Noisia Records

Online activity sees William Hill profits rise

Friday, April 20, 2012 – 11:26 AM

The rise of online betting continued to boost William Hill today after the bookmaker reported a 19% jump in first-quarter profits.

Alongside a “robust” performance from its traditional over-the-counter operations, the group said turnover from online sportsbook bets exceeded £50m (EUR61.1m) in a single week for the first time during the quarter.

Mobile device turnover reached £11m (EUR13.4m) in a single week as the launch of the first William Hill sportsbook app in the Apple store gave it access to thousands of customers who have never bet with the company before.

In the trading update covering the 13 weeks to March 27, William Hill said revenues from wagers placed over the internet and mobile phones jumped 33% year-on-year, with amounts wagered on sporting events up by 31%.

With more customers placing bets as events are in progress, William Hill said mobile devices now accounted for 19% of sportsbook turnover in the quarter.

In the high street business, William Hill said bad weather in February resulted in 8% fewer horseracing fixtures in the quarter and caused a 2% drop in the amounts wagered in over-the-counter bets.

However, further growth in machine gaming revenues and a decent run of sporting results for bookies meant retail’s profits were 8% higher in the quarter.

Chief executive Ralph Topping said he was pleased with the group’s strong start to the financial year.

He added: “Our investments in marketing and innovations continue to deliver benefits.”

â?? I want to walk around and look at the LSU campus. I donâ??t know if Iâ??ll recognize it. I want to see the Greek Theater and Foster Hall. And I know I wouldnâ??t recognize Third Street .â?
Rex reed, critic, author

Ah, the Paramount Theater, where a 10-year-old could feel awfully grown up taking in a Saturday morning movie by himself.

Yes, alone with no parental accompaniment.

Thatâ??s the way it was in Rex Reedâ??s Baton Rouge, where a kid could board a bus in Villa Del Rey subdivision, ride to the Paramount on the corner of Third and Convention streets, then walk to the Piccadilly for lunch.

The Paramount is no longer around. Neither is the old Piccadilly restaurant.

But Reed is. Heâ??ll return to his hometown Friday, April 20, where at the LSU Student Union Theater he will narrate his concert production, The Man That Got Away: Ira Without George.

The concert marks the final production in the 2011-12 Union Theater Presents series and pays tribute to Ira Gershwin, who teamed with his brother George to write so many songs that are now standards in the Great American Songbook. But that sounds a little too clichà , doesnâ??t it?

Because referencing the Great American Songbook is like referencing a list, lumping the Gershwins, Cole Porter and Hoagy Carmichael into a single category. This isnâ??t fair, because each had a distinct style, a voice to which musicians keep returning. No matter how much music evolves â?? or devolves.

And in this mix, the Gershwins are always lumped together with George writing the music and Ira the lyrics.

But itâ??s George Gershwin that seems to fascinate. He not only wrote Broadway musicals but the concert pieces â??Rhapsody in Blueâ? and the â??Concerto in C,â? and took both on the road with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in the 1920s.

And, of course, lavish lifestyles and scandalous love affairs always make a good story.

As well as dying young. That is Georgeâ??s story. A brain tumor ended his life in 1937. He was 38 years old.

And Ira was left to his own devices, which earned him continued success. Many people donâ??t know that Ira formed songwriting teams with other musicians.

Then again, there are some people who donâ??t know of him at all.

But Reed does, and he wants others to know Ira, too. This is why he wrote and compiled this show following Ira Gershwinâ??s life through narration and song.

â??I talked to their younger sister, Frankie Gershwin, before putting this show together,â? Reed said. â??She said, â??Itâ??s about time.â?? She was glad that Iraâ??s story was finally being told.â?

The concert will feature Broadway star Sally Mayes, jazz singer Kurt Reichenbach and actors and singers Gregory Harrison and Linda Purl singing â??Sunny Disposish,â? â??Long Ago (And Far Away),â? â??I Canâ??t Get Startedâ? and, of course, â??The Man That Got Away.â?

Those are samples. This programâ??s repertoire is varied and plentiful.

â??And Iâ??ll even sing a song,â? Reed said.

He was laughing when he said this, wondering if there are enough people left who are interested in Ira to fill a theater â??- wondering if there are people in Baton Rouge who remember him.

There were plenty of Gershwin fans to sell out the 92nd Street Y in New York. So, why not Baton Rouge?

And there are definitely lots of people who know and know of Reed. Would â??internationally known film and theater criticâ? be an appropriate enough description? Probably not, because Reed is more than that. Heâ??s an author. Heâ??s an actor. And in this show, heâ??s a singer.

Music, he said, is his first love, which is reflected by his first-ever job at Kadairâ??s record shop in downtown Baton Rouge. Kadairâ??s later opened a shop on Chimes Street outside of the LSU campus.

â??So, when I went to LSU, I worked at that shop,â? Reed said.

â??I would get out of class, have lunch at The Varsity, then walk over and open the shop. Then all of the students would come over and listen to records all afternoon. Wasnâ??t that a great time?â?

Reed posed this question more to himself than to his listener. He spoke from his New York home, but his thoughts focused on Baton Rouge.

He moved with his parents from Natchitoches to the capital city. Itâ??s where he went to high school, where he earned a degree from LSU. Where he returned to spend Thanksgivings and Christmases with his family after moving to pursue a career as a critic in New York.

Where, as a 10-year-old, heâ??d hop a bus for the Paramount Theater on Saturdays.

â??I felt so grown up, going downtown by myself,â? he said. â??And I loved the Piccadilly. I want to eat there again when I come to Baton Rouge for the show. I want to eat at Donâ??s Seafood, too. I love their frog legs, and I love crawfish in any way, shape or form. I just want to eat my way through Baton Rouge.â?

He laughed. Thereâ??s so much to see, so many places he wants to visit, but time is limited. Reed will be arriving in Baton Rouge on Thursday afternoon and on Friday morning heâ??ll speak to journalism students in LSUâ??s Manship School of Journalism, where heâ??s a member of the Hall of Fame.

Heâ??ll perform in the show Friday night, and there are rehearsals in between. Then itâ??s back to New York on Saturday.

â??I want to see everything that I can while Iâ??m in Baton Rouge,â? he said. â??I want to walk around and look at the LSU campus. I donâ??t know if Iâ??ll recognize it. I want to see the Greek Theater and Foster Hall. And I know I wouldnâ??t recognize Third Street.â?

True. The places Reed knew in childhood are no longer there. The Paramount was demolished in 1979 to make way for a parking lot.

This would prove bittersweet for Reed if heâ??s able to make it to the corner of Third and Convention streets. Bitter, because the 1920 theater once described as the most thoroughly equipped and scientifically built motion picture playhouse in the South, is forever gone. Sweet, because of the opportunity it gave him.

See, the theaterâ??s manager wrote a letter to 20th Century Fox when he learned Reed was leaving for New York after graduating LSU.

â??He told them that I was a talented young man and asked if they would consider giving me a job,â? Reed said. â??They read the letter and gave me a job when I got to New York. It was how I got my start in New York.â?

But when thinking about it now, he really started out in Baton Rouge.

From where he traveled to New York to review Broadway shows for The Advocate for $25. And where, as entertainment writer for LSUâ??s Daily Reveille, he interviewed all the movie stars who came to town.

And where he dreamed of being a part of it all on Saturdays.

At the Paramount Theater.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Penn National Gaming First Quarter Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Joe Jaffoni, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Joseph Jaffoni

Thank you, Lindsay, and good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining Penn National Gamings 2012 First Quarter Conference Call. Im going to review the Safe Harbor language, after which, well get the managements presentation and comments and then your questions and answers.

In addition to historical facts or statements of current conditions, todays conference call contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements reflect the companys current expectations and beliefs but are not guarantees of future performance. As such, actual results may vary materially from expectations.

OPINION: Apple is Set to Change Gaming
Its just a matter of time before Apple storms into the console business. And when that happens, everything changes.

April 19, 2012
April 20, 2012
April 20, 2012

[ Watch the Video ]

Here, there be dragons”…the phrase used to designate the boundaries of the known world on historical maps seems fitting as the US space program embarks upon a new frontier in space exploration with the launch of the first commercial demonstration flight to the International Space Station. However, rarely were the monsters of yore as eagerly anticipated as SpaceX’s Dragon, the first privately built cargo ship destined for the orbiting outpost.

Dragon represents a new era and a new NASA approach to space transportation systems. Since the retirement of the space shuttle, NASA has turned to the private sector to develop and operate safe, reliable and affordable commercial space transportation systems. Slated for liftoff on April 30, 2012, at 12:22 EDT from the Kennedy Space Center, the goal of Dragon’s planned 21-day mission will be to test the unpiloted capsule’s ability to rendezvous with the space station. Shortly after launch, Dragon will undergo a series of checkout procedures to test and prove its systems in advance of its docking with the station. It will approach from the Earth-facing (nadir) side, then hover at a distance of 2.5 kilometers so that its sensors and flight systems can be examined to ensure that it is safe to proceed. The spacecraft also will demonstrate its capability to abort the rendezvous.

Another Cosmic Catch for Canadarm2

Once Dragon is cleared for capture, Canadarm2 will perform a cosmic catch: it will grapple the capsule and install it on the space station. With NASA astronaut Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers at the helm, Canadarm2 will reach out to grasp Dragon at a distance of 8-10 meters below the station. Pettit will use the robotic arm to seize a grapple fixture located on the side of the capsule, and Kuipers will use Canadarm2 to install it on the Earth-facing side of the station’s Harmony node. Dragon will mark Canadarm2′s third successful capture and docking of a free-flying spacecraft.

Dextre and Canadarm2 lend a hand

During the 18 days that Dragon will spend docked to the International Space Station, the crew will unload its cargo of about half a ton of food and clothing packed inside the pressurized section. On flight day 6, Dextre and Canadarm2 will move in closer to inspect Dragon’s external surfaces and its “trunk”–the open, unpressurized section of the spacecraft that will later be used to transport a variety of payloads and science instruments on future missions.

At the end of the mission, Canadarm2 will detach Dragon from the station so that the reusable vehicle will return to Earth and be recovered and refurbished for its next mission.

—

On the Net:

• NASA
• Canadian Space Agency

With gun violence in Columbia rising to nearly record levels, the Columbia Police Department and local organizations are working to offset gang violence and get local youth on the right track.

In January and February of this year, CPD responded to the highest concentration of shots fired in Columbia since the 1990s. At a February press conference, CPD Chief Ken Burton confirmed at least seven of the 11 incidents were connected to each other and linked to gang activity. Less than a month later, CPD identified four new shots fired incidents as gang-related.

What weve encountered isnt even a matter of testifying — were not even getting that far, Burton said at the press conference. Were actually having victims that wont talk to us at the scene of the crime, which is, as you can imagine, very frustrating for us.

Lorenzo Lawson is the executive director for the Youth Empowerment Zone, a local organization that reaches out to at-risk youth. Lawson said this pattern of uncooperative witnesses and victims has ties to race and culture.

In criminal culture, its always been that you dont talk to police — you dont snitch, you dont rat, he said. I think the police have a lot to do with it with profiling and disrespect, especially toward young African-American males, and that has created a distrust toward law enforcement and the justice system.

In response to the upswing in gun violence, CPD started doing proactive patrols in high-crime areas, which led to multiple arrests in connection with the shootings. The department has now moved away from the proactive patrols, but the Street Crimes Unit is continuing to investigate the shootings while CPD reaches out to the community, CPD spokeswoman Latisha Stroer said.

Two weeks ago, we met with community leaders from (central Columbia) about how to get parents involved, Stroer said. Its got to be a community effort to try to curb the violence thats occurring.

Nationwide, drug-related conflict remains the No. 1 factor in all gang violence, according to the 2009 National Youth Gang Survey. Almost all local gangs, which tend to have between 10 and 30 members, focus on drug dealing, Stroer said.

In other areas, its more about territory, she said. Here, gangs want to monopolize the drug sales.

One major difference between gangs of the past and modern-day gangs is the use of firearms, according to the National Gang Center website.. The availability of guns is a major concern, Peters said.

Young people have been getting into skirmishes and fights for as long as young people have been on the planet, Peters said. The big reason for concern is that now these individuals are more likely to have guns.

Research shows youth gangs arise primarily in areas where making the transition to adult identities is difficult, Peters said. Gangs can provide an identity these adolescents cant find in education or the labor market.

YEZ, which was founded in 2004, initially set out to curb the labor market problem, Lawson said. He found the No. 1 complaint from local youth was the inability to find jobs, so YEZ found jobs for more than 40 local adolescents. Later on, Lawson found out more than 80 percent of them did not hold the job for a month.

We had to start focusing on more than just getting the jobs, Lawson said. We want to prepare them to get and keep the jobs and give them the life skills to succeed. We intervene in different situations, hook them up with positive peers and mentors, help them find jobs and get back into education. Things like that combat the pull of being in a gang and being involved with criminal activity.

YEZs approach to gang activity creates a meaningful place to go for people who dont have other options, Peters said.

One response weve finally realized doesnt work is to lock up every offender in this age group, Peters said. Municipalities are starting to think creatively about how else we can address this issue beyond simplistic punitive measures.

Typical of love affairs, relations with chocolate can be difficult and maddening.

I did find a way to quell its worst hissy fit, which was to have a tantrum and seize up as I was making a mousse or a tart filling. The beautiful, glossy liquid would scream at me (I might have imagined that) and turn into an ugly, sulking, dull brown solid, with my mixing spoon stuck in it.

I know now that if I add warm cream and beg softly, as it seethes in the double boiler, it will return to liquid, albeit not as satiny as before – its not completely forgiving.

The Easter season for many, equals chocolates. Kids hunt for chocolate eggs in parks, filling up their little baskets. Easter Bunnies dont visit adults so we race to our favourite chocolatiers or, we might use Easter as a timehonoured excuse to make a chocolate dessert.

But hold it. Why just dessert? Who said chocolate was just a dessert ingredient? Just ask a Mexican. Or me, for that matter. I add dark chocolate to a lot of my cooking. My latest boeuf bourguignon needed something to blunt the sharpness of too much wine in the sauce. I added dark chocolate and loved it. Ive added chocolate to steak sauce and to lamb sauce. Not to chicken, though, although perhaps I should learn from the Mexicans that chicken and chocolate do bed down well together. I recently made a Moroccan basteeya (with chicken) and now that I think of it, I think a little cocoa powder would have been great.

Some think its weird to use chocolate in savoury dishes, some think its genius, says Dominique Duby of DC Duby Chocolates.

Duby is one half of DC Duby Chocolates; he cowrote Wild Sweets Chocolate cookbook with wife Cindy Duby. They were into some modernist cookery techniques long ago, gelling egg yolks and caviar out fruit purees and other such prestidigitations.

In Wild Sweets, the couple blurred the chocolate boundary with recipes such as Chana Cake with Parsnip, White Chocolate Milk and Coffee Mousseline; Crab with White Chocolate Hollandaise, Potato Brule and Hot Celery Gelee; Tuna with Spice Cocoa Rub, Root Ragout and Passion Bonito Ginger Emulsion; Lamb Tenderloin with Chocolate Merlot Blueberry Jam; and Bacon with Ancho Truffle, Balsamic Cherries, and Won ton Crisp.

When matching chocolate to savoury flavours, you want to use bitter chocolate. Salt and bitter work very well together. To balance flavours, its not sugar, its salt you want.

Chocolate can thicken sauces as well as add flavour and fat content as well as complexity. In a way, it flavours like wine. A lot of wine has chocolatey notes, Duby points out.

Chocolate is a very difficult product to work with, says Duby. There are so many parameters of time and temperature and moisture. (Who but a chocolate geek can describe chocolate hissy fits in that way?)

DC Dubys Duck with Chocolate Port Reduction and Stewed Cherries

For the stewed cherries

16 dried cherries, halved

1 cup (250 mL) port

2 tsp (10 g) butter, melted freshly ground pepper

Place the dried cherries in a container fitted with a lid. Heat the port until it nearly boils, then pour on top of the cherries and seal the container immediately. Let this sit for at least 3 hours (overnight is best). Strain the liquid from the cherries and reserve for the chocolate port reduction (below). Just before serving, briefly warm the cherries in a saucepan with the butter. Season with freshly ground pepper.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) yesterday announced a one percentage point increase in the policy rate to 14.5 per cent from 13.5 per cent, citing the upside risks to inflation.

Mr Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, Governor of Bank of Ghana (BOG), said at a press conference in Accra that although growth potentials remained strong, prevailing exchange rate developments could act to offset the gains made in macroeconomic stability.

“Given the current macroeconomic conditions the assessment of the Committee over the forecast horizon shows an elevated inflation profile,” he said, necessitating the need to increase the policy rate.

“The Committee was of the view that the upside risks to inflation outweigh the downside risks to growth and therefore decided to increase the policy rate by 100 basis points to 14.5 per cent,” Mr Amissah-Arthur said.

He said the BOG was also reducing the single currency Net Open Position (NOP) of banks from 15 per cent to 10 per cent and the aggregate NOP from 30 per cent to 20 per cent in a move intended to improve the supply of foreign exchange by banks to the market.

He said recent developments in the exchange rate and its possible impact on inflation as well as implication for the country’s international reserves called for decisive policy measures to stem the trend.

The cedi continued to weaken against the dollar in the foreign exchange market as a result of high demand, leading to a depreciation of 8.3 per cent against the dollar in the first quarter of the year compared to two per cent in the same period of 2011.

Mr Amissah-Arthur said the cedi had fallen due to a number of factors, including growing demand for foreign exchange to support increased economic activity due to the expansion of the economy, the changing nature of trade pattern, which was shifting towards Asia, especially China in which transactions were mostly conducted on cash basis as well as speculative activity by foreign exchange traders trying to profit from the depreciation of the currency.

The Governor said policy intervention would therefore aim at minimising the risks to inflation and growth by stemming the depreciation of the cedi in order to build reserves to levels that would be able to withstand external shocks.

“In doing this, we plan mainly to use the market mechanism to reverse the liquidity overhang.

But we will also strengthen controls to reverse the process of dollarisation in the economy,” he said, adding that the Bank was closely monitoring developments and would not hesitate to take additional measures if deemed necessary.

GNA

Lauded as the first significant science-fiction film and the first international hit in motion-picture history, French director Georges MÃliès famous and fabulous A Trip to the Moon this year celebrates its 110th anniversary.

The film recently became known to more than cinephiles and genre buffs when it played an important role in Martin Scorseses 3D Best Picture Oscar nominee Hugo, a fact-inspired love letter to silent cinema that cast Ben Kingsley as the aging MÃliès, at a time when the former magician and trick film innovator was a forgotten man working at a toy shop in a Paris train station.

Clips from A Trip to the Moon appeared in the Scorsese feature, and the iconic MÃliès image of a rocketship protruding from the eye of the man in the moon — perhaps the first unforgettable special-effects shot in cinema — was invoked repeatedly.

At about the time Hugo arrived — the film finally ends its 21-week local theatrical run today, at the Bartlett 10 — Memphians in particular learned about MÃliès and A Trip to the Moon when they visited From Houdini to Hugo: The Art of Brian Selznick at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. The special exhibit showcased the work of the author/illustrator whose 2007 book The Invention of Hugo Cabret was the basis for the Scorsese film.

Now, thanks to another major art institution, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, local audiences have a chance to enjoy a public screening of the 15-minute landmark that not only inspired Hugo but also launched the space-travel genre of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars and Avatar.

A Trip to the Moon screens April 26 and April 28 at the Brooks in a painstakingly restored version of a hand-painted color print of the film. The print was discovered in a Spanish archive in 1993, long after film historians had abandoned hope that a color version of the movie still existed. The restoration had its world premiere at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

The yearslong frame-by-frame rescue and re-creation of the heavily decomposed print was a resurrection rather than a restoration, according to one of the scholars interviewed in the documentary The Extraordinary Voyage, to be screened immediately after the MÃliès film.

Directed by Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange, the hourlong documentary examines the history and achievement of MÃliès, the production of A Trip to the Moon, and the discovery and resurrection of the color print, which was created at a time when some films were hand-tinted, frame by frame, by assembly-line artists working with tiny brushes and magnifying lenses.

One of cinemas great innovators, MÃliès embraced the magical aspect of the movies, directing more than 500 films between 1896 and 1913, only 200 of which now survive. He invented or popularized numerous technical effects for his typically whimsical shorts, and built one of the worlds first film studios. Changes in public taste and the unrest that led to the First World War doomed his career; despondent, he burned many of his prints, in an act that director Costa-Gavras (Z) refers to in the documentary as a sort of cinematic suicide.

Others who appear in the documentary include Michel Gondry, director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Michel Hazanavicius, director of this years Best Picture Oscar-winner, The Artist; and actor Tom Hanks, a space enthusiast who identifies A Trip to the Moon as the first draft of the Apollo space program.

Inspired by the novels of Jules Verne and especially HG Wells The First Men in the Moon, published in 1901, A Trip to the Moon uses painted sets, special effects and elaborate props and costumes — like most MÃliès projects — to depict the voyage of several explorers who travel to Earths satellite in a bullet-like rocket, shot from a giant cannon. On the moon, they encounter hostile insectoid extraterrestrials that Wells identified as Selenites, played by gamboling acrobats who disappear in clouds of smoke whenever they are whacked by a humans umbrella.

The coloring emphasizes the quaint storybook aspect of a film the documentary describes as cinemas first international hit — a movie that made an impact that still reverberates, more than a century after that projectile made its first splat in the moons eye.

A Trip to the Moon and The Extraordinary Voyage

Screenings are at 7 pm April 26 and 2 pm April 28 at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Overton Park. Tickets: $8, or $6 for museum or Indie Memphis members. Visit brooksmuseum.org for more information.

To the Editor:

The year was 1912. A century ago. An eternity to todays world of instant everything.

And yet a cataclysmic event that shook the confidence of mankind took place in mid-April of that year, searing itself into global consciousness.

It wasnt supposed to happen. Couldnt really, not to mighty Titanic, pride of the White Star line, billed as unsinkable, on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

The last word in naval engineering and with luxury that would have graced the court of a pharaoh (at least for the first class passengers), it was truly a floating palace.

Yet nature found its Achilles heel. In trying to dodge an iceberg going flat out at 21 knots, an unseen spur of ancient ice gutted her below the waterline.

The forward watertight compartments quickly flooded, sealing her doom.

In a little more than two hours, she broke in two and went to the bottom. The cruel, cold waters of the north Atlantic claimed 1,500 lives, two-thirds of those aboard.

Quickly, for those times, when television did not yet exist and radio was in its infancy, the word of the disaster spread around the world.

The Graham family then headed by my grandfather, James A. Graham, would have heard the terrible news, marvelled that such a thing could happen, and agonized over the awful loss of life.

That fateful spring found them still on their hard-skrabble 100 acres where he and his faithful wife Anna (born Anna Folkard) had settled in 1894.

However, they had decided to give up on trying to make a living, to feed their growing family and provide for their needs on this unforgiving rock pile.

Actually, Grandpa never planned on being a farmer. He had apprenticed to learn the tailoring trade.

Possibly, this picture taken of him as a young man, dates from this period. He may have made the clothes he wears with apparent pride.

Unfortunately the needs of the family dictated otherwise, and his plans of being a tradesman had to be abandoned.

So he and Grandma had settled onto this unyielding plot of land adjacent to the farm of his widowed mother.

But to resume the narrative, they were packing up to move bag and baggage to Carleton Place, hoping to give their children better opportunities.

Grandpa and my father, Thomas Graham, then 11-years-old, stayed behind to gather the sap and boil it down to make syrup, and then followed the rest of the family into town where they had rented a house on William Street.

STARTED OUT WELL

At first everything seemed to be falling into place in their new environment. Grandpa found a job in the Bates Innes mill, and his two oldest sons, Robert and Joseph, employment in Browns mill.

Little did they know that they were about to suffer their own tragedy.

I do not know its exact date, but at the top of the news item clipped from either the Canadian or the Herald is written in my dads handwriting June, 1912. I quote from the account:

Monday afternoon last, Mr. James Graham was called from his work in the Bates and Innes Mill to the bridge over the rapids nearby where a rent had been made by the stump of a great tree as it swept by. With him was Lloyd Smith. They were inserting stop logs.

Mr. Graham intuitively thought a piece of timber lay behind him and he stepped backward without looking.

Instead of substance, it was space, and he fell into the precipice of waters and was carried forward with lightning speed into the rapids.

His body was not found for several days.

WIDOW WITH MANY KIDS

Grandma found herself a widow with eight children, four below the age of nine and expecting her ninth. Somehow the family with her leadership had to pick up the pieces of their lives and carry on.

Fortunately, Bates Innes had a heart. The firm paid the funeral costs and gave Grandma what would have amounted to a years salary.

This, coupled with money from the sale of the farm, allowed them to buy a house on William Street.

The family hunkered down, pulled together and went on as best they could without Grandpa.

It goes without saying that they faced an uphill battle. All the kids, save one, had to drop out of school after Grade 8, find a job and contribute to the familys support.

John, born after his fathers untimely death, he alone went to high school.

Later he was to learn to be a printer, apprenticing at the Lanark Era.

He spent his life in the newspaper business. From 1949 to 1965 he was part owner of the Carleton Place Canadian, from 1965 to 1987 he was owner and editor of the Almonte Gazette.

My father, Tom Graham, after being always a blue collar worker, went to work in the Graham Shoe Store purchased by his brother Jim.

They continued to operate the business until the early 70s. Dad enjoyed working in the store. He was good with people and like his father before him preferred a white collar job.

Grandma, who managed to raise her family without a partner, eventually remarried.

However, her second husband, Jim Smith, whom she had known as a neighbor when living on the farm, only lived a few years.

She then resumed her widowhood, surviving to the age of 85.

All the family spent most of their lives in or close to Carleton Place. Even in death they are not divided.

They are buried in St. James Cemetery, just out of Carleton Place.

Their two unmarried sons, Joseph and James, symbolically, perhaps, lie one on either side of their parents, with their married children close by.

There is one exception, John, the youngest, lies beside his wife and oldest daughter in the Pine Grove Cemetery, not much more than a stones throw from old farm where our story began.

And yet, our story continues. Your family survives. Taken from us by the rush of water in a terrible year, when so many shared a similar fate, you are not forgotten.

Grandpa, we miss you still.

Ted Graham

Arnprior