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h PORT PERRY STAR -- Tues. January 29, 1985 -- 5 the PORT PERE STAR CO (MuTED ( I 139 Quin STREET &® CNA °C 80KSC SORT ORY DNTRRIC Of '~C - LEC MIR LB) ( . S------ oy) A J PETER HVIDSTEN Publisher Advertising Manager J.B. McCLELLAND without the written permission of the publishers Member of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association Subscription Rate: In Canada $15.00 per year. of the Port Perry Star Company Limited are protected under copyright and may not be reproduced Cath, I just tell it like it is. Lets face it, John B's mit the one he wrote about his wife being in the hospital and him hav- ing to do all the chatterbox laughs. "1 was just joking," she smirks, no doubt thinking 'What a jerk." So, Beth pours herself some java and the three of us yabber on and on until this little kid swag- gers up to the coffee pot, pours a coffee, grabs a fistful of sugar cubes and proceeds to shovel the sweet stuff into the coffee. Dis-gusting. Within short order, a cashier rushes to the scene of the crime, snatches the kid's wrist and says, in her best John Wayne tough voice, "That'll be enough sugar." The kid glowered, drifted away, and then came back for more when the cashier wasn't looking. Meanwhile, Borelian Ray Nash and someone who looked like his daughter ambled by, shopp- ing cart in hand. Soon after, one of my favourite policenren (who, by the way has never given me a ticket), Steve the cop, came in to do his shopp- ing. Steve Mowat, one of the OPP's Golden Helmets, is a neat guy but he still owes me a coffee. Anyway, I didn't get a chance to say hi to him because by this time we were joined by Roy Walker Smith, the guy who writes all the letters to the Port. Perry Star. - "'I saw you at the Historical Society Meeting the other night," he was saying, "but I didn't realize it was you. I thought you were some There was quite a group of people gathered by the coffee machine by this time, and still no sign of Vern. Gradually everybody drank their coffee and drifted away to do their shopping and Marilyn began to worry about her husband, who was forced to drive from Oshawa to Port Perry in the snowstorm.. About an hour after we poured our first cup of coffee, Vern finally appeared at the scene, a ski jacket over his fire department uniform. "What did you do, go home and get your ski jacket," Marilyn asked, relieved to see her hand- some hubby. We should have been forewarned by the sour look on Vern's face. "I wasn't going to come in here in this monkey suit and you obviously weren't going to come out- side, too busy having a party in here," he growled. Vern was obviously in an ugly mood. While Marilyn assumed he would meet her in the store, Vern assumed she would be outside (in the cold) waiting for him to arrive. : Instead, he was stuck inside the car watching us gossip and giggle with what looked like everyone in town. The moral of the story is, Don't Loiter Around the IGA Coffee Machine. And if you do, make sure you invite Vern. true.ft's more like early old. That one on Route 66 you know, we have the best soup ever and the best home made pies (of which I tell everyone 1 make, God help you if 1 did) not to mention our coffee of course. 1 agree that maybe our cups and maybe even our tables don't match, but we are Toasted Chicken Sand- wich, but he usually gets Sandwiches. Then, of course, there is Peter, one of Durham's finest, whom I told a while back that he looked more like a John to me. Boy, I sure put my foot into that one. Norm has finally learned how to say Du Maurier instead of Des Maurier. Bev tells it like it really is! Editor / d Ontario C Dear Sir: housework and taking morning (very efficient- Apparently she hasn't ditor 37 Ontarig Commun 7) Nowsidper Asin ation I object. I am that so careof thekids was kind ly | might add) and | gained a lousy CATHY ROBE Port Perry Star Co Ltd Port Perry. Ontario called Snarky waitress 3 good. {hope Babi). rai them ine the millimeter since they've News & Features Authorized a dciass mailty the Poston who works at the ow as for our little a ternoon. been married. (God she Rl A dy the Pust Of ice Ridgeview Snack Baron restaurant being dingy, They are really a great makes me sick) only kid- of postage in cash the Ridges and I object. well that was really alow bunch - eg. Charlie who ding Mikie, Oh, bye the wh VAN mM . . , 3 " : \ <8 UNI Secor ines MSA Fag AtrationNuiBer 265 I don't insult people,. blow, Cath. That's not comes everyday for a way Jack C (my dentist) why don't you gas up at our place, 1 gas up at Elsewhere $45.00 per year. Single copy 35* column in Chatterbox just does not compare to it plain. He never com- yours. Last but not least usually does stink, thisone. Oursisnotyour plains, he's just learning is our "Boss" Big Mitch, ¢/ COPYRIGHT -- All layout and composition of advertisements produced by the advertising department although I've got to ad- runof the mill Snack Bar to like plain Chicken who try as we may will never be trained. He never ever closes the door behind him. He's the classic "born in a barn type of guy'. Oh well, you can't win them all, eh? So, Cathy, thats life at the top (of the Ridges that is) and 1 " toy 73 wouldn't change a thing, by Cathy Robb teenager Jaidng Boies ov soinetiing ted toh working on that and we That was nerve- (except Wa the cur. (From a Io, n i S! ro ir what 1 wahse ey rl have at least 6 or 8 cups wracking for awhile but tains). P.S. Don't ask for page 4) ed. for good y Wen recognize you," hea now. that do match. So now he just asks for Pancakes either. "Didn't you see the sign that says NO , 1 Don | neasure, conlitmed 10 vap about there. We also have the smokes. Mike comes in LOITERING AROUND THE COFFEE POT?" ier thing ira m the weather to how 2 yap TOFS best customers who for his daily cup of coffee Yours truly, she says solemnly. eve ' do OI od a come here, too. Doris and tells me about his Tell It Like It Is I 100k around on the walls for the sign and she y p y. takes care of them inthe wife and how slim she is. Bev Silverman Bev Silverman, who toils at the Ridgeview Snack Bar denies strongly that she is 'snarky,' as described in a recent column by Cathy Robb. Bev says she just tells it like it is, and in a letter to the editor this week, she really does tell it like it is. That's Bev in the photo in one of her better moods, pouring coffee for Star editor John B. McClelland, who really can't stand her coffee. But then Bev can't stand John B's columns. Really, Bev, when it comes to coffee, you pour a mean cup, and when it comes to writing letters, you wield a mean pen. bill smiley GOOD START FOR "85 Sorry, chaps, but I've been a bit under the weather lately and have failed in;my long-time boast of never missing a column. Nemisis. Now. that's a strange phrase: "under the weather." No wonder foreigners find English idiom so difficult to master. You can be under the car or under the bed, though I don't know what you'd be doing in either case, but how can you be under the weather? You never hear people, with the possible exception of airline pilots, saying they are "'over the weather." On the other hand, you encounter people who say, "I'm over my cold," but no one who says, 'I'm under mv cold." Oh, well, ce ne fait rien, as we bilingualists sav. That, translated, means, 'this not makes nothing," proving that French idioms are just as silly as English ones. However, taday is one of those rare but glorious winter days. when, after three days of steady snow, and the roaring, growling and clanging of snowplows, the air is like iced champagne, the sun is blazing, there is no wind-chill, and the snow lies deep and white and everywhere. The sky is light blue and cloudless. My spruce in the back. now about sixty feet, seems to leap toward the heavens. with only her lower branches, laden with white. bent to the earth to hold her there. Hey. maybe 1 am still under the weather, which does make sense. But it's the sort of day on which only an idiot would contemplate suicide. Not that 1 know what type of days they do. I'd guess one in November, when there's another long winter looming, or one in February, when it seems that spring is six months away. Got through Christmas pretty well. Managed to erect a tree, by holding it carefully while my neighbour did all the dirty work underneath with the stand. He's an expert. It didn't fall down once and only began to lean a bit after my grandboys had slid under it eleventy- seven times to pull out or push in the plug for the lights. They enjoyed this almost as much as they enjoyed burning half my winter's supply of wood in the fireplace. The latter made me a bit skitzy. Not because of the wood, but because of the way they tended the fire, once lit. They didn't. As soon as it was blazing, they forgot about it, and himself had to lumber out of his armchair and close the firescreen or whatever. Took the whole mob out for Christmas dinner: son, daughter, and two grandboys. I hate to disappoint you, but it was a great success. Last time I tried that, years ago, it was a dismal failure: tough turkey, lumpy tur- nips. cold dining room and half-sloshed waitress. This time, the ideas was to give Kim a break from making the stuffing, doing the stuffing, trussing the bird and interfering with the gravy-making. And Hugh is on a vegetarian kick, another complication. Kim, who had typically forgotten her dress-up clothes, dug up a classic black dress of her mother's along with a couple of gold chains and some earrings. didn't have to lift a finger and put on about two pounds. Hugh, nattily attired in blue jeans and a jacket from Honest Ed's, with a pair of shoes I'd given him, found a vast salad bar and was in heaven. The boys kept run- ning from buffet to salad bar, plate in hand, one way empty, the other way loaded. And all around us was ambience, whatever that is. Soft lights, fires burning, great service, excellent beef and seafood. No dry turkey. No lumpy turnips. No lukewarm gravy. No runny pumpkinpie, but fantastic cakes and tarts. : But the clincher was that it didn't cost me a cent. All IT had to-do was sign a little thing, which will pro- bably be lost in the holiday rush. Sounds idyllic, en? No family fights, no major disasters. Even the TV set worked through the holidays. It usually breaks down when there's nobody to fix it. But my old acquaintance, Nemisis, was lurking in the wings. In my case, it took the form of my garage, an ancient wooden structure that looks like a green, sway-backed horse, if you can visualize that. On the Saturday evening after Christmas, I came home from a brief shopping trip, after dark. Drove in- to the garage, always tricky, because think it was built for a Model-T. Got out to plug in my block heater. Discovered my front wheels were sitting on the cable. Put her in reverse to get off cable. Driver's door swung open. Leaned far left to grab door before it hit side of garage. Simultaneously stabbed right foot at brake. Hit ac- celerator. Still in reverse. Went shooting backward, right across the street, before getting foot on brake. Mangled door of car. Mangled garage. Mangled ego. Good start for 1985. --- nr