yyy Good Goods & Great Services in LACHUTE Happy Mothers Day! Celebrating one year We offer a great at our new location! choice of food and Au delà de l’imaginaire March 2013 Main Street Ad accessories for your pets. Come see us! GIANT TIGER 256, Bethany, Lachute 450 562-5552 Pit Pit Depot May 2013 Main Street SINCE 1977 Monik May 2013 Main Street Ad Hawkesbury 76 Main St W, 613-632-8133 Good Sun - Wed: Goods & Great Services in Lachute 89, av de la Providence 450-562-7771 LACHUTE 11 am - 9 pm Thurs - Sat: 11 am - 10 pm Come see us! Great selection of Rieker 2013 Spring Summer Collection The world’s leading ANTISTRESS shoe brand Your familY discount store Votre magasin d’escompte familial prop: françois thibault 370, principale, lachute 450-562-7428 Mon - Fri: 8 am to 9 pm / Sat & Sun: 8 am to 5 pm come in and pick up your copy of main street! 585 rue Principale, Lachute • 450.566.0426 Delivery Thursday - Sunday: 5 - 9 pm Weekday Lunch Specials Starting at $9.50 Evening Table d’Hôte Groups Welcome Tuesday to Friday 11:30 - 2:30 • 4:30 - 9:30 Saturday & Sunday 4:30 - 9:30 42 yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy May 2013 La Croute et le Fromage Ad: May 2013 Main Street yyy Giant Tiger Feb 2013 Main Street Ad Closed on Sunday Lunch counter TERRASSE Prepared meals and cold buffets Marc Tremblay & Deanna Copp owners Address: 254, Bethany, Lachute 450 566-0660
In 1598 Holland overthrew Spanish occupation. The wealth in trade that the Spanish initiated supported the opening of centers of learning such as Leiden University, and Professor Carolus Clusius, a botanist, became fascinated with the lovely tulip. His friend, Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, diplomat and ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor, had access to rare tulip bulbs such as the split color varieties from Turkey. Clusius planted them in his garden and keenly studied and documented the varieties. When his rare bulbs were stolen twice in 1596 and again in 1598, it was clear that a flower that drove people into the depths of desire had arrived. The little bulb burgeoned into a prosperous industry. With growers came the advent of the first tulip catalogs in lovely etched watercolours. The images allowed the buyers to discriminate between the seemingly same brown roots they were purchasing. The sellers categorized the bulbs into solid color varieties, but the prized bulbs were those multi-colored white with flames of violet, red or yellow streaked through them. Where first the market catered merely to flower enthusiasts, greed soon took over. Many middle-class merchants, who had no horticultural knowledge, started growing bulbs in an attempt to get rich quickly. Tulip bulbs were not a regulated commodity, but were traded at local taverns with contracts of sale that held no guarantees against fraud. Tulips became a symbol of wealth and florists began trading bulbs in barter. At the height of the mania, one bulb sold for four tons of wheat, eight tons of rye, one bed, four oxen, eight pigs, 12 sheep, one suit of clothes, two casks of wine, four tons of beer, two tons of butter, 1,000 pounds of cheese and one silver drinking cup- at today’s market price a total value of 1.5 million dollars. Traders started selling bulbs that were still in the ground, effectively starting the first futures market. They sold their homes to cover the cost of crops. At the height of the mania, bulb futures- or bulbs on paper- sometimes exchanged hands 10 times in one day. On Feb 7, 1637 the tulip market crashed as spectacularly as it had spiked. One lone trader declined to pay the exorbitant cost, which started a chain reaction amongst all sellers. In less than a week, the millionguilder tulip bulb was worth about as much as an onion. The massive financial losses took years of recovery. The tulip fiasco would be an amusing historical sidebar except that similar events have happened numerous times since 1637. It is human nature that a substantial number of us would like nothing better than to get rich with little or no effort. In the 1920s, ordinary investors were encouraged to buy stocks on margin. They needed to put up only a small percentage of the money to buy stocks which they were sure would soar in value. Rampant margin-buying grossly inflated the value of most stocks and in October 1929, when reality kicked in, the stock market Zach Factor Monthly column in memory of Neil Zach, co-creator & first editor of Main Street. Dutch Tulip Mania Lys Chisholm & Marcus Nerenberg - Main Street Saint Saueur Boutique Bio-Terre Celebrated its 9th Anniversary May 1st On May 1, Boutique Bio-Terre located at 27, ave. de l”Eglise in St. Sauveur, celebrated its 9th anniversary. For nearly a decade, owner, Patricia Reynolds, has been offering her expertise and eco-friendly products to help us all live a greener and healthier life. Passionate about ecology, Patricia enthusiastically shares a wealth of information with her clients on how they can live in harmony with nature and still maintain a clean and healthy home environment. All it takes is the right choice of products. Over the past nine years, Patricia has continued to seek out products that are safe for both her clients and the environment, choosing only those that are beneficial, and as often as possible, sourced locally. If seeking farther abroad, free trade merchandise tops her list. Friendly, courteous and knowledgeable in her field, Patricia welcomes everyone who is interested in maintaining a healthy planet to her door. She also would like to thank all her loyal clients for their patronage over the past several years. Congratulations from Main Street, Patricia, on Bio-Terre’s 9th anniversary, and for supplying such a valuable service to the community. We wish you a continued success in the future. Keep it Green moving forward! May 2013 became tulip bulbs all over again. As stock values plunged, investors were obliged to pay for their inflated investments that were suddenly worth nothing. Many lost everything, companies went bankrupt, and the Great Depression ensued. We roller-coastered through the second half of the twentieth century, through several booms and recessions, and in 2000 the Hi-tech bubble burst. Over-inflated tech stocks became the tulip-of-the-year scenario, when most of the companies listed on the new NASDAQ exchange took the plunge. There were survivors, but almost none of them were Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Instead, we were the type of investor whose pension fund or RRSP was heavily weighted in Nortel. The finances of the twenty-first century are contingent upon how much the banks can loan us. Borrowing is the new wealth. In the USA, the housing industry drove the domestic economy and easy sub-prime mortgages turned unqualified borrowers into owners of houses with highly inflated prices. But, in 2007, the housing bubble imploded and millions of people, who could not afford their payments, walked away from their homes which were now worth substantially less than what was owed on them. Banks, mortgage companies and car manufacturers were bailed out by our governments - meaning all us tax payers - because these institutions were considered too big to fail without crashing the world-wide financial system. Central banks and their governments around the world have been printing currency for six straight years in order to perpetuate the illusion that our economies are in recovery. We call it quantitative easing, and the bubble that it has blown will be the biggest tulip yet; the topic of next month’s offering. Local Aboriginal History Featured Renowned local historian Joseph Graham fascinated a group of over 35 history buffs at a great presentation sponsored by the Morin Heights Historical Association at Morin Heights’ St-Eugene community centre on April 14. It was a thought-provoking and comprehensive study of native-American life in the days before Europeans arrived with their diseases and demand for furs. Joe focused particularly on local aboriginal groups along the Ottawa River and took us through their customs, living arrangements, trade, agricultural practices and other fascinating aspects of their life and history. Joe shared much of his extensive research through slides; he also brought along many of the books he consulted on the subject. The public is invited to attend another event that also promises to be enlightening; Louise Johnston will talk about the early days in Gore on May 26, at 2 pm at Eglise St-Eugene, 148 Watchorn, Morin Heights. Members of the Morin Heights Historical Association, and anyone who is interested, are invited to attend the group’s Annual General Meeting at 1 pm prior to Louise’s presentation. “I’m Just Saying” Preparing for a Vacation... Ron Golfman - Main Street ...makes you need one even more! As I haven’t been on a real vacation in the last 10 years, planning a well-needed, two-week holiday in the Dominican Republic was, pardon the pun, foreign to me. My lovely and organized wife has had a few vacations over the past years, so while I had a reference person for some details, I realized that there was much more to preparing than simply packing. My passport still had 6 months on it and getting U.S. currency lately doesn’t take 35% as it did a decade ago, but the rest of the prep was exhausting. In the week leading up to the trip, I managed to fall while doing my 7 am daily “lose the belly” walk and twisted my ankle. Here I was focusing on my gut and all of a sudden I had a distinct limp. The same week, people came out of the woodwork to ask for my time while at the office, a landslide of extra work appeared, curtailing any hopes of occasionally slipping out to get some errands done, and 20-30 cm’s of snow 30 hours before departing left me wondering if we ever would. The crushing realization that most of my summer clothing was faded, too small, or just plain outdated sent me on shopping trips to find a summer wardrobe while snowshoes and parkas were still on the racks. God bless Winners! Two days of searching for sandals made me think I’d end up cutting the toes off Kodiaks until I lucked into a clearance sale at Sears. Packing is a hated ritual for me. Too much of that, too little of this, do I need socks? Will I end up in Guantanamo if I bring nail clippers or a Bic lighter? I obsessed about not forgetting my sunglasses but nearly forgot my reading glasses. A bad thought; imagining looking cool in a restaurant in my shades as I order pig spit and tarantula for my wife to eat, all the while thinking I had ordered Merlot and Lobster. I got a headache wondering if I could bring that bottle of generic aspirins with me without the customs guy thinking I was “Depp” in the movie, Blow. Over-thinking, and I’m just saying, is a neurotic pleasure I experience. Just ask anyone who knows me. My dining room table is covered with post-it stickers all saying deodorant or cat food for the sitter; it’s who I am. We’ve decided to stay at the airport hotel on the eve of departure because we must check in at 4 am due to some regulation to insure we’re not smuggling winter into the south. I remain uncertain whether to leave the heat on given that it’s a blizzard outside and the temperature is in the minuses on my thermometer. Will we return to a tropical climate both in our home and outside, our cats thin from the heat, sitting under miniature umbrellas on a sandy beach of cat litter, parched and unhappy? I have to do my final suitcase inventory so as to ensure I do not take only 12 Frank Costanza shirts while forgetting the shorts. Tonight, I’ll lay awake excited, worried that a sinkhole will eat our car in the airport parking lot while we’re away. I will do my final practice of inhaling my 48-inch belly for the beach, knowing my vanity and Johnny Winter albino skin tone will soon be replaced by a suntan. Ahhh! 43
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