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Page THE HERALD OUTLOOK Saturday November IB A special day Sunday is Remembrance Day and like countless other Canfl dians I will be attending one of the local services to pay my respects to the war dead I also have another reason for attending Remembrance Day services on a more personal note My father is presently in lie Veterans Hospital in London On tano and has been in residence at the hospital for a number of years He served years as a sional soldier in the British army with the and Sutherland Highlanders a regiment he join ed as a boy soldier when he was 14yearsold At age IS he was serving in the Northwest frontier of India what is now Pakistan and didn return to his native Scotland years later until after the Se cond World War In the intervening years he went through experiences and suffering that would have felled a lesser man He survived and in fact wrote about his life m the British Army and his wartime ex in two books Highland Laddie and The Boat The Boat was published in different languages and excerp ted by Readers Digest in the two volume Greatest Stones of the War issue He survived the retreat through Burma and along with 500 other souls was attempting to escape the onslaught of the Japanese in a steamer out of Sumatra when it was torpedoed Only one lifeboat was salvageable and the survivors of the swarmed in and around The Boat Twenty eight days later the lifeboat beached on an island and my father was the only white man left alive The others ed a Chinese girl and four Jaanese sailors My father was subsequent captured by the Japanese and spent three years in a prisoner of war camp Because of his w wounds he was forced to leave the British and embark on anew albeit late career Colin Gibson He became involved in social work in Scotland and when we emigrated to Canada his initial job was with the Children s Aid Society It was only as he grew older and I in turn grew up that I was able to get him to talk to me about his wartime experiences On a number of occasions the tears would flow as he talked about seeing his friends and com rades die often horribly The tears he shed were for them not for himself and I often broke down and cried with him At times it seemed he blamed himself lor surviving while those around him were dying He talked of the torture he and his comrades suffered the hands of the Japanese but bore no malice against his captors He was a professional soldier they were the enemy He had been captured and was at their mercy My father is in his late now but following the death of my mother a number of years ago I would find him more and more living in the past He would talk of his fallen and his wartime ex periences as if they had just hap pened yesterday not years ago It became increasingly obvious that his harrowing wartime ex had taken their toll He will live out his remaining at the Veterans Hospital in London where he is looked after and finally safe father is another casualty One who survived I shall not forget his sacrifices I love you dad LOST FOR WORDS Bill Smith an ordinary name BUI Smith an ordinary man BUI Smith an ordinary death It was an extraordinary pleasure And a To have known you Bill You will be sadly missed By J B Acton WHAT WOULD YOU DO I am the Native Some may think me taboo But they were me What would they do Greed came with speed They never did care That our lands are our need There was plenty to share Our children have been taken Virtually snapped Condoned by government But were actually kidnapped We had a holocaust here Of our own When all we required Was to be left alone The First Amendment Stripped away from us Talks of freedoms We are not todlscuss This couldnt be true But it is so you see The whole plot Reeks of misery We didnt take care Thought Peoples were fair Until forked tongued We could no longer bear We don t force Our customs on you So if you were me What would you do By Lois Richardson YEARS GONE BY Sit and cry To think theyre in the past Ail hope is gone And in the dawn The memories won t last A lifetime fades The future trades On nightmares out of view With luck sublime A lonely rhyme A rainbow passing thru A lonely start A broken heart Recovery from the pain A reaching out With minds in doubt A bittersweet refrain Brooke Acton Editorial- The Halton Hills HERALD Home Newspaper of Halton Hills Established 1S66 A Division of Canadian Newspaper Company Limited 45 Guelph Street Georgetown Ontario L7G3Z6 K ROBERT Publisher and General Manager 8772201 TORIAL COLIN Managing Edllor ROB SK Sport Editor Stilt 11 and Lisa Hedge OAK TAYLOR MANAGER Craig Teeter Kim DAVE HASTINGS MANAGER ring Will on CLASSIFIED Joan Mannall CIRCULATION Shidboll ACCOUNTING Haplchuk SUBSCRIPTION RATES year all months Ihree months SI year I months SO three month Registered No The Herald claims copyright on all malarial created by employees published In this newspaper Advertising offices Queen St Toronto Ontario IMS Montreal Quebec The advertiser agrees I r shall not be menu beyond the amount paid lot the space actually occupied by portion of the advertisement In which error occurred whether such error Is due to the negligence of Its servants or otherwise end there shall be no liability lor Insertion of any advertisement beyond amount paid for such advertisement INTO RE tab iWiS wimeaiL Healthy people are sick It doesnt happen very often but sometimes the newspaper can cheer you up wonderfully I was flipping through the paper and butting out a cigarette while reaching for another hand ful of Cheezies when I stumbled across the most amazing story about physical fitness Apprently doctors are increas ingly alarmed by the number of fitness buffs who have developed a serious and addic tion to exercise Well There we have it Scien tific confirmation of the belief every couch potato has always secretly cherished Healthy people are sick This news item was even more welcome for the fact that the same issue of the newspaper con tamed a feature article on movie star and fitness guru Jane da stressing that at the age of she still has the physical con of a 25year old There are of course two ways to look at this It all depends on which 25year old you re talking about When I was 25 my was almost as laughable as it is today This I might add is the chief advantage to letting yourself go to seed as early in life as you possibly can If you peak at the age of seven your decline can be gradual and thus graceful But I digress We were discuss ing the fact that an increasing number of fitness buffs are in the clutches of a chronic affliction as powerful and insidious as drug addiction alcoholism or vegetarianism The newspaper stressed the grave physical damage that exerciseaddicts can inflect upon themselves and presented a list of eight warning signs for those who fear they might be addicted Naturally I read this list anx since a fellow can never be too careful Just the other day for instance I caught myself ex claiming Never mind the car I can walk to the corner store for cigarettes And you never know This could be the start of the slippery downfall that leads to the horror of grown men performing aerobic exercises in leotards Mercifully I m not exhibiting any of the warning signs which include scheduling your life around workouts or exercising so much that you lose interest in sex And it always possible lhat at least small minority of fitness buffs do not fall into the dangerously addicted category as well I remember for instance my initial alarm when a former neighbor of mine let s call him Richard since that s his name abandoned a gloriously lifestyle to begin training for a marathon But although Richard began running long distances he never did manage to quit smoking and thus you could often see him loping down the highway with a cigarette in his mouth This I thought was an intngu ing example of the Aristotelian ideal of the WellBalanced Man Arid it seemed a healthily mixed message for Richard to be sen ding to his heart and lungs En joy yourselves but dont get TOO cocky Stilt lets not forget history The original Marathon was run B C by a Greek messenger who dropped dead at the end of the 26 miles So lets keep in mind one crucial point strenuous exercise is meant to kill you Current stan dards of human longevity are largely due to the invention of the bus And thus a burning question presents itself If exercise addic tion is a growing menace whats to be done about if Its clear the surgeon general had better start placing warning signs on jogging shoes And its obviously unconscionable to con selling athletic equipment to children under the age of 18 But our government leaders re main appallingly silent Not a single one of them has had the courage to proclaim a war against racquelball There have been no commercials ing kids not to bow to peer pressure and counselling them to Just Say No to physical educa tion class We re talking about an epidemic gentlemen Right thinking Canadians are waiting for some action And since we care about our health were sitting in front of the TVs while we do so