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[so i l ug m 2002 !*fiX Basic Black by Arthur Black NOW I LAY ME. Sleep is the most moronic fraternity in the world, with the heaviest dues and the crudest rituals. Vladimir Nabokov Methinks the author of Lolita doth protest too much. That sounds like something that might have been scribbled down in the early hours of some sleepless night by a grumpy insomniac fed up with counting sheep. Still, he does have a point. Just imagine what a Type A personality could get done if said personality didn't have to render itself unconscious for one third of its lifetime. Assuming that you, like I, hit the sack for about eight hours a night, and assuming that we both make it to our allotted three score and ten - that means that you and I will have spent close to a quarter of a century curled up and comatose comatose in the Land of Nod. Some folks have tried to stuff sleep on the back burner. Napoleon, Edison, Churchill and George Bernard Shaw all got by on less than five hours sleep a night (or so they claimed). Benjamin Franklin swore he slept only two. Einstein on the other hand, liked to rack up ten hours in the sack each night - eleven, if he had a major cogitation day coming up. So how much sleep do we need? The jury is still out. Edison growled "People eat twice too much and sleep twice too long." But Paul Martin (not him - the one who wrote the book Counting Sheep) says "We might live longer and happier lives if we took our beds as seriously as our running shoes." One thing that most experts agree on is that we are all getting getting less sleep than we used to. Blame television, electric lights, Internet surfing, Starbucks or just the sheer hyped-ùp pace of modem life - whatever the cause, there are a lot of folks walking around with unclaimed luggage under their eyeballs. And when it comes to the phenomenon of sleep, that may be just about all we can agree on. Most of our notions about sleep are erroneous. People talk of 'sleeping the night through'. In fact, we get four or five 'sleeps' of about 90 minutes each. People who claim they never dream are wrong. They just don't remember them. And we talk of 'sweet dreams'. In fact, about two-thirds of our dreams are unpleasant. Scientists aren't even precisely precisely sure why we need to do to curl up and pass out once a day. Some argue we sleep to restore the body. Others say we do it to conserve energy. Certain researchers claim the function of sleep is to allow the brain to process the day's experiences and file them away in the memory banks - to help us remember, in other words. Other researchers say the opposite: that sleep is like your computer off-switch. It prevents the brain from becoming over-loaded. As to how much sleep we need - that, too is an open question. The health guides recommend eight hours a night, but there's a 70-year-old woman in England who claims she's never slept more than one hour a night - and no daytime naps either. Researchers hied her off to a sleep lab and monitored the woman for seventy-two hours straight. She stayed awake for the first 56 hours (nearly two and a half days) and then slept for only an hour and a half. The records show the woman awoke refreshed, alert and in good spirits. Well, why not? Sleep is not an absolute biological imperative. Albatrosses can fly for thirty thirty to fifty days without resting. resting. As far as we can tell, whales, antelopes, shrews and giraffes don't sleep at all. On the other hand, if you are of the hairless primate persuasion, persuasion, it would be best if you don't try this at home. Going without sleep doesn't work very well for most humans. In fact, sleep deprivation deprivation is Dirty Trick Number One in every interrogators' Little Black Book. Doctor Bernard Frankel, of the U.S. National Institute of Health says bluntly: "A human being can stay awake for no longer than twelve days without permanent damage." Besides, it feels good. Sam Coleridge wrote "Oh, sleep! It is a gentle thing, beloved from pole to pole". And it's not as if it's a total waste of time. Fleming dreamed up penicillin penicillin while he was asleep. The laws of heredity came to Mendel in his sleep. Einstein discovered the germ of his Law of Relativity during one of his ten-hour timeouts. And Mozart composed The Magic Flute with his eyes wide shut. The way I look at it, sleep is inevitable. So why not lie back and enjoy it? y<$oiw, (j&t IoaL <im¥uL The West Coast (Part i) by Myno Van Dyke A few months ago, our daughter Joanna, decided to do something different. She gave up her good job and decided to "check out" (as she calls it) the West Coast and in particular, Vancouver. As a parent, it is always somewhat disconcerting when your children leave the proverbial nest, but even more so when they decide to venture 5,000 kilometers away. This is compounded somewhat when they go without a job, without a place to live and without a healthy bank account. I guess when you are young and adventurous adventurous those are not immediate concerns. As parents, we supported supported her move. We love the West Coast and have been flying flying out there at least eveiy other year for the last 16 years visiting family and friends. We were married in Saskatchewan and even spent our honeymoon in Vancouver but that was thirty years ago. In late June of this year, Joanna packed all she could physically carry and got on a one-way flight to Vancouver. The extra baggage cost her . an additional $150 and she still had plenty of things stored in our basement. We decided that we should make a road trip out there to see her and deliver her remaining belongings as well as make some visits that were long overdue. Our plan was to purchase a fairly new van but in order to do this we would have to cash in RRSP's or sell our recently acquired El Camino. Neither seemed a good idea so we decided to look for a "cheap" van. When I found out that Mort & Carol Lake of Newcastle were selling their van, I gave Mort a call immediately. "Do Where can !■■■ • find out about getting a job? • search for health information on-line? • learn about starting a business? • find information about climate change? The Government of Canada's Web site has information about these subjects and more It's there for you. 1 800 O-Canada (1 800 622-6232) TTY/TDD: 1 800 465-7735 canada.gc.ca Service Canada Access Centres Canada you think it will make it to The West Coast without any problems?" problems?" I asked him. "Absolutely" he replied with an unquestionable air of confidence confidence in his 9 year old Lumina van with over 260,000 kilometers kilometers on it. So, we purchased the van and loaded it up with our daughter's daughter's few remaining possessions and made the long journey to British Columbia. We crossed over into the United States at Sault Saint Marie and eventually eventually crossed back into Canada at Idaho. We dutifully kept track of our expenses, such as meals and motel receipts. Since we had Joanna's stereo system, television television and VCR, I made certain we had receipts to show we had purchased them in Canada. I also mentioned to my wife, Judy, that as we approach the border a camera takes a photo of the licence plate and then using their computer they can confirm when we entered into the States. We gobbled down several American apples just before arriving at the border, as we knew it was illegal to bring fruit into Canada. And, due to the fairly recent terrorist events, we certainly expected a stem inter- rogation by Canada Customs.: : We crossed back into Canada at the somewhat isolated isolated Rocky Mountain town of Creston, B.C. There were no other vehicles at the small Customs building. I drove up to the window and much to my surprise there was no one there. Then, I noticed a young lady talking on the phone in the center center of the building. She walked over to the window, opened it, put her hand over the phone and asked us one question, "Bring anything back?" I said "no" as I reached over to the dash for our Canadian passports. She replied, "Ok" and shut the sliding window before I could show her our passports and went back to her phone conversation. conversation. I guess it is pretty easy to get into Canada... (end of Parti) Continued from page 5 guides where originally going to be delivered to every household household in the green kitchen waste pails. The guides have to gel out to each household before any part of the new collection program can begin. Now a meeting will be held with the elected officials of the foui participating municipalities, their staff and the Region's Works Department to set out a new game plan said Trim whc attended the Regional Works Department meeting Iasi Wednesday. "You've only goi one opportunity to do it right,' Trim stated.