The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, August 23, 2000 - BI

TERRACE STANDARD

INSIDE | SECTONB [im
COMMUNITY JENNIFER LANG ous
EVENTS B2 638-7283 i

JUST A THOU
EV BISHOP

Years from now

he day after this column hits the

[ paper, my husband and I will cele-

brate our ninth anniversary of legal-
got-the-paper-to-prove it marriage!

I'm 28. [ got married four months after my

19th birthday and I get the “Yikes, you mar-

lectures about the foolishness of marrying
young just before we got married, too.

To this day | still don’t understand why
marrying young is supposedly a horrific mis-
take. People launch into tirades about how

want to da, blah, blah, blah.

Do you know any unhappily married people
who waited ‘til they were older? I do. 1 know
unhappily marrieds of all ages. Fortunately, I
‘also know of a variety of happy ones. It's not
age that makes or breaks a marriage; it’s
people.

Chris and J have both changed so much that
it would be hard to explain in 1,000 pages, let
alone 800 words. We're still changing and
finding new goals and new sides to our perso-
nalities. In this dilemma of marriage, I think
our youth was on our side. We went from liv-

make decisions or plans devoid of considera-
tion of other people's feelings or wishes so it
just seemed natural to need to plan and barter
with each other about various goals in our
mariage. We never felt that we had fost our
freedom... We'd never had any! I’m joking, Um
joking! .

hard to adjust to but seeing our marriage as a
permanent thing makes us slog through diffi-
culties until we resolve them, If we don’t, the
same problems will still be plaguing us in 10
yeals. .

We weren’t old enough to be set in our
ways or to find it difficult to adjust.

We are quile different personalities but I
don't think (he cliché “opposites attract” ap-
plies to us, I prefer to think of us each having

“He proposed at Furlong Bay
on a walk in the dark to the
outhouse.../ thought it was ro-
mantic,”

different strengths that compliment each
other’s weaknesses.

and I’m not naive. Nine years is not a really
long lime but we think that we have a good
start.

We were best friends for a year before any-
thing got “romantic” and having that friend-
ship base has been a huge help to our relation-
ship. | knew he was a great guy. I'd heard him

‘talk about women and life and all of his opi-
nions when he wasn’t just a boyfriend trying to
impress me.

the dark to the outhouse... Ok, so it’s not the
down on one knee, beach with a sunset sce-
“nario but ] thought it was romantic.

I broke the engagement a couple months
later when people's repeated warnings about
potentially ruining my life got to me. He was
very sad. | was very sad. We kept going out.
Three months later we were doing dishes after
having dinner at his parents, he was washing, I
was drying, and he was joking around, making
me laugh like crazy. I looked at him and real-
‘ized that 1 could see us doing this forever. So I
asked him to marry me, He looked at me and
said, “Sure,” then started to laugh. ] didn’t like
that,

.mean? He really did want to marry me, he as-
sured me. He was just laughing at my timing.
"It was three days before our one-year anniver-
sary as a “couple” and he’d been planning on
asking me again.
We “walked down the aisle” on my par-
Jents’ sundeck to Louis Armstrong's What a
Wonderful World follawed by Dr. Hook’s song,
Years From Now, “You are my one true friend.
Always my one true friend and I'll love you ‘til
the end as I love you tonight. 1 know that this
world that we live in can be hard now and then
and it will be again, many times we’ve been
down. Still love has kept us together, the
flame never dics, when | look in your eyes; the
future I sec. Wanting you years from now,
holding you years from now and loving you
years from now, as I love you tonight.” The
lyrics summed up my feelings then and they
do now; a wistful hope in my heart that years
from now, (a -

Some changes in personal views have been

ried young!” comment a lot, We got a lot of -

you'll change so much, you're too young to
know who you’re going to be and what you

ing under our families’ roofs and roommates’ |
roofs to being with each other. We never got to

I know that we are fortunate. Not every -
young marriage works out as well as ours has... °

He proposed at Furlong Bay on a walk in

What does “sure” followed by laughter

Animal abandonment

Compassion
gone to dogs,
says woman

By SARAH GLEN
WHEN LAURIE Forbes
found the two dogs their
skin was stretched tightly
over their protruding ribs,
their pads were worn
through to the soft, fleshy
insides and they were
madly devouring a rabbit.

Forbes at first thought
the mixed-breed dogs were
black bear cubs cowering
in the ditch on the side of
road, but when she got
closer she realized she
was mistaken.

“These dogs were left
out there,” she explains.
“There is hardly any traffic
up that road during the
summer and no one lives
up there.”

Forbes was taking her
own three dogs on a hike
up Shames Mountain road
on July 23 when she found
the abandoned pups.

“The dogs looked like
they were in a frenzy.
They had that wild look in
their eyes,” she said.

And while she took both
the pups home and nursed
them back to health, the
experience has left the lo-
cal resident shaken and
frustrated,

“T find it really appall-
ing that anyone would
consider it [abandonment]
a method of dog control. It
just floors me,” Forbes
said.

When she finally

-coaxed the nervous and

starving dogs out of the
ditch, into her van and
back to her home, Forbes
gat a chance to loak
clasely at the dogs,

The pads of their feet
were raw and full of
blisters and when they def-
ecated their stool was run-
ny and slimy — a sign that
their stomach acid was
ealing away at their sto-
mach linings.

“I’ve often thought that

if you are interested in
knowing the nature of a
person, you just have to
watch how they treat their

animals. Now, what do |

you think would be the

true nature of a person who.

leaves defenseless animals
On a mountain road is?”
asked Forbes.

While she is searching

for a home for one of the’

dogs (the other one was
placed within a few weeks
after Forbes found her) she
is wary to let the dog go.

The remaining dog, who
Forbes has named Josie is
a year-and-a-half old cross
between a lab and chow,
is very affectionate and
would be great with kids,
said Forbes.

She is hoping other lo-
cal residents will he
spurred to help fight ani-
mal abandonment.

“I'm not quite sure what

the answer is in situations
like these,” she said. “But
I know out of experience
that people need to be ed-
ucated on animal care.”

She advocates active
community education
campaigns,

“Pet ownership is not
about what the animal
gives to you it’s about giv-
ing something back to the
animal,” she said.

Director of animal con-
‘trol, Frank Bowsher agrees
that there is a problem
with animal abandonment
in Terrace but he states
-that it is a trend that he
sees mostly when the
economy is depressed.

“In the past 18 months
I’ve seen more dogs being
abandoned. This is be-
cause people end up turm-
ing out their dogs when
they can’t afford to feed

- them,” said Bowsher.

July, August and Sep-
tember are the months
people abandon their dogs

Foreign students
explore Terrace

WAFFLES PILED high
with ice cream, pieces af
smoked salmon and hot
pop tarts are some of the
flavors of Terrace Ja-
panese exchange students
are experiencing on their
whirlwind tour of the
northwest,

The five exchange stud-
ents are part of a special
iravel program sponsored
through 4-H B.C.

“Tokyo doesn’t have
the beauty of nature so
close to daily life,” said
Shunsuke Yuki, a 15-year-
old exchange student visit-
ing Terrace.

This exchange program
is special because after
heir stay, the Japanese
students invite their Ter-
race host families to Japan
the following year.

Ken Adair is one Terra-
ce-based 4-H club member
who is on his way to Japan
next year, after hosting 12
year-old Yu Ohta, one of
the Japanese exchange
students visiting Terrace
this summer.

“I want to visit the Ja-
panese version of Disney-
land,” said Adair.

While staying in the
northwest, the Japanese
students have visited
Prince Rupert, gone on a
three-day camping trip,
swimming at Lakelse Lake
and at Mount Layton Hot
springs and have plans to
tour Alcan and ihe Deep
Creek fish hatchery.

“We keep them prelty

busy,” said Sharon An-
sems, one of the local 4-H
host family volunteers,
whose son Mike will also
be traveling to Japan next
year.

“People don’t under-
sland. 4-H is a lot more
than raising livestack, the
program focuses on public
speaking and citizenship,”
said Ansems.

UTREK, a Japanese-
based travel club and the
4-H counterpart sets up the
exchanges from Tokyo.

Both the Canadian and
Japanese students travel
during their school breaks.

“I like Canada very
much,” said Keiko Ishi-
matsu, another of the ex-
change students visiting
Terrace. “I don’t miss Ja-
pan al all.”

The students stayed for
just over 2 weeks - and
leave for home August 23.

4-H clubs host national
travel programs as well,
giving members the oppor-
tunity to meet each other
across Canada.

’ The clubs are open to
kids from nine to 19 years
old, but Ansems says that
clubs focused on four and
five year olds are also
available.

“The kids get to experi-
ence a different cuilure,
said Ansems. “It is a cul-
ture that they. might other-
wise never get to éxperi-
ence.”

LAURIE FORBES and mix-breed dog; Josie enjoy a moment outside. Forbes

Ee

a
a
ce

found Josie and another dog starving and emaciated on Shames Mountain

road, July 23.

the most, said Bowsher,
While he advacates

community education on™

animal care, Bowsher be-
licves that it- is more
pressing to gel animals
fixed - sumething local

vets need to be involved
in.

“If we had animals
spayed and neutered, we
wouldn't have so many un-
wanted cats and dogs wan-
dering around,” he said.

And for Forbes that is a
point she strongly advo-
cates.

“We can fix this by
spaying and neutering our

_ pets,” she said.

months,

mi More space needed

Caral Glen, Kelly Kryzanowski (seated) and Donna Auriat show off the
cramped quarters of the Terrace Red Cross medical equipment loan service
(MELS), The service is looking to expand. Currently It is operating oul of a
Storage room in the North West Community Services Society. With a grow-
ing number of people using the service, the space Is becoming piled high
with equipment. MELS loans medical equipment to people discharged from
the hospital. The equipment can be borrowed free of charge for up to three