keeps us n the role of hewers of wood and drawers of water He d like to make it a prlv lege to go to school not a duty He doesn say what he d do with all the thousands who don t want to go The man isn the only one crying in the wilderness for an improvement in our sludgy apathetic bureaucratic educa tlonal system But he says it trenchantly and I hope he goes on yelling Two boys were walking home from Sunday School after a lesson about Satan and one said What do you think about all this devil stuff His friend said Well you know how Santa Claus turned out It s probably just your dad Our readers write Writer is concerned I am a long time resident and fanner of Ward Halton Hills and am very concerned and dlstmbed by the at of some members of Halton Hills Council After reading the discussion of Council I heartily agree with the Mayor In his statement saying the roads are a disgrace and they most have deteriorated in the post five years reign of Regional Government One Councillor stated How could you remember the condition of the roads five years ago How could you Anyone who has to travel the roads as we do Instead of on paved or hard topped as the coun and population do in Wards l 3 and you couldnt forget I personally toured he roads in Ward lately and their condition is terrible I also have a complaint concerning the efficiency of our men who work on roads 1 saw four men three trucks and a Hi Ho working to lower a culvert In a road if a manufacturer or a farmer operated in this manner they woujd be broke I maintain If the money and labour were administered wisely Ward could have topped roads Surely we deserve the same quality of roads as the remainder of Hills My second concern Is the rise in municipal taxes since the formation Regional Government The taxes on a farm Including house and bam etc have almost doubled also the taxes on a house on a separated lot have increased by 100 per cent in the last five years in Ward I cannot speak for Words l or 4 but surely even with rising costs this Increase must be due to poor management or by Ideas whether practical or not We cer to Inly do not have any improvements In Word 2 to cause the tax rise I with percentage of our tax dollar set aside for recreation I would also like to see a different type of financial statement issued more explicit and itemlxed account to enable the average taxpayer to understand what his taxes were being used for also feel that it is too much to ask for per cent of the taxes be paid In the first six months Garbage disposal is another concern of mine I would like to suggest a thorough Investigation Into a large incinerator furnace such as Is in operation in Port Colborne This I feel would eliminate pollution of creeks and dumping garbage on the roadside People create garbage and we must be realistic and dispose of it the best practical way Regional government has not proven to be a successful or realistic venture as yet It certainly is an excellent opportunity to build bureaucratic empires and spend money Regional Government was tried in Halton and Wentworth Counties 177 years ago and proved unsuccessful Ralph Denny 2 Acton Free Press Back Issues I 10 years ago Taken from theluae of the Free Press of Wednesday May 20 IMS The Chamber of Commerce shot at commercial experiment a mall proposal fell to the ground with a gentle thud Thurs day night at a special public meeting in the council chambers But the councils second arrow in the bow a recommendation to council for more off street parking hit the bull eye and received the full support of all over present Rev Michael J Bennett will be ordained Into the priesthood at the Cathedral of Christ the King Hamilton this Saturday morning June Rates for township residents using water from the Acton system will be double the combined sewer and water rates paid by residents of town council decided Tuesday night years ago Taken from the Issue of the Free Press of Thursday June 12 1G58 Bruce Andrews 16yearold track and field star from Acton leaves Monday June IS for the British Empire Games in Saskatoon Saskatchewan where he will compete in the one mile event Bruce who started running In 1955 in Acton with the entered his first long race in 1956 when he ran In the three mile road race in and placed out of ap proximately Acton Wolf Cubs made a determined bid to bring cubbing honors back to Acton again this year but the best they could do was to finish fourth among the district cub packs compeUng in the Th rd North Halton District Cubaree last Saturday afternoon in Georgetown park Ken etor of the Acton Bowling Lanes attended the annual con of the Bowling Proprietors of Ontario held In Hamilton recently During the three day business session the future growth and support of Junior bowling in Ontario was discussed On Wednesday morning of this week Corporal Ray Mason of the OPP detach in Acton had a call from an alarmed It lien in the Lakev ew on who reported a large snapping turtle at her back door Corporal Mason arrived at the scene and eventually captured a pounder with his revolver and a shovel 50 years ago Taken from the Issue of the Free Press of Thursday June 1328 Scout news The boys are showing keen teres in the act of the Troop and arc attend in large numbers Last two brothers James and Jack passed successfully the Tenderfoot tests Work has been commenced and the brick and mater Is now on the ground for a new on of considerable size to the plant of in Acton A new dry loft and storage room is being erected over the rolling room splendid periodic regularity the plants of Co and the Acton Tanning Co build additions and the output of their plants here to care for the ever demands for their products Mrs Salt and babe left on Thursday on a trip to her home In England They led from Montreal on Fr day morning on the and w II spend the summer in the former home and visiting friends the Old Land 100 years ago Taken from the Issue of ihe Free Press 1878 Acton has always had the reputation of be a quiet and peaceable Village but is has occasionally been the scene of some s little game The first robbery which has taken place here for some time past took place somelimc during Monday night or Tuesday morning It took place at Mr Hurst a Regent Hall and we must say that It was a rather poor reception to give a new and enterprising businessman who has only been in our Village a little over a month The checker players scooped the Guelph players in Georgetown on Tuesday evening Only nine played on each side Mr who went to Manitoba a few weeks ago with a party of young men has returned lo Acton Not being able to he thought It would be best to return home He says no one should go there with less than Some of the other men ore expected home shortly Monthly Fair today There Is some talk of having our streets watered every day to lay the dust THE ACTON FREE PRESS PHONE 2010 Business end Ed tor Off Copyright 1978