Christmas Pageant at Dunnville Christian School

"David's Dynasty,"

Dunnville Christian School's Christmas Show 

by John Taylor, photography by Marie Taylor 

for the Dunnville Free Press 

13 December, 2015 

On Friday, December 11, Dunnville Christian School held its popular annual Christmas pageant, entitled this year, "David's Dynasty," with the subtitle, "A bearded family of shepherds finding their heritage in the Christmas story." 

I attended the evening showing, which had by a rough estimate some 260 in the audience, with a cast, depending on the scene, fluctuating around seventy five at one time on stage. The drama and music, arranged by Gina Boe, Sue C. Smith, Barb Dorn  and Christopher Davis, was not the stiff recitation mixed with stodgy, traditional Christmas carols that one might expect. 

The dialogue in the play was sprinkled with humour, irony and intentional anachronisms. The music included fresh numbers like "Bethle-boring" and "Listen to the Oldies." The playbill credits the production to the entire staff of DCS, and clearly the entire student body played some role, including the kindergarten class, every boy sporting a crew cut, singing "Happy Birthday Baby Jesus." 

Photo Credits: Marie Taylor 

Profile of Bert Vis Flooring

​Smithville Enterprise offers Complete Flooring and Cabinetry Service 

Written for the Dunnville Free Press,

By John Taylor

​ ​

​Bert Vis Flooring 

Dunnville's only flooring business moved to Cayuga a couple of years ago, making a drive inevitable for anybody seeking this type of home improvement. However, home owners in Dunnville may not be aware that nearby Smithville features a large flooring concern, Bert Vis Flooring and Cabinets. It is situated in downtown Smithville, at 214 St. Catherines Street. I met with their head of advertising, Ralph Vis at their capacious showroom to find out more. Ralph explained that his father, Bert Vis, has owned and operated the business since 1978. 

Aside from flooring, including carpeting, vinyl, hardwood laminate and ceramic flooring, they also offer counter-tops, cabinets, vanities and back-splashes, along with painting services and supplies. Customers have the choice of purchasing materials and installing them on their own, or taking advantage of their complete installation services. Flooring is installed by Bert Vis employees, while counter-tops and cabinet installations tend to be subcontracted out. Currently, they are booking four to six weeks ahead, although the work itself, even granite counter-tops, can be done as quickly as a day or two. 

  

I asked, what kind of flooring is most popular? Answer, it fluctuates on a seasonal basis. It used to be carpeting that dominated, but in recent years hard surfaces such as laminates, have surged ahead. As for counter-tops, granite and quartz have increased in sales, especially in the high end market. 

  

Where does most of your business come from? We get most of our business from walk-in customers, who often come from Hamilton, Burlington, Grimsby, Vineland and West Lincoln. Although Ralph lives in Dunnville himself, Dunnville is as yet one of their smaller markets. He and his staff find Smithville to be a friendly community to serve. They are pleased that new housing projects in Smithville and area are jump starting demand for their services. 

 Bert Vis Flooring & Cabinets - Flooring & Cabinet Sales 

www.bertvis.com 

 Smithville, ON L0R 2A0 

 Phone:(905) 957-7779 

 Hours: 9:00 to 5:00 PM 

Contact: sales@bertvice.com 

Photos of Ralph Vis and the staff in their showroom, photo credits to Marie Taylor, except the last photo 

Photo of Ralph Vis, taken from their website 

​​

Dunnville Boys Become Storm Troopers

Dunnville Heritage Society Meeting 

Soldiers from Dunnville Fight a Great War; the Third Battle of Ypres 

by John Taylor for the Dunnville Free Press 

Submitted Wednesday, Dec 01, 2015

The Dunnville Heritage Society continued its series on the First World War on November 25th. The speaker, resident historian Judy, focused this time on Lens and Passchendaele, part of the battle of Aras, especially the third battle of Ypres. This consisted of two excruciating but brilliantly planned attacks by Canadian troops in the mud and blood of Belgium over the summer and fall of 1917. Specially featured were the stories of several Dunnville "boys."

One was farmer and professional runner Edwin Wood, who before the war ran, sometimes successfully, against the famous sprinter from Six Nations, Tom Longboat. Longboat also served in the Canadian army as a dispatch runner, one of the most dangerous jobs in the war. Another featured soldier was hockey player Jack Munro, who joined the 114th. She told of how even hockey was, in those days, extremely brutal, arduous and dangerous. The slide show included family photos of Munro and brothers Robert and James Bennett, with several other brothers, who also served. Bennett became a lawyer after the war. The youngest in the photo was wearing skirts. He was not a girl but a boy, Judy explained. In those days a young boy had to earn his trousers.

The story starts when Canada's army in 1917 was just coming off a heady victory at Vimy Ridge. We were ordered to conduct two attacks that seemed extremely tough, not to say dubious and suicidal. Only vigorous intervention and near insubordination by Canada's unsung hero, General Arthur Currie, kept subsequent events from turning into the sort of meaningless bloodbath that was going on, well, just about everywhere else on the front. By one account, if Currie had been part of General Douglas "Butcher of the Somme" Haig's own staff, he would have been summarily fired for thus defending the lives of his troops. Fortunately, for diplomatic reasons, he was immune. For Haig, the push had only one objective, to distract the German enemy from the parlous state of larger armies to the south, especially that of the French. Otherwise, their success or failure had no strategic value, although at that low point in the fighting any good news at all had great psychological effect, both in France and on the home front in Canada.

Make no mistake. This was a low point in a very low war. Aristocratic fops leading the French military treated their men with open contempt as cannon fodder. After some 700,000 casualties at Verdun, France's army was on the verge of mass mutiny. The challenge was keeping it a secret from the Germans, who would have walked over them had they known. Finally Joffre, the "butcher of Verdun," was replaced by Gen. Philippe Petain, who placated his expendables by, in effect, promising to just stop attacking. He would thus abate the lemming-like rush into machine gun fire and an early grave. It is telling that in this war no fewer than three generals earned the nickname "the butcher."

Currie did what few other generals bothered to do. He went out and inspected the situation with his own eyes. When he did, he was appalled. He insisted on getting enough men and equipment to have a fighting chance do what Canada was ordered to do. After meticulous preparation, Currie finally had our force ready. The Third Battle of Ypres began under horrific conditions, including a monsoon that had everybody hip deep in mud. To greet us, the Germans introduced two surprises for this battle. These technological innovations, mustard gas and flame throwers, were firsts in the history of warfare. By this time, two of the Dunnville soldiers we looked at had already been killed or went missing, along with 200,000 others from across Canada. For more information about the battle, see: 

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/first-world-war/fact_sheets/passchendaele 

The Battle of Passchendaele has been immortalized in a feature film of that name by Paul Gross. The success of Canadian troops in these storming the lines -- in English, shock troops, was so impressive to the Germans that they dubbed Canadians Stoßtruppen, or "Storm Troopers." A nice bit of trivia to tell your kids as they watch the upcoming Stars Wars reboot film opening this month. Tell them that the original storm troopers were not only good guys, they were our guys. Some even came from Dunnville.

sidebar: Kornelius Neudorf, a regular at the DHS meetings, stated that he is always impressed with the depth of research that is put into these presentations about our history. 

The DREAM Experiment

DREAM Event Number Two: Showing of the documentary film, The Human Experiment,

November 27, 2015 

by John Taylor for the Dunnville Free Press, submitted 29 November, 2015 

On November 27th the DREAM youth mentorship program presented the feature documentary "The Human Experiment," followed by a discussion of the issues raised. The event was sponsored by Hauser's Pharmacy. 

This movie was produced and narrated by Sean Penn. It exposes yet another putrid symptom of the corruption besetting the American legislative system. In effect, the chemical industry has a license to kill and uses the people as laboratory rats in a mad rush for profit. They are free to introduce a flood of unregulated, untested chemicals born with the same rights humans have to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Thousands of concoctions are not only released into the environment but directly into our bodies by eating, drinking and smearing them on our skin. The film follows around activists against such irresponsible laws in an exhausting, heroic, Sisyphean attempt to limit some of these chemicals. Even some Californian teenage girls, when they learned what is in their cosmetics, became lobbyists for rules and transparency about what is in them.

Baby shampoo, for example, one might think would be the safest substance on sale, since we rub it into the scalps of our most precious and vulnerable citizens. But no, for unexplained reasons the folks at Johnson and Johnson came up with the "innovation" of pumping baby shampoo up with formaldehyde, a chemical whose toxicity is as unambiguous and tried and true as you could imagine. When pressured to take out the poison, they did so -- everywhere except in the US. There, legislators can be corrupted at a bargain price. The film shows the shock on Americans' faces when they learn that their nation has become a dumping ground for the world's most dangerous products, from plastics to literally millions of other monstrosities. 

The film tells the heart wrenching story of one activist fighting for regulation who at first cannot conceive, probably due to chemical exposure, and then must watch her baby sicken and die from exposure to plastics in the life-support equipment that kept him alive. One green advocate compares their work to a game of Whac-A-Mole. Bash down one poison and another immediately pops up its head. 

Ironically, the chemical industry knows that, compared to Europe, even compared to regulated branches of the American economy, it is shooting itself in the foot. For example, we can get into a car with full assurance that its design will not kill us, since its manufacture is subject to judicious safety regulations. But women who buy cosmetics or shampoo or clean their homes with commercial cleaners, or men who work with plastics like PVC, have no such peace of mind -- or rather they would not if they knew what was going on. They show in excruciating detail the devastation of cancer, infertility and infant mortality caused a toxic brew of chemicals in products we trust, buy and use every day. 

But these executives, like addicts and criminals, cannot help themselves. Bullying the American government into having it their way is just too easy. Their exemplars are the tobacco industry, who over several decades worked out a scam called the "four dog" strategy. Start with "dog one," denial. My dog cannot have bitten you because it does not bite. Dog two is diversion, it may bite, but there is no proof that my dog was the one who bit you. Dog three is denial of harm. It may have bitten you, but you were not badly hurt. The fourth dog shifts responsibility to the victim. My dog may have mauled you, but I had nothing to do with it; you probably provoked him. You knew what you were doing when you bought something with chemicals in it, so you have to man up and take the consequences. 

The movie provoked a spirited discussion afterwards. One audience member talked about peanut allergies, unknown in his youth but now making peanuts a forbidden substance in schools. Unknown chemicals are allowed in, but not peanuts! Another pointed out that the poor used to eat nothing but peanuts, hence the expression "the peanut gallery," meaning the raucous members of the cheap seats in a theatre. Now the poor are steered away from natural food into chemical laden treats sold by irresponsible corporations. Another agreed, "These oil executives and other one-percenters are nothing but well heeled serial killers." Another held that the neo-cons have a similar scam, they dupe the 99 percent into lobbying for them by pushing for lower taxes (who wants more taxes?) and less regulation, as if that were a good thing, a blow for freedom. One person mentioned the LEAP manifesto promoted by Policy Alternatives.

After the meeting, DREAM organizer Barbara Kazemi stated that their goal over the past decade has been first to raise awareness and, this year, to promote individual action, especially among young people. She encouraged all to attend upcoming climate change initiatives and demonstrations in Hamilton and Toronto. "We are trying to get a speaker from LEAP for an upcoming DREAM meeting. Maybe even Naomi Klein." She said that anybody who wants to help can purchase a ticket for the DREAM series, volunteer to help or act as a community sponsor. They can find out by visiting The Minga at 146 Queen St., or calling 289-738-1198. Their site is:www.dreamfwb.com 

DREAM student members Kennedy House and Braden act as masters of ceremony for the film presentation and the discussion afterwards.

Seated, operating equipment, Caleb Noon.

Drs. Reza and Barbara Kazemi preparing for the event.

 The Penny Sale at the Minga was ongoing. Proceeds go to the DREAM Program.

Regular attendee Candace Sterne stated that the biggest obstacle to change for these causes is that we tend to preach to the converted and there is a lack of participation on the part of the average person. Her favourite part of the evening was the conversation afterwards, especially the question and answer session. She often feels angry at the issues brought up, but she also feels empowered to see others engaged in their solution. (photo taken with permission)

Review of "The 39 Steps," by the Dunnville Community Theatre

The 39 Steps,

Presented by the Dunnville Community Theatre,

Theatre Review by John Taylor,
for the Dunnville Free Press


The Dunnville Community Theatre opened this season in its new, brighter and more spacious location at the Dunnville District Anglers and Hunters Conservation Clubhouse with a performance of the play, "The 39 Steps." This play is a reworking of the story originally written by John Buchan (Scottish novelist and one time Governor General of Canada) during the First World War. The novel was adapted for the cinema in 1935 by Alfred Hitchcock, among the first of the genre of spy-thriller blockbuster. It is the story of an ordinary man, a Canadian no less, is caught up in a sinister plot to smuggle a secret out of the country. The bad guy, just as in the James Bond series, is suave and sophisticated, an evil mastermind determined to smuggle out of England plans for a revolutionary, completely silent aircraft motor. In the play, however, all the craft and conventions of the stage are applied to turn "The 39 Steps" into a farce.

The result is a mystery, truly magical. I could not believe my eyes. Here we were laughing uproariously at a story that -- I could have sworn --was decidedly not funny. It was a total change, as a Monty Python film puts it, "And Now For Something Completely Different." I was so intrigued that I went right home and watched the 1935 Hitchcock film right through, and was astonished to find that much, if not most, of the action and dialogue were left unchanged in this theatrical version. How did they make a thriller into a comedy that looks like it was born and raised for laughs? Now I feel like going back to watch the play again and again in hopes that I will somehow catch what its secret is.

Credit for this amazing piece of legerdemain no doubt should go to the "adapter" Patrick Barlow, but for bringing it to Dunnville and putting it on stage here, we have director Nancy Erskine to thank. Without actually walking onto the stage, her spirit pervaded the evening. The leading man, Jordan Heron, carries his role well, with understated distinction. Kathryn Stengel makes a svelte and gracious romantic lead, but more than that, she make three leading ladies, complete with three different accents. In the role of "clown 2" Diane Morris offers a comic charm that anchors the shenanigans surrounding her, through all of the many roles she plays. The youth element is represented by Gordan Huffman, Clown 1, who delivers a poised performance with a natural sense of timing that promises greater things soon to come.

It is not too late to catch this unique experience. Two performances are upcoming next weekend, including the well known "dinner theatre," where you taste a chef's interpretation of the themes of the evening's play before enjoying the play itself.

Press