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-- "Scugog's Community Newspaper of Choice" PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, October 17, 2000 - 7 | | Question of the Week... Where do you think the new skateboard park | should be built? Lee Strachan At the arena. Parking downtown is bad enough and if there are a lot of kids, there could be prob- lems. | Letter to he Edi or Community helped the needy Debbie Driscoll | think the arena is a better idea. It's right by the police station so the cops can keep an eye on vandals and kids hanging out. Rebecca Brehme The CIBC is easy to get | to, but there's more room | at the arena. | think the CIBC is better because it's more accessible. Wayne Baker | don't think having it behind the CIBC is a good idea. There's already parking prob- lems downtown; it would be better if it was moved out of town. Sandra Day At the arena. It keeps them away from traf- fic, they can have a good time there, and the cops are nearby if there's trouble. - Ro Page Seven A TRASHY THING TO DO by Jeff Mitchell To the Editor: Operation Scugog would like to express our thanks forthe generosity of our local residents and the schools (especially Immaculate Conception Catholic School) for all of their food and mon- etary donations. We also greatly appreciate the generous donation of $3,500 from Bishop Anthony Meagher, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Toronto for Catholic Charities. Many thanks goes to Doris and Fred McMahon and Wray Gundry for the many pickups from our local grocery stores. We appreci- ate being able to use Port Perry and Caesarea Fire Halls for drop off points. The accommodation and coop- eration is well appreciated by our volunteers. We would also like to thank all of our volunteers for giving their time to help with our cause. The success of the Fall Food Drive will see us well until Christmas. Anne Wanninkhof and Kathyrn Gundry Thanks for supporting our run To the Editor: | would like to thank the parents of R.H. Cornish stu- dents and the community for once again supporting the Terry Fox Run/Walk held at our school on Tuesday, Sept. 19. Over 600 students completed a three or five kilometre route, and over $9,000 was raised for cancer research. We are very fortunate to live in such a generous, supportive community. Kelvin Todd, R.H. Commish PS. | am really, really ashamed of the fact that the garbage | put out at the curb each Monday will soon be loaded into rail cars and ic shipped north, there to be dumped in a large hole in the ground, even if Mel Lastman and a bunch of smart fellers with degrees tell me there's nothing to worry about. . Because the point is not whether or not leachate from our tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of refuse will seep from the Adams Mine into the groundwater, which | am firmly convinced is what will happen. The point is, it's wrong. Look: Pretend you're sitting-on your porch on a beautiful autumn day. The sun is shining, the leaves are screaming with colour. Your lawn is radiant, cut faithfully all summer, and the hedge is a work of art. Maybe gnomes dance on the grass. Maybe Sylvester pursues Tweety for all eternity, or at least until the first snow, his legs spinning madly in the slightest of breezes. Now into the picture | arrive. I'm carrying a metal garbage can; it's brimming with refuse. Whistling contentedly, | walk into the centre of your pristine lawn, choose the location | desire, and then upend the can. Its filthy contents spill onto the grass. Your lawn, which you've trimmed and fertilized and watered for as long as you've lived here. You're incredulous as | nonchalantly saunter he away. And then | return with another can, full of garbage. And | dump if on your lawn. Then | come with another can, and another, and another. You'll look on in disbelief as | arrive with my old sofa, and deposit it on the pile of trash that's accumulated. And then my old, olive green fridge. You'll be beside yourself as you watch me chuck white shopping bags full of food scraps, junk mail and used Kleenex over the fence, out of my yard and onto yours. And that, friends, is precisely what we - not Toronto, us; Durham Region... us - are fixing to do to the people of Kirkland Lake. We are going to generate tonnes and tonnes of garbage and, because we find the notion of fermenting rubbish piling up in our vicinity unpalatable, we are going to chuck it over our fence, and into our neighbour's yard. Would you do that? Would you walk onto your neighbour's lawn, in his full view, and dump your reeking garbage on his lawn? My guess is no, unless you're an idiot, a drunkard, or a real sucker for punishment. And conversely, you'd likely not stand idly by while someone else did it to you. One of the voices raised during last week's hue and cry over Toronto's support for the Adams Mine contract charged that we have declared war on the north. At first that struck me as hyperbole, just inflammatory. Now I'm not so sure. Random Jottings by J. Peter Hvidsten CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP As you are no doubt already aware, after my 25 years as proprietor of The Port Perry Star, ownership of this historic community newspaper has been passed on to younger hands and minds. Making the decision to sell the newspaper after toil- ing here for most of my working life was extremely diffi- cult. And while | won't get into all the reasons that brought me to this point, suffice it to say the decision was reached after painstaking consideration. For more than 45 years the printed word has been a part of my life, from early childhood, when my parents purchased the Uxbridge Times-Journal, and | became a regular visitor to the back shop... until this day. It's been a fabulous journey. Spending evenings and weekends as a youngster sweeping floors and doing odd jobs nobody else wanted to do, until the jobs esca- lated to cleaning up the old lead type, melting it down in a casting machine, and pouring lead ingots for the metal-hungry linotype. This was a time when the air in the backshop was filled with the smells of inks, cleaners and molten metal, and the sounds of a variety of large cast-iron printing presses, churning out the printed word on hand-fed sheets of large, crisp white newsprint. How different that is from today, when the loudest noises we hear come from the fans used to keep the computers cool, and the tap, tap, tapping of the comput- er keyboards, as the news of the day is fed into their immense memory banks. My career at The Port Perry Star began as an apprentice printer, and over the years | was introduced to almost every aspect of the business. No job was too big or too small in those days for anyone, as every staff member was called on to insert flyers and deliver papers, as well as tend to their regular jobs as office managers, sales staff, editors or publishers. | have so many fond memories of The Port Perry Star and the dozens of people I've had the privilege of working alongside for more than three decades. People are definitely the one commodity that makes a career worthwhile, and while not wanting to offend any of the dedicated Star "staffers" over the years, there are a few who deserve to be mentioned. First, of course, was my father, who gave me the opportunity to join The Star. My first boss after joining the paper was Bill Harrison, and it was through his guid- ance, and that of fellow employees Bruce Beare and Clive Boyd, that | learned so much about the business. Two women were extremely important in my early years as owner of the paper... our office manager, Gayle Stapley, who has been at the paper now for more than 28 years and Annabell Harrison (now retired), who toiled by my side for 33 years. Thanks so much to these wonderful people, and all the others that I've had the opportunity to work with. | strongly believe that a community newspaper really belongs to you, the residents of the community... and as owners of the newspaper, we are merely custodians of this important institution. So it's my most sincere wish that my years as custodian of The Star, have upheld the traditions of the remarkable owners and publishers who came before me. In the 134-year history of this newspaper, there have been only seven owners. Don MacLeod, my partner of the past five years, becomes the eighth owner, and it's my hope that he will continue on with the traditions of this newspaper for many years to come. I extend to Don, and the dedicated, hard working staff, sincere best wishes for continued success. As for me, I'm not going anywhere just yet, so I'll be here on page 7 each week, just as before.