GET Te ee ete a

UT

This week:

A basic primer in

Forestry

faa

logging contracts

hey wouldn’t dare
do this to me...
Would they?".

"Naw. We have. these commis-
sions all the time. The government
never listens."

“I know what you mean. Tried ©

talking to Waffle and Weevil about

profit, loss and chip exports... May

as well have talked to the trees."
"I know what you mean."

Milton Jovial had been on the
Maalox bottle all morning. Glass
in one hand, Forest Resources
Commission executive summary in
the other. Now he was offering his
thoughts to his contract supervisor,
Joe Nicholl. Jovial and Nicholl
were waiting for their 10 a.m.
appointment with three logging
contractors who would harvest the
majority of Jovial’s first ann
cut.

. "If they cut my forest licenses in
half... I'd... I'd deport myself.
That’s what I'd do."
"No, it doesn’t work that way...”
"You mean I can’t deport
myself?"

"No. The recommendations.
You're license wouldn’t be cut
until you sell it. And then only by
five percent."

"And then they’d keep all the

profit."

"Well... Read the whole thing
and then talk it over with Herby
Squish. You may decide there are
some pretty good recommendations
in that report." nel

Jovial missed Nicholl’s sugges-
tion. "Did I ever tell you about my
Milwaukee plastic plant?" he won-
dered allowed. "Real money
maker. Everybody loves plastics,
Except..." Jovial was cut short.
"The gentlemen are here." It was
the voice of his receptionist, Dot,
screaming into the intercom.

"Send them in," ordered Jovial.

Three men entered Jovial’s
office. Jovial took his place at the
head of the table — Maalox in
hand, commission report discarded.
Nicholl and the three contractors
found vacant seats around the table
and Nicholl began with the intro-
ductions.

orn

"This is Archie Skidmore of
Skidmore and Sons Contracting.

_ .He’s got a ground skidding oper-
‘ation and is: going to harvest a

total of 150,000 cubic metres on
two ‘cut blocks in your interior
licence. He’s signed contracts for
$16.05 per cubic metre on the
‘truck. That’s $13.55 per cubic
metre for logging and $2.50 per
cubic metre for maintaining land-
ings and spur roads.

"On his right is Joe Towers of
Cottonwood. Logging. High
Tower... He likes to be called High
Tower... Even though he’s 11
inches short of 6 feet." Towers
grinned acknowledgement but said
nothing. Nicholl resumed his round
of introductions.

"High Tower has a couple of
high lead contracts in your coastal
licence fotalling 100,000 cubic

See It...

by Stephanie Wiebe

Baseball season has begun, and
so it’s been an open hunting
season for coaches and umpires.
As with any volunteer onganiz-
ation, minor softball is usually
bursting with eager participants,
but scarce on volunteer help.

The qualifications for minor
softball coaches are easy to meet
— rule one: you must be a
breathing adult, rule two: you
must be able to tell a ball from a
bat. Actually, rule two is flexible;
when an anxious team is coach-
less and their first game is sched-
uled for tomorrow, to hell with
Tule two, you can always train
later.

Minor sofiball coach recruit-
ment is simple. Parents or guard-
jans unwittingly sign their REAL
names on the child’s softball
sign-up form, along with tele-
phone numbers. If no one else
volunteers, you're iz. Once
you’ve been chosen, verbal pro-
test is futile. A man in a big blue
truck drives up to your house (if
you put your REAL address on
the form, too), and a huge sack
of bases, helmets, balls and bats
is unceremoniously dumped on
your front step. The man laughs
hysterically as he drives away.

So you sigh, and look over the
list of team members. You
artange for a practice, so you can
sec what you've got fo work
with. Here again, there are two
rules — one: it’s going to rain
that day. No matter which day
you choose or the weatherman’s

The Way I

predictions, it will rain, Two: if it
doesn’t rain, it will be windy; if
it’s not windy, it’s too hot; if it’s
not hot, it’s too cold; if none of
these apply, see rule one. Besides
that, three of the players absolute-
ly cannot make it that day, and
two would just rather not. To top
it off, you realize that it’s been a
hundred and fifty years since you
last played bail. Sometimes soft-
ball is a miserable sport. Maybe
you should get out of this. You
tty to phone the man with the
blue truck, but he’s never home.
You wonder if he gave you his
REAL phone number.

Practice is exhausting. Half the
team has never played before,
and they actually think you know
what you’re doing. You feel
guilty and dumb. The other half
knows more than you do, and this
makes you feel worse. The man
in the blue truck drives slowly
past the field, smiling and waving
at you, You don’t wave back.

Somehow you get through the
practice with only minor
scratches and bruises, maybe a
touch of pneumonia, and it’s
suddenly game time. The stands
are full of cheering parents, peers
who happily escaped the coach-
recruitment process. The game
begins.

Things are going along just
swimmingly (your team is los-
ing), when a lady steps down
from the stands and motions you
over to the backstop. "Why don’t

you put Jimmy in to pitch?
We've been practising in the
back yard, and he’s got quite a
curve. Give Jimmy a4 chance to
pitch." .

Now, you know from practice
that Jimmy can’t pitch. Jimmy is
a great hitter, a strong runner,
and an all-around-good kid, but
he couldn't pitch a ball into the
Grand Canyon without missing.
You know it, Jimmy knows it,
everybody in North America
knows it — except Jimmy's
mom.

So you smile and mumble
something diplomatic like, "I'll
think about that", or "Hmmm,
we'll see", or "Nice shoes you
got there", and you walk away.
It’s not easy being a coach. Par-
ents of minor softball players
should heed the age-old warning
from volunteer coaches every-
where: "Criticize not, lest ye be
dragged into this with me." In
other words, open your mouth too
many times, and someone just
may shove in a whistle and hand
you a clipboard.

Finally, the game ends, a close
one. The chattering kids climb
into their parents’ vans and drive
away. The field is empty. You're
dirty, tired, and as you head
home, you suddenly remember
how old you really are. But you
think about the nervous young
pitcher, and how well she did
once she forgot to be nervous;
and the home run that lifted the
team three feet off the ground.
And you catch yourself thinking,
Gee, that was kinda fun.

When the man in the blue truck
passes by, he smiles and waves.
You wave back. He knows you're
hooked.

Now they'll train you.

| by Tod Strachan, in consultation with Rod Amold and Doug Davies

metres. His contracts total $23.05
per cubic metre. That’s $4.50 for
falling, $14 for yarding, $1.05 for
bucking and $4.50 for loading the
logs onto the truck.

"And last but not least is George
Fairlead of Fairlead Logging. He’s
going to set up two grapple yard-
ing operations in your coastal
licence and one in the interior. The
total volume is 275,000 cubic
metres and he’s signed for $17 per
cubic meter on the truck, Falling
and bucking are $4.50 per cubic
metre, yarding $8 and loading
$4.50.

Each man nodded acknowledg-
ment as Nicholl went over the

basics of the contracts. Everything
was quite clear... Except to Jovial.
It wasn’t as though he’d never
visited a logging show before. He
had. Perhaps it was his preoccupa-
tion with the commission recom-
mendations.

You lost me a bit there," Jovial
said to Nicholl. "High lead,
grapple, ground skidding... What is
all this? How come so much dif-
ference in price? Seems to me
Fairlead and Skidmore should be a
little upset with High Tower here...
He’s getting five to six dollars
more per cubic metre."

Nicholl wondered why a man
like Jovial was in this business at
all. If he had added a $5 or $6 per
cubic metre broom stick sharpener
to Fairlead’s and Towers’ oper-
ation, all would have been equal
and Jovial probably woutdn’t have
batted an eye. Nicholl didn’t yield
to the temptation, though. Instead,
he offered Jovial a brief explana-
tion and a promise to take him out
to each operation so he could see
the differences for himself.

"Basically," he explained, "it’s
the type, value and operational
costs of the equipment involved
and the difficulty of the terrain to
be harvested. Ground skidding is
done on relatively flat land while
grapple yarding and high lead or
tower logging are done on rougher,
steeper ground. I could explain the
differences in greater detail, but
why don’t you wait a week or two
and I'll take you out to see each
operation so you can understand
the differences."

Jovial was still a little confused.
"I’ve got Jack Block and four or
five men doing the same job for
only $11.05 per cubic metre. May-
be Block should do it all." Nicholl
responded quickly: “First, you
forgot to add Block’s wage in
there. And second, he’d got a
couple of smaller, relatively
straight forward areas to work in,
and on those sites, phase contract-
ing was decided the way to go...
Even if I didn’t fully agree. You'll
see the difference when we visit
the various operations."

"Okay gentlemen,” Jovial con-
cluded. "Meeting’s over. I’ve gota
few more test runs going through
my sawmill and I'd like to see
how it’s going." Then, pressing the
intercom button on his telephone:
"Dot. Come in here, I’ve got a
commission report I want you to
shred."

Forests: Our Growing
Concem

Letters to the Editor

Thanks to Cal teachers

To the Editor;

We would like to say a heartfelt
thank you to all the teaching staff
at Caledonia Senior Secondary
School, who, for Secretaries’
Week, treated us to a wonderful
lunch.

They not only covered the office
during lunch hour, but had
arranged a table for us at @ res-

laurant of our choice. We arrived

at the restaurant to find a bouquet

of roses, a card and a waitress who

had been told to make us feel
special. She did and we did!

Judy Bachynsky,

Heimke Haldane,

Belinda Clark,

Joan Wright,

Caledonia Secretarial Staff.

Thanks to medics, driver

To the Editor;

I would like to give my heartfelt
thanks to the doctors and nurses at
Millis Memorial Hospital for the
special care I received during my

sudden illness. A very special
thank you to the cab driver who
got me there on time,

Tony Soulsby,