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6- The Oakville Beaver Weekfehd, Saturday March 4, 2006 Commentaiy G u e s t C o lu m n is t The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905 ) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver. is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St, Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright Unauthorized use is prohibited. IAN OLIVER Publisher NEIL OLIVER Associate Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief KELLY MONTAGUE Advertising Director CHARLENE HALL Director o f Distribution TERI CASAS Business Manager MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director RODJERRED Managing Editor Shopping News, Mississauga Business Times, Mississauga News, Napanee Guide, Newmarket/Aurora Era-Banner, Northumberland News, North York Mirror, Oakville Beaver, Oakville Shopping News, Oldtimers Hockey News, Orillia Today, Oshawa/Whitby/Clarington Port Perry This Week, Owen Sound Tribune, Palmerston Observer, Peterborough This Week, Picton County Guide, Richmond Hill/Thornhill/Vaughan Liberal. Scarborough Mirror, Stouffville/Uxtxidge Tribune, Forever Young, City of York Guardian Hair today, gone tomorrow Rod Jerred Oakville Beaver Managing Editor I am losing my hair. By Friday that full head of hair you see on the left will be gone. I will be completely bald. Before anyone starts panicking (not that I think anyone would), I am not going bald due to any illness, but for a good cause. I have accepted a challenge from the management team of Oakville Place to join them on Friday, March 10 for a Lose their Locks fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society. I don't know if I am exactly the right person for this challenge because I'm not sure if I will really miss my hair. If you are going to raise money for a charity, shouldn't you really give up something you will actually miss? Despite being blessed with a full head of thick hair, I have never really paid much attention to it. The '70s were great. You could grow your hair really long -- it helped that I was in my late t^ens and early 20s during this period -- and you looked cool. By the early '80s, however, long unkempt hair meant you were stuck in the '70s and that was definitely not cool. Besides, I was regularly employed then, so I had to subject myself to haircuts. During the mid-'80s I developed a system, which I have stuck with mainly throughout the years -- grow my hair to the point where it bothers me and then cut it short. Strangely enough, as I got older, the length my hair would need to grow to bother me seemed to get shorter with each passing year. The latter part of this system appeals to one of my other character traits -- I am cheap. I figure the fewer haircuts I have to endure throughout the year the more money I save. Truthfully, I have never had a fondness for getting my hair cut. I have always compared sitting in the barber' s chair with sitting in the dentist's chair. As a child, my mother would bribe me into getting a haircut, but giving me $1 to visit the bar ber. In those days a haircut cost 75 cents and my mother would let me keep the quarter to buy a soft drink and comic book. To this day I still retain a fondness for soft drinks and comic books, but unfortunately the same combination with a hair cut costs more than $20. And $20 is pretty well my threshold. Anything over that I consider an extrava gance. Hey, I told you I was cheap. So, the way I look at it, by having my head shaved I get a free haircut (by my pic ture you can tell I was due for one) and it should even take longer before I have to pay up for the next one. To me, it's a win-win situation. On a serious note, however, my family recently lost two of its members to can cer -- A 1 Boucher (lung) and A 1 Wilson (kidney). They were my brothers-in-law and they were good men, both fathers and sadly missed. The seed was first planted when I was approached by Kim LaRonde, marketing director at Oakville Place, to provide publicity for this event. After some thought, I decided to take it a step further this time and throw my head into the ring and sign on as a participant. I do so in honour of my two brothers-in-law -- the two Als. As far as I am concerned, losing my hair for a little while for a good cause, is the very least I can do. Metroland Printing, Publishing & Distributing Ltd., includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise (tews, Banie Advance, Caledon Enterprise, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Burlington Shopping News, City Parent, CollingwootWfeaga Connection, East York Mirror, Erin Advocate/Country Routes, Etobicoke Guardian, Flamborough Review, Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press, Harriston Review, Huronia Business Times, Lindsay This Week, Markham Economist & Sun, Midland/Penetanguishine Mirror, Milton Canadian Champion, Milton RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: A n r tlP Ontario Community Newspapers Association / d T r M V A Canadian Community ^ j r v J N A Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers B S H 3 . J I of America SK THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: Vk&Ut W fc LCOMEfpr ^A G O N tm /fflOabjiXLc/ town o r® , sSs* Sm m Hi V> Hajton Healthcare of Oakville - T h e O a k v ille , M ilt o n | oakville galleries | YMCA o fo a k v m e O N T A R I O Turning 16 in a world that can be potholed and perilous Middle son turned 16 this week. So, we celebrated. Family dinner. The traditional unabashed butchering of Happy Birthday (seriously, we sounded like wounded animals). Gifts. The whole enchilada. Much later that night, as the household sank into silence and everyone but me (the resident insomniac) slept, I thought about my son, about being 16 and about being 16 in today' s crazy, com plex world. My world at 16, you see, was very different. So different, I'm not sure my son could ever appreciate or fully understand my experience or my universe at that age and, I'm quite certain, I can't fully comprehend what his day-to-day existence is truly like. I frequently hear parents bemoaning the fact that their kids oh, hell, all kids in this day and age! - are spoiled rotten (like this is someone else's fault!). I also hear a lot of people my age blathering on about how today's teens have it easy, that their lives are a piece of cake, a proverbial walk in the park, and that these over-indulged youths have virtually everything they want and need (and the way these people talk I get the feeling they are almost wishing a little char acter-building hardship upon their pampered progeny). It' s true, to a point, that today's teens have a cushier existence than teens of previous generations. I repeat: to a point. At 16-years-of-age, my grandfather was living in an orphanage in England, only one year shy Of being shipped off on his own to Canada to forge a new life and to fend for himself, and only two years removed from a muddy, bloody foxhole in Passchendaele, France. At 16, my father was feeling pressure to quit high school and start earning a living, and two years shy of teaching nervous neophytes how to fly fighter planes. No, thank goodness, my son is not in a foxhole, or training fighter pilots, but he is living in a new age with inherent dangers (and temptations) all of its own. He' s a child,of. the Information Age. The so-called information highway runs right into his home, bringing the wonder (and horrors) of the world to his fingertips. And accompanying that ungodly influx of information is a loss of innocence. Sixteen-year-olds today know more, and have seen more, than we ever imagined at that age. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Further, this kid has watched planes crashing into office tow ers. Repeatedly. In slow motion. He' s lived under the threat of ter rorism. He' s been told by teachers that one-quarter of his class mates may be felled by an imminent and unprecedented strike of influenza. Further, he's growing up in an age where it's not unusual for kids to carry knives or pack pistols. Where a sexually transmitted disease could be a death sentence. Where drugs are pervasive and these ain't recreational drugs, they're more powerful and deadly than anything that' s come before. Yes, from a materialistic perspective our kids seem to have it all. But is their existence a piece of cake, a walk in the park? I don't think so. In fact, I look back to when I was 16 and I seri ously believe that my generation had it easier. Safer. Simpler. Definitely more innocent. I see my son at 16 and I feel the swell of pride at how well he has thus far navigated the rocky roads of growing up that each year seem to become more and more fraught with potholes and peril. Happy birthday, Scott. Andy Juniper can be visited at his Web site, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajuntper@strangledeggs.com.