4- Friday, March 15, 1985 - North Shore hews

strictly personal

+

pring. I knew it had arrived the other day
when the kid ran into the bedroom, waking
us, to announce that he had heard the birds

singing!

That's right, isn’t it? I'd
almost forgotten. Summer-
time is the period when you
can’t keep your bedroom
windows open because the
chorus of morning birds will
have you awake by 4 a.m.

Living hell, ain’t it?

This last winter has been
so, well, winter-like, that I
had almost given up on ever
hearing the morning birds
again.

I’m one of those fugitives
from the Prairies, as { know
I’m sure you've heard me
say befare...But, come on,
tne whole purpose of living
in B.C., on the West Coast

anyway, is to avoid winter
like the plague, right?
So if the Japan Current

fails to do its thing, or a.

volcano south of the border
throws all the climate
forecasts into disarray and,
yuk of yuks, an actual
winter arrives in this fair
valley, it seems to a lot of us
fugitives that life's not fair,
after all.

Here [ am, a refugee from
Manitoba winters, still so
deeply scarred for fife that
my toes begin to tingle if
someone pours me a drink
with ice cubes, and my own
child comes up to me and

says: ‘‘Let’s go tobogganing,
Daddy! Isn’t winter fun?’* I
mean, [| almost disowned
him on the spot.

But isn’t that the special
curse of refugees—that their
children will grow up not
understanding the horror
they went through until they
reached the Promised Land?

My oldest daughter, who
was born in Vancouver after
1 had escaped from the
White Zone (as some of us
call every part of Canada
east of Hope), has so little
understanding of the real
world out there in Winter
Wonderland that she once
stepped off a plane in
Regina in mid-January wear-
ing open-toed high-heel
shoes.

If there hadn't been

someone waiting 10 pick her
up, she'd have died, you
know, These West Coasters,
they have no idea of how to
survive in real winter condi-
tions. Just look at what
happens the moment more
than a millithingamajig of
snow falls on the road.

I'm not absolutely certain
of where the statistics come
from tO support this case
(must be somewhere), but !
strongly suspect that ref-
ugees from the Prairies form
the dominant minority in
B.C. Who knows? For all I
can be sure, we may be the
majority.

Yet it’s sad. Our primitive
but honest lifestyles haven't
been copied here in the
Coast. Nobody goes to par-
ties on Mondays, Tuesdays,
Wednesdays and Thursdays,
like they always do on the
Prairies in winter, so fearful
are they of the eternal night.

Every weekend, of course,
is ‘“‘lost.’’ But then, since
that’s the best you can hope
to accomplish for the whole
winter, namely forget it,
there’s nothing to complain,
as we Prairie folk say.

Nobody plugs in their car,
[ notice, here on the Coast,

HEALTH BOARD ASKED TO COMMENT

Crist questions bulk food hygeine

By JOANNE MacDONALD

THE NORTH Shore Union:

Board of Health (NSUBH)
has been asked by North
Vancouver District Council
to comment on recent .Ca-
nadian Institute of Public
Health Inspectors statement
that existing B.C. / health

reguletions governing bulk
‘ood sales are inadequate
“and ‘present a_ potential
health risk to the public.

His original motion called
for council to urge the

NSUBH to support the de-
mands Of the Institute and to
revert to previous bulk food
regulations.

Crist supported the
resulting amendment to. his
motion, however, he said he
was upset that council was
not asked for their position
on “the lowering of bulk
food standards,’’ before the
NSUBH relaxed the regula-
tions.

Crist has been one of the
most vocal critics of the

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relaxed bulk food regula-
tions, charging that the
NSUBH appeared to suc-
cumb to pressure from out-
side parties in order to ac-
commodate certain retail
operations selling bulk food
items.

Ald. Murray Dykeman,
the former chairman of the
NSUBH, denied the board

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while bent on their knees on
the ice, an ancient Dead
Sea-bottom ritual going back
to Henry Ford and the
discovery of the wind-chill
factor.

Worst of all, here, nobody
wears carmuffs, Your cars
lie naked before any random
talker. { frankly don’t
understand how you people
handle it.

The real test of being an
immigrant is trying to relate
to your kids, who have, of
course, gone native. They
take Paradise for granted
and actually even find things
to complain about, if you
can imagine it.

I -had tried to explain to
my children what winter was
really like. If you take a
deep breath, | explained, the
pain at the bottom of your
lungs is like a knife being
used to scrape your insides
without anesthetic.

But they assumed I was
exaggerating.

If you stand still for a
moment, I cautioned, the
cold will creep up through
your feet, starting in the
toes, killing the cells silently
as it goes. The true horror of
winter is that it stings you,

succumbed to pressure in
changing the regulations ad-
ding, ‘*! wish this could stop
being a political issue, it’s a
health issue. The safety of
the public is being looked
after.”

Dykeman reminded coun-
cil
received in early December
from Peter Bazowski, depu-

of the correspondence | i

like a great white spider, so
that you go numb. And then
it kills you!

They thought I was having
them on,

Sometimes, in a white-out.
you can walk around in cir-
cles until you collapse, ex-
hausted, and your body isn't
bound until next spring, just
a few yards from where you
started. ; .

The kids laughed. They
thought I was joking.

Lord knows, { wish f was.

Ah, spring in British Col-
umbia! Out there in the rest
of Canada, you know, they
are still dying like flies if
they step outside without
their galoshes. ! .

Which brings me 10 to-
day’s Message. The Eastern
media try to make this big
deal out. of the idea that
British Columbians feel su-
perior to people in the rest
of the country. .

Well, this may come as a
shock to. -you—if ‘you can
hear me amid the trilling and
twittering of the: morning
birds or the gentle susurra-
tion of the. morning ‘rain—
but the. cnswer is: Yes, of
course . we do. -Wouldn’t
you?

ty minister in the, Ministry of
Haalth,: acknowledging ~ the

NSUBH’s. earlier-.letter ‘ask-

ing" for information on the
bu.k food regulations. _

He said. Bazowski’s letter
ti it_was the ‘intent
of the.ministry to attempt to

uniform * bulk
gulations throughout

THE VOCe OF NORTH AND WEST VaCCOUVER

rth Shore‘.

news

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