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PORT PERRY STAR -- Tues. February 8, 1983 FEAR HRA NR SIAR TU LO ZA TOU I WL LES Ry SRE & 3 ON BS I aR ARES AS TSN SI » ol < Ah ov, a) Nien Ey EN BA 5 { 3 0 IRA a I Bl : a editorial comments i ae ol TR -- ee WE 5 -- a be Whiar 8155 ME, 15 THAT THERE'S STILL OVER 2000 PIECES OF Jui OU] THERE! gs Lame 7 chatterbox by J. Peter Hvidsten SAM'S CASTLE Anyone who owns a pet knows how difficult it is to make arrangments for care of that animal should you go away for a day, week or month. Recently, we were confronted with the dilema of "what to do with Sam" (our dog) after planning a one week vacation. {- Inthe past we have had him boarded out at a ken- nel, which was a disaster for both the kennel operators and our seventy-pound part Lab-Shepherd. We learned from a previous experience that our dog wants no part of being confined to a pen for seven days, as he refused to eat or.let anyone near him during the stay. This left us with only two choices. The first one I was never in favour of from the beginning, but my wife preferred it to leaving him at home. My mother-in-law loves Sam and said that she would keep him for the week. This seemed like a good idea until I remembered that the in-laws have a cat who dislikes dogs, and they live in the city. Can you imagine a 70 Ib. dog who has been used to running in the open fields of the country on the loose in a Scarborough suburb? - This idea was quickly put to rest a couple of weeks later when my wife, Nancy, loaded Sam into her car and headed off to visit her family. Sam had the cat cornered on the top of the furnace, hunched and hissing. It didn't take long for either my mother-in-law or Nancy to realize that Sam was not a city dog. It was then I began constructing Sam's Castle. We have a dog-run at the back of our property which is pro- tected on two sides by a small barn. I lined his dog house with a bale and a half of fresh straw, covered a portion with a large orange tarp and shielded his dog house from the other direction with sheets of plywood. When this was all completed, two large galvanized pais were filled with food and water. Above these flood ghts were suspened to prevent the water from freez- ing and to give Sam a little warmth. J I stepped back from my building project and marvelled at the site. There was no doubt in my mind I would never get a building contract, but I was pleas- ed with the outcome. Sam was protected from every direction, including above. He had a fully insulated dog house that would keep him warm on even the coldest day and his food and water would be prevented from freezing by the flood lights. - There was only one thing lacking. Sam was used to . having someone around so he would probably get lonely. We rectified this situation by persuading a few friends to make frequent visits to make sure Sam was okay. There was Kathy (whose last name we will not use so other dog owners do not indulge upon her) who arrived every evening to let Sam have a run and took him inside for awhile. And there was Nick, Jack and my daughter Jannine who all visited with our mutt dur- ing the week. So you see, Sam probably saw more people during that week than he normally would when we were home. Our thanks to these people for helping us out. HELLISH' AGE A couple of months ago, we received a newspaper from the Fort Saskatchewan Record and there was an interesting poem addressed to the seniors. The poem was either submitted or written by Larry and Mary Siegel, and offers those of us who are not seniors yet an idea of what we're getting into as the years roll by. The poem follows: Old Age Is Hell The body gets stiff, you get cramps in your legs, Corns on your feet as big as hen's eggs. Gas in your stomach, elimination is poor, Take Ex-Lax at night and still not sure. You soak in the tub and your body will swell, It's just like I said 'Old Age Is Hell." The teeth start decaying, eyesight is poor, Hair falling out, all over the floor. Sex life is shot, it's a thing of the past, Don't kid yourself, pal, even that doesn't last. Can't go to parties, don't dance anymore, Just putting it mildly, you're a hell of a bore. Liquor is out, can't take a chance, Bladder is weak, may wet your pants. Nothing to plan for, nothing to expect, Just the mailman with your pension cheque! IN CLOSING You know you're in a small town when: "A politician steps on someone's toes and the whole town says ouch." "You dial a wrong number and talk for 15 minutes anyway." You don't use your turn signal, because everyone knows where you're going anyway." If you can think of anymore quips similar to the above, send or drop them into the Star to my attention and we will use them min a future column. The Noose The city of Toronto is in shock once again with yet another brutal slaying of an innocent person, this one a nine year old girl whose body was found last week stuff- ed in a refrigerator in a shabby rooming house. Itis a heart-wrenching case and one which no doubt will raise the issue of capital punishment in this country. Canada abolished capital punishment several years ago, and in fact there has not been a state execution in this country for more than 20 years when two men were hanged in 1962 in the Don Jail. In the past few years, this country has watched in horror as prison guards in Quebec were brutally killed; police officers were shot in cold blood; young children fell prey to a depraved British Columbian by the name of Olsen; several women in Calgary and Toronto were slain; the list goes on and on. Although it is very easy in these cases for society to demand not only justice, but a measure of vengeance as well, the heart of the capital punishment issue re- mains at the heart, soul and conscience of society itself. There are indications from some surveys and polls that Canadian society wants a return of the death penal- ty, or at very least a return of the option by the state to put to death a person convicted of a crime. This can only be done by an act of the Federal Parliament, and it is an issue that the law-makers of this country should be re-examining once again. Maybe the time has come for Parliament to debate this fundamental issue again and put it to a free-standing vote in the House of Commons where members are not tied to the wish of their respective parties. At the same time, society must examine its own con- science and ask whether there is a place for the noose in Canada. Oil Politics The average Canadian consumer is probably pret- ty pleased to drive into the neighbourhood service sta- tion and see that the price of gas has fallen in the past - week or so. It is kind of nice to top up the tank and get some change from a $20 bill. Most of us will hardly blink an eye at the fact that the oil companies may be taking a bath with all the surplus oil floating around that has to be dumped at low prices. And as for the woes of the OPEC nations who are seeing their markets dry up, well, who cares. After all, wasn't it OPEC who started the whole thing off about ten years ago by increasing the price of crude some 15 fold? Not many of us are going to shed a tear over the major oil companies and the OPEC nations. The politics of oil is a rough business. And it's rough business in human terms for the million or so hapless souls who were booted out of Nigeria last week, given just a few hours notice to pack their meagre possessions and get out of the country any way they could. As is the case, the television cameras were on hand to record the spectacle of human suffering and the newspapers were filled with. photos of Nigerian police keeping the stragglers moving with club and fist. Most of the refugees came from Nigeria's neighbours Ghana, Upper Volta, Chad and Mali, coun- tries which are the poorest of the poor in Africa. When Nigeria, which is a member of OPEC, was flush with the big oil bucks, it recruited people from these countries to take the jobs Nigerians didn't want in the mills, factories and warehouses. They were paid a meagre wage, had no rights or civil liberties and the few extra dollars they were able to send home each month probably kept their families from starving to death. But, when the oil markets began to dry up along with the flow of petro-dollars into Nigeria, the recruits became expandable, a million or more human beings with 24 hours to get out of the country. And what future do they face in their own countries? In a word, dismal. The situation is so bad they might have been better off to stay in Nigeria and take their chances with the authorities. They are the real casualties in the politics of oil. Next week, as the OPEC ministers meet in Geneva to try and settle their own pricing squabble, the plight of the refugees won't even be on the agenda. After all, what's another million refugees in a conti- nent which already has many times that number of homeless, destitute people, slowly starving as the rest of the world tries to sort out its priorities? SA CREAN aby ii a a