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"Scugog's Community Newspaper of Choice" PORT PERRY STAR - Monday, December 24, 2001 - 7 ' of the Week... How do you plan to spend your Christmas Holidays? Melissa Forbes I'm going to take my friends from Alabama snow- boarding, because they've never seen snow before. Emilie Gassien We are going to our daughter's house, and we are visiting some rela- tives on Christmas Eve. Ramon Woermke | don't plan to do a lot. I'm going to enjoy the family this year; it's more important than run- ning around. Karen Bode | am going to spend time with rel- atives and friends. Phil McBride We are going to spend Christmas in Hamilton at my sis- ter in-law's house. Thanks to thieves To the Editor: We spent many hours of hard work and money to begin an enjoyable Holiday Season. With Christmas Carols on the radio, bells ringing and shoppers running everywhere, we worked hard to make our house look as pretty as can be, with numerous lights and decorations. This put our mood into the festive spirit. Unfortunately, we just found out this week that our son is in a very advanced stage of a rare type of cancer and we do not know if this will be his last Christmas. We are trying to make the best of this holiday season with this sad news and pray for hope and the strength to cope with all of what we will have to endure during the upcoming months ahead. On this note, | would very much like to thank the thief who came to our front yard on Dec. 18 sometime in the evening while we were away to steal some of our rope lighting and flood lights. You obviously must have been inter- rupted, since you were not able to take the rest of them. You must have really needed the blue and green rope lights along with the red flood light bulbs. Hope they shine as bright for you as we tried to have them shine for us this holiday season. You really put the finishing touch on our Christmas. Thank you. Darlene & Bruno Gauweiler Caesarea Giving and Reliving When the grace of Christmas settles over the land tomorrow, naturally those who will feel the awe of it most keenly are the children. They will remember its magic all their lives. For a group of residents at the Community Nursing Home, who gathered recently to talk of their Christmas memories, the clearest recollections were from childhood. Despite the weight of years, the images have faded little. For Roseanna Johnstone, for example, her memory of one special present is so strong that she's had a lifelong love of white satin housecoats. It was the Depression and Rosie was a teenager who had been smitten by the beautiful white garment and its little dec- orative roses. But it cost a dollar and a half and there was no money in the house to buy it. Although she talked about it, Rosie was under no illusions. There would be no white housecoat for her. On Christmas morning, she never dreamed the big box bore her name. But there it was. Two uncles who had steady work saw to it that Rosie got her heart's desire. "I thought | was the berries," said Rosie, who moved to Port Perry this year to be near her family. (She had to explain to me that the "berries" is the Scottish equivalent of "the cat's meow".) : But from then on a white satin housecoat was more than just that for her. It became a symbol of love and sacrifice and family. Joan Tuck, who has lived at the Simcoe Street home for 26 years, says a plain pair of skates received at Christmas when she was not quite five sparked a lifelong love of skating. Starting on backyard rinks with those simple skates, Joan went on to become a competitive figure skater and a champion Over the fence by Kay Langmuir junior pairs and single skater in Oshawa just before World War Two. For John Dodds, a roll of caps and a cap gun were the best thing he ever found under the Christmas tree. "I had a lot of fun with that and got into a lot of trouble," like scaring off pigeons roosting in the barn just as his father was fetching his gun to exterminate them. But whoever gave John that cap gun knew that hunting and shooting was in the boy's blood. In Ireland, where he spent the better part of his young adulthood, hunting rabbits was a favourite pastime, even pursued on Christmas Day. When there were no rabbits, they shot tin cans. John also considered rabbit a fine meal. Once a boy living next to the Dodds' family home in Toronto asked John if he had seen his missing pet rabbit. "If I find him I'm going to eat him," he told the terrified boy. "He didn't let the rabbit out for a long time after that." And as an adult, resident Pat Lydiatt spent many a Christmas working as a nurse at Toronto General Hospital "with two hours off for church." But she can still clearly recall the excitement she felt as a child listening to CFRB radio and hearing the annual report that Santa had left the North Pole. In our tender years, the bewitching magic of Christmas sets the standard for wonder throughout our lives. And the presents received by children from the people who know and love them can bring new adventures, open new doors and enrich little souls. . So all you exhausted parents out there, worn out from all that frantic running around, know that your reward is giving memories that will never fade and reliving the magic of child- hood. I met Santa through Det. Warner, who apparently Last Friday Scugog Council went into an emergency session over whether to give a promise of $50,000 to And another thing... By Rik Davie Ho,Ho,Ho! Each year I have the distinct plea- sure of being the unofficial press agent for Santa Claus. Seriously, the real Santa Claus! How do I know he is the real thing, you ask? Well, I'm not an idiot you know! | am a trained inves- tigative reporter, skilled in the arts of interrogation (I mean interviews) and 1 didn't just take him at face value when | first met him. | asked for identification. Geeesh, I'm not completely dumb! He has that identification in the form of a badge issued by former Toronto Police Chief Bill McCormick. That badge was issued at the request of a Toronto cop and Port Perry resident, Thom Warner and... well, the Chief of Police wouldn't do that if the guy was a phony, | mean there would be an inquiry, don't you think? drives Santa to his local gigs and lets him stay at his house when he is in town. Thom isn't much for the limelight so he must wait out- side or something because you don't see the two of them together often. I have had the honour of taking Santa's photo at the small fraction of the nearly 100 appearances he makes with his metro police badge proudly mounted on his red-and-white hat and watched him gather toys for the benefit of Operation Scugog and the police toy drive. | even set up some of his appointments in the area and that is how | gained press agent status with the big guy. It is for that reason that | was asked by Santa to thank Thom Warner on behalf of the thousands of kids in hos- pitals and other care facilities, the thousands more who get the gift of a toy and the hundreds of Scugog and Uxbridge parents who see the light in their child's eyes come alive at the presence of the big man in the red suit with the police badge proudly upon its white glossy fur trim. Without Thom Warner, a lot of kids wouldn't get Christmas. After all, someone has to drive Santa to all the events, because... while Santa is a heck of a fly-by-wire pilot, he doesn't drive! Thanks Thom, Merry Christmas. Lakeridge Health Port Perry to help lure two doctors to Port Perry's grossly understaffed medical community. Bribe money some would call it; some would say an investment in the future and others would say that history was made as the municipal government of Scugog did what Durham Region refused to do for the cash- strapped private health care provider only months before and entered into a third-tier of health care funding. The problem with throwing money at a problem is that it certainly gives the real makers of the problem no reason to back off and every reason to return to the funding well as often as the market, or the public, will bear And while I'm on the subject of solving problems with money, | should let council know I'm willing to leave town for substantially less than the $25,000 finally agreed on for Lakeridge under a thousand would do it folks For the community | cover, let me give a Christmas wish May | never have to write of a loss by you May | never meet you amid the sirens and flashing lights on a roadside. May | always cover your triumphs, never your tragedies and may | always tell your stories with the same importance they hold for you.