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"Scugog"s Community Newspaper of Choice" PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, March 21, 2000 - 7 Question of the Week... | Do you think Prime | Minister Jean Michelle McCullough Chreti h | think he should step retien should down because he's seek a third term in an idiot. office, or step down? Gary Carter It's time he stepped down. It's time for someone new to step in there. Dianne Wilding He should go for a third term. The econ- omy"s the best it's been in a while and things have been going quite well since he's been in power. Herman Robberts Jennifer Edwards He should step down | think he should go now. We need to get (for a third term). someone with new He's done a good job thoughts and ideas in so far. there. Letter to the Editor This PARTY delivered a message To the Editor: On Feb. 25 Port Perry High School P.A.I.D. Program (Port Against Impaired Driving) and other students trav- eled to Sunnybrook Hospital (Trauma Unit) to participate in their PA.R.T.Y. Program. Prevent Alcohol And Related Trauma in Youth is a pro- gram designed to educate students about the serious | nature of drinking and driving and other related issues. About 13 years ago students from Port Perry were inter- ested about this particular subject and so with connections i with Sunnybrook, the PA.R. TY. Program was started and has been growing strong ever since. Twice a week about 30 students from all over Ontario travel to Sunnybrook and meet professionals and victims of accidents and | really get a good look at the inside story of injury and | trauma related problems, some, often as a direct result of | drinking. Our group felt special as pictures were taken all day of them for new documentation and programming by the | hospital. The Port Perry students visited with patients and professionals, and learned about head, neck and ! spinal cord injuries. They stood in the trauma room and were shown the equipment, how it worked and would be used in a real life trauma. The students would like to thank Joanne Banfield, co- ordinator at SBTU, and the staff at Sunnybrook and Lyndhurst for the incredible day. Thanks also to Mrs. Pashley for supervising and arrang- ing the trip and Mrs. Hudgins, Mr. Steel, and Mrs. Blight for supervising the day. Cassie Snider and Erin Geary Every now and again, you know, you find yourself standing on Hallowed Ground, and the experience can blow your mind. » = This thought occurred to me last night, in the kitchen, while | was preparing din- ner. | had some Allman Brothers playing, and between chopping green peppers and marinating strips of beef, was wailing out large on air guitar, trading licks with Brother Duane. It put me in mind of the afférnoon a couple of summers ago when | found myself stricken at the sight of Duane Allman's 1957 gold top Gibson Les Paul; it sat there in Cleveland's spectacular Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, on a stand beside Dickie Betts' Gibson, behind one of those velvet ropes that declares a Display of Some Significance. There was nothing else in the display; no photos, no drum kits covered with fur, as in the ZZ Top tribute next door... just those two beautiful guitars, and a note about their illustrious ownership: Enough said. | was thunderstruck. Speechless. Breathless. Inexplicably, | began to weep. 'When my wife came to join me, | indicated the guitar with a quivering finger, and spoke in a whis- per: "Look... at... that... have you ever seen... any- thing... so beautiful? "It's the guitar he played," | rasped. "Whipping Post. In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed. Drunken Hearted Boy... maybe even Born To Be Wild, with Page Seven AND, SOME FOLKS POLKA by Jeff Mitchell Otis Rush..." . Of course, expressing one's personal devotion to a certain musician or style is like trying to explain a fanatical love of baseball to someone from Togo. How do you describe the way your spirit soars with the Saturday afternoon operas on the CBC, when to the person with whom you're speaking, it's merely some fat guy yelling over an orchestra? How to discuss the nuances of Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderly trading phrases with someone who finds jazz... boring? ...And how to explain the Guns & Roses and Frank Zappa records among the Blue Note classics? So it goes. I've found that putting on Ella and Louis will invariably send a teeny-bopper screaming from the room, and, conversely, that Britney Spears sounds a lot liké The Archies, only more irritating, and quite a bit more lascivious. | think the Backstreet Boys, 'N Synch and all the rest of them are sissies. But it doesn't matter what | think. Bryan Adams winning a Juno for best male artist? Sure. Fine. Whatever. You like polka tunes? More power to you. I'll even abide with my wife putting on James Taylor, for a little while. As long as | can listen to Jimmy Buffett on a dark winter's night, maybe even mix up some Boat Drinks to help chase away the blues... And on occasion turn it up and listen to Duane Allman, the best there ever was. Random Jottings by J. Peter Hvidsten THE QUEST FOR KNOWLEDGE In my ongoing quest to gather pieces of this township's history together, it never fails to amaze me how much information from by-gone days is still available, if you dig long and hard enough. Recently, while speaking to a group of seniors at The Villa in Port Perry, | chatted with a few of our elder citi- zens who are always eager to share their memories of the area. One well known lady, Mrs. Hazel Wallace, even made a trip down to The Star office a couple of days later with her niece, to provide me with some informa- tion | had been researching. But this past week was an extremely exciting one for me, as | had a chance to talk with two women whose families made Scugog and area their second homes many years ago. The first call came from a Mrs. Hampson, whose grandfather was instrumental in acquiring all of the marshland south of the Port Perry/Scugog causeway and north of the Cartwright causeway. | had a delightful talk with her about the property, and in particular how the canals were built and are kept clear, and about the local men who have performed caretaking duties on the property over the past 60 years or more. Some of this information will be included in part of a future book on the early years of Scugog, which | have been working on for some time now. The second call came quite unexpectedly from a 91- year-old lady who had lived on and owned Seven Mile Island during the 1940s and 50s. After researching the history of Seven Mile Island for the past four years, | was continually stumped when it came to getting information about the Elys, the family who purchased the property after the Wilsons sold it in 1943. In a last ditch effort to find out more about the Elys, | placed a letter to the editor in the Canadian Jewish News, a Toronto-based newspaper aimed at people of Jewish descent. Within a few days | received a call from a lady identi- fying herself as Mrs. Freda (Ely) Folger. When | asked her if she was a daughter of Harry Ely, the owner of Seven Mile Island, she quickly replied, "No, | was Harry's wife." You can't imagine how excited and surprised | was to find that Mrs. Ely was still living. The questions poured out of my mouth, almost too fast for her to understand, but after about 20 minutes of conversation, she had provided me with invaluable information about the prop- erty and her family. | won't reveal all of it here, but one interesting piece of information regarding Harry Ely was that he was the owner of a chocolate manufacturing company in Toronto, and was responsible for developing a product that still can be found on food shelves today. That prod- uct is known as "Chippettes", the little chocolate pieces used in baking. The receipt is still produced today, under the Hershey brand name. My thanks to those people who continually come for- ward to provide information and pictures of our historic past. It's imperative we accumulate this information while there are still people around who remember the early years in Scugog's development.