Tidbits! Here I am sitting with the Golden Star for 1958.
I was looking through the pages for something to inspire me to write a piece for this week, I kept getting distracted by the small bits of news that are prophetic or poetic or just tell the events of the day. Some make me smile, some make me sad and some astonish me in their clarity of vision.
Let me share some of them with you.
January 4, 1958 – The centennial year was ushered in at Golden by a gala at the Civic Centre when 414 persons paid admission to dance to the music of two orchestras. (The second orchestra didn’t begin until 1 a.m. – Apparently they knew how to party).
The movie playing at the Yoho Theatre on Jan. 6, 1958 was “Love in the Afternoon” with Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn.
January 23, 1958 – Letters to the Editor – Dear Sir: We are now starting the new year, 1958.
After listening to Radio, Television and reading the newspapers there is very little one can add that concerns the immediate future.
It may therefore be interesting to recall in our memory some very fantastic forecasts that have been made in regards to scientific possibilities.
In addition to these other forecasts there also exist ideas which if applied could go a long way to saving the Western World from going the same way as the Roman Empire and other dynasties and civilizations before it.
Perhaps the following could be used as a rough guide, without any country having to sacrifice their present worthwhile freedoms, nor affecting their social ideological make up.
1.) Call an immediate halt to the cold war and nuclear tests.
2.) Call a six month halt on arms production but continue to pay workers wages.
3.) Admit Red China to U.N.
4.) Obtain agreement for a neutral zone embracing West and East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungry. Later add Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Yugoslavia, Greece and Albania completing the neutral belt from the Mediterranean to the Artic.
5.) Extend the free trading area of Western Europe to embrace every country in the world willing to come in.
6.) Each country or region set up a license board to control imports and exports replacing tariff walls and establish a U.N. Commission to coordinate world trade.
7.) Set up within the U.N. a world planning board working as co-ordinator with planning boards in each country and region.
8.) Combine Disarmament with the local and U.N. planning boards to facilitate a gradual transition from military planning and arms production to peaceful planning and production.
9.) Financing to be provided from Defence budgets at present amounting to over $100.00 billions each year.
To the above suggestions, it must be remembered, are very humbly presented and off the cuff.
Consequently very crude and incomplete and must seem unrealistic at present, but in 10 or 15 years we may wish we had begun to work on something like this at an earlier date.
The future is moving toward us fast in this atomic and sputnik age.
What will be done is entirely in the hands of the people, who, after all are the ones who elect Governments.
People ought to use their democratic right to save what has been accomplished and continue to build for a better future. Written by W. Dalhberg
February 13, 1958 –
A Motorists Lament –
I think that I shall never see – From Golden into Calgary –
The road complete with pavement shine, No gravelled stretch, no roadwork sign.
They tear, repair all summer thru’ – Then leave it rough for winter too.
I’ve travelled it for these past two years – I must have shed a million tears. I’ve dodged machinery, breathed in dust, At 20 miles per hour, I’ve cussed.
I really hoped the day would come – When all the road work would be done.
But now, I’m getting old and grey – My time is short, I only pray.
That my grandchild e’er he should die. May be more fortunate that I. That he may drive and drive with ease, At least as far as Lake Louise. (No author is listed but I’d certainly be interested in knowing who wrote this.)
54 Years ago and yet the headlines could have been written this week!
