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Orono Wifrkjy Times, Wednesday, February 16. 2000 - 9 Isabelle Challice claims, "I'm all right for the shape I'm in." Mrs. Challice read a poem on aging at the Orono United Church's Lasagna Dinner and Talent Show, Saturday evening, held in the church hall. Proceeds from the evening will go toward the new curtains in the church hall. BASIC BLACK by Arthur Black GIVE US YOUR POOR... Many years ago, when the water was drinkable and no' one had heard of global warming, AIDS, or sun screen, a man took a little boy to Toronto to see the Santa Claud Parade. I don't remember a lot about the parade, but I sure remember my first impressions impressions of the Big City. I (country bumpkin) had never imagined buildings that tall. The downtown streets were like canyons of concrete. Even the sun's' rays didn't •reach the sidewalk. It looked to this young hick that "they'd _ gone about as far as, they could go," I was wrong. I've just come back from a week in downtown downtown Toronto. Any buildings still standing from my first visit fifty years ago, would look like pup tents among the towering pillars of glass and steel in'downtown Hogtown today. My Old Man would never believe it. I had a little trouble with it too. I've been to Toronto lots of times over the years, but I always forget how many suit- and-tie guys there are. How harassed they all seem. And how no one ever quite looks you in the eye. One other thing I noticed: Street people. People camped out on the sidewalk - over steam grates if they were lucky - huddling on pieces of cardboard, filthy blankets and moth-eaten sleeping bags. I started out dropping loonies in the paper cups and upturned ball caps in front of them, but I gave it up after a few blocks. There were too many - and the name is Arthur, not Conrad. People sleeping on the streets. Pretty commonplace in Calcutta or Addis Ababa, I imagine - but on the sidewalks sidewalks of . one of the richest cities in the world? How the hell did THAT happen? I shouldn't have been surprised. surprised. I saw my first street person in another, even richer city about 15 years ago, I was in New York and I was asking the doorman of some fancy hotel how to get to Central Park. He rolled his eyes, raised his arm and pointed. But 1 wasn't listening, listening, ■because just beyond his elegant, • white-gloved hand I saw a man lying on the sidewalk. 1 thought perhaps he'd fallen down; or he was drunk. 1 also wondered if I was hallucinating because I seemed to be the only person vyho noticed. The doorman ignored him and so did the stream of Manhattanites who veered around him without breaking stride, as if he was ■just a large, regrettable mound of doggy-doo. Later, I realized that New York had merely reached Stage Two in the Homeless Phenomenon. First, you get the people living and begging on the streets; then you get the hardening of hearts. Because compassion -- like spare change -- is a limited resource. I noticed last week that the citizens of Toronto have become just as suave as those New Yorkers. 1 saw knots of well-dressed people waiting for taxis, apparently oblivious to a body behind them, sprawled on the pavement. Drunk? Asleep? Dead? Who wants to know? - "Taxi!" The most poignant vignette of my trip? A theatre crowd in black tie and evening gowns, standing outside outside the Princess of Wales Theatre for an intermission break. 1 was close enough to hear the witty, high-spirited chatter and to see that more than a tew. of them had smuggled smuggled their glasses of wine and snifters of brandy out with them. I was also close enough ; to see that smack in the middle middle of the crowd, on the sidewalk, sidewalk, surrounded by: shiny patent leather shoes and très chic high l^eels, sat a guy wrapped in a dirty blue sleeping sleeping bag and holding a piece of cardboard with the word PLEASE scrawled on it. Oh, and the feature that night at the Princess of Wales Theatre? Oliver! You know - the musical about the little kid, starving in a workhouse, who holds up his bowl asking for 'more'? 1 found myself wishing my Old Man could be there with me. He was an open-minded guy - he would have got his mind around the body piercings, piercings, the cell phones, the sixty-storey skyscrapers. He might even have accepted the sight of people living and sleeping on the sidewalks. But nobody giving a damn about it? He never would have believed that. The Community Christmas Feast 1999... was once again a resounding success. With the support of oUr community family, we were able to reach out and touch the hearts* souls, and stomachs of many within our Clarington neighbourhood community. Heartfelt thanks go out to the many individuals and many service organizations and corporate sponsors: Ax & P - King 6l Liberty, Boivmanville Avery-Dennison Canada Inc. Barnoski Farms Ltd. Betty's Pies & Tarts . CAW Local 221 Crossroads Christian ^Assembly Goodyear Canada Inc., Bowmanville Hanes Chicken n Ribs Lakeridge Health Bowmanville - Dietary * Lions Club of Newcastle M & M Meat Shops, Bowmanville New Massey House Restaurant Newcastle BIA ' Newcastle Chamber of Commerce Newcastle Community Hall Board Newcastle Funeral Home NewcastleTGA . Newcastle Seniors Newcastle Turkey Carver s Association Wendy s Hwy 401 Westbound Lane Zellers, Bowmanville We look forward to seeing you at Community Christmas Feast 2000!