WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 1987. PAGE 5 Now we are resting between events in the great summer of fights at the Canadian Post Office, it is perhaps time to look imaginatively at what is wrong. In Canada Post, the public will agree to- few facts. Among them'f: the Canadian postal service used to be great; the postal service ain't so hot;, in fact,the postal service at times can be damned awful. You, fond reader, can provide your own horror story about the niistakes rendered on mail; mumble your own pet story to yourself , while you read. If you can't provide a horror story, then you can at least recall the last one you read in the newspaper. You know the type: Sally Jones mailed a wedding invitation to frien- ds across town to come to her wedding. One of the guests got the invitation just in time to attend the couple's golden wedding. For most of the general public causes don't matter. If the postal service is bad - and we've agreed on that haven't we? Does it really matter whether we blame the letter carriers, who just went off strike, or the inside postal workers, who most assuredly will go on strike next month. But letter carriers simply deliver the mail door to door. Does it not make you wonder that a society forty years ago could afford door-to-door mail delivery, now suddenly fin- ds such service too costly? A similar argument can be mounted for the inside workers. Only today, the inside workers job has been automated in ways that few could think ef thirty years ago. That should make for much greater efficiency, should it not? The argument from post office management, and the politicians in Ottawa currently in power, is that the unions are too powerful and must be, curbed so post office costs WITH OUR FEET UP bm 1h11Sw<lfl New tomorrow? can be curbed and your delightfully perfect mail service will continue. Management doesn't go on strike, so for most of us they are invisible. This group, through delightfully ineptand insensitive labor-management handling, bas brought about the weaknesses the public seizes on in the post office debates. This is the group that says, let us bust the unions and we'll give you a post service as it sbould be. These are the-people who bave brought you centralized sorting. You know, truck mail one hundred miles to the north, to be sorted, and then trucked ninety miles south to end up ten miles from destination. This is so a letter mailed to the lady across the street has to travel one hun- dred and ninety miles, and arrive two days after the bir- thday party. This can then be blamed on the labor unions. These are also the people who have brought you green hh~ __________ Whitbv resiidents offer travellers 'bed and breakfast' ••• acts as a bed' and breakfast for CAROL KOESLAG sits in the living aeasa d n b all areas to Whitby. room of her Frederick St. home which travellers rom Free Press photo By JANET BROWNE For those who are tired of sterile hotels and motels and places of rest during vacations, self-proclaimed hosts like Carol and Peter Koeslag have discovered a more pleasant and personal alternative. The Koeslags, like many other Canadian homeowners, have opened up their homes on an over- night basis to travellers in the style of the English 'bed and breakfast' tradition. Guests are treated to an evening of conversation and·a light snack, and in the morning, a com- plete breakfast prepared by the hostess herself. "The whole idea about bed and breakfast is to make yourself at home", sayd Carol Koeslag whose Frederick St. home has been used for this purpose for three summers. "People on holidays want somewhere to relax and feel com- fortable, and they can use this house as they would their own." Travellers from as far as Paris, Wales and Key West, Fla. have stayed over at the Koeslags, who can accommodate up to three guests. Others are Canadians who are just exploring their homeland. "Staying in a bed and breakfast is a great way to find out what people in a foreign area are like," explains Koeslag. "When you sit and talk, you find out things aren't so different, and learn that people have the same concerns. There's lots of commonality. We find that out from everybody that stays here." One particularily attractive feature of a bed and breakfast is me price. An overnight stay with the Koeslags is only $20 dollars for a single room, or $30 dollars for a couple. Koeslag says in the U.S., the price is much higher, about $50 to $60 dollars a night. "When Americans come here, they say, Wow! Where else can you get bed and breakfast for this price? Actually, we're not in it for the money, just our own interest. It's very freeing, as we're not dependent on it financially.' The Koeslags decided to act as hosts to travellers after travelling out west and in Europe, staying in bed and breakfast during their trip. Although most homeowners would be a bit leery about letting total strangers into their homes, the Koeslags are quite comfortable with tbe experience, and have neyer had any trouble with their guests. "People realize that they are in a SEE PAGE 11 Students 'get 'info on town Four Whitby students will be doing more than just greeting and aiding travellers during their summer employment at the Whitby Tourist Centre on Brock St. The main project of these post secondary students, three of which are employed under a government subsidy program, is to compile complete building listing for the Town of Whitby, so the number of vacancies in commercial plazas will be known. They will also be participating in tourism develop- ment, and marketing and statistical evaluation. Sandra Lyon, Bernadette Butler, Mary Ann Manders, and Sean Drumm (son of councillor Joe Drumm) were chosen for the job out of 82 applicants, and are each longtime Whitby residents. Last year, Julie Emm, daugbter of councillor Gerry Emm, was em- ployed for the same position. Each year, students are given a different project to be completed by SEE PAGE 22 Students give Whitby welcome TOURIS-CLERK Judy Gibliens (far left) is joined by nadette Butler and Mary Anne Manders. summer students (1-r) Sandy Lyon, Sean Drumm, Ber- Free Press phot%) 1 1 .etter boxes to replace your own letter carrier. Now 1 was >broughtUp in a village where one of the normal routines involved going to the post office to get the mail; but somehow the row of two hundred and forty boxes just around the corner (a thirty minute walk with a two-year- old) ain't quite the same. Do you really believe these people when they promise a bright new tomorrow? What has to be decided is what we want the post office to do. Do we want the post office, for instance, to handle elec- tronic mail, so that I could dispatch this column from my home computer directly, and instantaneously, to the of- fices of The Free Press? The technology lies waiting. Or will this be the wave of the future to be tapped by Bell Telephone or cable TV? (They're fighting over it as we Do we want mail delivery to our doorsteps' And if we do, would we be willifig to pay the deficit in our taxes, or would we swallow stamps at maybe even up to a dollar a whack. (I grew up with four cent stamps; you could buy a house for five thousand dollars then. If postage had kept pace with house prices, stamps would now cost $1). Do we really want the post office delivering most of the junk that they do? The effîciency experts can talk ail they want about cost effectiveness, but have you weighed your mail lately? Multiply your poundage by the number of households and you will have some idea of why the system has cloggeéd arteries. Over the next few weeks you will see the post office engaged in union-bashing in earnest. But do you really think the people who organized the replacement workers would really operate an efficient service if the unions disappeared tomorrow? 1 l ýj