Things I Cannot Explain

because I don't understand them myself. People in my age and income group are unlikely to be spending a fraction of $124,208 annually. Another chart presented at the budget session at the week-end orientation showed the average household income was $144K a year.

RTB wants to see the figures to help him understand.

Aging in Aurora is the fastest growing group . Actually that's a silly statement I just made. All of the people in Aurora are aging.Just like in every other place. We all grow old one day at a time.

Other things happen as well. Families break up. People become ill. Sometimes they don't get better. People lose jobs . If they don't have well-paid public service positions,they do not have protections against life's potential difficulties.

I don't think the figures helped to explain anything. Income for people at the basic Canada pension level is approximately $13,000.a year. Annual expenditures are hardly likely to be $124,208. There won't be children in the house. No $22.361. to pay for shelter. No child care costs. Nor $14,554.for transportation.Not even $15,529 for "other" expenses.

They won't be spending $11,621. on recreation and education. Or $39,809. on taxes and securities. I don't even know what that reference to securities is about.

I have no idea how the estimates were derived. So I can give no guarantee as to accuracy or relevance.

I know a person working in Canadian Tire, considered good employers in the retail industry because they provide benefits, are likely to have take-home pay of around $20,000.annually. That bracket pays the greatest share of income taxes because there are more of them. Both parents working would provide annual income of $40K.

A single mother working with dependent children would have earnings of $20K.

We talked about the average income and expenditure and the percentage of people with university degrees and graphs establishing the population of Aurora are well educated, well heeled and spend a high level of income on non-essentials.

We established there is no economic hardship in Aurora. Everybody is well able to pay whatever taxes we impose.Then we talked about how a budget is constructed.

There was some give and take on the subject.

RTB thinks it's silly to think about free use of swimming and skating facilities.

I grew up by the seaside. Warm summer days were spent at the shore.It didn't cost anything at all. We didn't always have bathing suits. The bottom half of our underwear often had to suffice.

The sea,the sun, sand dunes and sea shells, creatures in rock pools,hard sand when the tide went out, sometimes smooth sometimes with hard ridges, where soon hundreds of sand worm castings appeared as if by magic. It built great castles,and holes that held until the tide came back in and flooded them. If we didn't fill them with pails first. Scuttling crabs racing about, the waves ,the wind.no watches, no clock to tell the time.

The walk home that took us past the harbour and boats being loaded with coal and bricks and lumber from railroad cars and the dredger that kept the harbour mouth from silting up were all on one side of the road.

On the other,houses and shops in building hundreds of years old,still in use. The Ship Inn that was Rab Burns favourite pub when he was seventeen years old and a womaniser and a roustabout and living in Irvine.

His life already half over although he didn't know it and I just typed in Aurora for Irvine and had to correct it.

Towering behind the street was a great heap called the Blue Billie. There was blasting every day at noon for shale needed for construction... I suppose.It's not there any more. They changed the landscape.

The shore was always the place to be on sunny days. Some kids had mothers with them. I was with my sister Kathleen,two years my elder.

On rainy days, we played cards or guessing games in the lobby leading to our homes. Outside we played hide and seek and Leave a' and guessing and running games at the window of the wee sweety shop in the building next door. We climbed lamp posts when it was dark and gathered in the circle of light to tell ghost stories and scare ourselves half to death or silly rude jokes that had us collapsing in giggles with the sinfulness of it.

There were always crowds of kids. And chalk and a peever to play beds. Spinning tops, marbles,skipping ropes and balls to bounce against the walls. There were chestnuts hardened and pierced to draw a string through, Everybody didn't have these things. so turns were taken so that everybody could play but skills were not even.

There were dozens of games to be played with a ball. A rope game had two people
turning the rope and a line-up of kids waiting their turn to jump in and skip to a dozen different songs sung in chorus by the group.

There were many places to play.The drying green,the yard with the hard packed earth surrounded by the coal cellars and the wash-house in the corner that backed on to the communal lavatory. Between back yards were walls with round slippery tops to keep kids from climbing over. We walked on them with arms outstretched for balance and sometimes teeter and fall to the ground.

The lavatory had a stone floor. It was so old, the stone was worn to a hollow where thousands of feet had rested over hundreds of years. The wood door, with a hole in the middle big enough for a person's arm, probably started as a knot hole, was stuffed with newspaper. The door was held closed by a large boulder that had to be pushed into place. Easier for some than others.

Well...didn't I get off topic. I was saying I would like families to have free access to leisure swimming and skating programs. I wasn't proposing it. But I tell you what...If I were the solitary authority in our town, I would be looking for ways and means... and I fully understand why the city does it.

Children learn many worthwhile life skills through play with others of varying ages. If they don't get that opportunity and they are left out, they learn other things.