PAGE 2, THE HERALD Thursday, September 7, 1978

EDITORIAL |

Hoop-la

Does anyone besides me remember che days of the
hoop? Not the “hula hoop" for revolving around one’s
middle, but the rolling hoop, herded along with a
wooden stick or metal “‘skimmer”? At the country
village of Diss, in Norfolk, England, when [ was a lad
of seven or eight, everyone had their hoop. The girls
had wooden hoops. The older girls had their hoops
shod with metal to prevent wear, But the boys, t
REAL boys, had hoops of rolled metal.

My sister was four years older than I was. An ob-
vious favourite with my father, Madge, with her
gloriously golden shoulder-length hair crowned with a
straw hat was a vision of beauty as she skipped along
the paving of Victoria Road on her way to school,
urging her giant circle of a hoop dexteriously along
with one hand, holding on to her hat with the other.

How I envied her! It had never occurred to me to be
jealous. How could I ever compete for family approval

with so lovely a creature. Madge was allowed to ride shed

mother’s bicycle - because she was almost “grown
up”. Dad would never permit me to touch his bicycle;
it was as sacred as his razor and satinwood-backed
hair brushes that reposed in their own niche in the
bathroom, Everything of Dad’s was “private” - but
with mother, they were less so. For with mother, one
could "get around” where with Dad, there was no

appeal.

Twas the first day of school. Madge had been up
early, getting ready for the occasion since the sun '
shattered the morning with shafts of coloured light.
Dis was still rural enough for the neighbours to keep
small flocks of fowl, and the crowning of reosters was
the pporman’s alarm clock- and ours as well.

Breakfast was a bowl of steaming porridge, apiece,

. afresh egg each, from our own flock, and toast from

home baked bread made over the hot coals of the
kitchen coal-burning range, buttered with creamery
butter and iced with plum jam from the fruit of our
own trees.

Tea was the universal beverage in England then-
even for breakfast - strong tea, with lots of milk and
sugar. Of all the meals, it is breakfast I remember
with greatest longing from my childhood.

Part of the lost tradition of those days, unfortunately
perhaps, was the white, damask table linens - the table
cloth, and the serviettes each in their own sterling
silver “ring” or holder, with our initials. This was a
holdover from our earlier days in India, when our
meals would be prepared and served by a staff of
native servants, course by course. Now, Mother was
our household staff, to whom Dad Fave sergeant-

major commands, many of which spilled over on my
sister and I to carry out,

The evening before, I had carried out another ritual
that has long since been lost. ‘“Blacking”’ the boots - as
cleaning and polishing shoes, whatever their colour,
was Called. The same brands of shoe polish that are
still available - “Nugget” and “Kiwi’’ were the most

common, with their hard to open (I'‘Insert coin along _
edge and twist") rotind’ ting, and the fresh-smell of ©
lied tothe family-foobwear, much.og the polish

Wax ap
adhered to my hands, and had to be pumic-stoned off
in the bathroom _ sink.

Mother and sister Madge had worked on preparing
our clothing for school. Everything white - my shirt
and underwear, and Madge's dress - had been boiled
in the copper boiler to the desired purity, pegged on a
clothesline, after wringing through a wooden, hand
turned “‘mangle’’, then ironed with awkward, scor-
ching “‘sad” irons heated on the kitchen heart, rubbed
ona mat to clean off the bottoms and whisked over a
cloth. treated with paraffin wax.

Outer clothing would generally contain a fair
amount of “Robin” brand starch from a packet kept in
the laundry, next to the bluing squares.

Putting on my shirt was more of a ritual then - for an
“Eton” collar - made of a sort of linen and celluloid -
had to be affixed using a back and a front collar stud.
Trousers were usually shorts, with bare knees. Socks
were held up to just below the knee by wretched,
circulation stopping embarrassing ‘garters’ that had
other uses - such as flicking spitballs across the room
in class - as 1 was to learn, later. A school blazer, of
navy flannel with a school crest and motto, and a
small peaked “beanie” cap, also with crest and motto,
just about completed the clothing I had to wear -
unless it was raining.

Soit was, on this particular morning, i trotted off for
school, trying to keep up to my older and longer legged
sister, who was trolling her metal plated wooden hoop,
with care to see it did not go through any puddles or
dirt, on the long way to school.

THE B.C. ARTHRITIS TEAM.
: IS TOPS
HELP KEEP IT THERE

BE AN
ARTHRITIS
FIGHTER

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—"

_. We passed other singles and groups of school
children all heading in the same direction. many of

them had hoops, some had tops which they would whip

along at incredible speed (it seemed tome) with great —

skill. 7

The.more well-to-do had their--own bieyeles, and
pedalled past in their new school starting day finery,
showing their clothes to their best advantage.

Oblivious of the pecking ofder and caste system,
blissfully ignorant at the age of seven, I dutifully
trotted behind Madge, rolling het hoop, walting for her
to let me have a “turn” - which for me was all too
seldom. . —

And so we reached school, where the hoop was
safely stashed with a score or so of others; the lucky
bicycle owners having stacked their bikes in special
racks, and one of our teachers who had a motorcycle
had confidently left his shiny vehicle inside the bike

So began what, for me, was ta be a typical first day
of school, for the next three years, in that East Anglia

oy

village.

Somehow, my keen desire for a hoop must have
made itself known to my father.
Arriving home that afternoon, I rattled on about
hoops and the skill some of the boys had acquired with
them. How they could toss them away and make them
“walk” back to them. How some could skip through

them, The girls rehearsed with wooden.

oops for

calisthéenic “hoop dances" while the boys did even
more amazing stunts with theirs. My father merely
listened - and puffed his pipe.

The next day (a Saturday) he took me with him for a
walk to the steel foundry in the village, where all sorts
of metal molds produced objects of strange shapes.
There he had a foundryman take a steel bar and, while

I watched in fascination, fashion it expertly into a -

beautiful, steel hoop. Choosing a short steel bar, the

man skilfully

produced a double curve ended

“skimmer” with which to herd the hoop.

Stuttering my thanks, the journey home was trod on
air, all the way. I had a hoop. A steel hoop and.
skimmer. I had seen it fashioned at the foundry. My
own Dad had had it made for me. Heaven could not
have seemed more sweet than that precious day.

My Dad has long since passed away, followed, a few
years later, by my mother.

But my sister, Madge, still remembers that hoop of
hers - the wooden one with the metal band.

And I - well, the details of this story alone should be
some indication of how indelibly printed upon my
memory is that day, when father, without so much as
a word or other indication, had decided I had to have

one tao. ;

by Jim Smith

The Sonny Liston of
Economics

1945, [thadn’t been a par-
ticularly good year for Japan.
The proud nation which had
once commanded the Pacific
rim now huddled miserably,
reduced to a shattered pile of
smoking rubble by the ad-
verse fortunes of war.

1960. The same decimated
island — a land virtually bare
of resources — had become
the world’s leading industrial
power. Traditional American
firms were transferring their
production to Japan, leaving
nothing more than distribu-
tion shells at home. The £a-
panese had latched on to a
strange new electronic device
known as a transistor and
used it in magnificently ima-
ginative ways.

1978, Only 33 years after
the end of the war and no
one laughs at the slogan
“Made in Japan" anymore.
A country with every rea-
son except pride to fail still
sits at the top of the econo-
mic ladder, still defending its
economy with imagination
and courage. The transistor
has long since been replaced
by integrated circuits, a tech-
nology which promises to
make Japan — which no
longer enjoys a low-priced la-
bour force — even stronger
tomorrow than it has been
in recent years.

1945. Canada, a nation
blessed with spectacular re-
source wealth, her factories
untouched by war, her work
force one of the world’s mast

* highly educated, stands on

the brink of greatness,

1960. Canada has failed
to realize her apparent indus-
trlalized destiny. Indeed, she
has fallen farther behind the
rest of the industrialized
world,

1973, Canada is now laugh- .

ingly considered an underde-
veloped country masquerad-
ing as a nation of substance.
We've become the Sonny
Liston of economics — a so-
called champion felled by a

single punch early in the first
“round,

What did we do wrong?
Mostly, it's a case of what
Japan did right. Economic
development is at the base
of every Japanese govern-
mental decision. The Japan-
ese are past masters at nego-
tialing the most favourable
conditions for their econo-

- mie development; if a major

purchase must be made
abroad, the Japanese will en-
sure that some new techno-
logy is imported into the
bargain. .

In Canada, if it is neces-

sary’ to_contract with a for-
eign manufacturer of for ex-
ample, fightér planes, little
thought is given to forcing
partial production in Canada
or sub-licensing of some im-
portant technical knowledge
to Canadian firtns educating
our engineers, It isn't the
fault of the Minisizy of De-
fence; Canada should have
an active industrial planning
departnient within govern-
ment, .
England recently entered
into a sub-licensing agree-
ment with a major American
producer of microprocessors
(the tiny silicon chips that
have replaced transistors and
revolutionized the data pro-
-cessigg industry). England
won't tum a profit on that
deal directly — but her en-
gineers will leany about this
vital new technology first
hand, In the years to come,
England and her trading part-
ners in Europe won't be ex-
cluded from the social and
economig, revolution created
by micfcircuits — a field
which remains relatively for-
eign to Canadians.

The most common ques-
tion around Ottawa Is “Who's
in charge here?” It's time we
had an answer.

“Think small" is an editorial
massage trom Ihe Canadian
Fedetation ol Independent
Business -

Labour Day 1978 has
come and gone again and
the scramble to get life
back to normal is now on
again in earnest. Whilst
Pierre minus pirouette
looked his solemn best for
the Popewith one eye on
Statistics Canada and the
other on the good Catholic
folk back home we lesser

mortals are faced with

the realities of the high
cost of getting the kids
back to school.

.: No. doubt all--good.
' Catholics will have to lap

up, wag their tail down to
the ballot box, purr
contentedly all because
our leader met with the
Pope. I do hope and credit
Catholic people with
more intelligence than to
accept the latest offering
of Liberal strategy.

Meanwhile back at the
ranch. The Minister of
Fitness in an unfit
government graced our
presence and delicately
snipped the ribbon on
another white elephant
that will generate not one
copper of income, employ
one poor soul without a
ob. Just goes to show
ow much better
enlightened government
can get our country
jogging again. Canada
needs such schemes as it
does a hole inits head ata

' time in our history when

the economy is in such a
State.

However the
weekend: was ‘not a
complete loss as I had the
leasure to meet a fan-
stically positive couple.
For people in Terrace
who keep telling me
“there is nothing to do in
Terrace” they should pay
a visit to their own
Salvation Army Citadel
on Walsh St. Lieutenant
Jack Strickland and his
wife, the corps officers,
have musica! talents that
left me astounded, piano,
guitar, piano accordian
and brass. Lighthearted
sprightly spiritual musi¢
with a real message of
sincerity that people are
wanted an loved.

It was sad though that
in spite of such a loving
happy couple and such
skills the people of
Terrace are not turning
out to show thelr ap-
preciation at having such
a talented couple as
fellow citizens. Every
man or woman of
goodwill ought to take the
time to enjoy this very
gifted couples’ talents
and their message. I sure
was glad and much the
richer for having spent a
very happy hour that ina

iet way makes the
thought of full routine he-
hum much much lighter.

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