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| | "A Family Tradition for 132 Years" I ETTERS Bored teens don't need to resort to drugs To the Editor: I am writing in response to your recent letter "Teens in Port Have Nothing To Do." That may be true; there are days when I do wish for a place to go, but that doesn't mean I resort to excessive loitering, vandalism, or drugs. There are better things to do. Also, I don't think the "in" crowd is an issue here. I am 15, and I know there are many groups at Port Perry High School, but none are more pop- ular than others (I myself have a large group of friends). Whether you are "popular" or not, if you're bored, you're bored. In-the letter it was stated that 65 per cent of teens at Port High smoke pot regularly, and 70 per cent smoke, so a smoke-free environment "is not going to work." I do not smoke (cigarettes or other- wise) and neither do the vast majority of my friends. A place for teens that is not smoke free, or at least has a non-smoking area, would greatly dis- Future brighter for writer To the Editor: through To tell you the and not two for truth, two despite my good . I'll fall and fall far youth for The Port Perry the stairs looked Star!" too steep Those stairs are no and the laughs feat seemed too cheap for a sporty athlete if down I-should but athlete I'm not fall so the award that I when heard was got my call was for writing a to get on the stage lot and take my crisp like a big old hot page - shot that said I was and thanks by the : done way with highschooly for the anxiety fun that day! But wobbly I went In all seriousness, on heels that were thank you so much for lent this most prestigious and deep was my award. I was honored sigh to receive The Port Perry Star Award for creative writing. when safely was I up stairs and back down, I think it is won- without looking a derful that The Port clown Perry Star 'continues and safe in my to support and encour- seat age creative young but my name did minds. repeat! It is doing our com- "What's this?", munity and our world thought I then, a great justice by "Not the stairs doing so. once again! Amanda Lauren My luck must be Robinson courage me from going there. I agree that it would be nice to have a place to go after school or on weekends that could provide us with entertainment, but if that isn't possible, I'm not going to throw a rock through a window or light up a joint. We have a coffee house, and 1 know for a fact that you can sit in there for ridiculous amounts of time nursing a cup of coffee or a soda and no one complains, even during the times when it is at its busiest. And if that isn't your thing, rent a movie (we have about 6,000 places where that's possible) or at the very worst, drag a few friends over to watch TV or listen to music. Crime and drugs are not the only alternative, and a teen centre would most likely not erase the problem. Speaking for the rest of the local teens Misguided moderator To the Editor: The United Church Moderator, the Rev. Bill Phipps, states: "I don't believe He (Jesus) rose from the dead as a scientific fact...It's an irrelevant ques- tion." This 'places the moderator in sharp contrast with one of the early church 'moderators,' the Apostle Paul, who claimed that the resurrection was the sign that Jesus was the Son of God, (and is now the entire basis of the Christian faith). Paul even claims to be one of the eyewitnesses of the res- urrected Jesus. Paul's claims are so outrageous that it is impos- sible to simply dismiss him as a great moral teacher. - Perhaps Paul's claims were wrong but he didn't know it, the claims of a madman who suffered from sort of wish fulfillment hallucination complex which caused him to devote his life to the worship of a dead man. Or perhaps Paul's claims were wrong and he knew it, the claims of a truly evil man who was only interested in the power he could exercise as the leader of a cult devoted to the worship of a dead man. Or perhaps Paul's claims were right and it is the "present moderator who has the problem. One only has so many choices. Scott Pearson, Thornton by Jeff Mitchell REMEMBER DOLLAR BILLS? TAKE A SWIPE AT IT: I'm guessing right now that you, like-me and millions of other Canadians, have grown pretty accustomed to whipping out the ol' bank card to take care of many of your purchases. We use Interac to buy gas, to pay for a bottle of wine, to purchase jeans... everywhere, for just about everything. And according to the Interac people, we're doing it at a feverish pace. A news release that arrived here last week states that Canadians used their cards for one billion purchases in 1997, more than 120 million of them during the busy December shopping season alone. That means that during 1997, bank debit cards were used 32 times per second, or 1,903 times per minute, every hour of every day when it's all averaged out. The next big thing, supposedly, will be a cash card onto which you are able to transfer money, then spend as you will. So soon we'll be cashless, only not in the sense that we used to be; we'll have money, we just won't, you know, have money. ~ Is there anybody out there who, like me, misses cash?. Do you miss one and two dollar bills? Wasn't it great to go to the bank with your paycheque, stand in line for 20 minutes on Friday afternoon, and emerge with a big bundle of bills in your jeans pocket? Ah, well. | also miss rotary dial phones, letters written on real paper and sent in envelopes, and cars you could fix yourself, without a computer. | miss Davey Keon and Little Feat and drive-in movies, too. But time marches on. For better or worse. HAVE AN ICE DAY: Talk about slip-slidin' away... wasn't all that freezing rain last week something else? There were times you'd be driving along, fairly confident of the road surface below you, only to suddenly feel... nothing. It was as if your car was afloat, with nothing whatsoever to find traction on. It keeps you on your toes, to say the least. And while we're on the subject, | have yet to receive a satisfactory answer to my question to the automotive industry, which is: How come you can embed defrosting filaments in our rear windows, but not our windshields? Vision is not a problem, so don't give me that; if so, just make 'em transparent. This is the 90's. If we can send an ATV to Mars to scoop up bits of dirt, surely we can solve this puzzle. Seriously, though, here's hoping our neighbors to the east, who really got belted by this weird winter weather, are on the road to recovery soon, and that their losses are limited. It was a dreadful scene. A al 3 OF