GARDEN OF BIASES | HAMILTON — It’s the Canada Day almost- holiday-weekend. How stands the mation? From the West Coast, it’s hard to tell, It’s an empire unto itself, - And a bountiful one. Not so here. This is a steel town, a foundry town, a heavy- industry town that in the interests _ of quick wealth polluted its water and destroyed its last beaches be- fore 1 was born here in the 1930s. And its changing fortunes in the Jast half-century closely reflect Canada’s. ., It is of interest even for affluent coupon-clippers and shareholders in clean Greater Tiddlycove, -! where little actual work is done. - I stil! remember when Nicole Parton told me, with that great _ enthusiasm of hers: **) just visited your home town!’” “Yeah?” said I, swelling a little with pride. . “Yes!’’ Nicole cried, eyes shin- ing. And then: “What a dump!"’ Don't go back, Nicole. It’s worse. Yet I stil! find it a tremendously livable city. : i Ina year in which I’ve visited Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Washington, D.C., )'d defend my birthplace vigorously. But not un- critically. \ : My motel was across from a big :serapyard — but also from a large, beautiful, fastidiously clean “park between thundering Queen — Elizabeth Way and Lake Ontario: Confederation Park. : ‘ItS trees are gorgeous, its grass lush, its squirrels sassy, the whole thing serenely defying the brutal industrial mishmash only minutes away. : It is — dare I say it?} — a much more open, relaxing place on most summer mornings than Stanley Park, where competition for space and use have reached Darwinian levels. ; That’s the park. Now the scrapyard. ; It began with a Jewish im- migrant collecting scrap up and down the streets from his horsecart. His descendants are honored benefactors of the city and ther yard proudly announces: “Protecting the environment through recycling.” The park and the scrapyard are 2 metaphor of this Ontario heartland city. Ironically, the smoky stee! mills that instantly catch and repel the ‘veye of visitors like Nicole are Jess polluting than they were -- and in drastic decline. ; Steel Company of Canada ‘stock, $30 a few years ago, plung- ed to 90 cents last year. The work force at a key mill has been halved to 6,000. And on- ly last week the U.S. Commerce Department made yet another protectionist ruling that kicked the Canadian steel industry while it's down. Hamilton, despite impressive .tenewal like the Copps Arena and excellent new live theatres, is looking shabby at the edges. The genteel downtown retail stores of the past — typically, one called The Right House; another, the Herbert Mills china shop, which claimed international fame, now immortalized only by fading letters on an awning — are gone, replaced by garish discount stores and gaps of dirty windows bearing For Lease signs. sions of cooking). Years passed. Stelco and Dofasco are bleeding. Firestone is gone. So is International Harvest- er, Studebaker gave its last gasp here in the 1960s, having earlier died in South Bend, Indiana. The huge cotton mills closed long ago. boat, very scary for a Canada that Hamilton helped make the world’s fifth biggest industrial power at the end of the Second World War. Now a4 survey of world businessmen rates it as 11th. Yet there are brighter economic figures, Canada is looking sharper against some flagging competitors, Look, | wouldn’t even trade Hamilton. Any town where the Monday-to-Wednesday dinner special is a generous amount of thin-sliced beef on a bun and a big pile of fries for only 99 cents — that’s at Pepper's, just off Centennial Parkway, if you're dy- ing for a visit —- can’t be beaten. A darkened men's store, once striving for elegance, offers a crummy window of suits at $79.95 and a small-town-style scrawled sign that says it will reopen at 4:30 p.m. It’s a long haul from my mem- ories of exactly 50 years ago. War jobs attracted a bulge of fresh-faced young workers, especially women, from the Prairies and the Maritimes —- we had several as boarders. Hamilton flourished. After the war there was an in- flux of immigrants, many from continental Europe, some cruelly derided as DPs — Displaced Per- sons. But they brought their hard work and ope {and new dimen- Skydome. this year, THE Clues POHT Lipotropic Factors i Lanotnaysic Factors aetears t Apoatrogiige” Fhe need ne Suggested Retail 16.99 sega: 11.99 "Lipo" means ‘fat’ and the definition of “tropic” is ‘changing or turning in a parti- cular way.’ Lipotropic Factors are nutrients that help the proper elimination of fats during weight loss. LIPO+FIT supplies the most important lipotropic factors; choline, inositol and methionine. ; Psyllium Plus Herbal Fibre with Bromelain Suggested Retail 10.49 Special Price 7.49 FIBRE*FIT combines the most effective fibre sources available for proper elimina- tion. It includes Psyllium, prune and fig. Bromelain (pineapple) and Papain (papaya) enzymes are added to aid digestion. Proper nutrient absorption is dependent upon enzyme function. 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