The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

'editorial poge Nice Work The Central Seven Association for the Mentally Retarded deserves a pat on the back for its success in setting up a workshop to serve handicapped adults in Scugog, Brock and Uxbridge Townships. The official opening Sunday afternoon at the workshop west of Port Perry was an impressive affair with a couple of hundred invited guests, a host of politicians with words of praise for the workshop ideal and the countless hours of effort by a lot of dedicated people who saw this project through to completion. But the message Sunday afternoon was that while a workshop has been completed and is now in operation, its ultimate success depends to a large part on the kind of support it gets from the community as a whole. With the training and guidance they receive through the workshop programs, many of the handicapped adults who work there will eventually be capable of finding and keeping jobs in the community. It is one thing for the community to accept in principle the idea that the handicapped can live and work within the community at large. Let us hope -that when the time comes, the community will also accept the reality. The Test Scugog's social conscience is also going to be put to a bit of a test in the next week or so, with the arrival here of the first family of Viet Nam refugees. The basic necessities of life-shelter, clothing, food, have been guaranteed by the sponsoring group for a year. But like all refugees, they face more compli- cated problems with language, culture shock, and possible hostility on the part of a few Canadians who don't understand why our government is allowing them into Canada in the first place. The road ahead for this family and others that will be coming to this area is not going to be an easy one. Fortunately, that road will be made a little less arduous by the fact that our society is rich enough materially to give them a new start in life, and there -are some concerned and dedicated citizens who have taken it upon themselves to extend a helping hand. But it mustn't end there. A little civility, a little common sense, some understanding and human kindness will help in making the transition just a little easier. That is where each and every one of us can play a part. "J whsH THEY COULD FIND A SMALL PAYOFF FoR ME!" bill smiley BACK TO WORK Man, it's good to get back to work after a long, hot, wet, cold, dry summer. A good many teachers with a long summer holiday, do something exciting, interesting, or at least constructive. Some go on exotic trips to faraway places, and return to bore you with their experienc- es for the next ten months. Others go the the Stratford Festival, or take a course in potting pottery, or go on a long boat trip in their own boat,or have an , affair, or make fifty gallons of peach wine or grow a beard. Still others build a patio, or tear down a barn, or take a summer course to improve their qualifications, or prepare their courses for the fall term. Or something equally dull. Every year, it's the same thing with me. I make great plans for the summer around the middle of June. Write a book, go the the Yukon or Newfoundland, revisit boyhood haunts, have an affair, grow a beard and long hair, catch a hundred bass, shoot a par round in golf. And this summer, as so often, I accom- plished absolutely zilch. I barely got my weekly column written. I travelled no more than 120 miles from home. I re-visited nothing except the town library. The only affair I've had was with a big cedar chair in my back yard. I'm clean shaven and short haired. I caught one nine-inch bass. I did shoot a par in golf. On one hole. I'll have to admit what my wife suggested every second day all summer, "You're a lazy bum." Well, we're not all perfect. I did get quite a few meals. Peanut butter sandwich and banana for breakfast. Fresh-made sand- wiches from The Oasis for lunch. Chicken pies, fish and chips, turkey dinner, Salsbury steak and gravy, all of them frozen, for dinner. Sometimes, when my menus began to repeat themselves, I'd send out for Chinese food. One night, carried away by some wild primitive instinct, I actually cooked up fresh potatoes, green beans, and a chunk of $2.98 sirloin. But made the mistake of making steak gravy. It came out looking like the inner side of a diaper, and nobody could eat the steak. One other memorable meal was a stew I made. The usual stuff - onions, carrots, meat, a couple of spuds. It tasted a little flat so I hit the spice cupboard and chucked in a few shots of everything but mustard, then squirted in about half a bottle of Worcester- shire sauce. That steak had body and a je ne sais quoi that my old lady tried to figure out for days. Aside from the cooking, there wasn't much to do. For various and sundry reasons, too miscellaneous to list, we wernt able to do any of the things we'd planned. Maybe that's why we wound up with a phone bill nudging the $200 mark. Per month. A sick brother, the colonel, in hospital in Montreal, flown out from James Bay after a collapse. The breakdown of a deal to rent a camper and go visiting. Worrying, and trying to help, as my daughter prepared to head for the other side of James Bay to teach Indian kids music. Five years ago, that girl could hardly write a cheque. Now here she was, arranging all the details of a major move, with two small boys: travel tickets, baggage shipment, getting a piano crated, trying to dispose of a car that won't start, and coping with a hundred other problems. Jolly good for her. And getting through yet another wedding, this time a niece from Edmonton, with my old lady running in circles over gifts, clothes, and all the other garbage connec- ted with weddings. Wanted to see Kim and grandboys off for the north. Did you ever try to get a hotel room in Toronto during the C.N.E.? Travel "agent called twelve hotels, and the only thing she could come up with was a deluxe double, whatever that is, at $76.00 a night. A little rich for the blood, what? A one night stand we could hack, but we wanted it for four. What would you do? I won't tell. So, all in all, the summer was a big, fat bore. Not any help was me with a fat, arthritic foot when my wife was fit, and she with some kind of horrible sore back when my foot was fit. It didn't help that the lawnmower went on the blink, and I flatly refused to take it back to the robber who charged me $55.00 to get it going last time. "Let the dam' grass grow. That way the neighbours won't be able to see that I haven't painted the falling-down porch." Oh, it wasn't a total loss. I had a serious chat with my contractor neighbour about building a back deck to the house to replace the tumbled heap of stones onto which the French windows presently permit access. We may get it done next year. Neighbour's too busy. I called a guy twice to come and do some brickwork. He'd be there for sure. Haven't seen him yet. Water tank in cellar began to leak. $200 for a new one. Sat by the hour, looking at cedar summer furniture, stripped to a grey-white by five years of weather, and studied just how it would look when sanded and stained and varnished. It's too late now to get it done this year. Read three hundred books. Watched three hundred third-run movies. Almost blind from reading. Piles bad from beer. Man, am I glad to be back to work! * &