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4 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, January 19, 1988 Editorial Comments Welcome To Town ~~ Aripple of regret and sadness went through this community last fall when Vachon announced it would be shutting the Flamingo Pastries plant on Simcoe Street, throwing some 100 people out of work, many of whom had started working there for the previous owner and founder of Flamingo Pastries, Ken Jackson. Plant shut-downs in a small community like Port Perry come as a shock. We read about these things happening in Whitby, Toronto or Hamilton, but it hits all the harder when it happens in our backyard. The final phase of production at the plant came to a halt on January 15, but there is some good news to this story. The Vachon plant has been purchased by a Scarborough company, Techstar Plastics Inc., which plans to move its production equipment in mid- February and be in operation by about the first of March. Techstar may not be as large in terms of gross sales and number of employees, but its president Bill Barnes, in an interview last Fri- day with the Star, spoke confidently of future expansions and strong sales of the plastic products made by his company. Mr. Barnes and two others started Techstar ten years ago and the company simply ran out of space at the premises it leases in Scar- borough. Mr. Barnes impressed with his business-like approach and his candid answers to his questions. He noted that it will be quite a change for his company moving from relative anonymity in Scarborough to a small place like Port Perry where the profile of any company is considerably higher. it won't be too long, we are sure, before Techstar will be asked to take an active role in the non-business life of Scugog Township, everything from buying space in a church group's cookbook to sponsoring a minor sports team. In any event, the fact that a new and growing company is set- ting up shop in a soon-to-be vacant plant within our boundaries is good news. We welcome Techstar to the community and wish the company a long and prosperous stay. We are sure Techstar will find the change from Scarborough to Port Perry to its liking and will be pleasantly surprised at "life in the small town." Beyond Belief A small story buried in the back section of a Toronto newspaper last week contains some information that is almost beyond belief. Four years ago, a Winnipeg man was invited into the home of an elderly woman for a cup of tea. The man then beat and stabbed the.lady to death. He was convicted of this murder and sentenced to life in prison. Of course, under Canada's rather peculiar penal system, a life "sentence for murder doesn't really mean life. This man will be eligi- ble for day parole in 199) and full parole in 1994, just ten years after the crime. And chances are this guy will make parole when he comes before the Board in three years. After all, he'll be able to plead that he has a wife and four children to support, and how can he support them when he's languishing behind bars. Two of the four kids have been born since he began serving his life sentence in 1984, thanks to the policy of conjugal visits, which allow spouses to spend a weekend with a prisoner in a private trailer on the prison grounds. It was no accident that the two children were born. The prisoner (Turn to page 6) Port Perry (a A STAR 235 QUEEN STREET - PORT PERRY, ONTARIO Phone 985-7383 P.0.Box90 LOB 1NO J. PETER HVIDSTEN Publisher Advertising Manager Member of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Community Newspaper Association. Published every Tuesday by the Port Perry Star Co. Ltd., Port Perry, Ontario. J.B. MCCLELLAND Editor Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for cash CATHY OLLIFFE payment of postage in cash. News & Features Second Class Mail Registration Number 0265 : (Qi) $" Subscription Rate: In Canada $20.00 per year. Qi ar 11 ss0688 p Elsewhere $60.00 per year. Single Copy 50° | © COPYRIGHT -- All layout and composition of advertisements produced by the adver- tising department of the Port Perry Star Company Limited are protected under copyright and may not be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. NC Chatterbox by Cathy Ollitfe INSTANT FAMILY Never have I appreciated my office so much. It's just so darned quiet in here. Real quiet. Even the telephone rings quietly. My typewriter pecks away as if muffled. Yes, the sunshine is pouring through my win- dow and I am basking in the silent pleasure of this office. I am smiling as I write this. At 3:30 p.m., however, all hell will break loose. That's when I leave this blessed solitude and resume the role of mother of two. For the last week, I have been play-acting as "mom" to two young children, a seven year old and a three year old, while their parents have been vacationing somewhere in the sun. I thought the job would be a cinch. Iam, after all, fairly familiar with kids. I've known them for quite a while, and I thought it would be easy mov- ing into their house for a week and looking after things. And it is easy. To a point. I mean, it's not a difficult job. I just never counted on the energy the task would consume. I never counted on the constant energy of two youngsters, and I didn't realize how noisy a house becomes with two kids and a cat. 1 don't know how mothers do it. I have no idea how they can raise a family, keep a house clean, hold down a job, and manage to make themselves look presentable, all at the same time. I think all mothers who do this should be given a medal, along with a paid-by-the-government two-month annual vacation universe, without the kids. Up until last Friday, I had no idea what a strain looking after a family can be. Now I know. And if I don't know it all, I have a pretty good idea of what it's all about. As the end of the week draws near, I can honestly say I've learned a few things about children. I've gone from being afraid of them, to being comfortable, and here's how I did it: 1.) Straitjackets are good. Even better if ac- companied by gags. No, no, seriously, I've learned about kids by dealing with all the little things that have come along. All the little situations where I previously had absolutely no knowledge. Like the kids section at the video store, for example. On the first Friday night, we figured it might be fun to rent a movie for the children. So for the first time ever, Doug and I found ourselves perus- ing titles so foreign that they might as well have been in Greek. We had no idea what to look for, and the two kids were arguing over a few titles, while the youngest was trying to steal chocolate bars and anywhere in the tossing things on the floor. Eventually, we settl- ed on The Dark Crystal, a puppet movie about a. handsome hero, produced by Jim Henson of Mup- pet fame. We had no sooner put the movie on before the three year old started hiding her eyes and screaming. While it looked harmless to me and Doug, the bad puppet birds looked like monsters to the three year old, who was wildly terrified. We tried to calm her down, saying the pup- pet birds would soon leave the screen, but she was building up to virtual hysterics, and 10 minutes into the movie, Doug was on his way back to the video store to exchange it for gomething else. The guy at the store laughéd his head off, and recommended a cartoon called An American Tail, starring mice. Our youngest charge must have like this one, because she fell asleep shortly after the first credits. Speaking of sleep, bedtime is the worst time of the day for me. It's a long, involved process, a set ritual that cannot be altered. Bathtime is followed by apple juice, followed by two stories, followed by a trip to the bathroom, followed by bed. The light must be left on. The hall light must be left on. The bathroom door must be left open in case of emergency. These are steadfast rules that cannot be broken. Woe to the babysitter who forgets something. And food! I cannot bélieve how much food two youngsters go through in a week. Six large tins of apple juice. Fourteen litres of milk. Three boxes of cereal. Zillions of cookies. And while these items disappear like magic, other food items, anything nutritious, sits around until it rots. They'll peck away at their dinners, I'll put the dishes away, and two minutes later they're saying they're hungry. They want snacks. They want chips. They want and they want. I say, "You just ate dinner. How can you be hungry?"' They say, "I am hungry." I say, "You said you were full, just a few minutes ago." They say, 'I was, but now I'm hungry." I offer them some dinner leftovers. They say, "No thanks, I'm not hungry." As soon as my back is turned, the cookies have disappeared. The youngest is picking the marshmallows out of the Rice Krispies with Mar- shmallows. There are craters in the homemade chocolate cake. Crumbs are everywhere. I clean up. I am always cleaning up. Living with children is not like living alone, where you can leave the dishes overnight and it doesn't mat- ter, With kids, you have to constantly keep on top (Turn to page 8) HAR RT HRS oe