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One Woman's Liew by Chris Carlisle SEND JOEY A LETTER It would-be nice to blame it on the post office. Say it's all their fault, rant and rave, and get things moving. Unfortunately, that's probably not the case. In a hospital bed down in Boston, lies a 14-year-old Orillia boy suffering from burns to 98 percent of his body. He breathes with the help of a machine to enable him to take the higher doses of morphine needed to kill the pain. And regularly, doctors are performing skin grafts, taking skin from the only part of his body that wasn't burnt--the top of his head--and plac- ing it over the extensive burn areas. A graft to cover his stomach didn't completely take and half of it will probably have to be redone. His toes have been amputated because of in- fection and further amputations may be necessary to halt the spread of that infection. He may still be unaware of that problem. . ing there suffering all alone after all. The fire that blew him aflame out of his I've been sick in the hospital thousands of room window was over a month ago but Joey miles from home. It's not only rough being so sick, Philion was able to talk about it only at Easter. but it's lonely when everyone you love is so far Until then, it was just too horrible for him to away. remember. } Joey's friends are so far, they'rein a different When he first asked his mother about it, they country. Not one can come in and lighten his day both cried, and Joey, who is barely able to MOVE with tales of pulling a dilly of an April Fool's joke his lips, whispered that he was sad about it, but op, the teacher or of manipulating his way out of a determination to survive began to grow. cleaning his room or eating all his sister's Easter His mother asked him if, with her help and the candy while she was out. help of everyone who loves him, he could handle the ordeal. He whispered that he could. He has his mother with him at the Shriners Burn Institute and she has had plenty of calls of support from family, friends and well-wishers. And across the room is another burn victim. What that other little boy has that Joey doesn't, are cards and posters of cheer and good wishes letting him know that everyone is pulling for him; thinking of him. Joey has none. Which is why it would be nice to blame it on the post office, have a quick investigation and sud- denly have bags of mail appear at the boy's bedside. But we can't blame it on Canada Post. It's up to us to let him know we're thinking of him. It's up to us to try to cheer him and help with him the courage and strength he's going to need to make it through the months and months of suffering that lie ahead. Think of how nice it is to be remembered on your birthday. It's nice to feel loved--even if you're not sick. And if you've ever been in the hospital yourself, think of how cheering it was to wake up and see that bouquet of flowers from someone who cared. It wasn't so much the flowers as the thought that people were there with you in spirit; that they cared enough about you to take the time to send those flowers. Or the get well card. For just a few minutes--and every time you looked over at the flowers--it was a reminder. It was something to help you along. You weren't ly- wonder about his pals and why he is lying there in such severe pain when he should be out smack- ing a baseball in the park. Norman Cousins wrote that laughter works miracles for the sick. It helps reduce the pain and aids the healing. At the moment, Joey doesn't have a lot to smile about but if his friends and even strangers like you and me were to get in touch, even with a simple store-bought get well card, it might help to lighten his load. The address is: Joey Philion, Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children, Burn Institute, Boston Unit, 51 Blossom St., Boston, Mass. 02114. All Joey can do is look at the ceiling and & Local candidates to file expenses Candidates seeking office in municipal elections this Novem- ber in Ontario will be required to file records of their campaign ex- penses and where the money came from, This is the first time such regulations on municipal election spending have been in effect in Ontario. All candidates will have to file their records with the clerk of the municiaplity within 30 days of the election, which this year is November 14, And the donor, private citizen or corporate, who makes a contri- bution over $100, must be identi- fied in the records filed with the record. Other changes include a limit on election spending by a candi- date, based on the number of eli- gible voters, and any candidate for office who spends in excess of $20,000 must have the financial records audited. Some other changes that will effect the election this November call for an automatic re-count if the difference in the votes between Iwo candidates is less than one- half vote for each polling station. Persons will be able to have a proxy vote for just about any le- gitimate reason; there will be two advanced polls, instead of one, and for the 1991 municipal election, all polling stations must be wheelchair accessible. And this election for the first lime, enumerators will not be go- ing door-to-door to collect infor- mation for voters lists. Notices to residents will be mailed out this spring, and the resident will fill out the info and return it by mail to the Ministry of Revenue, which in turn wii] compile voters lists on behalf of the municipality. rightful owners. so immediately. please act quickly. Lost photos? The Star is in the process of cleaning-out some of its files, and we have located a large number of photo- graphs, which have never been picked-up by their Many of the photos have been in our hands for a long time and were submitted for advertisments, wed- ding write-ups, anniversaries, graduations, etc. would ask anyone wishing to recover their photos to do We will keep all photos for the remainder of April, but will then be disposing of any not picked-up. This will be your last opportunity to get these photos, so We yl 7 by J. Peter Hvidsten Random Jottings THE NUCLEAR AGE My thoughts and ideas about nuclear energy were dramatically changed last week after a tour through the Pickering Generating Station. ic. This is not to say | wasn't impressed with the tour because that would be far from the truth. It's just that for some reason (maybe because of the movie China Syndrome) it expected something more dra- matic than the calm atmosphere in the building. me! lunch, which wasn't tuna salad sandwiches, believe At any rate, we would like to say 'thanks' to Jack Muir, and Linda Emmerson for making our day at the Pickering Generating Station an enjoyable one. (If you want to know more about our trip, read The 'private' tour, which included Star editor John B. McClelland, Larry Emmerson and myself was arranged by Larry's wife Linda, who just hap- pens to be the tour co-ordinator at Pickering. Arriving at Pickering last Wednesday, we were greated with a coffee and a brief movie showing the safety features built into the production of nuclear power, releasing any fears | may have had about go- ing into this massive building. Our tour guide was none other than 'Corporate Relations Officer' Jack Muir, (talk about getting the head hauncho). We spent about two hours with Jack as he walked us through the turbine hall, reac- tor bays, service wings, etc., describing the pro- cess for creating electricity from nuclear power. Perhaps the most impressive thing to the ob- server when you enter the generating station is the massive size of the complex. One corridor, which links reactor units 1-4 with units 5-8 is about 1 kilom- eter long, ceiling heights in the turbine hall and bay are as high as 124 feet from floor to ceiling, and the- wall thicknesses in the reactor buildings are 4 feet of reinforced concrete. (Read story in this issue for more details) All my pre-conceived ideas about 'nuclear plants' vanished following this tour, and | must say | was a little disappointed that it was not more dramat- There was absolutely no tension in the building anywhere. In fact, when we walked into the large control room (four walls completely covered with guages, switches, controls and lights), | was sur- prised to see the technicians milling around and chatting quite casually, glancing at guages periodi- cally. There were no signs of anyone sitting ridgidly in their chair with eyes transfixed on the monitors, ready to jump at a switch and shut-down the system if a problem was to occur. And the reason for this according to our guide Jack, is that the system au- tomatically shuts-down if a problem does occur. The only time we saw anyone dressed in a white pressure suit with a 'space-like' helmet was when we passed by a display which showed a 'dummy' (yes a real dummy) behind plexiglas in a corner. So, aside from the fact it was a very interesting tour, there was nothing exciting happened. Ex- cuse me, that's wrong! At the conclusion of the tour, with Jack heading off to meet some VIP's from Japan who were going through the station on a tour, we had the priviledge of going for lunch with Linda at some 'swanky' spot nearby. Not only was she great company (which she always is), Linda picked up the tab for the John's account in a story elsewhere in this issue of the Star). : PROGRESSIVE TOWN Here we are into April, and already there are a number of projects underway around town that are a good indication that the business people of this community have a lot of confidence in the future of Port Perry. One could not help but notice the massive ex- pansion that has been underway at the IGA since would like to offer our congratulations to Jim Grieve and Alex Ramey, on the terrific job they are doing. There is no doubt, with the IGA spending many hundreds of thousands of dollars in the downtown, can only help encourage others to do the same. Just this past week, the large windows at the Wagg Funeral Home on Queen Street were re- moved and work is underway on a 'new look for the front of the building. Bill Wagg told me last week that they are going to brick in the front similar to other area buildings, put in smaller windows, and then clean the brick so it returns to a natural brick colour. This new look for (Turn to page 8)