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2 The Canadian Statesman Bowmanville. Julv 26 197R Section Two hEeditouril ionmkent Tihe H-ielpful R-laininakers Farmers and gardeners in the jimmediate area who for the past several weeks have been watching their crops and flowers wither from lack of rain should extend a hearty vote of appreciation to merchants in Bowmanville and Oshawa Square Downtown for the welcome rain on Friday morning. Naturally, it wasn't heavy enough to make up for the weeks of drought, but after all, the merchants have to make a living too, and an all day downpour would have ruined what for them was a glorious opportunity to make a welcome buck. They did sacrifice most of Friday's trade after a magnificent turnout on Thursday. All in all, the Sidewalk Sale was uite a good show. A iew wrinkle te Farmers' Market reportedly did well over by the Police-Fire build- ing, and there were rides and games for the children, plus sticky floss candy. So far, we haven't heard how they made out at the Pepsi-Cola van by the Bank of Montreal where discerning contestants were testing their taste buds to see if they could guess which one was the Pepsi. There were bargain basement prices on hot dogs and drinks at McGregor Hardware where there was a long line up throughout the hot Thursday and because of the heat, most of the young and older female patrons were dressed in the coolest and skimpiest garb they èould find, making life Interesting for our photographers. We also are almost cleaned out of scrap paper that had been accumulating since last year. As this is being written on Friday close to noon hour, the outside dis lays are covered with plastic and the customers have almost deserted the sidewalks for inside the stores. Hopefully, now the merchants have done their part in bringing the farmers some rai, it will clear long enough this afternoon and Saturday for the sale to make up for the wet morning. It's odd how every time there's a Sidewalk Sale, it rains at 'some time during the three days. Maybe whenever there's a dry spell such as we've had the Federation of Agriculture should implore merchants to help them out by holding an outdoor sale. We Do Love to Gamble Remember not so many years ago when you could be hauled into court and have your mailing privileges cancelled for buying or selling tickets on the Irish Sweepstakes. Maybe you still can, legally, but now we have so many government sponsored lotteries in Ontario and Canada that we doubt if any judge would convict anyone charged with such an offence. Gambling on lotteries, in the past two or three years, has almost become a national pastime. So much so, that at the moment the federal and provincial governments are scrapping over who should be running them and reaping the tremendous profits. We seem to remember a study that was done several years ago showing that only a small percentage of the money collected went to winners, the rest was eaten up by administrative costs, commissions, etc. Wintario discounted that theory when it was brought in, and proved immensely popular every other week, with citizens who always keep hoping they will be one of the lucky ones. The proceeds from Wintario have Being part of a ratepayers' group must be discouraging at times. Take last week, for example. The Town of Newcastle Ratepayers' Association (TONRA) held a meet- ing in the Bowmanville Police and Fire Building and for a few minutes it looked as though there were hardly enough ratepayers present to make the gathering worthwhile. When everyone at the meeting was counted (including two newspaper reporters) there were an even dozen in attendance. That doesn't seem to be a good showing when you consider the fact that the town has 30,000 inhabitants. It seems as though hot weather and the holiday season combined to cool off enthusiasm for the discus- sion of local politics. Maybe, on the other hand, the population is content or indifferent towards the govern- ment it has. Perhaps we natives just aren't that restless. For some reason or other, the been of great help in providing funds for many worthwhile projects around the province. It has also been able to accumulate so much in surplus funds that the government is having problems keeping politicians from using those funds for such things as health and hospitals where costs are exceeding revenues. Wintario has been so successful that other provincial governments are rapidly entering the lottery field. Even the federal government ap- parently is looking with longing eyes at the prospects of gathering in some sorely needed dough for its many purposes by expanding its lottery activities. We don't know just how much of this the paying people can stand without protesting and refusing to buy tickets, but so far there's no sign of a slow down. Barnum was right, there's a sucker born every minute, and there are still plenty of us around who will fork over a dollar or a fiver to participate in lotteries where our chances of winning are about the same as the proverbial snowball in Hades. But, you never know. ratepayers didn't exactly shatter attendance records last week. A poor showing at this kind of a meeting is unfortunate. If you have something good or bad to say about the school board, the Durham Region or the town council, it might be a good idea to check out the local ratepayers' association. If you have some pet peeve or idea you would like to express to a sympa- thetic group of listeners, then this association is one place where you can get it off your chest. If you drop in at any of the TONRA meetings they'll be glad to see you. The association may not be your "cup of tea" but to anyone who wants to get involved in the political life of the community it's a place to start. And with this being an election year for municipal officials, local politics should become increasingly interesting over the next five months. Canadians, on the whole, are probably the most boring conversa- tionalists in the entire world. I don't say that idly, merely to put backs up. I say it from agonizing personal experience. It's not because we are a dull people, though we are. It's not because we're stupid, because we aren't. It seems to be based rather on a sort of philistinism that labels interesting conversation as a "cissy" pastime, fit only for dilettantes, idealists, Englishmen of a certain background, educated Europeans and other such intellectual trash. Next time you're at a dinner party or any similar gathering, lend an ear. The dialogue will depress you deeply. Perhaps the real fault lies in the fact that we are basically a nation of materialists, and that we have become more and more so with the withering of the churches and the increasing affluence of our society. Our topics of conversation change with the decades, but remain awesomely inane in their content. A few decades ago, men could talk for hours about cars and hockey, while women chattered incessantly about children and recipes. Nowadays, the men talk about real estate and boats, and women go on and on about Women's Lib and the tripabroad they have just taken or are just about to take. And they all say the same thing, or near enough. All of them, especially the men, are absorbed by their vocations, the sadistic cruelty of the revenue department, and their latest acquisition, whether it's a power cruiser or a swimming pool in the backyard. Get a gaggle of editors to- gether and they talk shop, golf, and how much advertising linage they carried last year. Seldom a word about a powerful editorial campaign they are going to launch to halt an evil or promote a good. Dig up a deliberation of doctors, put a glass in each hand and listen to the drivel about the iniquities of medicare, the ingratitude of patients, the penal taxes they pay and the condominium they just bought down south. Not a Best nor a Banting in the bunch. Lawyers are just as bad. They may be a bit more sophisticated than the doctors, but they're just as dull. Dropping hints of inside dope on politics. Obsessed by the possibility of getting a judgeship or at the very least, a Q.C. Criers of the blues about the taxes they pay. A party of politicians is even worse. Jostling for attention, back- slapping everything that is warm and breathing, needling the enemy, seeing everything in black and white. "They're black;. we're white." Joe Clark likes westerns on TV. It figures. The big shoot-out, and let the bodies of bystanders fall where they may. Behind the politicians, but not far, are the civil servants. Empire' builders, defenders of the status quo. Everything in quadruplicate. Everything secret. The public is the enemy. Always go through channels. Keep your nose clean. Don't get a black mark on your record. Dull, dull. Ah, ha! The farmers have been sitting back enjoying this. They're every bit as bad as the rest. It's the government's fault. It's the chain stores' greed. It's the fickle public. It's the weather: too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet; or, if the weather is perfect and the crops are superb, it's taking too much out of the land. Business men are just as culpable of devastating dullness in their conversation. Too many forms to fill out. Lazy clerks. Second-rate work- men. Those dam' shopping plazas on the edge of town. Manufacturers are in the same boat. Wages are too high. Can't get parts, what's the matter with those people? Too much absenteeism on Monday morning. Profit down .03 per cent last year. Can't compete with those lousy foreigners who work for peanuts. Too much government interference. Dentists ditto. They are just as dull as the others, but they commit the crime of asking a particularly dull question when your mouth is so full of junk that all you can do is grunt, and then think you are interested and agreeing with their platitudes, when what you are trying to say is, "Shut up, turkey." As you know, I always save the best to the last. When it comes to dullness supremo in conversation, I have to hand it to the teachers. They go on and on and on about some kid who just won't do his homework, or some meaningless memo from the office, or some student who decided to spend a nice June day in God's great out-of-doors instead of in a dull classroom with a dull teacher. Maybe I've been harsh in this somewhat blanket condemnation. Certainly none of my friends are dull conversationalists. Maybe that's why I have so few friends. Or perhaps my remarks are based on pure envy. I haven't got a condominium in Florida. I have'nt even a row-boat, let alone a cruiser. I have'nt a two-car garage, though I have two cars, eighteen years old between them. That's it. Jealousy. I don't have a swimming pool or a little place - just forty acres, mind you - in the country. My wife is as near to nuts as can be. One kid is a missionary in Paraguay, the other can't get a job. That's why I can't stand around with the doctors and lawyers, etc., and commiserate with them on the fact that the price of steak is going absolutely out of reach of the ordinary professional man making only forty-five thou a year. Letter to the Editor Dear Sir, The chief focus of media and public attention since the release of the Government's Constitutional Amendment Bill has been on the provisions in regard to the Supreme Court and the Senate. However, I believe that citizens should be aware that the Bill proposes revolution- ary changes in the Constitutional Monarchy, changes with are in many ways more important to the average Canadian than any other of the Bill's proposals. The Bill presents a monarchial facade; behind lurks a republican reality which removes the Queen from being part of Parliament and which concentrates power in the hands of the Prime Minister's appointee, the Governor General. The Governor would exercise power in his own right, giving way to the sovereign only when she was present in Canada. Not only is this a gratuitous insult to the Queen, whose labours and interest have been directed so evidently to Canada, but it also would allow for a government to consolidate its own power, without checks or balances, by keeping the Monarch out of Canada. The deceitful danger of the Bill is that it maintains many of the Crown's trappings, while these symbols would in fact stand for altered ideas and a quite different institution. Equally, it would preclude Prince Charles or Prince Andrew from serving as Governor General, it would eliminate reference to the Queen's Canadian Forces and it would abolish the happy status quo whereby both Queen and Governor can exercise their powers fully, within and without Canada. Canadians determined to preserve their institutions should write their provincial and federal legislators to protest the Bill's provisions. A detailed statement outlining its threat to Canadian Consti- tutional Government may be obtained by writing the Monarchist League of Canada, 2 Wedgewood Cresc., Ottawa, Ont. K1B 4B4. Yours sincerely, John L. Aimers, Dominion Chairman Dear Mr. James, Kevin Anderson, 14, of 5 Edsall Ave. Bowmanville is working for us at our resort for the summer. Yesterday afternoon he helped to save the life of one of our customers and we feel that his bravery should be recognized. Our customer was somehow pitched over the side of his powerboat (40 horsepower) and was in the water with no life jacket on and unable to swim. The boat was circling around him at full throttle. My husband, Jerry, and Kevin were in our boat at the dock and noticed the runaway boat and the man in the water. They quickly approached the runaway boat and as it began to almost climb over our boat, Kevin jumped from our boat into it and was thrown back against the gas tanks. He scrambled to the front and gained control of the boat. My husband jumped into the water and rescued the drowning man. I am pleased to say that he is doing fine and very grateful for his narrow escape. Kevin hurt his arm but the doctor assured him that it was only a mild contusion and would bother him for only a day or two. He was back to water-skiing on one ski and even tried the short trick skis today. Other than his sore arm and a restless night, he is fine. I'm sure you will agree with me that what Kevin did was brave and certainly, at risk to himself, he helped to save that man's life. He sure is a hero in our eyes. We think you might like to print this story in your newspaper and perhaps include a picture his parents could provide. Don and Eliza- beth have every reason to be proud of him! By the way, we lived in Bowmanville for eleven years and just moved here three years ago. We miss all our good friends and the great "Statesman." Yours truly, Karen Cockwell Old Timer They Need Your Help Sugar and Spice Boring Talk y