Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 11

BEST COPY AVAILABLE City IB 0bituariesB2 EntertainmentB4 LifeB7 EDITOR: Kathy Kerr, 429-5399 rrnn dusCd srS paratafi iiymm sure to pull Schumann out of the side door of the upside-down plane. "She was conscious. It took a while to get her out," Dowse said. She was driven by ambulance to the University Hospital. "From what I saw at the scene, it looked like she was going to be OK," said Wabamun Fire Chief Jeff Wiggins.

"She was experiencing chest pains, probably from the steering column." Dowse said the pair had just dropped a load of parachuting students. In addition to the pilot, the plane carries four parachutists and an instructor. "I don't know why it happened. She basically overshot the runway. It's a mystery to me." Wiggins said witnesses told him the plane seemed to lose power just before the crash.

The pilot tried to 'If; A Cessna 1820 ends up in a field near Three green thumbs down for ash trees Experts pan city's choice of street foliage HELEN PLISCHKE Journal Staff Writer Wabamun A pilot is in hospital with serious injuries after her plane crashed Sunday in a stand of trees at a parachute school west of Edmonton. Christine Schumann was trying to land at Blue Skies Parachuting Adventure Tours about 4 p.m., said owner Mike Dowse. For some reason, the Cessna 1820 overshot the landing area and struck trees. Blue Skies is just north of Highway 16, 50 km west of Edmonton. Parachute instructor Don Graves was also taken to the hospital with an injured leg.

He was later released, Dowse said. Graves plans to leave today for a parachuting trip in B.C., he said. Firefighters from Wabamun had Despite sun, this iceman freezeth JAY O'NEILL Journal Staff Writer Edmonton Instead of enjoying a frosty beverage filled to the rim with ice cubes, the only ice Glen Hawkins saw Sunday was under his Zamboni. "One giant ice cube," he laughed. Although Hawkins spent all day Sunday resurfacing the ice at the Clare Drake Arena on the University of Alberta campus, it was the thought of missing one of the best days of the year that drove him nuts.

"The only nice weekend I've seen so far," Hawkins said as he shook his head. To add to Hawkin's misery, he wasn't even scheduled to work. He should have been behind the wheel of a golf cart instead of a Zamboni. "The guy I work with, his wife decided to have a baby," the part-time employee said. So instead of basking in the sun, Hawkins was finding a way to stay warm.

"It's like being in a refrigerator down there." To combat the eight-degree temperature of the arena, Hawkins bundled up with a winter jacket. "You spend a little time down there, even 15-20 minutes, you'd find it cold especially at ice level." Hawkins started his shift at 7 a.m. and was not scheduled to get off until around midnight. The only sun he did see was when he took a few minutes to go outside to paint some benches. "I can't go too far because someone inside always needs me." For the graduate student, Sunday wasn't all doom and gloom.

"A job is a job. I've got tuition to pay and I've got to put gas in my car." Mike Opbebeck at the weather office said the weather has made his job easier. "There's only so many different ways you can say sunny." The good weather will stick around, but temperatures will cool off and the probability of afternoon showers will rise, Opbebeck said. "These things can't continue forever in this mode or people would get bored," Opbebeck said. Today's forecast calls for a sunny day with increasing afternoon cloud and a chance of one or two evening thundershowers and a high of 24.

The pattern should continue for the rest of the week with highs of 23. pull it back up, but clipped the tree-tops, flipped, and landed at the edge of the tree line. "They can thank their lucky stars" no one was killed, he said. Neighbor Marge Friedel said she heard a "pop" around the time of the crash and knew something had happened. From Highway 16, she could see the plane in the trees.

It's the second serious accident at local parachute schools this summer. On June 22, David Ness, 39, was killed at the Eden North Parachute School when his main and reserve parachutes opened at once and became tangled. Eden North is also west of the city. The same week, former Eden North student Melanie Colby, 30, was killed while performing a jump in Utah. A 'chronic runaway' before, said police, who also picked him up 13 blocks away on Friday.

After the accident, police notified Social Services. Spokesperson Bob Scott said officials will talk to the mother today "to see if there's any reason for us to get involved or if the family needs some help. We haven't apprehended the kid and we don't plan to at the moment." Scott wasn't in his office Sunday to check the files, but he said he didn't believe Social Services had previously dealt with this family. ROSS HENDERSON Journal Staff Writer Edmonton After assessing Edmonton's decision to plant primarily green ash trees on city boulevards and in the suburbs, instead of elms, a trio of tree experts has given the ash the axe. The city chose ash over elm about a decade ago.

Today, elm is only planted as replacements in neighborhoods where it is predominant, such as Strathcona and Glenora. But Ian Birse, the city's director of forestry and environment services, may have some good news for fans of "the lady of shade" the city "may look at it again and start to plant more elm." As for the green ash, Devonian Botanic Garden greenhouse manager Ian Dymock is candid in his assessment: "I wouldn't plant one in my yard." They're one of the last trees to sprout leaves and one of the first to drop them. John Helder, principal of horticulture for city parks and recreation, concurs, but defends the maligned green ash. "It's a fairly fast grower. It's a fairly strong tree.

It doesn't have many disease problems. The roots don't get into sewers and the like, so it's a tree that we feel has many positive advantages." Dymock's pick of the forest is the little-leaf linden. "They are a very good shade tree, they have flowers and grow fairly tall (up to 15 metres). Easily, they would be good boulevard trees." it 'V IV John Lucas, 7776 Journal A FLARE FOR JUGGLING Rhys Thomas of Portland, has his hands full with a scythe, torch and bowling ball Sunday at the Street Performers Festival in Churchill Square. Stickmen mount campaign in Stanley Park John Lucas, The Journal Wabamun after crashing Sunday Gordon Heaps, supervisor of operations at Muttart Conservatory, says the short flowering season of the green ash puts it at "a disadvantage as a street tree." He says there are better choices within the green ash family, like the Manchurian and black varieties.

"They are neater. They're more controllable size-wise. They're earlier leafing and they're later dropping in the fall. They have virtually no insects or diseases." But the Manchurian ash isn't as tall as the green ash, Heaps says. "It's a much more compact tree.

It's a much better tree for planting on sidewalks. It will get six to 7.5 metres tall, but only a 4.5 metre spread (of branches). It's a 'much more controllable tree than green ash." He's also a fan of the little-leaf linden, which is "an excellent street tree." Vince Channel of Salisbury Greenhouses and Landscaping in Sherwood Park would opt for the Patmore ash. It could be "widely used as a boulevard tree" and is "tidier" because it has smaller leaves. City horticulturist Helder says mayday and various cherry trees are also being planted, as well as new, stronger ash hybrids, such as Patmore, Bergeson and Summit Edmonton's urban canopy isn't flourishing the way it used to.

Last year, the city planted 3,500 trees, compared with about 9,500 three years before that. Tree planting has "gone down as capital work and construction decreased," Birse says. $299,654, Edmonton: $112,588. Why aren't you here? Interested parties are referred; directly to Edmonton Mayor Bill Smith, whose office phone number is printed in large black type. "I'm happy to see people spending money to promote the city," said Smith.who gave his blessing to the Edmonton group to use his name.

The group has financed similar billboards in Toronto and Montreal. i id Ric Dolphin will regularly write about people at the heart of the city. He will tell the stories of people and families who touch our everyday existence with their achievements, their Jobs and their good will. If you have a suggestion for a Oty5ide feature, call Ric Dolphin at 429-5309. tional elements." Its owner, Kertesz recalls, was an old farmer whose "house got nuked" in the 1987 tornado.

The granary was still standing, and there under several generations of dust and mouse droppings was the cupboard. The farmer, like many before was puzzled that anyone would be interested in purchasing such junk for $125 which is what Kertesz, his hair standing up on the back of his neck as it does on such occasions, was offering. He hauled the piece home to his garage workshop and spent two weeks stripping the numerous layers of paint He then sold it sight-unseen, to' a dealer in Markham, Ont, for $4,500, who in turn sold it to a moneyed Ukrainian restaurateur in Toronto for $9,000. "But I don't always do that well," insists the man who might be described as an urban primitive. "I don't make a great deal of money.

I do it for the pleasure of it I'm the ultimate collector." Injured 4-year-old a Journal Staff Edmonton A four-year-old boy who ran onto a busy northside street and was struck by a car Saturday morning was a "chronic runaway," police say. He suffered serious head injuries when he was hit about 9 a.m. at 82nd Street and 121st Avenue. He was in critical but stable condition Sunday in University Hospital. The boy, who lives nearby with his mother, 24, has run off several times Antique dealer fancies imperfections of Prairie primitive X.

ifyn i i If. 1. The Canadian Press Vancouver A business group called the Stick-men is using the prospect of affordable housing to try to persuade Vancouver residents to move to Edmonton. A billboard placed strategically to catch the eyes of commuters passing through Stanley Park proclaims: Average Housing Prices, Vancouver then asked, "What else do I like to do?" He'd been a collector since childhood, starting with lead soldiers, then moving on to furnishings and musical instruments. He started the antique dealership in 1985.

"I had accumulated a great inventory, so I never needed to borrow. The bank has never been my partner, ever." Good Stough, as the business is whimsically named, has become one of the top traders in Prairie primitive in the West and Kertesz has enjoyed every moment of it Kertesz is a picker, a dealer and a seller of antiques. This means he picks up items from auctions, estate sales and farms directly, buys from other pickers and dealers, and sells to anyone who pays his price. Driving a rusted old Datsun pickup "you can't have too nice a vehicle, or people will want too much" Kertesz spends much of his time in farm country. "Out pickin'," he terms it; knocking on doors, talking to the retired Ukrainian farmers who form his network of contacts, and dishing out quantities of the beer and the Seagram Five Star rye he carries to loosen tongues and facilitate sales.

Along with the antiques, Kertesz, a natural raconteur, collects stories usually involving those enviable finds that result in minor fame and profit He pulls out a copy of Canadian Country Furniture, 1675-1950 and shows me a photograph of an early 20th-century Ukrainian cupboard from Wasel, 100 km northeast of Edmonton. It is described in the text as possessing an "intriguing amalgamation of contemporary and tradi- RIC DOLPHIN Journal Staff Writer Edmonton When one imagines antique fanciers, one doesn't usually picture someone like Peter Kertesz. With his belly, scrub-beard, devilish eyebrows and leonine, steel-grey hair, this 53-year-old antique dealer looks like a much-less-dead Jerry Garcia a resemblance in which he revels. Describing his politics as "somewhere right of Attila the Hun," Kertesz rides a Harley, plays hockey, drinks Wild Turkey and chain-smokes du Mauriers. He and third wife, Yvonne, a 45-year-old schoolteacher, live in a small, quirkily renovated house in Norwood with two dogs, two cats, an extensive collection of early '60s rock 'n' roll records, and a bunch of the only kind of antiques Kertesz is really interested in selling rural primitive stuff built by pioneers.

It's the kind of thing you love or hate: Ukrainian dressers with quaint scrollwork cornices, Doukho-bor tables with solid slab tops and crudely carved legs, Mennonite cabinets, Hutterite chests most of it in green, yellow or orange paint, weathered to pastel. "The more primitive it is, the more I like it," says Kertesz, chuckling over coffee in a kitchen with red-and-white Ukrainian cabinets and a 1920s Beach gas stove. "I think of someone who is unskilled, who needs the thing, and with rudimentary tools can make a pretty decent piece." These peasant immigrants had often worked on the estates of the the wealthy back home. Their craft- Shaughn Butts, The Journal Antique fancier Peter Kertesz with a 1953 BSA motorbike and Comb-back Windsor chair, circa 1750 (in background) work and carpentry, wrought in the imperfect woods cleared from the homestead, echoed the grander styles they'd seen. The wistful mimicry appeals to Kertesz.

He's not alone. Prairie primitive pieces, cropping up more regularly in the glossy decorating magazines, have been growing in demand through the 1990s. The urban professional, it seems, has always had a need for something rude in his living-room, from the African carvings of the 1960s and the Inuit prints of the 1980s, to these current rustic reminders of our own simple past. Kertesz's past includes a childhood in an affluent suburb of Toronto in which his Czechoslova-kian parents had settled. He spent the first half of his career in the advertising business, which brought him to booming Edmonton in 1979.

When the recession attacked his advertising company, he asked himself, "What do I like to do?" A hunt-ing-and-fishing TV show almost worked, but ran out of funding before a pilot was made, and so he.