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--_-- i er "r- er --------------rE I ---- - --n msds sen --------n a TN i ITI cia SO -- on ln lt ten, nS i C--O SC It's being widely reported that the people of Japan are suffering "burn out" and succumbing to stress-related diseases because they work 14-hour days producing expensive electronic gadgets which we Canadians can only afford to purchase by holding down two jobs and logging overtime on weekends. {Boy, are those people screwed up or what)! The Japanese population is also aging and with their children off chas- ing the almighty yen, the older folks are lonely. That's why Nihon Konkasei Honbu {NKH}, a personal service company in Tokyo is offering to rent - not making this up - a "stand-in" family to lone- some Japanese couples to fill the void left by their real family. The fee for these "entertainers" is $1,300 for a half day of company and communication. Can you imagine? What kind of peo- ple would actually rent family members out to strangers for monetary gain!?! Has the devaluation of human life come to this? Did NKH of Tokyo think for one minute they could just run an ad in a newspaper and find "spare" family members that would just pick up and....did they even once consider the feelings of....did anybody not notice by William Thomas BORED? LONELY? RENT MY IMMEDIATE FAMILY the.... Did I mention my mom is living with me now? My brain is a bit addled these days mainly because I havent had a night's sleep since the middle of February so just so we're clear on this -- did I men- tion the fact my mom was living with me in a recent column in this newspa- per or did you see my FREE TO A GOOD HOME ad in the classified section? But seriously we're getting along just great Mary and me. A lot better in fact since I've started eating all the greens on my plate and brushing after every meal. You know, I don't care how old you are, you have no idea how much dirt collects behind your ears until your mom actually shows you that wash cloth. Me, Marg, Malcolm - we're a real family, not some stand-in lease-by-the hour family with easy monthly pay- ments in Japan. And do we have memorable moments or what? Me: "I gotta go to the store and get some litter so I can clean out his box... do we need milk?" Mom: "I just cleaned out the fridge yesterday." Me: "I said the litter box, not the fridge!" Mom: "Well that's a stupid place to keep milk!" When they film my mother's life story it'll star one of the Cordick sisters in a two-part Denny's commercial. Meanwhile Malcolm paces back and forth between the litter box and the fridge not knowing what he should do if an opportunity arises at either location. Lately I've noticed myself virtually shouting during normal conversation. Luckily nobody has noticed since this usually occurs when I'm alone and in the tool shed. Marg who was receiving senior citi- zens discount coupons during the first term of John Diefenbaker has a bit of a hearing problem. Sometimes she can be kind of annoying. No, it's not annoying it's more frustrating than anything else. Actually it's not just frustrat- ing....it's...IT°'S JAPAN FOR THE BOTH OF THEM! I've had it. I mean it. They're as good as gone, they're history, they're rentals and I can do better than $1,300 for a half day. So I phone the NKH company in Tokyo and I get put right through to the president, a Mr. Kaoru Inove and explain the kind of novelty my mother and my cat could add to his rental agen- cy and how I'll pick up the airfare {one way} if he'll pay the freight to send them both back here for Christmas {re- turn tickets} and what do you think the first thing he says to me? You guessed it. He said: "Nankai takoy yomuri ono katubasi." So I hung up on him. I don't speak Japanese. (Boy, are those people screwed up or what!) Which is why I'm excluding the entire Asian Rim from my 1993 market- ing plan and putting my idea to work right here at home. Are you a Little Lonesome? Just the tug of you in that big old house with nobody to talk to? Could you use a little company and Light 'entertainment? Do you: have cash on hand? For Less than $300 a day you could rent - MARGARET AND MALCOLM a con- genial couple of cut-ups known profes- sionally as THE LADY AND THE TRAMP. She does magic tricks! He sleeps through them! They both Love ice cream! Call now. Our operators are standing by. For further details turn to the MUCH MUSIC channel on your tele- vision set. Annie Lexon has taped a pro- motional video for the MARGARET AND MALCOLM rental plan. Really. With Annie singing lead, the group is called The Anthritics. Co Oh yeah and if you call my house and get my answering machine we've worked out a system to handle my calls and those of my mom. If the message is for me say it's for William Thomas and if it's for Marg you could also just say it's for William Thomas because She lis- tens in on the extension. Happy Mother's Day Marg. I love ya. Now could you bring me back one of those Sony watches that's actually a radar detector and spy satellite? nme a AE et ---- SOS ET U-SHAPED Remember When ? HISTORIC PHOTO CO eT a gi Fh sk aa SRY py vm A hana | i a 5 * # RTESY OF GEORGE EMMERSON bh Pictured is the Port Perry High School Girls Basketball team of 1910. Second from the left is Aileen McCaw who married Harold Emmerson, and fourth from the left is Aileen's twin sister Kathleen McCaw who married Morley Honey. We would be pleased to hear from anyone who can Identify the remaining team members. Give us a call at 985-7383. 45 YEARS AGO Thursday, May 8, 1947 More than 200 citizens scoured the highways, investigating barns, sheds and culverts in search of Dr. Beverley N. Smallman was the honored Wayne and John Craig, sons of Mr. and Mrs. A. guest at a dinner tendered by the Port Perry Craig of Manchester. They were found on Athol Business Men at the Sebert House. Mr. J. L. Crane, principal of Port Perry High Road near Claremont not far from the railway, in the early morning having been away from home all School will be the speaker at the annual meeting night. of Reach Federation of Agriculture held in Manchester Hall. Inspector Booth of the Department of Education outlined the possibilities of the formation of a High School area around Port Perry at a meeting in the High School auditorium. 35 YEARS AGO Thursday, May 9, 1967 A daily vocational school is planned for the children from Scugog Pastoral Charge under the leadership of Rev. J. K. Braham. 30 YEARS AGO Thursday, May 10, 1962 Forty Guides from the 1st Port Perry Company journeyed to Oshawa for an educational tour of the Fire Department headquarters. Also this week all Employees of Bell Telephone gathered at the Guides and Brownies helped the IODE with their Scout Hall to honor one of their members Nellie tag day. McGregor who has retired after 42 years of service in Port Perry and district. PLEASE TURN TO PAGE 8 Letters to the editor Responding to biased attacks on Gord Mills Letter to the Editor: In response to Peter Fal- laise's biased attacks on Gord Mills and the New Democratic Government in Ontario let me remind Mr. Fallaise that the provincial deficit would have been $8 billion regardless of which political party had been elected. The deficit was not the result of increased spending by the New Democrats; it was nec- essary just to meet the services introduced by previous Liberal and Conservative governments, and the reduction of provincial revenues caused by the world recession and exacerbated in Canada and Ontario in particu- lar by the Mulroney Conserva- tives with their introduction of the G.S.T., the Free Trade Agreement, artificially high in- terest rates and the high Cana- dian dollar relative to the U.S. currency. Let me remind Mr. Fallaise that it was the Peterson Liber- als that allowed the electorate to believe that there would be a $25 million surplus in the treas- ury when in fact there was a $2 billion deficit at the end of their fiscal year. Why should any fair minded person expect the N.D.P. government to correct in 18 months the financial mess in which this province finds itself in view of the fact that, except for the four years of the George Henry Farm government in the early 1920's Ontario has been governed for 125 years by corpo- rate oriented Liberals and Con- servatives. Would Mr. Fallaise please produce some constructive criti- cism instead of the biased nega- tivism he has displayed in his last two letters. Under the cir- cumstances Gord Mills, Bob Rae and the N.D.P. are doing a good job and it would be much better if people like Mr. Fallaise would get off their backs. Gord Mills in particular has more to do than compose long letters of response to correct misleading information and half truth in- nuendoes that Mr. Fallaise has been publishing. In closing, I would note that Mr. Mills will be accepting apointments for interviews at the Church of the Ascension, 274 North St., Port Perry on Saturday, May 23, and Satur- day, June 27, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Call no charge to 1-800-661-2433 for appoint- ments and information. Yours very truly, Roy Grierson NDP brothels? To the Editor: Another $10 billion in the hole thanks to the NDP, and to save going into greater debt - ca- sinos. I suggest further savings can be made by legalizing broth- els. Rae and his team will pro- vide welfare recipients and the unemployed gambling chips and service (?} vouchers. Fur- ther more these establishments will make use of the empty fac- tories caused by this govern- ment's policies. There is only one problem, you can be sure casinos and brothels run by the NDP would lose money. Sincerely, Colin L. Kemp