4 ~ We Bob Hunier @ strictly personal @ 1 AM A great fan of spiders. It dismays me that there are still persons in the world who think spiders are yuk. My wife happens to be one of them. Shortly after we got together, I noticed that despite her terrific mind, her knowl- edge-impacted brain, her guts as a driver, and her courage in the face of danger, when it came to spiders, she was every bit as silly as Miss Muppet. So I sat down and tried some therapy on her. We quickly discovered that her | mother is easily freaked out ty spiders, so we had a parent to blame, which is what therapy most always comes down ta anyway. But we wanted to get deeper than that. ‘Tt was easy lo convince the kids that banishment was a better policy than execution. All I really had to do was tell them my theory that there is one: planet in the universe for every “ype of creature here on Earth, and on each Planet a Afferent creature gels Lo be boss.”’ Posen ve. On rept aie . My wife understands, intellec- . tually, that it is utterly ridiculous to be afraid of spiders — a giant allowing herself to be terrorized by the smallest animal around. Animal. That’s right. An amazing number of people still seem to labor under the misap- prehension that a spider is an in- sect. It’s an arachnid, properly speaking. It has a little heart and little stomach and little lungs and little intestines. They usually have four eyes, which is bound to be better than two. They have eight legs. No point even trying to calculate how much more efficient they are in terms of mobility. They wear their skeletons on the outside, which is a darn good idea, when you think about it. The spider is capable of shrug- ging off a wounded appendage and growing another one, which is one of the neatest tricks around. Best of all, instead of wasting all their waste, like we do, spiders spin silk. That’s right. Silk is spider do-do. It also happens to have a ten- sile strength second only to fused quartz. The strands are only Citizens c A CLUTTERED North Vancouver creek has been cleared of debris by a local group of concerned citizens. Members of the North Shore Fish and Game Club spent 3% hours Oct. 3 hauling urban flotsam and jetsam from Wagg Creek, which runs through Mahon Park and Creek. NSFGC spokesman Philip Ec- cles said the club pulled shopping carts, plastic sheets, logs, bicycle is a tributary of MacKay - one-millionth of an inch in diameter. I could go on...and often do, when it comes to spiders. But try as we might, we failed | to de-program my wife’s spider paranoia. To this day, when a spider drops down in front of her she spases (sic). But, I’ say this, we have scored at least one major political victory in the struggle to save spiders around the Hunter household. Now, when anybody discovers a spider, rather than stomping the poor beast, they send for me and ! am allowed to pick it up and take it outside and let it go. It was easy to convince the kids that banishment was a better pol- icy than execution. All | really had to do was tell them my theory that there is one planet in the universe for every type of creature here on Earth, and on each planet a different creature gets to be boss. So there would be a chicken world and eleph:nt world and slug world. Any maybe, just maybe we are reborn on those different worlds! And maybe just maybe again the way you will be treated when you arrive will depend on how you treated those other animals back in this lifetime on Earth, where you were the supreme form of life. Aha! That gets their little imaginations seething. Mom is a harder cuse to cure, poor soul. Although 1 must, in all fairness, report that my wife ac- tually did hold a spider in the palm of her hand once, after much coaxing. It was a fairly large hunting and weaving type of animal. To my wife’s utter amazement, when she stroked the spider’s body, the cute little thing arched its back and started undulating, lifting up one leg at a time, showing every sign of being as pleased as a cat being stroked. In fact, its movements were like a cat’s paw. We could almost hear the little guy purring. Tarantulas, I understand, make terrific pets. A friend of mine had one, but he made the mistake of taking him — it was a boy — out of his shirt pocket and setting him down on the bar at a local pub. There was a moment’s dead silence. Then the guy next to my friend reached over with blinding speed and smashed the tarantula to death with a single blow of his newspaper. . No kidding. This is what us arachnid-lovers are up against. What are cobwebs but our first line of defence against flies and mosquitoes? The eater of my enemy is my friend, right? fear creek frames, automobile wheels and tires, among other things, out of a stretch of the creek from 18th Street and Jones Avenue through Mahon Park. “It was a hell of a mess,’’ Eccles said. The club, which has a small salmon spawning egg box and fish ladder on MacKay Creek, installed the first of three bridges across Wagg Creek in Mahon Park in the early ’70s. Man jailed for theft A 36-YEAR-OLD North Van- couver man was sentenced Oct. 7 in North Vancouver proviicial court to four months in jail after he pleaded guilty to charges of theft and mischief. Ronald Michael Schlamp was originally charged with mischief, theft under $1,000 and possession of stolen property in connection with incidents Oct. 2 in which an automobile antenna was broken, the contents of a blue Dodge stolen and hockey tickets seized by police. CORRECTION NOTICE An ad appearing in our Wednesday, October 7, 1987 newspaper for Greg's Quality Meats Inc., with in- correct hours, should have read: Monday Tues.Wed. Thur-Fri. 9-7 pm Saturday 9-6 pm Closed Sunday GREG’S QUALITY MEATS Fe pn ; ==EPIC AU (DIO LyOs across from Mercedes Benz MORE CONVENIENCE HAS TAKEN OFF 70 VICTORIA New Schedule now in place! DOWNTOWN VANCOUVER TO DOWNTOWN VICTORIA. Now 24 Flights per day! (Monday - Friday) Coming Soon. November 2nd we inaugurate another route to give your schedule an added lift. Scheduled Jet Helicopter service from the VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT'S NEW HELIPORT TERMINAL TO DOWNTOWN VICTORIA. That’s another 14 flights per day! (Monday - Friday; * Sd Pre-reserved taxi or limousine Convenient connecting flights Interline baggage service Our Royal Service includes: Complimentary shuttle bus Complimentary coftee ss a —— — For Reservations call your Competitively Priced travel agent or Helijet Reservations ; at only Victoria 382-6222 Downtown Victoria (one way) Helijet Airways Vancouver international Airport Vancouver 273-1414 Downtown Vancouver AtaDa Fach . PORT OF VANCOUVER ‘tabus HELIPORT VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT Cateapan aAikiitats, MANGA HELEIET ay AIRWAYS HELIPORT Reservac DRI-10129 CAMEL PT. HELIPORT | Sabre Participant