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6 Oakville Beaver Weekend Sunday August 6, 2000 Editorials B illb o a rd b lig h t Many years ago, the United States was blighted with billboards along its main highways. But after an outcry over their proliferation of the advertising vehicles, a decision was made to limit and then ban them from Interstate high B y la te st count, th ere are ways. 42 application s for O n ta rio h ig h w a y s are s im ila rly devoid of such billboards. billboards on the T ow n' s T he d e c isio n m ean t th a t d riv e rs files a n d th e p o liticia n s would no longer be distracted by atten tion-getting billboards. If you want an w a n t th e p u b lic to gu ide idea of what those days were like, the th eir decision. next time you're caught in traffic grid lock w e stb o u n d on the G a rd in e r Expressway, look to the north and check out the visual pollution. Oakville does have some control over billboards. By latest count, there are 42 applications for billboards on the Town's files and the politicians want the public to guide their decision. To that end, the Town wants to put a refer endum question on the November municipal election ballot concerning a billboard ban. There may be a place for billboards but imagine dozens of them going up in Oakville. What a blight on the landscape. And the new billboards now being used boast a single, massive steel post that can and are placed just about anywhere, including parking lots, comers of buildings and other inap propriate areas. Is there any positive value to billboards for Oakville? We can't think of any, can you? S o m e c e le s tia l th o u g h ts fo r b e tte r w e a th e r Dear God: For a while there, I thought you ·v^ere just having a little fun with us, gi'ven your great sense of humour and the weird w eather w e've been experiencing. But when I heard that w e'd ju st endured the wettest July on record (some 125-plus years), I started thinking that m aybe you were doing more than just goofing on us. Maybe, you were mad about something, and maybe the deluge was some sort of sign. Then, when August rolled in with thunderstorm s stacked up and circling like jets at Pearson International Airport -- and I'm telling you, some of those storms were so loud and blinding, in the midst of them I had flashbacks to the Rush concert and light show that I attended back in 1974 -- well, then I just knew. Something big and bad was up. The morning when I awoke to discover that our swimming pool had overflowed with rain, I scur ried off in search of my old Bill Cosby albums. In specific, I was looking for the album on which you contact Noah and command him to build you an Arc ("God? Who is this really?" Noah asks, "Am I on Candid C am era?" ). Because on that album, the dimen sions of the Arc are noted. Once found, I scurried over to the neigh here, why are we spending money to vacation in South Carolina? As I'm sure you know, we did go south and when we returned, the weather here resembled an artist's rendering of Nuclear Winter. Remember May, God? The rain had me cutting my grass on an hourly basis, least I lose my chil dren in its flourishing depths. To boot, the rain had sporting events being postponed daily even on days it didn't rain, because the fields were under more water than the lost city of Atlantis. Then came June and more of the same. At some point in July, we discarded the six bottles of sunscreen glop w e'd bought to make it through the summer. Back in the good old days of the Cold War, we would have blamed all this meteorological madness on the Soviet Union. More recently, we've been blaming El Nino or Global Warming. This sum m er I 've seen sun w orshipers and people whose livelihoods depend on working outdoors actually begging for a little Global Warming. Alas, in som e areas o f the w orld, the warming continues (like Eastern E urope w here tem p eratu res topped. 40° Celsius for much of the summer). But in our neck of the woods, it was cool and cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms... Now, God, as I begin the ardu ous task o f building an Arc, I think it's only fair to warn you that not only have you taken this whole rain thing too far, but in doing so you've gone and angered the w rong p erson. My w ife. Recently when your rain post poned her horse show, for the second time this summer, well, let's just say she had a few dis paraging things to say about you and your\veather. Trust me, God, you don't want to get on her bad side. Come the next horse show, if you have any sense at all, the grounds will be dry and the sun will be shining... A postcard-per fect summer day. _________ bours to borrow his hammer and nails. And some of his wood, too. The season didn't start off this way, as I'm sure you recall, God. No, back in April, you bestowed upon us a warm spell that gave us false hope. How hot was it back then? Well, I recall saying to my wife that, heck, if it's this warm Plld B y S te v e N e a s e