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

Yesterday's Memories 60 YEARS AGO Thursday, April 1, 1926 The bucket brigade was called to the residence of Mr. Art Woodley, Prince Albert at 9:30 on Friday morning to a fire in the chimney. The blaze was soon put out and with little damage. Mr. Russell Butson has purchased the James Lakey farm just west of Manchester, and is moving in soon. Co "In the good old days' sliced breakfast bacon, 43 cents lb.: 10 Ibs. granulated sugar, 69 cents; 6 chocolate bars, 25 cents. 35 YEARS AGO Thursday, March 29, 1951 Mr. and Mrs. Roy Cornish and Miss Joblin of Port Perry Public School teaching staff and Messrs. Crane; Gohl and Parkinson of the High School Staff were in Toronto this week attending the Ontario Educational Convention. Blackstock Badminton Club is organized with Harold Kyte, presi- dent and Neil Malcolm, secretary-treasurer. They play every Satur- day in the Recreation Centre and interested are invited to participate. Ralph Larmer, Cartwright was grand prize winner at the annual Bacon Carcass Competition with the Quinte District Seed Fair in Blackstock last week. 25 YEAR AGO Thursday, March 30, 1961 A capacity crowd viewing 'An Easter Parade of Fashions' presented by Maybelle Rabekah Lodge in Port Perry Public School, Tuesday evening. A very beautiful stage dressed in tones of lilac and mauve greeted the public, courtesy Martyn Rennick. The Queen chosen at the annual High School *'At Home' was Ruth Milne and Bonnie Eden was chosen Princess. They were both crowned by last year's Queen, Evelyn Moore. Ricky Ballard was awarded his 13th badge on March 13. This is the highest award given in cubbing. Ricky is the son of Mr. and Mrs. John Ballard and a member of Port Perry Cub Pack. He receiv- ed instructions from leaders Stan Ploughman and Art Fulford. 20 YEARS AGO : Thursday, March 31, 1966 Port Perry Fire Department was called to the home of Mr. Nor- man Powell, corner of Queen and Simcoe Streets, Monday evening. PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, April 1, 1986 -- § Letters "Police officers doing their duty" Dear Sir: In response to the letter by Mr. Jack Owen in the March 25th Port Pury Star, we, as two witnesses who were not interviewed by Mr. Owen feel that it is our right and du- ty to tell what we saw on the night of Saturday, March 15th in front of Emiel's Restaurant at approx- imately 12:30 a.m. With all due respect to Mr. Owen, our opinion of the events which oc- curred that evening differ from his. We feel that his charge of undue police force was totally uncalled for. In our opinion the police officers in- volved were doing their duty to the best of their ability. First of all, there were more than .two youths involved in the distur- bance. There were also two young women and presumably the mother and father of one of the youths in- volved. These four people were shouting obscenities and interfering with the officers who were trying to carry out their appointed duties. It was, we agree, a potentially ex- plosive situation, but if the youths in question had co-operated with the police when asked for their iden- tification, this whole matter could have been avoided. Our police officers are working very hard these days because of all the national media coverage lately and we think if anything they deserve our praise and not our Lastly, we and other people in the community, would like to know how an average citizen of this town can get access to police records and to find out the criminal records of private citizens. . Perhaps if we showed more con- sideration and co-operation towards our police force, incidents like this could be avoided in the future. Sincerely, BE Kim Ross, Scott D. Wallace, Port Perry. Fire Station 2 should have been called Dear Sir: On Friday March 21, 1986 there was a motor vehicle accident on the 7A Highway at the Durham 57 north corner (to Caesarea) before 5 a.m. As it turns out the O.P.P. and Durham Regional Police were on the scene and there was obviously a call placed to the ambulance and the Scugog Fire Department Station No. 1 (in Port Perry) as both were on the scene. Now begins the reason I am writing this letter to you and the public in order to point out the risk to our lives (the people who live in the areas bordered by Scugog Lake to the north: Cartwright boundry to the east; the Island Causeway to the west and south to the railroad tracks) served by Scugog Fire Department Station No. 2 in Caesarea. Instead of calling the Scugog Fire Department Station No. 2 to respond to the previously mentioned acci- dent, Scugog F.D. Station No. 1 in Port Perry was called by police. - Now allowing for this first error, a second was made in that Station No. 1 didn't call Station No. 2 and alert them to the situation and that Sta- tion No. 1 in Port Perry responded OUT OF THEIR AREA! I realize that in response time from when the personal beepers of the firemen go off until they arrive at their fire hall is probably about the same for the two stations but there is obviously a difference in response time from the fire halls to the scene of the accident. What I want to know is why when Port Perry Station received the call, they didn't call the Caesarea Sta- tion, as is the arrangement between the two stations? How can they The fire was confined to the basement and no great damage was made. 10 YEARS AGO Wednesday, March 31, 1976 A rare eight- ender was chalked up by a Blackstock rink at the Ontario Sheep Club Bonspiel in Milton last week. The curlers dream was achieved by Doug Larmer, Colin Asselstine, Paul Larmer and Keith Van Camp. The township's bylaw enforcement officer and building inspec- tor Joe Podres accused council of outright discrimination after he was passed over for the job of Chief Building Inspector when they appointed former councillor Bob Kenny to the position. Winners for best costumes in a 50's Graffiti dance held by the Port Perry Snowmobile Club were: Steve and Janis Whitter, best dressed couple: Gloria Tompkins, best dressed lady: and Larry Willerton, best dressed man. criticism. (Turn to page 6) Letters to the Editor ... our policy It has always been the policy of this newspaper to encourage our readers to make use of the letters to the editor column. Our readers have a right to freely express their opinions and view- points on just about any subject, and we feel that a lively letters column helps make a better community newspaper. We insist, however, that a letter writer sign his or her name. On rare occasions, we will agree to with-hold publication of a letter writer's name, if we feel there are very good reasons to do so. Under no circumstances will this paper print an anonymous letter to the editor. While we enjoy receiving letters from our readers, we must continue to insist on knowing the identity of the writer. BELVEDERE by George Crenshaw 4 2 a CHORE, (RenouaW 'FORGET JAMES BOND! JUST CATCH THE BURGLAR //* COMMENT by J.B. McClelland THOUGHTS ON CURLING I must admit that the sport of curling has never turned me on. It always struck me as a rather dull game played mostly by farmers from Saskatchewan putting in time during the long winter months until spring planting rolls around. That's a total misconception on my part, of course. The sport enjoys enormous popularity in all parts of the country and the devotees come from every walk of life. Still, I have never had any desire to take the game up and in the few games I have tried to watch, I usually found myself nodding off by the sixth end. But that changed this winter, thanks to televi- sion. I found myself sitting in front of the old tube, totally absorbed by the national and international competitions. I especially enjoyed watching Marilyn Darte win the Canadian championship in February. As I write this, her rink from St. Catherines is battl- ing for the world crown and is the odds-on- favourite to win it all. 3 Marilyn Darte is a natural for television sports. To say the least, she is colourful, fiesty, combative, competitive and vocal. She doesn't play the game, she attacks with an aggressive style that almost seems to overwhelm her calmer, more complacent opponents. She is intimidating on the ice. You can see it in her face, in her eyes ~ when the TV cameras follow her shot-making. And this style is obviously successful. I would suggest that a lot of curlers are looking at Marilyn Darte and saying to themselves, that's the kind of game I want to play. I think the lid is about to come off the sport of curling, which to non-curlers like myself, has always seemed so "friendly."" The same kind of thing happened in tennis a few years ago. Tennis had always been a great sport, but it lacked colour, it lacked pizzaz, it lack- ed everything that could give it wide-spread popular appeal. The only people who ever watch- ed tennis, were people who played tennis. Then along came Connors, McEnroe, Everett and Navratilova and bingo, a whole new dimension to the game: anger, tension, aggression. From what I've seen of Marilyn Darte, she could very well be the John McEnroe of curling, and it's precisely this kindof thing that's going to bring followers to the sport, like myself, who have never thrown a curling stone in their lives. I see where Darte and Ed Werenich, a former world and Canadian champion, are going to face each other in a challenge match during the Silver Broom in Toronto this week. Werenich, himself, not exactly lacking in col- our or the combative spirit, is quoted in press reports as saying Darte and her rink don't stand a chance, they'll be blown out of the water. The hype is on and you can bet that when those two meet head-to-head on the ice, the sparks will be flying. But doesn't this 'battle of the sexes" remind you a bit of Bobby Riggs and Billie-Jean King back in the early '70's. That was pure hype and theatre, but it sure attracted a lot of attention to the sport of tennis. Personalities like Marilyn Darte and Ed Werenich are just what curling needed. Purists may say that they are going to change the nature of the game and maybe they are right. I'm not suggesting that I'd like to see Darte throw her broom in anger the way McEnroe or Connors throw tennis rackets. Nor would I like to see curlers badger and shout obscenities at officials the way some tennis players do, but what curling needs is some colour, some tension, even the element of the unpredic- table. Let's face it, if a curler in the Silver Broom threw a temper tantrum on the ice, it would be front-page news in every paper in the country. If top-knotch curling competition can grab the attention of somebody like myself, who knows what the future might hold for the sport: TV rights, mega-bucks, Sports Illustrated, cover stories and so on. I hope the CBC, TSN or some network has the foresight to cever the Darte -Werenich confron- tation. I'll mark it on my calendar as "must- viewing" despite the fact I still don't understand even the basics of And who knows, game may prompt me to join the local club and really find out if I've been dead wrong about curl- ing all these years. | a. a HE HH scl ------ \'%