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4 SLOW DOWN Do Yourself A Favour If you are a subscriber to a large daily newspaper turn to the back pages some Monday and have a look at the statistics compiled by the Canadian Press on the week-end traffic fatalities. For two reasons you will probably be alarmed at what you read. Firstly, because the list seems to be getting longer and longer each week, and secondly because it seems the majority of Canadians losing thelr lives in traffic accidents are between the ages of 16 and 25. Of course any loss of life from any cause is tragic, but this is heightened somehow when the person Is young in years, or when death is caused through carelessness, ignorance or stupidity in handling a motor vehicle. Over the weekend, four youths from Port Perry were involved in a mishap, that could have reached tragic proportions. Although two suffered injury of a serious nature, it was only a miracle that none was killed. The car in which they were travelling is "nothing more than a grotesque, battered and "twisted hunk of steel. It is reported the car was moving at a very high speed when the accident occurred. What's the fascination, especially it seems among young people, with speed? Why is it that we are building cars and motorcycles and boats and 'snowmobiles and airplanes that go faster and faster all the time? And why is it people feel they must push these machines to the ultimate limit? When some people get behind the wheel of a car they may have a conscious or sub-conscious desire to ""prove" something, either to themselves or to those around them. They may equate the handling of a car at excessive speeds with manliness or courage or honour; or by driving fast they may simply want to attract attention to themselves. Whatever the reasons for speed, not only are the lives and well being of those directly involved endangered, but those of completely innocent parties as well. It seems obvious that the present traffic regulations are not having the desired effect as a deterrent against speeding. A $20, $30 or $50 fine, along with the loss of a couple of points is really nothing more than a slap on the wrists, when one considers the possible dangers involved. Possibly, the fines should be increased, or include a mandatory suspension of driving privileges, the length of the suspension depending on how much over the limit the driver was travelling. There was one report of a judge sentencing a young speeding offender to sit every night for a week in emergency admitting of a large hospital to see for himself what the victims of traffic smashes look like when they are brought in. A picture is often worth a thousand. words, and the sight of broken and mangled bodies can create a lasting: . impression. Think about it when you get behind the wheel of your car, or when you get the urge to "'put it to the mats.'"" And the next time you think you're quite a sensation if you can make your car go 100 miles per hour, remember that there are some people who arent all that impressed with speed, and aren't impressed one bit with those who feel they have to drive fast. _ In fact not only are speeders unimpressive, they're just plain stupid as well. Maybe someone, who has survived a high speed crash might just be: saying the same thing. ni | PORT PERRY STAR Company Limited Sa, En 2 (um): Vo NG 70, "eas pS ~~ Serving Port Perry, Reach, Scugog and R Cartwright Townships P. HVIDSTEN, Publisher - Editor JOHN B. McCLELLAND, Associate Editor } WM. T. HARRISON, J. PETER HVIDSTEN, Plant Manager Advertising Manager Member of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association Member of the Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association Published every Wednesday by the Por! Perry Star Co. Ltd., Port Perry, Ontario "Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash Second Class Mail Registration Number 0265 | Subscription Rates: In Canada $6.00 per year. Elsewhere $7.50 per year. Single Copy 15¢ SS RARRRAR XZ : RAR x 2RTRLS CERRINA GI 3 OTE YS IE Lt) 300 "Tus LTTLE Pr6ey WEN FOR A SEPJEMBER VOJE, THIS LITTLE PIGGY FAOK OCT THIS LITTLE PIGG, HAD SPRING IN MIND, THIS Li7TlE PIGGIE -_. 4 ar f \ aN J . HO Te 50 YEARS AGO Thursday, July 27, 1922 Five thousand black bass was put into Lake Scugog last week from the Dominion Hatcheries, They were put in by Mr. Harran of Caesarea. log tig Mr. H.B. Lints of Linwood OS Peder LB Bay Co., Michigan has ees 08 elnt purchased the te' pro- the 'Avenue and will be moving to town shortly. Mr. Merlin Letcher has added a fine new motor date funeral equipment. Mr. George Collins has sold Mr. William Somer- villes farm on the second conscession of Reach to Mr. Fred Dowson of Oshawa. A rink of bowlers skipped by Mr. D. Carnegie, played a rink of Whitby bowlers and 2 won. Final score 27 - 19. JERR . Mr. and Mrs. Christopher | =a 1 Hodgson opened their home * to Raglan friends and neigh- bours for a farewell party home in Brooklin. 25YEARS AGO Thursday, July 31, 1947 Sugar rationing has been discontinued in the United States but not in Canada as ® yet. : IY The Dairy Calf Club met } for the judging competion at the home of Mr. Lloyd Smith. Mrs. Luther Mitchell of 0 ° 3 (continued on page 7) Thumbing across Europe mostly a great experience BY JOHN B. McCLELLAND A couple of weeks ago, I used some space in this column to relate a personal experience I had last summer at the Running of the Bulls Festival in the Spanish town of Pamplona. I will never forget what happened in Pamplona, and of all the weird and great things that I saw and did in my travels across Europe, I guess 1 consider Pamplona one of the definite highlights. I spent a few months thumbing and bumming my way from Stockholm to the south of Spain, and I'm firmly convinced it is the greatest education I've every had; probably worth more to, me as a human being than three years of college, and withoug a doubt) worth more than all the years I spent in high school. Other than a couple of times when I was really stuck and forced to take a train or a bus, I hitch-hiked the whole way. The greatest advantage to hitch-hiking of course is it gives you an opportunity to meet a wide cross-section of people, and I can assure you I met all kinds. Maybe I was fortunate in that I didn't have any. real bad experiences, other than an elderly Dutchman who was so happy 'to have the opportunity to practice his excellent English, he forgot:he was driving and rammed into the back of a parked car. And then I went 200 hair-raising, white knuckle kilometres in a rattletrap Renault with a Frenchman who talked a stream of half-English, half-French and took both _ hands off the wheel to punctuate every syllable. That man was oblivious to everything, even the loud knocking of my knees. With all the people who stopped to pick me up, I always made an effort to communciate. Almost without exception I found these people to be most interested in Canada and Canadians. With a reasonable fluency in French, and a smattering of German and Spanish, and with most Europeans (especially the younger generation) knowing at least a few words in English, I never really had any language problems, and although conversa- tion at times was rather sketchy, at least some words were spoken, Except once in Sweden when a Finnish gentleman stopped to give me a ride and he spoke not one word of English, French, German or Spanish, and I not a word of Finnish. We did determine however that "the word "cigarette" at least sounds the same in bot} Finnish and English, Hitch-hiking really showed me the good and the bad in people. Once in southern France I was standing on the side of the road in a pouring rain, feeling pretty miserable when a car came almost to a complete stop, a fat woman rolled down the window, made a rude gesture and heaved a bag of orange peelings at me. 1 won't repeat what I said to her but it certainly wasn't in French. Anyway the next car that came by, stopped for me. The driver was a most congenial Frenchman who had once lived in Canada, and he asked me if I would like to have supper with his family. I agreed, and after changing my wet clothes, sat down with him, his wife and his two sons to a table filled with superb French | Prospect opened her home' R 3 LJ perty on Major Street near hearse to his already up-to- § before leaving for their new ® * » cooking. After tlie meal we talked well into the evening * on just about everything under the sun, but mostly world affairs. After rather a bad start with the rain and the orange peelings, it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable days I've ever had. ~~ It was in southern France: that I had another unforgettable experience. I arrived at noon hour in a very small village, and the heat at this time of day was almost unbearable. Traffic through the town was very light and I fugured my chances of a ride were slim. It was a typical French provincial village: several houses, a bake shop, a vegetable and fruit store, one garage with a Michelin sign, and of course a cafe. Hot and thirsty and with no particular desire to get back on the road I went into the cafe and bought a large glass of cold grape wine. The cafe was deserted and I hadn't been in there more than 15 minutes when a figure came through the door that startled me so I thought I must have been dreaming. It was a -Scotsman. (obviously) and he was dressed in battle blouse, kilt, knee-length socks, the whole works, and on his back was a large pack with the word Scotland written on it. He was quite a sight, and in this tiny, sleeping, French village sweltering under a Mediter- - ranean sun, he seemed like something from the back side of the moon. Anyway we got to talking, and he told me he had hitched all over Europe dressed this way, and people were so curious he never waited more than five. minutes for a lift. {le told me when he left Paris, there were quite a few young people lined up waiting for rides, and a woman in a white sports car crossed three lanes of traffic to stop for him. I had to admit that hitch-hiking in a kilt would be a | great: way to get rides, - and I wondered to myself what kind of reaction I might. get'decked out in a Toronto Maple Leaf hockey outfit, or better yet, in a red RCMP dress uniform. The thought both intrigued and amused me. I never did calculate how many miles I thumbed across Europe, but it was considerable. There were moments when I wished I was doing something else (like the time two burly German police told me very bluntly that hitch-hiking on the Autobahn is strictly verboten). - But the enjoyable experiences out- numbered the bad ones by far, and helped me to better understand that no matter where they live or what language they speak, people everywhere are pretty much the same. They have their likes and dislikes,, their prejudices large and small, their fears and their: joys. Personally, the satisfaction was great, and I am immensely thankful I saw a good chunk of the continent this way, rather than from behind a gun, which I guess would have been the case had I been born 20 vears sooner. y