And the kids today complain about winter

Re Endless winter’s getting on our nerves, Letter

March 9 Reader Don Mayne seems to lack an understanding of our cultural history. Although this past February may have been the coldest locally recorded, before 1900 our ancestors never had central heating nor heated automobiles, buses, streetcars and subways to transport them to work or the shopping mall. Nor did humongous snowplows clear their roads or paths to their barns and wells.

Indeed, there was a time when harsh winters would cause our ancestors to curtail most but the basic activities; they hibernated in darkened and poorly insulated homes lit only with candles and oil lamps. There were no “warming centres” and certainly no movie houses, libraries, Tim Hortons, casinos, recreation centres or indoor malls where they could while away the long winter days and nights either shopping or being entertained.

It is reported that children routinely carried firewood to their schools to feed the pot-bellied stove in the middle of the classroom; there were no heated school buses to help them carry the load. Families did not have in-house “entertainment centres” to help pass the harsh winters; nor electronic toys with which to keep in touch with neighbours, friends and relatives. They used their innate talents and imaginations to entertain themselves.

Our ancestors had developed the fortitude to face the consequences of harsh winters, and probably often prayed for milder weather and the arrival of spring. February 2015 was a doddle. James Slyfield, Clarington

Conservatism’s victims?

Re Tories’ cynical monument to victims of com

munism, Opinion March 9 Like most young children, mine liked to fold paper into origami-like shapes. I can only believe the architect of this monument has toddlers at home and a keen appreciation of their work.

What we really need is a monument to the victims of Conservatism. Now that couldn’t be ugly enough. Jim McIlwham, Waterloo, Ont.