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Editorial Comment Search Is On for Jr. Citizens It distresses us greatly when we hear about the problem of youth today, and the accusations that fly so freely about the trouble that a few delinquents may or may not cause. We recently were visited by a person person who suggested we try to cancel Hallowe'en through editorial condemnations condemnations of the trick-or-treaters. Apparently, this person has experienced experienced a few too many thrown eggs, soaped windows and busted jack-o- lanterns for anyone's liking. However, However, Hallowe'en is still one of the most favored celebrations of the year for children (and dentists) and naturally we wouldn't make an attempt attempt to destroy such a tradition. Still, it is disappointing that vandals vandals do have to ruin the fun. Fortunately, not all kids in the community fit into the ruffian-vandal ruffian-vandal stigma, and are able to shine much brighter than the rest for their efforts in their towns. These kids are special, and we are looking for them to be selected as Ontario Junior Citizens of the Year. Junior Citizens are outstanding young people who have excelled in community service, performed courageous acts or have overcome physical and mental handicaps. Achievers who have acted responsibly, responsibly, displaying maturity far beyond their years. And showing the determination and courage that is a trade mark of the Junior Citizen program. One recipient of the award in 1982 was six-year-old "Hack" Waldon of Thunder Bay, Ontario, who saved a two-year-old girl from drowning in five feet of icy coldwater. Another recipient was recognized recognized for pulling a youngster from the path of an oncoming car. When questioned afterwards, the driver commented that he did not even see the youngster until the rescuer pulled the child to safety. Unfortunately, award winners such as the two above may reduce the number of Junior Citizen nomi nations. Oddly enough, the success of the program could be hurting itself itself as people feel that these acts of heroism are difficult to match. But, acts of heroism are not the only criterion for a Junior Citizen. Many award winners are successfully successfully nominated for their work in the community, church or at school. The executive of the Junior Citizen program is well aware of the responsibility responsibility of these young people and, accordingly, is anxious to congratulate congratulate them for their efforts. Handicapped youngsters also receive receive special recognition for showing showing the determination to overcome their disabilities. Despite facing an economy that is recovering slowly, The Ontario Community Newspapers Association, Association, and CP Air have supported the program with thousands of dollars to honor these young heroes. Both organizations realize the importance importance of the program in making the public aware of youth's contribution contribution to a community, while putting ter rest the accusations that seem to face today's young people. The search is on for a Junior Citizen Citizen in this area, and we need your help to find one. The recipient will receive a Junior Citizen lapel pin, a plaque, $200, and a family picture with the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. If you know of any person between between the age of six and 18, whom you feel is deserving of the award, please call us. We'll look after the rest. m AWARDS I do not object to reading French as well as English on the backs of cereal boxes. Nor do I fly into a rage if I hear foreign accents and languages languages on a Toronto street or subway. subway. But I think we can go too far in our praiseworthy efforts to ensure that Canada is a country which respects respects all cultures. Perhaps you felt the same way when you read news stories last week about the singing of Christmas Christmas carols in public schools. Apparently, Apparently, a government panel investigating investigating racial bias in Canada has been told that Christmas carols may be harmful to children from cultures cultures which do not subscribe to the traditional Christian outlook. I couldn't help but think that if Christmas doesn't fit into our ideal of multi-culturalism, somebody will soon be suggesting that we do away with the season entirely. I'm sure that if carols in schools are not in the spirit of multi-culturalism multi-culturalism then carols played in department department stores and elevators are also objectionable. So are gifts, candy-canes, colored lights and, I presume, Santa Claus. Will Christmas be forced underground? underground? Will we have to partake of Bing Crosby records and plum puddings puddings in our basements, with the lights turned down and the shades drawn? Will the Mendelsohn Choir be busted for illegally performing the Messiah in a public place? And what other celebrations should we strike from the calendar? calendar? Christmas is not likely to be the only holiday which will give offence offence to some portion of the population. population. There's Labor Day. (Offensive, (Offensive, no doubt, to management.) Thanksgiving Day. (It could be objectionable objectionable to native people whose land we appropriated for pumpkin patches and turkey coops. As a quasi-religious holiday, it would also be opposed by non-Christians and atheists.) There's Easter. (As with Christmas, Christmas, it's offensive to non Christians on religious grounds, only more so.) There's Mother's Day, (It discriminates discriminates against children who are separated from their natural mothers through adoption, re-mar- riage, etc.) Father's Day. (See Mother's Day) Canada Day. (It would not appeal to those who favor inter nationalism, since it celebrates the achievments of one nation over those of other countries.) Valentine's Day. (It discriminates against the ugly, the brokenhearted, brokenhearted, the unpopular and all others who will not receive a heart- shaped box of chocolates, or a bundle bundle of flowers every February 14.) Groundhog Day. (No doubt animal animal welfare activists will have something to say about this one.) So there we have it. I do not see how we could devise a single holiday holiday to which some group in our society society could not take exception. But let's not despair. There's no need to re-write the Canadian calendar in order to come up with a series of festive occasions which are so bland that 23 million people could observe them without a peep of protest. I believe there's a solution solution which everyone can live with. Remember those youngsters in the classroom who don't feel comfortable comfortable with Christmas carols? Well, it's my understanding that they don't have to sing them. A student student may be excused from any classroom activity if it conflicts with his religious upbringing. But from what I've seen, school programs programs in the festive season are based on innocuous Christmas symbols such as elves, reindeer, and Santa Claus. None of these should give rise to any major theological controversy. controversy. Moreover, I see nothing wrong with students from other countries and cultural backgrounds discussing discussing their holidays in the classroom and maybe even leading the celebrations celebrations of their special days. For example, as far as I'm concerned concerned there's no harm in a kindergarten kindergarten class learning about and participating in the celebration of Chinese New Year. This kind of exercise may be especially useful in some neighbourhoods where most school kids are not from Anglo Saxon backgrounds. Such actions might even encourage youngsters to respect each other's cultural heritage. heritage. But let's not deny an outlet for the cultural traditions of the English, French, Irish, Scottish, and other nations who were our founders, And to those who would steal the traditional Christmas from the traditional Canadian classroom, I can only say "Bah, Humbug." These are just a few of the students from the Durham Christian Sec- work were to be used towards developing a student lounge. Approxi- ondary School who spent last Thursday afternoon picking apples at mately 150 students took part in the project, the Dragstra orchard on Liberty St. North. Funds raised from their : SUGAR and SPICE It Would Be Heavenly !• What would you like to find, most,! when you go to heaven? Let's as-| sume, for one wild, exhilarated moment, moment, that we're all going to get there. Some people would plump for a meeting with the loved ones. This I can never understand. It's like a fellow fellow who has served a life sentence waiting to be greeted by the warden when he hits the pearly gates. Others, sad souls, would be overjoyed overjoyed if they could "just be happy." Not me. Being happy all the time would be a real drag. I thoroughly enjoy being miserable on this orb, so that when something good happens, happens, my pleasure is intensified. Quite a few, who suffer from physical physical ailments, would be satisfied with peace and comfort. The insomniac insomniac imagines days and nights of solid slumber. The arthritic dreams of being able to scratch his opposite ear without feeling as though his arm was being severed at the shoulder shoulder by a red-hot iron. Flat-chested girls would settle for a mammoth bosom. They forget that none of the rest of us would be interested. Some chaps I know would be perfectly perfectly happy to leave anytime if they could count on a golf course with emerald fairways and velvet greens, 18 holes a day in which they sliced not, nor did they hook, and a good game of poker at the 19th with the bar handy. Many sober citizens I know would be happy in heaven for ever afterwards, afterwards, if they could be guaranteed (and get it in writing) that their wives (or husbands) would be in the other place, permanently. Alcoholics would not only be in heaven, but the seventh of the same name, if their crock ranneth over, perpetually, and somebody else was looking after things. A few millionaires, once they had admitted they couldn't take it with them, would be serene in a place where there were no taxes, no labor movements, no wages to pay, and nobody asking them to donate to something every 12 minutes. My personal fantasy is a simple one. I'd go like a shot if someone would promise me, unconditionally, unconditionally, a dark, swirling trout stream, impregnable to invasion by women, telephones and other nuisances. I can see it now. Swift, deep, crooked, ending in a vast, silent, mysterious beaver pond, loaded with lunkers. I can hear it: the exciting exciting mutter of a small dam just around the bend; the splosh of a startled frog; the sudden, heartstopping heartstopping take-off of a disturbed partridge, partridge, the whack of a beaver tail. However, since my chances of getting getting to heaven are just about as slim as my chances of a personal trout stream if I did get there, I guess I'll settle, on Opening Day, for my old haunt, the Secret Place Where The Big Ones Are. Not a soul knows about it except me. And the 900 noisy characters who have heard about it since last year. Heaven, thou art distant, yet, I would work like heck to get There, if thou could condone A stream for me - and me alone. Black Creek Pioneer Village's Costume Designer All Sewn Up Patricia Gray is a designer of clothes. She's a pretty, auburn-haired young woman with a creamy complexion and the ability to dress nerself to look as sharp as tomorrow. But the clothing she designs is so dated it seems suited to another century. Which it is. As the official costume designer designer at Black Creek Pioneer Village, the pre-Confederation crossroads community operated operated by The Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Conservation Authority, at Jane Street and Steeles Avenue, in northwestern Toronto, Pat is an authority on what is or isn't proper dress for the Village inhabitants - men and women. Having been taught to sew in public school, Pat became interested in the making and designing of clothes and attended attended night school at Seneca College to study pattern draf ting. Later, she enrolled in the Material Arts course at the Ontario College of Art, graduating in 1968. During the summers, while at O.C.A., she was employed by both the National Ballet of Canada and by Malabar's Costumers designing, designing, producing and alter- ReMax Real Estate Sponsors Great Pumpkin Give Away llemax Cornerstone Realty Ltd. celebrated the left are three of the children who benefited from approach of Hallowe'en Saturday with a great the real estate firms pumpkin promotion: James pumpkin give-away in front of the company's of- Moss, Jennifer Moss and Krista Humphrey. / fiees in the Veltri Complex. Shown above from ing costumes. Upon graduation from the College of Art, Ms. Gray joined the staff of The Metropolitan Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority as an interpreter to visitors coming to view the First and Second Strong houses, the two original original structures around which the Village has been created. Pat's abilities as a designer and a seamstress were soon put to work in helping the Village wardrobe mistress and, when that lady relinquished relinquished the job because of ill health, Pat took over. Last year, Pat outfitted 48 women and 42 men on staff with costumes appropriate to the mid-1800's era ana the type of life their work and social position demanded. In other years she has also had as many as two dozen summer student employees to outfit as well as providing costumes for visiting teachers - and some students - to the Dickson Hill School where an earnest attempt is made to have classes sample schoolroom life as it was 100 years ago. With assistance from one summer helper, Pat Gray also provides costumes for the waitresses in the Half Way House Dining Room, neighbouring neighbouring groups marking some historical occasion, special celebrations at banks and stores, and for some of the weddings performed at Black Creek's Fisherville Church, when a period ceremony is requested, Other historic site groups also borrow costumes or call for information regarding regarding sources of materials and authentication of styles, "While there were clothing patterns, buck in the 1800's, they aren't much help to the, seamstress of today who is trying to produce pioneer clothing to-fjilit present-day, bodies, says Patricia, The patterns of yesteryear were often made several to a single sheet of paper. There might be patterns on the sheet for the whole family - men's, women's, and children's clothing. The designs couldn't be cut out, but had to be retraced since the printing overlapped from one item to another. "The biggest problem with the old patterns, however, is that they don't meet the requirements requirements of the modern figure," Pat advises. "For that matter," she says, "the measurements for clothing of even 15 years ago are dramatically dramatically different from those of today, particularly for young people." And so, she has to start from scratch and redesign redesign most items. Essentially, our great grandparents were generally smaller than we are. Women, for the most part, were more petite. Not only have our foods had the effect of making bigger, more robust people, but the infusiotv of ethnic peoples into our population nas also produced figure characteristics of races other than the predominant Anglo- Saxon of the last century. "You'd be surprised at how the blue jeans worn by young people of 15 years ago differ from those of today," declares Pat, "Then, girls had much bigger waists and they were straight up and down. Now they once again have smaller waists and more fulness in busts and hips," Thus far, keeping out-of-date on her job has continued U) be 4. possible#» .the enthusiastic à, young designer ferrets out ' supply sources to maintain the authentic clothing that is the pride of the Village. Just how long before modern substitute materials and equipment will have tti; be accepted m an*' body's guess. " T '