Page Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, December 23, 1992 QO —= ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 ERRACE STANDAR[) stones Registration No. 7820 Phone (604) 638-7283 (1969} Lid. it's Hlustretion repro services and advertizing agencies. Raproducdion in whale or in part, without writen permission, is specifically prohibited, Authored as second-class mail pending the Post Office Department, for paymant of postage In cash. Serving the Tarrace atoa. Published on Wednesday cf each week by Cariboo Press (1969) Lid, at 4647 Lazelle Ave., Tetrace, Brlish Columbla. Stories, phologrephs, illustrations, designs and typestyles in the Terrace Standard are the property of the copyright hoklers, including Cariboo Presa ° ~ Advertising 4647 Lazelle Ave,, Terrace, B.C., V8G 158 Manager: Fax (604) 638-8432 = Mike L. Hamm Production Manager: Edouard Credgeur (CNA Rad Link Jeff Nagel - News/Community, Malcolm Baxter - News/Sports, Rosa Fisher - Front Offiea Manager, Carolyn Anderson - Typesetier, Arlene Watts - Typesetier, Susan Credgeur - Composing/Darkroom, Janet Vivalros « Advertising Consultant, Sam Collier - Advertising Con-uHant, Charlene Mathews - Circulation Manager VERIFIED CIRCULATION Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for their time and talents. Land claims trip Provincial aboriginal affairs minister Andrew Petter drove the new and im- proved Nisga’a land claims negotiations vehicle up north a couple of weeks ago and invited northwest mayors to take a spin. They kicked the tires and peeked under the hood. ‘So how does it run?’’ they asked. ‘‘Just like a top,” replied Mr. Petter. ‘And check out the sound system.”? ‘‘We don’t care about the sound,’ the mayors said. ‘“‘What size is the engine and how does it work?” That’s about the way things went. Mr. Petter gave his best assurances that the province was doing all it can to open up the negotiations to include local govern- ments. In one sense it is a great improve- ment over the way things have been. Its promises that a Nisga’a deal will take northwest citizens into account didn’t hold much water without involving the people who will be affected. This left local governments and the others sitting in the back seat, leaving them to give directions and advice the driver could choose to ignore. Now, at least, mayors have been told they’ll be able to suggest taking a right turn here, or a left turn there. But Mr. Petter has kept possession of the map. And he’s not letting the mayors or the other third parties rip the engine apart for a look-see. Northwest mayors and the others may have a feeling of the direction in which the provincial goverment is heading, but they still don’t know the final destination. One certain stop coming up is an agree- ment in principle on the Nisga’a claim. It’s due next spring. The mayors want that released and debated before it is a done deal. The rest of us are also passengers on this journey. We're paying for the gas, ultimately paying for the vehicle and financing the accommodations at the end of the trip. Continuing questions on our part will help keep the driver on the straight and narrow. As it ought to be We can take a measure of pride in living in the best country in the world. Yet the death several weeks ago of Daisy Wesley under a tarp in a vacant city lot is a reminder that the world can be a brutal and unforgiving place. The efforts of those who want to remem- ber Daisy Wesley by providing a warm and secure place are to be applauded, If we cannot show a measure of compassion and provide a feeling of dignity to those less fortunate than’ us, we fail in ensuring the _ essential cement of human existence. And — that is to treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves. One of the more eloquent Christmas statements comes from Tommy Douglas, a Baptist minister, one time premier of Sas- katchewan and one time leader of the fed- eral New Democratic Party: If Christmas means anything, it should mean that, like the shepherds of old, we catch a vision of the world as it ought to be and not as it is. This is the season when we should renew our determination to do what we can, each in our own way, to build a world founded on human brotherhood and concern for the needs of others. “As we gather this Christmas with fiiénds., “and family, take a moment to pause, reflect and to remember. The anchors of warmth and belonging we find in those close to us are an indication of the greater things we could accomplish. To all of you, a Merry Christmas, This cookie a snap Every family honours a Christmas tradition. Gathering at Grandma’s for turkey din- ner, Singing carols on Christ- Through mas Eve, Gambling for a week . in Las Vegas. Our family’s Bifocals tradition is baking ginger cookies from a recipe passed hb down from my Swedish grandmother. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas for us without an _by Claudette Sandecki days, and on into January. chancing a bite, denture - BRIAN SAYS WE CAN LOOK AT '93' Aer ES e oy r Lee wo SSS |: ie JB: SHOE evening session of assembly line mixing, cutting and baking these spicy cookies. Nor would we dream of baking them at any other time of the year, though the recipe calls for everyday ingredients. (Even New York City’s Horn and Hardart restaurants, which sell a facsimile, do so only three times a year — at Chrisl- mas, Easter, and Thanksgiv- ing. For a week.) Although simple to make, the recipe isn’t foolproof in in- experienced hands. The first gingersnaps 1 baked as a bride were a dental threat, We used them to replace floor tiles. . Grandma called these cookies Pepparkakor. Mom referred to them as gingersnaps. In my recipe book, they were Jingle Beil cookies, so named by our daughters because of the bell- shaped cookie cutter we favoured. Bell shapes invite colourful decorations of ex- traded icing. Regardless of the name, the recipe remains the same — molasses mixed half and half with corn syrup; cinnamon, » ginger, cloves and nutmeg spices, 1 doubled, tripled, and eventually quadrupled = the recipe to make enough as the kids grew for generous snack- ing during the production phase, throughout the holi- As chief cook, it’s my job to successively taste both the un- baked dough and the hot pro- duct to maintain quality con- trol. This soon leads to a con- dition best treated by tall glasses of ice water. Grandma cut the dough into horse shapes using a pattem drawn freehand on waxed paper, traced around with the sharp point of a knife. Baked and cooled, each cight inch horse was smoothed wilh white icing and left to dry. After the icing had hardened, we dipped toothpicks into food colouring and painted eyes, mouth, bridles and saddles on the horses. Like a Musical Ride mount, each horse wore the initials of a family member on one corner of it saddle blanket. We tied a ‘yarn girth around the horse’s tummy to suspend the cookie like an ornament from a tree branch, Until the tree was heaved outside after New Year’s, the horses revolved on their yarn tethers, gathering crispness, flavour and dust. Besides giving a white back- ground for the decorations, icing keeps the cookie soft in- side, Stored uniced in a canister, plastic bag, or deep freeze, gingersnaps become hard as bricks until masonry techniques .and tools are needed to divide them, Before wearers wisely dip the cookie in milk or coffee, a practice 1 refuse. ] can’t slomach a mug full of cookie sediment. I'd rather gamble on a gum gap. When IT moved away from home, each December Mom mailed me a shoebox wedged with gingersnaps. These 1] doled out like communion wafers. Now it’s my tum to supply the cookies that herald our family’s Christmas. This year the granddaughters are too small to.push a cookie cutter into the rich brown dough, or place cookies on a baking sheet, But the older one enjoys gingersnaps with a fingerful of "coffee" in a glass. The baby sniffs the spicy aroma like a bush rabbit pre- paring to cross an open field. The aroma must be pro- grammed in her genes, I im- agine, Fe4 Uf a fen 2 raid 2, | Zk a VN i wi w (SHE TELLING OS, HE MAY QUITS... ile A! ig ares LY ee LOT Past Christmases mean a lot more VICTORIA — One of the things I am learning about get- ting older, albeit not necessari- ly wiser, is that with each passing year, Christmases of long ago play an ever in- creasingly important role. .« Scouting the toy isles in de- -. partment stores to find the ap- propriate Christmas presents for our four grandchildren, I invariably find myself think- ing back to the Christmas sea~ sons of my childhood and ear- ly adult life. I look at the toddlers, to whom the glittering display of row upon row of toys must be simply overwhelming, and I want to tell their mothers not to forget the simple joys of parenthood which do net depend on showering one’s children with expensive presents. Looking back on my own childhood, the years I spent loved and gently guided by the two people who were my parents, seem to have passed in a flash. Still, what I remember most about those years is not what got for Christmas, but how we spend Christmas as a family in what can only be described as terrible times. Among the. mental flashbacks is one par- ticular Christmas that stands in stark contrast to the warm feelings this season normally evokes, Christmas of 1944 will forever stay with me. The war was drawing to a close, The country was devastated. So was most of Europe. The most ruthless regime the world had ever known would collapse in another five months. My father, who was sta- tioned at a German air base in northern Norway at the time, had somehow managed to get a two-week furlough. He ar- rived a couple of days before Christmas. On Christmas Eve, my From the Capital by Hubert Beyer ~ brother came home from a training camp for Hitler Youth and told us that he had been drafted and was to report for military duty on Christmas Day. Destination: The Russian front which at that particular time was Czechoslovakia. Karl Keinz was 15 years old, a child. When he was issued his uniform, they couldn’t find a steel helmet that would [it him, and he had to stuff it with newspapers. My brother’s announcement sent us all into a tailspin of depression. Mother cried silently, and father went into a rage. He had been a soldier in the First World War, the war that was to end all wars. And al- though that war had been cruel and barbarous, no side had sent children into battle. Since then, [have often wondered how my parents lived through that night, knowing that in a couple of days, their 15-year-old would be facing almost certain death. That Christmas Eve, we _ didn’t have the heart to sing Christmas carols which, no matter how bad times were, had been an unshakable tradi- tion in our family, nor did we enjoy the few meager presents we had been able to find for each other. - I remember my brother play- ing half-heartedly with a little home-made toy I got, It was made of an empty yarn spool with four small nails on top. By wrapping wool string around those nails in a certain way, you’d be able to make a thick braid that came out of the bottom of the spoo!’s hole. The thing kept my brother busy for hours, and mother ° would tell me in later years that seeing her boy play with that toy, intended for a nine- year-old, made the thought of seeing him shipped off to the Russian front all the more hor- rible. By a miracle, both my father’ and my brother survived the war, although it wouldn’t be until 1946 that we spend our . first post-war Christmas to- gether again. The years that followed went all too fast. There were the . first Christmases celebrated amidst poverty and hunger in a country that lay in ruins, There was no Christmas tree, no presents, no festive dinner in those years. ; Then came the Christmases when, once again, there would be toys and other presents un- der a beaulifully trimmed tree, and a goose on the dinner table. Iremember my parents’ gratitude and joy at being able to feed us properly again. » The years kept racing by, and the time I was allowed to see my own four children grow from babies to teenagers to adults, was altogether to short. “. Our grandchildren’s presents are all wrapped up now and await their visit on Christmas Eve. As for me, | have only one wish, that all their Christ-— mas memories willallbe warm and wonderful. A [No war! EVERY TIME WE. GO ON ONE OF YOUR HOLIDAYS , (T TURNS INTo SURVIVAL TRIP |! FOR ONCE I SUST WANT Jo GO SOME WHERE. | WARM AND RELAX!!! in 4 7) T—)