A2-Wednesday, February 20, 1980 - North Shore News

speckulations

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great deal of pleasure.

But times change, and
people change, and things
change. Monica is still there,
and the cottage is still there,
but the secret garden and its
magic fence are long gone,
buried beneath the sterility
of blacktop demanded by the
municipal authorities “so the
garbage truck has room to
turn around”.

NOT USED

The garbage truck doesn’t
use it, of course, but if some
day one of the municipal
drivers should want to turn
around in the secret garden
the fence has been removed,
the hundred year old acacia
trees have been cut down
and the lawn and wild
flowers all are safely en-
tombed beneath the asphalt.
Everything is ready for
them.

So much for the municipal
bureaucracy of West
Vancouver, which isn't
really why this piece is being
written.

After the recent holiday in
Hawaii I came back to work
and found a letter from
Monica on my desk. It's
interesting, and perhaps
some of our readers can
relate to it:

Dear Peter:

The damn _ teenage
burglars are at it again. Do
you remember when you
were living here, how often
we had the nice men from
the West Vancouver Police
up to see us? In one eleven-

by Peter Speck

The Great Booby Trap award

My friend Monica used to be my landlady. She
has a cottage on her property in West Vancouver
which I rented for a few years, and which long-
time readers of this column may remember. The
place had a ‘secret garden’ which gave me a lot of
pleasure, a peaceful, naturally beautiful spot
hidden from prying eyes by a great old fence
covered with climbing plants. I wrote about it
from time to time, and look back on my days of
living in the ten by fifteen foot cottage with a

month period, I recall, we
racked up aé_ record of
thirteen B & E's (break-ins
and enterings), and West
Van's finest judged them all
to be the work of juveniles,
and rightly so, judging by the
things that were stolen and
the damage that was done.

I recall that we had some
funny sessions, in a macabre
sort of way, devising booby
traps for the invaders. There
was the simple and ap-
propriate rat trap, nailed
firmly at strategic points on
window ledges and inside
drawers.

There was our Rube
Goldberg routine with the
double pulley system and a
large piece of lumber poised
to crown, hopefully, the
head of whatever crept in.

TOO LETHAL?

Moving to greater things,
we then faced the
engineering problems of the
100-pound concrete weight,
but this proved too much for
our simple skills, and the
project, which it seemed to
us would have been rather
effective, had, alas, to be
abandoned. It did cross my
mind, en passant, that the
idea might prove a bit too
lethal.

Well, P, I'm here to tell
you I have reversed my
feelings about that concrete
block.

We were warned at the
time that booby traps were
illegal.

lam now going illegal.

Because you see, it has
begun again. After several
peaceful months, my home
has been ravaged in the same
juvenile pattern as before,
and I figure it’s my turn to be
illegal. With fourteen in-
nings on their side, it’s time |
had one. So I'm using some
creative anger to dream up

bigger and better booby
traps than even we en-
visioned.

This is where you come in.
P.

Why not start the First
Great Annual Booby Trap
Competition among your
readers, a large percentage
of whom have been similarly
victimized, according to the
North Shore “blues” If we
must hve with this con-
tinuing harrassment, we may
as well extract a bit of
morbid glee from it,
awarding a prize, such as a
course in foot roping, for the
most diabolical trap.

A GOOD IDEA

Psychologically, the idea
seems sound. Most thieves
are, by their very nature,
cowards; and physical fear is
a powerful deterent.

In a more serious vein, we
might also ask your legion of
readers for suggestions on
forming a citizen’s group to
assemble constructive ideas
on more effective juvenile
crime legislation, and to
press the Department of
Justice towards that goal.

An idea long put forward
is that parents should be held
financially responsible for
the offenses of their young

— that their pockets should
hurt, not ours.

Admittedly there are
seemingly responsible
parents who have  in-

corrigible kids, and we all
know about the bogey of

;

A

aa Ne

NORTH V ANCOUV ER CITY LIBRARY marked the fifth anniversary of its move to
the North Van Civic Centre on Saturday and to celebrate the occasion, three-year-old
Angela Edwards presented Chief Librarian Helen Moore with a birthday cake. (Terry

Peters photo)

“peer pressure.” But when
the situation reaches its
current near epidemic

proportions, there must have
been misguidance
somewhere along the line.

FIGURE 1 specializes in a European method of cellulite elimination

end weight and inch loss.

FIGURE 1
SLIMMING STUDIOS

Slim Down

FIGURE 1

And why should we, the
innocent supporters of all
legal systems, have to pay?

So let's begin with the
First Great Annual Booby
Trap Contest.

&
Firm Up
with

i'm doing it!

So Can You with FIGURE 1

Just he back and take off inches or just firm up. That’s right! No jogging or
strenuous exercise A highly sophisticated machine does the work - moves and
tones the muscles for you as you relax Read a book, even sleep. Results of the
treatment can be dramatic Three inches off thighs, four inches off waist-lines
are not unusual Stop feeling guilty about those unsightly bulges and get into

shape now!

Figure 1

SLIMMING STUDIOS

Hollyburn Plaza
1785 Bellevue Ave
West Vancouver

922-8011

Phaolograptty

And I will let you know
when I catch my first Booby.

Love,
M.

With Figure |

922-0314

Terry Forbes