. need. When ! sy Tt LIVING by mysel amewee, MW ane = has both joys and tribulations. Thoreau, in ‘Walden,’ pondered if one couid live in the coffin-like sheds used to come eee’ ‘store the tools used by municipal road workers. He supposed that a man would be using it primarily to get out of the rain and the cold, and he thought that perhaps the drilling. of a few air holes and the. addition of something soft to lay on would make the three-foot high box infinitely preferable to standing in the rain or trying to sheiter under a tree. Or so I remember—I don’t have ‘Walden’ any more, and I can’t look it up. My shack is ten feet by fifteen feet, and it contains ali the worldly comforts that I -first consid-— ered moving in to the fifty-year-old toolshed I won- dered if | was going mad. After all, DP’ve spent my whole life living in ‘normal’ two-thousand-square _ foot homes, and to move into a hundred and fifty square feet demands a certain realign- ment of priorities. But this is my third year in the shack, and I’ve never lived in a nicer place. I wash in a china washbowl that has been in use since . 1875. It works just fine. My friendly. organic carpenter | built the table that I type on and eat at; a cupboard for my . clothes that has drawers for socks and things, and a stand for a record player. The last occupant before me put about thirty-five feet of shelving around the perim- eter of the walls, so I keep my book collection under thirty-five lineal feet. While by literary standards that may seem a bit arbitrary, it seems to work out. BURGLAR ALARMS Over the years I’ve added a few small refinements: skylights, plants, a small propane stove and, most important, a burglar alarm. After being burgled seven times in three years I guess I realized that thieves are thieves and not likely to change—though why anyone _ adding to them, would want to bother with my collection of trivia is beyond me. So anyone burgling my place from now on has to cope with a= series of electronic surprises. I keep and ob- viously the burglar keeps coping with them—but I just spent a lot of money on a few refinements, burglar, and (a) as you know from last time: (you were lucky!) I don’t keep any money or dope; and (b) I have built in a few more battery-operated surprises. I -say battery-operated because the thief discon- nected my electricity the last | time and then forced a window. He (or she—I’m liberated) was _ because the battery built into my system for such eventu- alities* failed to function;. through my own idiocy I had wired. it in backwards. However, it now is wired in’ the right way around. So far the score is Thief - 7, Peter - ?, and I have a feeling that it’s my turn soon.. I had a. primitive but effective device invented, a length of two-by-twelve tim- ber hinged over the windows. and suspended at the free end by a hook-and-eye. The hook was connected to a string that ran to the window, and the idea -was that the thief would pry open the window, the string would pull the hook out of the eye, the free end of the board : would come whistling down : and brain the (obscenity). VERIFIED CIRCULATION 46,000 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 | OFFICE/NEWS: (604) 980-0511 CLASSIFIED: 980-3464 CIRCULATION: 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Bob Graham/ Managing Editor Noel Wright/News Guillermo Lam/Photos Ells- worth Dickson/Production Marna Leiren/Advertls- ing Kristi Vidler/Classified Berni Hilliard/Circula- tion Yvonne Chapman/Administration Barbara Haywood/Accounts Sylvia Sorensen. North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an ‘independent community newspaper | : registered under Part 111, Schedule 111, and Paragraph 111 of the Customs and Excise Act, is published each Wednesday by the North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Second Class Mall Reglatration Number 3885. ENTIRE CONTENTS COPYRIGHT © 1977 NORTH SHORE FREE PRESS LTD. All rights reserved. a a bayonet to the-end of the ‘or some other wrist slap. _ jeys and its tribulations, and hundred square feet, when it _ fortunate, feet? Well, my heating bill is: sometimes. -Space to put them in—the charges against juveniles. | with plywood. THIEVES CAN SUE I was thinking of further refining it by lashing a Y board, but apparently one must be careful not to hurt thieves, especially juveniles, | as their mothers and fathers .. | can. sue you and _ win damages. Strange system, this Juv- enile. Court System. No. wonder the police shake their heads and shrug. What good does it do to arrest a juvenile? A phone call to. Mommy and Daddy, a hurried visit from Daddy’s . lawyer and our juvenile is on the street, smug and secure in the knowledge that the worst he (or she) is likely to get is a suspended sentence Well, I did say it has its enough of the tribulations. As a great many people on the North Shore are bitterly aware, it doesn’t matter | much whether you live in af hundred and fifty or fifteen comes to being burgled. $13 HEATING BILL ‘The joys of living in a hundred and fifty. square about $13-on a really cold month, and doing my house- work takes about two hours a week. I don’t do any gardening, a creek running by my door fills my shack with tie ineffably soothing noise of running water day and night. I can hear the racoons onthe roof at night, and I wake up to the singing of birds in the morning. It does get a little cramped I never really realized it until I bought a new pair of hiking boots and couldn’t find a square foot of least of my worries when I bought them! Lt. Green Shag - 12 x 13-0 Green Shag - 12 x 9-7 Gold Hardtwist - 12 x 11-0 Plum Ozite-12x13-7 Green Carved Shag - 12 x 16-0 Yellow Shag - 12 x 9-3 Orange Splush - 12 x 14-3. Blue Sculptured Shag - 12 x 10-6 Rust Splush - 12 x 8-8 Grey Level Loop - 12 x 10-5 Red Sulptured Shag - 12 x 8-0 $195.00 $89.50 $139.00 $84.00 $382.00 $96.00 $228.00 $149.00 $103.00 $112.00 $88.00 The two young suspects were released to the custody of their parents after police sent a report on them to the >robation officer—who dec- des whether to proceed with Shortly before 11 p.m. Sunday a- basement fire broke out at the home of Alexander Hackman, 875 22nd Street, and was brought under control by the fire department about an hour | and a half later.’ The blaze was apparently caused by sparks from a main-floor fireplace in the older house. penetrating through the ue to a basement fireplace covered In the Norgate Shopping Centre 1461 Marine Drive North Vari 980-6091 The basement was largely gutted. Damage, estimated at up to $8,000, included the destruction of a stereo, a pool table, a record collection and a set of drums. L_] Brasso Dateun Phillip Ave, Marine Drive The latter was a particular loss to Mrs. Hackman, an enthusiastic drum-player.