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by Stephanie Wiebe

In the garbage dump of my
brain, there’s a pile of wasted
trivia gathering dust, just little
facts that may have been of pas-
sing interest at one time, but is.
now a festering lump of junk-
data, Stupid, useless, bits of
information are stuck in my mind
and they occasionally pop up to
irritate me.

I'll be stuffing laundry into the
washer, thinking about what to
fix for supper, when suddenly I'll
remember something I read a few
years ago: bedsheets become
cleaner if they’re dumped in piles
around the agitator rather than
spread out around the outside of
the machine’s drum. Who cares?
Not I. So why should I remember
that? Millions of launderers on
this earth wash their laundry
against rocks, and go about their
lives peacefully unaware of how
to position the sheets. But I can’t
discard this unexciting tidbit of
-information.

Ask me today’s date, and I
probably couldn’t tell you. Ask
me my mother’s/father's middle
initial, and I won’t know. But I'll
always remember that common
housedust is mostly made up of
dead skin flakes, floating around
the house and settling on furni-
ture. A disgusting thought, isn’t
it, all those microscopic pieces of
us spread about the place. Not an
important fact, or One that I par-
ticularly care to recall. But I can’t
forget it.

I recall that a cucumber is not a
_vegetable, it’s a fruit. This does
not come in handy. I remember
that the fingernail of your middle
finger on your dominant hand
- (usually the right) grows at the
fastest rate. That knowledge has
never been of any benefit to me.
I’ve never impressed any new
acquaintances with these facts,
Hever won a contest by knowing

It’s along, long way to
- the Firefighters’ Games

by Tod Strachan

‘While we enjoy the spring sun-
shine, Terrace firefighter Ray
Tremblay is lazing on a cool
autumn beach somewhere in or
near Auckland, New Zealand.
Lazing, that is, between events at
the first World Firefighters’ Games
being hosted by the New Zealand
Fire Service Sports Council.

Tremblay isn’t entered in- any
real strenuous events like
canoeing, judo or the marathon.

this stuff, never had children
gather around to admire my wis-
dom. The Nobel prize people
haven’t called, cither.

Nobody has ever offered me ten
thousand dollars for knowing that

‘the higher your LQ, the more

likely you are to suffer from
prolonged bouts of depression.
Pll never be on the cover of
People magazine for knowing
that imitation vanilla flavoring is
made out of the waste slop from
the manufacturing of wood pulp.

And did you know that the
active ingredient in almost all
hair perms is thioglycolate, the
same ingredient as in "Neet", the
depilitory — yes, hair remover.
This is a good one to forget when
you're having a perm, but I never
can. I don’t remember what I had
for lunch yesterday, though.

All this garbage-information
floats around in my brain, leaping
out occasionally for no purpose.
It drives me nuts. Do other
people have this problem? I
doubt it. I’m sure other people
can walk through the grocery
store and hear somebody sneeze,
and without recalling that a
sneeze has a force of 60 kilo-
meters per hour. I read that
once, and will never forget it.

But I figure someday, some-
where, I’ll be in the right place at
the right time, maybe on a game
show in Vancouver, and some-
body will ask me (for $50,000)
what Dr. Suess’ real name is.

And I'll know the answer. Most
people wouldn’t know that his
real name is Theodor Geisel, and
that his first book was repeatedly
rejected by publishers. But I'll
know. It will be filed in the junk-
data corner of my brain.

But I'll probably forget MY
name.

Some of these are a little hard on
the system when you're a couple
of years over 30, But if he lives up
to the expectations of the Terrace
Review he will do us proud in 10-
pin bowling, darts, horseshoes and
the bucket brigade. They may have
been thinking of Tremblay when
they printed the promotional bro-
chure for the games: “Excellence
in competition Is the alm but this
is not limited to the young and fit."
They even advertised events for
the "social athlete”.

Community news —
Arts & Entertainment

ee

named most sportsmanlike player in the Terrace men’s rec hockey league. He got
a trophy at the league’s golf tournament and awards night April 21, along with the
Skeena Hotel's Nelson Bethelo as most improved player and Woody Miller, goalie
for the same team, as top netminder. For more sports, turn to page B2.

Before leaving, Tremblay said he
was going to combine pleasure
with athletics and visit a few for-
mer Terrace residents who now
live in Australia. We don’t really
believe darts and horseshoes add
up to a great need for rest and
relaxation but in light of all his
work on the Terrace Fire Safety
House it is probably a well deserv-
ed holiday. What this means,
though, is that we won’t find out
how. he did at the games for about
a month. We’ll keep you posted.

SCOTT CORP of the Northem Motor Inn Okies squad was pretty pleased to be

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