WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1988, PAGE 5 If the future in any way resembles the past (and it never has before) we will be in for strange surprises before the turn of the century. For example: the past 17 years in Whitby and area has seen some fantastic changes. What will happen if that change keeps up for the next 17 years? Come with me to the year 2005 and let us look at what we have wrought. The town of Whitby -- and it is still to be a town, since Mayor Attersly saw to that in his eighth terni -- now has a population of 150,000. Want a fright? Oshawa has a population of just over 200,000. (Whitby won't catch up until the year 2030.) The circulation of the Whitby Free Press is now nudging 100,000. Columnists are still paid peanuts. The Oshawa Times has a circulation of 18,475 and is still falling. The price of an average home in Whitby is now $1,225,000. The good news: they stopped building average houses sometime in mid-1989. The bad news: the only affordable housing in Whitby is a complex of townhouses and apartments originally built in 1989 as low rental accommodation. These now rent for $4,800 a month. Based on 1988 values, the total mill rate in the town of Whitby (including education, region and value-added taxes)now stands at $4.50 on the assessed dollar. The good news: assessment is still based on 1940 values. Taxes on the average home totals $12,000. The baby bonus, when it was restored by the New Democrats when they came to power in in 1994 under Ed Broadbent, now is worth $275 per child per month. A monthly pass on the GO Train to Union Station has just gone up $45 a month to $623. The trip from Whitby takes 22 minutes -- when the trains work, which is about once a week. The rest of the time the trip can take up to four hours each way. WITH OUR FEET UP by Bill Swan In the year 2005 The Sunday Star now comes in 114 sections, some printed as much as a month in advance. Included in the inserts are color fold-outs, holographic personalized messages and tri-video holographic comics. The whole bundle weighs 43 pounds and you can get seven-day home delivery for only $13.50., Top pay rate for high school teachers in Durham Region has been set at $310,000 a year. The average doctor, still complaining that the Province is ripping her off, takes. home a pay cheque of $775,000. Registered nurses now receive $110,000 a year; floor cleaners, $120,000. Latest craze of thrill-seeking teenagers is sludge surfng. As we all remember, beaches and waterfront areas were closed in 1998 when the water was proved to be the equivalent of battery acid. Since then the consistency of the water has become markedly heavier, *e like sludge. Teenagers now ride the sludge waves on surfboards, sort of rolling in slow motion seaward on the waves. They dress in corrosive resistant beachwear, but still the odd one falls in and becomes one with the sulfuric acid. Thanks to a combination of efforts from Pickering Nuclear Power Plant and the Darlington Station in Newcastle, towns along the shore of Lake Ontario still derive their drinking water from the lake. Seems even the sludge won't go near either place. So a fewpeople glow in the dark. The average cost of a litre of gasoline: $3.22.5. Economy cars imported from China now sell for $16,300 and get as much as -85 miles to the gallon. American-made cars sell for $234,000 and up, and get 17 miles to the gallon. A loaf of bread now costs $5.35; milk, $9 for four litres; freeze-less ice crear, $4.45 a litre. Ontario Hydro's new generating plant in Uxbridge will begin operation in 2011. Cost of the new station, originally estimated at $113 billion, has been revised upwards to $1,323 billion. Ontario Hydro officials say the new plant will help meet the power needs of the province until the year 2023, when a new plant will be opened in Port Perry. The average hydro bill in Whitby now stands at $889 a month. And customers on rural service pay $1,432 for the same consumption. Long for the good old days of 1988? You can still get that old-fashioned chemical-laced flavor at your favorite ice cream shop. All 147 flavors available -- at $8.98 a cone. And Big Brothers this week will hold their annual soapbox derby. Oh, yeah. It costs approximately $3,445 to build a competitive derby car. Even to build one out of soap boxes or orange crates, as they did in great-grandad's day, would now cost $4,545. The wood's imported, you know. $12,OOO damage in vandalism to Catholic education oentre By Debbie Luchuk i The Durham Region Separate School Board Education Centre on Rossland Rd. E. was vandalized over the weekend, with $12,000 damage done to windows on the east side of the building as well as the sign facing Rossland Rd. Fifteen windows were smashed, but no break-in was reported by police investigating the incident. In- addition to damage sustained by the centre, nearby Paul Dwyer High School had graffiti spray painted on two The police investigation portables. continues, and wire glass has Neighbors on the south side of been installed temporarily until Rossland were awakened by the tinted tempered glass can be sound of breaking glass and installed. called police at approximately 1 The board's insurance will a.m. Sunday morning. cover the damage. 6mft. hole left during break- in Vandals were unsuccessful at a break-in attempt at Hair Benders at 404 Brock St. S. but left a 6-ft. hole in a wall were they attempted to gain entry. Durham Regional Police report the vandals were two-by-four planks the wall. stopped' by left behind Police are investigating the incident. ,uns mRI BAMHrm n $159 ea Pizza Bread 1380 HOPKINS 666-1177 BUY EXTRA TO FREEZE AND EAT LATER Open 7 Days a Week NO PAYMENT-NO INTEREST TILL 1989 2 PC. SOFA LOVESEAT Reg. s2,199 SkjarPpIer_$1,499 VOGEL WING CHAIR _299 [NO PAYMENT-NO INTEREST TILL 1989 2 PC. SOFA & CHAIR Reg. S1,099 $799 KINGSTONRO. W , -J CD CD 1.. CD C CL c =F c BED SOFAS tr-m$299 2 PIECE SECTIONAL -$349 à - .Im i ýr,ý - ýý, ý 'l 71 N - MOO, mmuma