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< 4 - Qrono Weekly Times, Wednesday, January 15, 2003 ^ Places I've Done Time by Clifford Francis f Of the 18 recipients of Queen's Golden Jubile Medals awarded by the Province to residents of the Durham Riding, five went to local residents. The medals were presented by MPP John O'Toole at his Levee Sunday at Trillium Trails in Raglan. Pictured left to right are, Jean Rickard, Jim Richards, The Hon. Carl DeFaria, Minister of Citizenship, Brenton Rickard, Bill Calver, Bev Oda, MPP John O'Toole and Constable Rola Kobrosli. The Rooster The other night 1 woke at 3 o'clock in the morning and heard the wolves howling north of the village. Instantly, I thought of 'The Rooster'. When I lived at the ranch, a girl brought down some horses from Port Peny to board at the ranch. She lived next door to a factory that processed poultry. Sometime when the truck brought in the chickens, a few would escape and end up over at her house. No one would bother over a few chickens and she would gather them up and bring them down to the ranch. Most of these chickens weighed four or five pounds and when The Rooster showed up with the hens, I never noticed. He was just a plain little little fellow like the rest except he was a Rooster and the rest where hens. The first oddity I noticed was he kept on growing and got bigger and bigger. The next odd thing about him was when I came home late at night, he would crow in the dark about ten minutes after the lights went out and I was in bed. Sometimes in the mornings when l was in a hurry, he would grab me by the pant leg and hold on with his beak. The first time he grabbed me by the pant leg it scared the wits out of me not knowing what it was. The next odd thing was when I got home from work, he would run down the lane to meet me. By now I was quite attached to him and named him Robinson Crewsoe. I would pick him up and cany him under my arm when he met me at the gate. I learned that if I gently rubbed him under the chin he would stretch his neck up and start to crow. He had a set of jowls on him larger than some of the store keepers in the village at that time. I took him over to the Co-op and had him weighed. He weighed 25 pounds and 2 ounces or just over 11 kilograms. I think if he had a big breakfast and lots to drink he would have topped 26 pounds. Not a bad weight at all. Disaster struck one morning in December. I had fed the livestock and was getting ready for work. I looked out the window window and The Rooster was scratching around in the manure pile getting a few tasty morsels. The next time 1 glanced out the window there was a cloud of feathers and he was being attacked by a big grey wolf. I grabbed the rifle and ran outside but he was dead from a broken neck and Mr. Wolf was on the move. He was too far away to shoot. I gently picked up the dead Rooster and with great sadness got him ready for the roasting pan. 1 vowed to get the wolf at any cost. I phoned the wolf hunters in the area but everyone was busy at something. Finally I got in touch with the Macguire Bros, out of Uxbridge and they offered to hunt the wolf down. It was a terrible day to hunt with a bad snow storm and all, so they said wait for better weather and the hungry wolf to return for more chickens. The tears streamed down my face as I stuffed him with bread crumbs, onions and sage. That Friday night we had one of the best parties ever and even though it hurt to eat the Rooster, it was some of the best chicken I ever ate. The following Tuesday the wolf returned and grabbed a chicken and I was on the phone calling the wolf hunters. They arrived at my place at 9 o'clock with over twenty dogs. They had every breed of hound dog available - Trigs, Walkers, Blue Ticks, Red Bone Hounds as well as other mixtures. They put three dogs on the wolf trail and the hunt began. They trailed the wiley wolf straight north of Mosport and then he cut east and then north of Pontypool. He circled south and went straight down the railroad railroad track to Man vers Station. Somewhere along the track, two of the dogs were hit and killed by a train. Every few miles they would let out a couple couple more dogs and pick up the tired one. From Manvers Station the wolf crossed the 115 Highway and headed through the Ganaraska toward Elizabethville. On the 115 Hwy another dog was hit and killed by a car. The wolf took a wide turn south of Elizabethville and headed northeast of Garden Hill. Another dog was killed on the Regional Road 9. He then headed back east towards Bewdley. It was there that they decided to call off the hunt before the dogs reached Highway 28. The wolf had outrun outrun 16 dogs and caused the death of four. The boys said he deserved to live after a hunt like that. We loaded the dogs and went into Bewdley and stopped at a bar on the waterfront for a couple of drinks and some food. I looked out the window and couldn't believe my eyes. There was the grey wolf sitting out on the ice. I went outside for a better look and walked „ right up to him. He had been sitting there sweating and froze to the ice. I hit him a kick in the arse and he jumped out of his skin. The last I saw of Mr. Wolf, he was headed east across the ice to Roseneath. I picked up his hide and went home. Bowmanville firefighters Continued from front interview. "I feel it's criminal that the unions have the power to make me lose my job, when all I want to do is to help my community." Lee is receiving a lot of pressure from the union and some of the other firefighters, making it hard for him to enjoy his job. "I can't look myself in the mirror if I don't stand up for what's right," Lee said. "(But) the bullying and intimidation tactics have been hard to take." Other firefighters have secretly said the same. "Communities are less safe than a year ago," said Lee. "Firefighters are caving in to union pressure tactics." Six Hamilton firefighters were charged in Oct. 2001, but they cut a deal and had their charges dropped when they resigned from their volunteer volunteer fire departments. Tim Lee is the only firefighter who is still charged and faces losing losing his job because he will not quit his part-time work. The union believes it is acting in the best interest of its members citing issues of health and safety and worker's compensation. "Firefighting is a very dangerous dangerous occupation," said Fred LeBlanc, president of OPFFA, in a phone interview from his home in Kingston. If a firefighter gets hurt or injured it is the union that goes to bat for them. In Toronto last year a firefighter was fighting a fire on a high rise apartment building when he took a break and ended up having a heart attack, and died while on the job. "We had to fight the city for benefits," said LeBlanc. The union finds it harder to fight for their members when they are working as fire fighters fighters elsewhere, because then municipalities can blame injuries or illnesses on their part-time work. "Firefighters are exposed to cancer causing agents more and more members are dying of cancer," explained LeBlanc. "The smaller communities communities generally don't take exposure to toxic substances as seriously. If we are fighting for a member who has cancer the municipality that they work for full-time can say the person was affected in the municipality that they were working part-time in." Also, the union claims that if a person is out fighting a fire all night as a part-timer they may come to work exhausted. "The government recognizes recognizes the impact both physically physically and mentally of fighting fires. The 1997 Fire Protection and Prevention Act states that a firefighter should not be doing firefighting work on their time off," said LeBlanc. Lee says, "Full-time ^ire protection is cheap insurance. In Sault St. Marie a female volunteer firefighter died in a motor vehicle collision while trying to get to a call. The community has fundraisers for her family since she receives no benefits." A Toronto firefighter and resident of Clarington, who accidently witnessed both the car fire on Highway 115 (because he was shopping at the IGA, and ran over to see if anyone was hurt) and the motor vehicle collision on Taunton Rd., said in frustration, frustration, "We have no fire protection protection in Orono! We pay taxes and all we have is garbage collection!" collection!" * & -, , _ «g» £6 Orono Coventry Cttfe fà» r h .. r w Full Menu Jy !< 4 w »e> If? Main Street., Orono, Ontario • 983-9009 9$