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a --.-- Canadians are in a real funk. We're grumpy and tense and irritable. If Mother Teresa's orphanage was located in Canada instead of Calcutta we'd hit her with a rent hike and limit the number of occupants that could stay overnight. We don't dare stop and smell the roses because the way our luck's been going we'll inhale a bumble-bee. We're running from fire to fire, from disaster to disaster not knowing whether to bail, post bond or abandon ship. From a distance we look like 26 million Energizer Bunnies after six cups of espresso. And it's not our fault. It's the national media. Certainly, it's the job of newspapers to report the news and yes, the world is not a nice place to live these days but they're only giving us the sad side of the story. The fact is theyre bringing us down by editing out the up side of the news. Example? Last week Prime Minister Brian Mulroney kissed off $145 million that South American countries owed Canada. So the press reports that Brian left a $145 million tip in Rio, but they by William Thomas AND NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS failed to tell us the up side: in return, the South Americans promised to plant trees. Is this great or what? Now your children and your children's children will be able to go to Brazil and Chile and carve their initials in their own Canadian maple trees. They'll be work- ing in nearby Mexico anyway. And just last week the federal con- servative cabinet was on the verge of approving $4.5 billion to build a fleet of Canadian helicopters that are specifi- cally designed to track Soviet submar- ines even though: a} the Cold War is over b} there is no Soviet Union c} all divisions of the ex-Soviet military including the navy are in a state of dis- repair. {If not the state of Iran}. Of course this is idiocy even for a government that takes pride in deals like this, but that's all the press made public. The good news? Minister of Defense Marcel Masse has secretly agreed to a matching fund, giving the Russians $4.5 billion to upgrade their submarines. That way it'll be a fairer fight and we won't come away looking like a bunch of bullies. You see, there's always a silver lin- ing even if it's in the pockets of our politicians. Atypically, the national press gave front page coverage last week to the fact that our east coast fishing industry is pretty much out of business. The Grand Banks have been fished out. But the good news? {You never saw this on Page One}. A couple days later Canada won an international boundary dispute and screwed a couple of French islands out of almost 200 square miles of fishing grounds. I love it when a plan comes together. Are we smart or what? As soon as the Canadian beaver becomes extinct, we're going to revoke all those trapping licenses from Native Indians and put them in our own names. Recently a thing called "goof-off- day" got ugly when 2,500 Toronto secondary students took ferries over to Toronto Island and sort of re-enacted the Civil War using baseball bats and rocks. Eight were arrested, eight were injured and Bob, a ferry employee, who watched 15 to 20 skinheads come aboard with aluminum baseball bats was quoted as saying: "They all had bats -- but no balls or gloves." {In fair- ness Bob was identified in the article as a maintenance worker and not a vision- ary or international futurist). Well that's pretty bad and that's what the papers reported. The good news: Bob has not yet applied to be the next Captain of the Exxon Valdez. I'm sure it was Bob's great Uncle Lorne who as night watchman on the bridge of the Titanic in 1912 was quot- ed as saying: "Ice? Sure I saw ice but I didn't see a bucket so that's when I hol- lered Full Steam Ahead!" The international news is also badly imbalanced. Last week, a major scandal was reported in Jerusalem in which Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir's govern- ment has been ripped off for millions and millions of dollars. The scam involved over 500 Israeli farmers who collaborated with crooked Palestinian contractors in filing phony invoices to the ministry of agriculture in order to obtain grants to build greenhouses. Officials became suspicious when no greenhouses got built. An appalling misuse of the taxpayers money? Of course. But isn't it just a little comforting to know that there's another government in this world that's as inept at handling money as our own? And...and when was the last time we saw Israelis and Palestinians collab- orating on anything? Perhaps the problem in the Mideast is the world has always insisted that Jews and Arabs live in peace. Maybe we should have just asked them to first become partners in crime. You never know: one day they're not building greenhouses together and the next day they're robbing banks and rigging the stock exchange. Pretty soon nobody has time to throw rocks and fire rubber bul- lets. Hey, it's a start. Remember When 2? HISTORIC PHOTOS COURTESY SCUGOG SHORES MUSEUM VILLAGE a Pictured is the Christie home. Many of the pictures featured in the Remember When are supplied by the Scugog Shores Museum Village. The museum will gratefully accept donations of historic photos for its archives. Anyone with donations may call the museum at 985-3589. 45 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 19, 1947 There will be no skating in Port Perry next year as the rink is considered unsafe. The directors have resigned and no further action will be taken unless the residents and shareholders move in the matter. Rev. W. P. Brown died in his home at Port Perry. He had just celebrated his 100th birthday nine days earlier. Mr. and Mrs. Ted Jackson celebrated Silver Anniversary and Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Fralick celebrated their 40th Anniversary. 35 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 20, 1957 The town's water situation is very serious. Miss Dolly Roberts of Manchester is in New York attending the Billy Graham crusade. 30 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 21, 1962 The new Legion Hall in Port Perry was officially opened. Leahy and Lynne MacGregor. their 25 YEARS AGO arena. The local firm of Flamingo Pastries celebrated its 1st anniversary recently. The business employs 53 persons working three shifts and was established Mr. Jack Griffen occupied the pulpit on Sunday morning in Prince Albert Church. PLEASE TURN TO PAGE 8 First class honors in the music exams in their different grades were Susan Roach, Lynne Beare, Gail Cottyn, Bonnie Cawker, Jean Snelgrove, Karen Miss Nola Hunter is attending Heart House in Toronto for a two week lifeguard training course. Thursday, June 22, 1967 Debbie Griffen, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ted Griffen, was crowned Queen at a dance held in the Letters io the editor To the Editor: Open letter to The Interim Waste Authority Ltd. It was with shocked disbelief that I received the news on June 4 that my property was part of a proposed landfill site near Blackstock. Not only be- cause it was my property, but because this particular parcel of land encompasses prime, viable agricultural land, zoned as such, and is almost completely under cultivation and also in- cluded two century homes that can never be replaced. My house has historic archi- tectural value that should be preserved, not only in my life- time, but for future genera- tions. This granite fieldstone farm house was built from the stones that were cleared from the land in order to provide crop lands for the original settlers of the area. It was constructed in 1868 by Scottish stone masons for the Irish immigrant family of Samuel and Sarah Ferguson, whose fifth and sixth genera- tion descendants are still- on nearby lands that would be af- fected by the proposed landfill site. According to the late archi- tect, Napier Simpson Jr., noted authority on historic architec- ture (Pioneer Village, etc.) this land is a classic example of what he called "Ontario Victon- an" - with the 18-24 inch thick stone walls accented over win- dows and doors, the gabled roofs with cathedral windows and the softening effects of gin- gerbread roof trim and shut- ters. There is also a fine example of an early pioneer barn on the property, probably of earlier Shocked by news of dump | vintage than the house. A large number of early Ontario barns have disappeared in the wake of progress. I believe it to be im- portant, historically, that some be maintained. These barns, like nothing else, show the raw skill that farmers displayed in erecting very expansive struc- tures of hand hewn beams and uprights, which were notched, fitted and levered into place with human hands and primi- tive equipment - no nails - yet built to last for many genera- tions. Is this a heritage we should destroy for a dump site? Further of ecological value on my property (even though it is a small part of the whole par- cel)is a large natural spring-fed pond containing marine and bird life such as fish, turtles, frogs, ducks, Great Blue Her- ons, etc., also a part of the stream that flows north into Lake Scugog and wildlife cover for deer, fox, raccoons, other wild animals and many birds. I have put 11 of my 20 acres into a tree farm to encourage wild- life and bird life as well as to re- plenish trees. I also operate an antique business and a bed and break- fast business in my home. For all of the above reasons, I do not feel that, in good faith, I could sign the agreement which would allow access to my prop- erty that may in turn lead to its abolishment for a dump site. A petition against the Black- stock dump site with three pag- es of signatures was signed at the Port Perry Antique and Craft Show. I have another in progress at my antique shop which I will forward at a later Turnto Page 8