THE BOG IN WINTER, WHAT A JOY TO WAKE UP TO.........

This Christmas Day blog is dedicated to Hanne, Mike and Carrie Smith from our bogland neighborhood, here in Gravenhurst, who were amongst the pioneers of the Calydor Subdivision back in the 1970's, and who insisted on re-building their homestead, after it was destroyed by a fire several years ago......because being associated with this beautiful Muskoka neighborhood was life enhancing, as it had been for so many years of their residency here. And when we very nearly lost it, a number of years back, when Gravenhurst Council starting selling off the properties of which we entrusted to their stewardship, there were a number of folks, even in our neighborhood, that couldn’t have cared-less if it had been compromised. These are folks who head to work in the morning, come home for dinner, go out in the evening, come home again, and seldom if ever notice the deer huddled within a canopy of snow-laden evergreen, or wish to waste time looking at the owl perched on a pine bough, the woodpecker tapping for dinner on an old pine trunk, or give a second notice to the moose poop on the path to the communal mail box. Well, the Smith’s would have missed this place greatly, as would have many other families, who have lodged contently next to The Bog for decades, like the Burns family, who also worked with us to save the property, from indiscriminate urban sprawl, and steaming tarmac proposed upon a small but significant wetland.

When we arrived home on Christmas Eve, and found a note from the Smith family, with pictures of the wonderful wildlife that has, most recently, visited their Parkette, at their beautifully replicated home, Suzanne and I were overwhelmed by the kind words extended us, regarding the preservation of The Bog. On that fight we were also joined by members of many other concerned town neighborhoods, as chagrined about the loss of open space, a filtering wetland, and the many species of wildlife which have called this place home for generations, as we were, and it showed beyond doubt, that the apparent failed stewardship, by the town, was not going the distance without a tooth and nail fight from the rank and file citizenry. What’s so darn pleasing, is that it is still talked about, not just amongst neighbors on Segwun Boulevard, but throughout town, when I meet up with folks in local grocery stores and while mainstreeting. I also close our conversations with the advisory that sooner or later they’ll try it again......or to compromise some other natural place that serves us well, to suit their fiscal objectives. I’m sorry to say this, but after The Bog debacle I could never fully trust a council again, to be the stewards they should be......and I remind them, that the shock and awe they felt before, when they stomped on citizen rights, can and will return when required, to defend our resources from compromise and the covetous grasps of profit taking.

The Smith’s reminded me of a little story I have, of my friend David Brown, who was one of the finest outdoor education teachers in Canada......a man I was privileged to know so well, and trusted, that he asked me to pen his biography. What he didn’t tell be was that he was suffering a fatal illness at the time, and I was going to have to finish the book alone. I did. But I never doubted he was watching over my shoulder all the while. It’s not a long story but an important reminder of apathy we suffer from in this world, this country, and particularly in the school system, where there is not enough emphasis placed on outdoor education with on-site instruction about the relevance of conservation...... as a foundation of life, not just as a pleasant backdrop for the wedding photographer and landscape artist.

When I began searching for good graphics to accompany Dave’s biography, a book largely for the Hamilton area where his outdoor education centre was legendary for former students, there was one image I had to use that had been taken by a photographer with the Hamilton Spectator some years earlier. It was a picture of Dave walking down a hillside, near the Botanical Gardens property in Hamilton, with a troop of youngsters following behind. I enlisted the help of artist /colleague Jim Thompson, (who retired to a cottage in Bracebridge) to create a painting of Dave from the essence of the Spectator photograph. It was perfect for the back cover, an inspiring way to remember Dave after reading the text.

Dave was a big man but he was a soft touch let me tell you. He had a compelling method of teaching, that involved every kid all of the time. There was no such thing as a standoffish kid on his watch. He was patient and adjusted so well to each youngster, whether they were scholars or daydreamers....Dave had a story for each one that put them on a personal relationship with their surroundings.

Andrew and I went with Dave to a special arts program, for the Hamilton students, at Skeleton Lake’s Camp Kwasind, and travelled with him and his entourage, through the woodlands of the property. At intervals, he would ask the students to stop and sit on a rock or fallen log for a few moments, to enjoy the surroundings. He’d ask them to listen to the environment around them, and try to identify the sounds and what was making them. For the first half hour, the observations were pretty vague and they couldn’t really get much past waves hitting the rock shore or the sound of a motor boat, a canoe paddle or the wind rustling the leaves overhead. Good but still muted! It got a little better before we got back to the camp but still they were identifying larger and more intrusive noise-makers ranging from planes to cars bumping down a nearby dirt road.

I was writing an article for the local press, on the nature / arts camp, and I had a good interview with Dave about the students somewhat dulled senses. He said that all the students would be more comfortable, and more alert to the sounds of the forest over the next several days of the camp experience, as the walks would continue twice daily. What he pointed out to us, was that it always takes this long for inner-city kids, particularly, to sensitize to the new reality. Instead of dealing with the daily din of jack-hammers, construction, destruction, four lane traffic, horns, jets and sirens, having to identify that a chickadee was singing, or a squirrel chattering, wasn’t quite in their range. They were instead looking for the hefty noise contributors that they were familiar with at home. By the end of their stay, they were able to identify the sounds of bugs, some rustling under the ferns and old leaf cover. They could identify a squirrel’s scolding from a chipmunk’s plaintive call to a partner. They heard the woodpecker, and could identify when a fish jumped from the water even if they couldn’t see the spot it had occurred. They could see and experience the minute aspects of nature they couldn’t on the first few outings. When they arrived at camp, it’s not that they didn’t understand nature, or know its place in the grand scheme, because of what they had learned in the classroom. Yet many hadn’t enjoyed the immersion with this wild place that is the cradle of all life. They were desensitized and programmed to an urban way of living their lives.....without having the freedom my sons have enjoyed throughout their lives living across from our wetland. Dave by the way, had been doing this same thing with summer camps near Dorset for decades, as an outdoor instructor by land and canoe. Thousands upon thousands of youngsters became enlightened, and familiar with Dave Brown, as the painting reveals.....following the leader down the forest paths of Ontario.

Dave’s outdoor education classroom was one of the finest anywhere in the world, largely made up of articles and creatures he had rescued, found preserved in many other forms, and natural species for show and tell that to many kids were nothing short of magic and enchanting.....and yet it was nature that amazed them. Dave was the conduit. The guide. The teacher. Nature did the rest.

When the clowns who thought they could govern us, at Queen’s Park, back in the former Tory government, of the 90's, decided to make some education cutbacks, Dave’s outdoor education days were over. He was sent back to a run of the mill classroom and it wasn’t long before nature came calling. While the cause of Dave’s failing was a disorder of the blood, I never believed for a moment, it had been the true cause of death. Any one who knew Dave from this finale recognized how devastated he was, to have been pulled out of that wonderful classroom he had taken decades to outfit. It broke his heart not to be able to take those kids on the nature hikes through the woodlands. While he volunteered when and how he could, even after taking his retirement well ahead of schedule, and guided hikes as before, it just wasn’t the same, and I felt very much as if he had given up on a life’s work of enrichment.

Dave Brown used to take our family on hikes through The Bog, when he lodged with us on hiatus weekends, when he was returning from canoeing adventures in Algonquin and Haliburton. He meant a lot to my boys, Andrew and Robert, who had enjoyed intensive outdoor education from this talented, insightful man, who knew the species responsible for every poop in the forest, bear, deer, moose, wolf, coyote, racoon or pooch.....each paw print, hole whacked in a dead tree, and as for flora and fauna, he was an expert.....who lived to share his knowledge. Yet for all Dave’s passion for nature, he was by all means an historian and realist about the environment. He knew development would have to claim land, and some of it wetlands like ours. He loved trees but he felled them as part time income in Hamilton. He wasn’t an environmental zealot but he knew all about good planning and sensible proportion. He was afterall, a gent who had spent most of his life in the city, except for teaching jags in the north each summer. Dave wasn’t at all against progress but rather against poor planning and damaging sprawl that was threatening us all, in the long run.

Dave and I talked well into the nights, here at Birch Hollow, sitting out on the verandah, sipping wine, and celebrating the day’s project.....from hunting old books in local antique shops or meeting up with his outdoor cronies for more story swapping. It was this scene, looking out over The Bog, and watching the deer amble by, the occasional bear popping-up through the evergreens, and the owls hooting from the shadows, that reminded all of us about the real life values that enhance each day, if we truly, without reservation, allow them to influence us.......just as it influenced those city kids at Camp Kwasind, who eventually found a myriad of life forms where, days earlier, to them, there had been nothing but city echoes......and Thoreau, that famous writer / camper at Walden Pond, who found nature so enthralling and important, that his literary compositions and observations continue to inspire after hundreds of years.

Shortly after Dave’s death, I was invited to speak at a resort planning seminar, for a new Muskoka development. While I was asked to speak on matters of local history, I was never very good at following instructions. For Christ’s sake, I got kicked out of Cubs, because I challenged the pack leader on several points of protocol. No kidding. I was shown the door. My parents weren’t surprised. I was a born agitator and political pain in the arse! So when I found my talk had made it in, under the budget of time I was allowed, I told them the “Dave Brown Story,” I’ve just now presented to you. And I wondered if these corporate executives, planners, engineers, investors, and bean counters etc., would like to come on a nature hike with me, some time, through the property they were planning to obliterate for profit. I wondered aloud to them, if they, under the same constraints as the urban-desensitized students of Hamilton, would be able to hear the wee sounds of life within, and clearly identify a scraping sound of beetle inching through the leaf cover, from the foraging of a rustling mouse or chipmunk.....the sound of a tiny cataract of a nearby stream from the gentle brushing together of cat-tails along the lakeshore. I suppose I did add the editorial, regardless of their answer, that possibly this desensitized way of living, is why we have so much careless destruction of nature these days......the people so willing to sacrifice our resources never took that all important walk in the woods, with an instructor like the good Mr. Brown,...... because if they had, well, stewardship would always trump profit, as being in the best interest of all our lives on this planet.....not just those who measure the successes of life by profit and the luxuries it affords.

I won’t say I was given the bum’s rush but I never got invited to speak to the group again. They didn’t seem eager to take those expensive shoes down a dirt trail, or be pestered by the kind of bandy-legged wee beasties that call our forests home. Did they pay any attention? Did Gravenhurst Council get the message about The Bog? We hope so but only time will tell.

The great shortfall in the education system of this region, this province, and nation, is the outdoor education deficiency in time and money invested. Not enough! We have urban stressed and desensitized kids in our rural communities.....youngsters who have never had the opportunities to amble along country paths, through bog and woodland, as I did growing up in the same town(s). A lot of those accessible open spaces are gone now, (even in small communities) and most have to be accessed by car and responsive parental interest. So here we have it, that not only is there a problem getting city kids to appreciate the intricacies of nature.....we’ve got country kids in the same circumstances, and this is troubling. It was long appreciated that country kids were wiser because of their immersion in ruraldom. That has been a dramatic change as urban stresses are reaching further and further into the hinterland each decade.

When these desensitized students become the planners, developers, architects and teachers in the future, will that shortfall affect their ability to protect and conserve our natural resources? I fear this shortfall of education and insight more than anything else.

Thanks again to the Smith family, for reminding me about those friends of nature, who still abound in this grand world of ours, and appreciate nature as an integral part of our lives, not a casual, fleeting consideration, like when forced to stop a car for a passing moose, or a family of ducks inconveniencing your schedule.

Thanks Dave for helping the Curries experience our surroundings, and love our place within!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years.

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE! AND IT’S NOT JUST A MOVIE

(A personal Christmas-time message about being home for the holidays, and all other days in between)

Have you ever had a curious moment, when you felt as if someone had lightly touched or brushed your shoulder or back.....maybe the everso slight feeling a hand was slipping into yours without any one being there? Or have you sworn that someone had called out to you when in fact, you were quite alone? Maybe it was an old familiar scent or an out-of-place reminiscence, an aura that subtly reminded you of another time, another place, possibly the dearly departed. Well, there are times in my life, when all of the above feel at liberty to express themselves in a variety of forms, and most frequently when the last thing I’m contemplating frankly, is whether there is life after death,...... or paranormal anything, beyond the wacky stuff that happens on a daily basis to a family with seven cats. All rescued you see from abandonment in our neighborhood.

But as someone who writes frequently about those who have crossed over, and paranormal activities our family has experienced for many years, I can understand how the belief in ghosts can sway a realist into believing the Currie clan is rather “mad.” Delusional! Crazy people! Wouldn’t blame anybody for thinking this way! Still, I will ask those who refuse to have anything to do with spirit-kind, if they have ever had experiences they couldn’t explain. Those interesting little intrusions upon day to day living that seem to defy the protocol of whatever you’re doing and why, at that precise moment. When all of a sudden you can smell the aroma of a cologne, or freshly baked bread that makes you think of your grandmother’s kitchen, or your father’s after shave lotion. Little signs from somewhere that make us rekindle a memory but we don’t always know why. We settle for a moment with a wee smile and wish only we could relive those cherished affections of former hearth and home. I have always felt it was the spirit-world’s way of occasionally reminding us of our own history, our legacy, as being important at the time for whatever purpose or reason. Maybe to answer some doubt or reinforce an opinion or mood. Not to evoke sadness but to seek a validation; of sorts, that one still remembers affections of the old days.

Even those who staunchly adhere to the finality of life at that final breath, with nothing beyond, must surely admit to having experienced something or other in their lives that defied simple, or any explanation. If I hear a book fall to the floor, here at Birch Hollow, if it wasn’t the work of cat or dog, or earthquake, I acknowledge my book-collector mate, Dave Brown, who passed in the late 1990's. When all of a sudden I start getting some Civil War inkling, referencing Gettysburg, I say hello to my old research partner Charlie Wilson, who was, in life, an avid Civil War historian. If on the other hand Suzanne catches a whiff of something baking, and the kitchen is baking-free, she is sure her mother Harriet or aunt Ada are trying to make a point. We’re not always speedy on the uptake, and probably miss a lot of connecting calls but we certainly validate that those who have crossed can interact with reality.......in the way they feel most comfortable. Most of the time it’s a feeling of contentment. While some would be unsettled by such spirited company, we look forward to our next invitation to experience trans-dimension communication. Heck I’ve gone as far as asking Dave Brown to help me find an evasive book, and while it might take a week, it usually pops out of the strangest place in my archives.....much as if pulled out from a stack to catch my attention. The very moment I turned to put my rough work, written for Dave’s biography (done in 2000), back on the shelf, after the book was successfully off to the publisher, I felt a hand on my shoulder......as if the subject himself let me know he was pleased with content. It was the one fear I admitted to Suzanne throughout the book project. “What if Dave doesn’t like it.” Suzanne would answer, “You know Dave. He will let you know what he thinks, no fear of that!” While it might be hard to believe, it was the exact pat on the back he gave me many times when we were together in life. I knew at once who it was. And there wasn’t any one in that office but me. Or so I thought. But this isn’t to validate whether there are paranormal qualities and quantities, as much as offering an explanation about how and why we moved to this town, and the many pats on the back that encouraged us to sign the offer to purchase......which divine intervention or not, we have never regretted.

I have been a keen student of Charles Dickens and Washington Irving for many years now, and the spirits and hauntings they write about, despite the fiction in which they freely ramble, have always been my adopted philosophy....... those things we can’t fob-off on science alone to explain are dear to me as a writer. For example, the good Mr. Irving, wrote in the text of “Bracebridge Hall,” in his character, the visiting Mr. Crayon, that while science reveals the structure and functioning of life to the minute detail of cell structure and beyond, it can not, for him, remove all the mysteries of existence.......the phantoms, wee beasties of the moor, fairies and their Queen Mab, and the dance circles tucked in amidst the forest fauna, from that past midnight’s revellry beneath the star-light. It was Irving’s fear that the botanist might, if allowed, drain all expectation out of our lives, and make this quite a dull old world without the magic of expectation and imagination.

Dickens three spirits are as real to me as if science laid them out for summary dissection. I could no sooner sit by this brick hearthside, on a Christmas Eve, and not think of the busy work of spirits, than walk in this forest across the road, and not expect to see dear wee creatures of mythical proportion, darting from portal to safe haven. As a writer for these many years, I have enjoyed all these possibilities and expectations, and have practiced, as if religion, an openness to discovery. As a voyeur of curious events, I have enjoyed many moments of inspiration that have come gently, quietly, without fear or trembling, but with an insightful, strange quality which prevails upon me a newfound ambition.....feeling as if I should sit at this keyboard for hours, if even just a modest composition results.

While it can be difficult to explain to naysayers, critics and their cronies, why I have been open to such alleged fictional influences, other than the tried and true, “hard core” of reality, and its economy, I can only answer that a writer takes what is offered as a sign of generosity, regardless of the vehicle or dimension in which it arrived. While I’m ever wary of making deals at crossroads, at least ones involving my soul, just in case, there are times when a forensic accounting just isn’t necessary. A gift is a gift.

What fulfillment are you looking for, and where have you always found it? In my case, it has always been a welling-up of strong feeling, and a good, or bad sensation with a situation. Some of it is indeed untraceable, and unexplained, yet we all at one time or another, get this unanticipated inkling about an event, a move, an adventure that we have to separate from the science of life.....even if we don’t know why!

I wrote the short piece below, earlier today, in an attempt to explain how our family decided to make the move to Gravenhurst back in the late 1980's, when in all honesty, it was not even on the radar when we began shopping for a new residence. I had moved to Bracebridge in the winter of 1966, when my father re-located our family from Burlington, Ontario, to work at a local lumber company. With exception of a short time living in Toronto, during my years at university, I made the decision to come home to Bracebridge after graduating. It even cost me a girlfriend, because I refused to live in the city. I worked to establish a museum in town, and became editor of the former Herald-Gazette, and assistant editor of The Muskoka Sun, and was fully involved with local hockey, baseball and football. I met a girl I had known back at Bracebridge High School, and we discovered the spark was still there after all the years that had passed. We decided to hook-up permanently and make Bracebridge our home address. It all seemed perfect. Almost scripted. Maybe it was but I had wrongly assumed my contentment was defined by our home town. That we would be happy ever after as a family, living in the town I adored since childhood. I was way wrong. Suzanne and I found a growing discontent instead but it had nothing to do with our life together. It was about raising our boys, and where they would thrive. It was the seed of much contemplation but for a long while, we only thought about neighborhoods within Bracebridge, not about re-locating hometowns. But that is exactly what fate laid out for us, and as soon as we saw our future abode in Gravenhurst, we knew at once our kids were going to grow up here. How did we know? What signs? What inspiration? Was there a hand on our back pushing up up the driveway, or spiritually moving the pen on the “offer to purchase?” No, there was just a feeling. A good feeling, as if at that moment, Suzanne and I could both see at once, as Dickens empowered Ebeneezer Scrooge through time, by the hand of a spirit, to witness Christmases yet to be. Could this have been a supernatural experience? Was this the work of playful sprites, influencing poor mortals to do things against their will? While we have disagreed many times, why we re-located to Gravenhurst to raise our family, we knew, standing there at that moment, looking at this humble residence, that it was as much in need of a confused, nervous family to cradle, as we were in need of a forgiving, adaptable nest in which to thrive. And on each occasion, even today, when we roam about the countryside in the pursuit of musical instruments and antiques, as we have for so long, we will round this corner of the neighborhood, and be so delighted to be home once again.

The piece written below is an honest look back at how our family made it to the open arms of Gravenhurst. It isn’t intended to be a sloppy, heart rendering, syrupy re-telling of family history, or for that matter a slur or an insult to Bracebridge, because it will also be my cherished hometown in memoirs of my parents and their dwelling up on Alice Street. But it will explain, to some who think they know us, just how important and providential it has all been, when we report proudly, to anyone who cares to listen.....that Gravenhurst is home.....and it’s good to be here, amongst friends at this wonderful time of the year. And folks, has this town ever influenced us!

A MOVE TO THE FUTURE.......THE WINTER OF 1989

There was a shadow of doubt about a planned move. It wasn’t done without serious contemplation. We had to consider the impact on our family, Suzanne’s father and my parents, adding distance between them and their grandsons. Quirky as I am, I remember thinking about the history and fate we were tampering with, in a big way, by considering a re-location even if it was only a few miles south. What imbalance might we be creating in our universe? I guess it’s true that we were asking the heaven’s above, inadvertently, whether we should just stay put, instead of adding a bunch of unknowns to life’s adventure. I suppose in the process, we opened the door for the spirit-kind to intervene with their two cents’ worth. I found it all a little precarious but I knew we could not thrive in the situation we found ourselves. In retrospect, yes, I’m a little weirded-out by the reality we weren’t more decisive, and that it was possible we could have remained in the wilds of rural Bracebridge. Thinking about the boys work now, I can’t help but have that Jimmy Stewart moment, and recognize that we must have had our own Guardian Angel that led us, gently, to anticipate the future correctly.

In the late 1980's, early 1990's, I was unhappy with my employers, disenchanted with the way Bracebridge was sprawling into the countryside......in the pastures where I used to play pond-hockey, and my Manitoba Street antique business was a hair’s breadth from financial implosion. Suzanne had a slim to none chance of transferring from Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes Secondary School, but we both realized a change was necessary in all areas. We had two wee lads, we were living on Golden Beach Road, in Bracebridge, with one car and it was a long hike to town if the battery quit.....which it did frequently. And the waterline would freeze at the same time as the septic tank. And when the wind blew, I swear the walls moved. It wasn’t our most prudent real estate acquisition.

Our change began in stages, not by choice but by circumstance. We sold our cottage-abode and moved to a family cottage on Lake Rosseau, at Windermere, and for months commuted to Bracebridge for our store and Suzanne’s teaching gig. We couldn’t find a house in our price range anywhere in Bracebridge. As Suzanne was getting anxious about having to stay in a poorly insulated cottage over the winter, I knew we had to find a place before the first major snow flurries of 1989. We did!

As if a providential development, we found a rather plain but nicely situated bungalow in Gravenhurst, across from a beautiful little lowland, we now call The Bog. We have always called our home “Birch Hollow,” after our business of the same name. While it was a considerable struggle those first few years, especially heading right into a recession, and property de-valuation, Suzanne jumped at the opportunity to transfer when a position opened at Gravenhurst High School. We were able to transfer the boys to Gravenhurst Public School, and after accepting a part-time job with former National Hockey League goaltender, Roger Crozier, to help with his fledgling Youth Foundation in Muskoka, we brought our antique business home, and after five years of re-organization of business and personal affairs, we were all settling finally, happily into our new home town.

While we both missed aspects of our lives and residency in Bracebridge, we wanted a smaller community for our boys to experience. And while some folks here didn’t like to be told their town was smaller, and less stressed by expansionary influences than their more northerly neighbor, they eventually recognized that what we really meant, was that Gravenhurst had avoided the kind of urban sprawl that both Bracebridge and Huntsville seemed to be welcoming far too rigorously....and measuring quality of life balances, solely by the number of new commercial establishments constructed in any given year. We wanted a community that handled development sensibly and proportionally to what citizens and their historic values had built in character. What made Gravenhurst different from the other towns? And while some former councils, in this town, were scorned for protectionism and excessive rigidity, resistant to accepting development without full scrutiny, what they did possess was a reverence to old standards of operation that were still reliable cornerstones amidst the orgy of new investment hitting Muskoka. They were keenly aware of precedents and protocols, when some councils in other municipalities couldn’t have cared less, other than to report a binge of economic development, and employment opportunities for all. Funny how we’re still staring at high unemployment none the less in this new century!

Some out-of-towners say Gravenhurst was stuck in the 1950's, for a half century, when they should have been cruising into the future with the rest of the pie-in-the-sky progressives, sucking the marrow of the 1980's surge of development investment. In my opinion that pause, and reluctance of government to embrace all development as good and enhancing, has enabled Gravenhurst to learn from the mistakes of others......knowing I’m sure by now that beanstalks all over the place, don’t define prosperity and quality of life but instead illustrate quite poignantly why we need to watch out for sellers of magic beans.

When we made this change in our young family’s life, we took an enormous risk on our new neighborhood. Today, pulling out of this wee lane at Birch Hollow, looking out over the snowy woodlands, and seeing the quaint, Christmas-decorated homes of neighbors and good friends, and drive up onto the main street, we have always adored for what it possesses of small town architecture, of history and accomplishment, and pull up in front of the shop where Andrew and Robert operate their music business, across from the Opera House (where they frequently meet up with friends to promote music events, for charity), it’s a settling, comfortable feeling about this adopted hometown......., and how it has all worked out for us over the decades. And one can pause, like Jimmy Stewart, for a moment, in the spiral of gently falling snow, and think about the possibility we had moved somewhere else, and established ourselves in another neighborhood. What a wonderful life we would have missed indeed. Ambitions I’m sure would have been at work there as they have been here, of course, and it is by no means the intention of this writer to be overly critical of my former hometown. Yet I know we made the right decision to move here, where today there is that effervescent feeling of belonging......as if we have been here for generations.

I’m sure you’re thinking, “so what the heck does this have to do with a Christmas message,”(or finding out that we think there are kindly spirits that walk the earth throughout the rolling year). After last weekend’s fundraising concert, at the Opera House, in benefit of the Salvation Army Food Bank......and all the kind remarks we’ve had over this week from sponsors, performers and patrons, and of course from the recipients of the funds, I can tell you honestly, on behalf of our family, that moving to Gravenhurst was a life-enhancing, wonderful adventure.......a risk we’re all glad we took back in 1989.

As for the future. We have so many more projects planned with our musical friends and helpers.....and with the spirit(s) of the season, and elsewhere as we seem to have as permanent companions, (we’re not complaining), we hope you will be part of our history of home town life and times, in that grand perpetuity of goodwill on earth. And if you have some suspicion that our paths were meant to cross, and there was some handiwork of providence at play, a hand on the shoulder, a mysterious voice of welcome, or odd feeling of being in the right place at the right time, well, then you’re on the right page with like-minded folks. Kindred spirits you might say.

For the entire time I was writing this lengthy tome, I have kept thinking about an author friend and mentor, Wayland Drew, who has for long and long had a hand on my own shoulder from beyond, of which inspires evermore. It was sitting with him, at hearthside, one Christmas, that his sage advice struck that chord of creativity, to write with spirit, write with devotion, write with passion. Write honestly. God bless!

We wish you all a safe and merry Christmas and of course a Happy New Year.

A DONATION UPDATE FROM “A NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS”

Once the family business bean-counter, Suzanne, was finished with all the accounting for our fundraising variety show, for the Salvation Army Food Bank, well, we had found another hundred dollars to contribute. We had over-estimated the rental of the Opera House, and got a pleasant surprise that it was much lower than we had budgeted. We always over-budget! We hate shortfalls! The cheque for $902 is being presented later this morning (Wednesday).

Just for your information, and we have been asked this a number of times recently, (and it is a significant, valid inquiry), we have made a longstanding commitment to abide by the rules and fees charged at local venues, whether it is at the Opera House or the Senior Citizens Centre, where we have had numerous successful shows as well. We believe that these rental rates are fair and created by sensible folks, who realize what it actually costs to offer the site and services, and the costs of cleaning, staffing, services such as lighting and electrical, and overall administration. In the case of the Opera House, Andrew has been a long time employee of the Town, and we have never once asked for a special rate, not only under his circumstance of employment, and potential conflict, but because we are also taxpayers, and we insist on pulling our weight when it comes to rental costs. We know how to be frugal, and how to get the no-frills rate. We do provide our own technical support staff.

Each year council has to wrestle with requests for subsidies from user groups, and has a difficult time deciding which group deserves a reduction, and which doesn’t. We flatly refuse to have our cause weighed, and critically debated in public forum, in this fashion. Our sponsors were all aware, from the onset, of how we operate, and will operate in the future, when we plan our fundraisers at a public facility such as the Opera House. The Opera House needs to make money, and the taxpayers need the income on already burdened budgets. Our family businesses alone, contributed all but 19 dollars of the total rental fee of $519.00, which we think is a bargain, for such a wonderful entertainment venue. We do get a better rate because we are operating an event for a recognized charitable group but that’s by the terms of the contract, and not because we petitioned for a discount.

While we appreciate that some groups face different economic circumstances, and we don’t begrudge them asking for a discount, it will never be something we pursue. If the Town should decide on its own, to forgive a rental, that’s up to them and will not be the result of any request from us. As we, the voters, demanded a new era of budget restraint for the next four year term, from council candidates in the recent municipal election, we must abide by our conviction that we must all be budget conscious and sensible, for the welfare of the entire town.

Thanks again for all your support and encouragement for our Food Bank fundraiser!

THANKS AGAIN TO ALL THE SUPPORTERS OF “A NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS”

Yesterday we were able to drop off about 25 bags of groceries, and a few loaded boxes, to the Salvation Army Food Bank, in Gravenhurst, donated by patrons of Saturday evening’s Christmas Show, at the historic and wonderfully accommodating Opera House. On Wednesday, we will also have an $800 cheque to present to the Food Bank, which surpasses last year’s amount......and hopefully this is the sign of upward momentum of an exciting trend, an increasing awareness, and generosity to help the less fortunate in our community.

It is important to recognize that “A Night Before Christmas” was successful because of partnerships......many of them. It was a collaboration of musicians, dancers, technical volunteers, business co-operation, and the literal kindness of strangers......many we had not known previously who offered to help out in aid of the Food Bank.

We couldn’t have arrived at this donation without assistance from the Probus Club of Gravenhurst, Chamberlain’s Timb-r Mart, Peter’s Players, Gravenhurst Car Wash, SellaVision, Just 4 Kicks Music Studio, Andrew Currie’s Music and Collectibles, Robert Currie’s Music, and Birch Hollow Antiques. We heartily thank folks like Fred Schulz our permanent Master of Ceremonies, Doug Chamberlain, our superhero stage manager, Greg Allen, Josh Hill, James Lucibello in the “tech deck,” our good friends Kelly (Duggan) and Jane for beverage sales and organization, Lori Wallace, who managed the flow of performers from downstairs to the stage, and to Papa Larry’s Pizza, of Muskoka Road, Gravenhurst, for kindly providing some after-show food for a delighted group of weary performers and helpers. It was all greatly appreciated.......each and every contribution throughout the event, including the guests who donated to our food bank drive with bags of groceries.

There are moments in any event, when the show organizers pause to reflect, (and it can be frequent) and sometimes there’s that fear and trembling which creeps into the thought process......as one hopes to get to the end without a major disruption. And it can be said that this in itself often keeps promoters from a true enjoyment of the “actuality” of their event. Worry. Anticipation. Expectation. Impatience. We’re pretty big, in our family, about not wishing away precious time, so I begged them to drop their guard a tad, and take-in all the poignant, important moments, to celebrate what they had helped create, in their midst,......and let history account for itself in the long-run. Coming from a lengthy history in the antique field, we call this “patina.” The aged, seasoned hue of time and use on the finish of a treasured relic. In time and memory a show, even with inconsistencies, will rekindle as an inspiring, gentle, warm reminiscence of a life spent entertaining others. This time, while not dismissing the possibility that something or other would or could go wrong, my boys, Andrew and Robert, were so comfortable with their musician and dancer friends, the dedication of their volunteer brigade, and the jovial mood of the audience, that they actually enjoyed the whole show, and were understandably a tad disappointed when it was all over for another year. But alas, one show down, another in the wings. The boys have already begun thinking about a summer-time festival to celebrate the good graces of our hometown.....of which they are enormously proud. Possibly a national showcase, with hometown talent, to celebrate Canada Day? Let us know what you think? A cause you think we should throw some support?

Please accept our thanks for helping out this important community cause. I’m afraid that we are facing a serious new reality here in Ontario, possibly Canada, even when a recovery from the recession is mounted, where Food Banks become essential services.....not just sites generously set up by wonderful organizations such as the Salvation Army,...... but by the necessity of government services to deal with growing economic inequalities, that even abundant faith and good citizenship alone can’t cover in total. We need to be aware that without the Salvation Army heading this food bank, in our town,.....well, we wouldn’t have one at all. Can we rightly expect that the Salvation Army will always be there to help us out? We need to be more realistic about how precarious it is, 12 months each year, to keep food on the shelves. In my own opinion, it needs to be an agenda item for the new four year term of Gravenhurst Council. They simply can’t avoid the issue that the family count being served by the local food bank is expanding not diminishing each year.......and they need to be working much closer with the Salvation Army to examine ways to assist. Not just financially. It wouldn’t hurt at all for council to ask for a meeting with Salvation Army administration, to get the accurate statistics regarding their client volume and needs, in order to better understand the social / welfare implications of the town they’re governing. That’s my wish list for 2011.

Merry Christmas and have a safe and Happy New Year from the Currie’s of Birch Hollow!

GREAT FUN AND WONDERFUL OUTCOME AT CHRISTMAS CONCERT

This week Andrew Currie will be able to present the Salvation Army Food Bank, in Gravenhurst, with a cheque for $800, plus a significant volume of donated food items, gathered from admissions at their annual “Night Before Christmas,” variety show at the Opera House, Saturday evening.

Expenses were approximately $530 for the Opera House rental which was entirely covered by local business sponsorships, which we greatly appreciate.

As you can imagine, the take-down and settling after one of our fundraising shows, is a slow and somewhat painful physical and organizational process. It always takes several days to get our gear re-located and the site cleared up for the next user-group. But I can tell you, this one was a show we won’t soon forget. Andrew and Robert arrived home last night, absolutely ecstatic about the success of the event......and as its harshest critics, let’s just say they slept well and peacefully. A concert that doesn’t work, and has more than just a few problems, festers within for weeks afterwards. We haven’t had many of those but a few that we still think back on and wish we had done better or could do them over.

Most of all, they like the idea of showing up at that Food Bank with donations in tow......and this year was full of generosity, and we must heartily thank our many supporters who helped the boys achieve their objective. Over breakfast today, they talked about some options for their next project at the Opera House....., which means that they are only partly exhausted but perpetually inspired.

We will be adding some more notes about the event in the coming days. We want to provide an updated list of event sponsors, who helped us secure the best venue in town, for an event we insisted must be high profile.......because the current escalating needs of the Food Bank have to be high profile, in order to get attention for the 12 month a year crisis they face despite the Christmas generosity.

CHRISTMAS CONCERT READY TO GO - FOR THE GRAVENHURST FOOD BANK

My father Ed wasn’t a wealthy man. Happy, contented, always consciencious and kindly toward others, he and his late wife Merle, were always giving money to charitable causes. My father had spent time in orphanages as a child, looking after his three brothers when his mother would disappear for weeks on end, his father having already abandoned them while living in Toronto’s well known Cabbagetown. He grew up knowing hardship and it was the root of his generosity to his family and others. Around this time of year he would have a jar of pennies ready to go for Suzanne, who co-ordinates the annual “penny-drive” at Gravenhurst High School, in support of the Salvation Army Food Bank. It wasn’t much, he would tell us, but there was always something to extend us, to help others.

Just over a year ago now, Ed suffered a small stroke at his Bracebridge apartment, but because he didn’t want to bother or inconvenience his concerned neighbors, turned away quite a number of folks who had come to his door after hearing him falling repeatedly. He offered them his sincere thanks for being concerned about him but he had called his son (that would be me) to come and help him. Well, Ed never called, and by time we arrived several days later, he was in pretty bad shape. He died in early January with a bad heart physically but a good heart in spirit.

It was Ed who looked after Andrew when he was taking a federally funded business course, in Bracebridge, five or so years ago, and then for several years after he graduated, he lived four days a week with him, to work on instrument repair. There were too many distractions here and Ed worked with him, and drove him to get supplies, and they talked about business and stuff. It was where Andrew’s Music and Collectibles began in earnest; what he had learned in the business course he applied to the opening of this own enterprise......something his brother Robert would follow, opening his own music business three years later. Both of course now operate from the former Muskoka Theatre building opposite the Gravenhurst Opera House.

Ed was always the voice of encouragement and as a former manager of numerous Muskoka and Parry Sound lumber companies, during his working life, including Building Trades Centre, his business experience was precious to Andrew, and he soaked it up like a sponge. And when we began our first fundraising activities, it was Ed who always backed the events, and offered what money he could to get it all started. That final day in Ed’s apartment, having to put those keys on the kitchen counter for the landlord, was as you can imagine, heartbreaking to both boys who had both kick-started their professional and business careers sitting in this now barren old room, with that strange echo of the past bumping one last time into the future. And we very much suspect he and Merle were watching out over our final moments in their cherished apartment, and in their own way, as kind spirits do, wishing them and us well on our continuing adventures.

We found five jars of pennies under the kitchen counter, Ed had been saving for us, to use for some other charitable project, and we shall indeed put it all to a good cause.

While Ed wouldn’t have wanted to be highlighted at our Saturday night fundraiser at the Opera House, it will be obvious in the twinkling eyes, and grin of contentment of both Andrew and Robert, that the production of “A Night Before Christmas,” was indeed dedicated to the memory of their grandfather and grandmother who loved them dearly.

We hope that you and friends will be able to attend “A Night Before Christmas,” beginning at 7 pm Saturday, Decemeber 18th, at the Opera House. There is no admission cost. If you can offer a non perishable food donation, or a cash offering at the door, in support of the Salvation Army Food Bank, it would be greatly appreciated. If you wish to attend the event but can’t afford to make a donation, please come as our guests. It’s our Christmas gift for the community.....an event, we are delighted to say, which has already become a seasonal tradition. We will be back next year, and for many years after that.....”God willing,” as Ed used to remark when we’d say “We’ll see you later!”

Thanks so much for helping us out on this event. We will provide you all with a fundraising amount shortly after the concert.

Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Years!

PERFORMERS EXCITED - ORGANIZERS CROSSING THEIR FINGERS FOR GOOD WEATHER, AND IT’S LOOKING A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS

When you’re organizing a variety show at a wonderful venue like the Gravenhurst Opera House, and managing the appearances of a large number of musicians, and guest dancers this year, you can get the jitters at the slightest problem or blip that arises. While the December 18th Christmas Concert for the Gravenhurst Salvation Army Food Bank is indoors, and almost weather-proof, the problem is a bad storm that might stop-up attendance. In the final few days of polishing the show, you just can’t help playing around with all the “what ifs” that dog every event promoter until the fundraiser has successfully concluded. So Andrew and Robert Currie, old hands at concert promoting, are keenly tuned to the unfolding events, whether a storm on the horizon or the intrusion of colds and seasonal maladies affecting their cast members.

Right up to the opening act, there are a thousand things to take care of, in order to make it a good and substantial show......and of course to get a goodly amount of food donations for the Salvation Army. We have had a good response from some of our corporate / business friends but admittedly a few disappointments from some others who we thought might come through with a small donation. Obviously times are pretty lean and we’re lucky to have received what we have to date, as this has offset the cost of the Opera House rental. We are still accepting donations of cash and food items right up to the evening of the event, and if you want to be a sponsor of the show you can contact Andrew or Robert, by visiting their main street Gravenhurst Music Shop, opposite the Opera House. We will be announcing our sponsorships in the opening presentation. It has been the generosity of these businesses that have made “A Night Before Christmas” possible, from a financial point of view. And our many kind and talented entertainers, joining us, well......that’s the Christmas spirit of a good old hometown.

We’re getting close. Hope you can attend! Admission is by donation of cash or food item. But if you can’t offer either, we don’t want you to miss the show.....so please come as our guests.

Despite all the pre-show nervousness, I know the boys will be planning ahead to the next fundraiser, moments after the grand finale.

NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS JITTERS? NO WAY! IT’S TOO MUCH FUN TO WORRY ABOUT

We’re happy to report that we’ve been getting some more sponsorships for the fundraising variety show, A Night Before Christmas, being held in support of the Salvation Army Food Bank, next Saturday, December 18th, at the grand old Gravenhurst Opera House. As sponsors of the annual fundraiser, our boys Andrew and Robert are getting excited. It’s the kind of excitement they had as kids waiting for Santa. When they got into the entertainment business here in Gravenhurst, more than a half decade ago, putting on a Christmas event at the Opera House garnered the same anticipation and expectations of the season.....as they once awaited for Santa at hearthside.

They love to stage events and that does go back to childhood when they would put on festivals in the backyard for bored kids in the neighborhood. Attendance was pretty low and the guitars were cardboard. What they were planning then became a reality when they got into high school and started working on Pure Gold, the annual variety show at GHS, a Battle of the Bands, and then when they opened their Muskoka Road business, they decided to go main stage with all the bells and whistles. They’ve had the entertainment bug for decades, and now it’s spread throughout the community......and it’s all for the good of our neighbors, especially the folks at the Salvation Army’s Food Bank, who work so hard to help others in need. We appreciate the work they do each month of the year, to help meet the food requirements.

The first few fundraisers were worrisome because we didn’t have much of a budget to advertise in the local media. We were always able to count on the support of the Gravenhurst Banner to publish our press releases. We would have loved to advertise, and pay our way, but we simply couldn’t have afforded the expense, and then offered a donation. Hundreds of charitable projects work this way, and many are neglectful of thanking the local media for their unyielding assistance. This includes The Moose FM and Cogeco’s Cable 10, both having helped advertise these variety shows over many years. We were paying the Opera House rental fee, and despite being less for a charitable cause, it still took a lot of ticket sales to cover costs, before we could make a donation. It was this year the boys decided instead, to seek business donations to help cover the expenses, and it has made all the difference in the world......the show can go on without worry that a low attendance might diminish the gate, and subsequently the ability to donate at the end of the festivities. Every user group, supporting a charitable organization fears this reality. Andrew and Robert have had quite a few supporters offer ongoing assistance, such as Chamberlains TIM-BR MART, of Gravenhurst, long time supporters of any musical event we stage. Thanks Doug for all your kindnesses past and present. It’s meant a lot to the boys to have Aidan and your support and participation through so many past concerts and fundraisers. Another kind donation to help us offset rental costs of the Opera House came from Sellavision. Sincere thanks from all of the folks putting on “A Night Before Christmas.”

It’s getting close. The kids are working hard to polish their acts, the dancers are raring to go, and our vintage performers are as excited as the youngsters, glad to help out a good cause and, well, join with the neighborhood of a fine town. You can still make a donation to the event, as a sponsorship, which will be acknowledged during the event, being M.C.’ed again by our good friend Fred Schulz. Admission is by cash or food item donation. But folks, if you simply can’t afford either, please don’t let that stop you from attending the event. It’s Christmas. The show is our gift to you.

Hope to see you there!

HERE’S OUR OTHER SUPPORT FOR THE GRAVENHURST FOOD BANK - BUT DON’T FORGET OUR “NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS” FUNDRAISER AT THE GRAVENHURST OPERA HOUSE, DECEMBER 18TH, 7 P.M.. WE WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU!!!!

As our own family commitment to the fundraising and awareness campaign for the Gravenhurst Food Bank, and the Salvation Army, and the great assistance they provide our community twelve months each year, I have begun a 12 part series of feature articles, published in “Curious: The Tourist Guide,” (available at select shops and online) profiling the life of a woman from Victorian times, by the name of Ada Florence Kinton.....a tireless worker with the Salvation Army, in Toronto, who had a particular affection for the District of Muskoka. Her family were pioneer businessmen in the community of Huntsville back in the 1880's. She did spend some time in Gravenhurst, as is referenced in her journal, but she was on a traveller’s schedule of trains and carriage (sleigh) travel.

I have worked on Ada’s biography since the mid 1990's, and it has been published three times previously in the local press, as a series of articles, focused primarily on her art and writing work in Muskoka. On this occasion, I’ve delved into her efforts, street level, helping the less fortunate at soup kitchens and street-outreach in Toronto. Each of the 12 parts is dedicated to the staff and volunteers of the Gravenhurst Food Bank, in her memory, with an attached request, each column, asking that readers support food banks in their own community, not just at Christmas, but throughout the year. I’ve been tremendously inspired by this gentle-woman, since I first discovered her book, “Just One Blue Bonnet,” back in the early 1990's, while hunting for old books at a Bracebridge second hand shop. She rests today in a tiny pioneer cemetery in Huntsville. But her spirit is very much alive, and hopefully you will find something inspirational as well, in the columns re-printed on this blog-site over the next year. The year-long series will be submitted, on completion, to the National Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ontario archives, pertaining to her contribution, in Ontario, to both art and art instruction. She taught art in England and in Ontario, and was a highly competent painter who captured many Muskoka landscapes.

These are chapters about the goodwill of man toward others. We see it all the time. But sometimes we take it for granted, that it will always be there when we need it! As for need, I can’t imagine the hardship that would be caused if the Food Bank closed it’s door due to low resources. What would be wonderful, is if need declined. Unfortunately in this precarious post-recession period, that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

Hope you enjoy this little piece (2 columns, November, and December 2010)

Merry Christmas to one and all. Hope to see you at the concert.

ADA FLORENCE KINTON AND I HAVE A DATE THIS WINTER, IN SUPPORT OF THE SALVATION ARMY FOOD BANK

Since I began working for the local Muskoka press, back in 1979, first from a news desk at the Georgian Bay-Muskoka Lakes Beacon, in MacTier, up to and including my years with The Herald-Gazette, Muskoka Sun, Muskoka Advance, The Muskokan, The Examiner, The Banner, The Wayback Times and currently Curious; The Tourist Guide (online), I’ve amassed a rather significant collection of feature articles, some that ran over a few months, and several that ran monthly over a year. Point is, I’ve always got a bin-load of feature articles and local histories to update and re-write for today’s audience. If I was in a musical group, I suppose you’d say, “I’d be my own tribute band.”

There’s one biography I’ve returned to twice before, because I have a deep devotion to the subject. And I’m not really sure why. I’ve worked on many compelling and emotion-laden stories in the past. This one however, was as if I’d been touched by something divine......as one might expect from an audience with an angel. On the day when we found each other, she was alone in the corner of a book shop, and I was a writer without a muse. She was the subject of a 1907 book, entitled “Just One Blue Bonnet,” and I was the book collector with just enough coins in my pocket, to make this biography my own.

It was in part, you see, a regional Muskoka text, as a fair component was set in the Huntsville region, well before the turn of the century. As my job was to ferret-out good local histories, this looked like a gem. And it contained a personal journal regarding her stay in the district, with many observations about the settlement, the inhabitants, local customs and the hinterland surrounding the pioneer encampment, with accurate descriptions of the flora and fauna, and wildlife beyond. You might say Ada Florence Kinton, and I, were kindred spirits even though we were more than a lifetime apart.

Ada Kinton was a member of the Salvation Army, as referenced by the “blue bonnet,” and she wrote for the publication “War Cry,” when not working as a personal assistant to Booth family members, while on international missions. Before she was a member of the church, she was an accomplished artist and teacher, and as well, became a talented writer. She made many pioneer era sketches and paintings, while residing in Huntsville, with her brothers, who were amongst the early settlers and business founders in the hamlet. When she arrived in Muskoka, following the death of her father, in England, the transplanted Miss Kinton was deeply homesick, and worried about her future in a new and barren land.

The story, in a nutshell, is about devotion, sacrifice, and compassion. I visited her grave recently, tucked into an old, treed cemetery in central Huntsville, and felt a gentle comfort standing above her tombstone, as if she was pleased in spirit, her biographer had finally paid a visit to her final resting spot.....which was a beautiful plot in a quiet place, surrounded by family members, and despite the din of daily life in a thriving town, there was a prevailing solitude. She passed away, early in the 1900's, on a porch not far from this gravesite. In those final days, her sister helped her onto the porch, so she could watch the comings and goings of her adopted hometown. She had been greatly fatigued by her missionary work, and had suffered numerous debilitating illnesses, contracted in tropical climates. Ada was still a young woman but appeared much older and feeble, in those last days residing in Huntsville. Despite being in constant bodily pain and being weak from fever, she was contented with the days of her life, and the people she had come to know in so many walks of life. One would think that a great writer like Charles Dickens or Washington Irving, would have celebrated her as a character in one of their memorable novels, had she been known to them. Her work amongst the poor in England and Canada was legendary, and it was this compassion that drew people to her side, whether it was the destitute, the intellectual crowd, or her art students, looking for her leadership and advice. Many of her art school graduates, both in England and Canada, became highly accomplished painters.

This is just a wee introduction to a 12 part series of articles I’m now preparing for Curious; The Tourist Guide, which will run over the coming year. It is online so you can read it there if you can’t find the publication.....which is available at select shops in Muskoka and Southern Ontario. The column is dedicated to the Salvation Army’s Food Bank, in Gravenhurst, Ontario, my hometown.......and my hope is that readers will be inspired to make a food or cash donation to a food bank in their own community. My first column on Ada Florence Kinton will appear in the November issue, and there will be a special Christmas-themed column in December of course. You can access the article by searching “Curious; The Tourist Guide.” As I am writing this feature series, as an exclusive for this publication, it will not be published on my blog-site.

Please keep the Food Bank in mind this coming holiday season. They could really use your help......it’s the neighborly thing to do. The folks in need, well, they are our neighbors!

PLEASE HELP YOUR LOCAL FOOD BANK THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON -

ADA FLORENCE KINTON SAW HOPE AMIDST HUMAN TURMOIL

By Ted Currie

This is part two of the story of Ada Florence Kinton, an accomplished artist and teacher, a writer of considerable acclaim, and a stalwart worker on behalf of the Salvation Army, in Canada and abroad, from the late 1800's, until her death in Huntsville, Ontario, shortly after the turn of the century. The series is dedicated, in her memory, to the Gravenhurst Food Bank, operated by the kind folks of the Salvation Army. If you can, please donate to a food bank near you this Christmas season. Ada Kinton would been delighted by these many acts of kindness.

The reader of Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol," huddled cosily at hearthside, enjoying the crackling fire within, undoubtedly would have found the story of Scrooge’s spiritual rekindling, both remarkable and comforting at this time of the rolling year. Yet in the 1870's, a young British girl, familiar with the work of the deceased author, knew well that no matter how compelling a good story, there were pockets of the good old city of London, where there seemed no visible comfort or enveloping compassion. The bright light then as now, was the steadfast work of the "kindly," who, just as today, offer assistance where and how they can. A good ending to a story was uplifting, as literature, but the real world didn’t follow the author’s dot of an "I" or feel compelled to attain a higher moral standard. Despair was indeed that vicious circle that seemed impossible to impede by normal course.

Ada Florence Kinton was profoundly influenced, as a child, by what she saw of the poverty and immorality in the city she adored. Confessed to her sister, some years later, Ada had one day, in her youth, followed a curious trail of tiny footsteps along a dark city lane. In the author / artist’s1907 biography, entitled, "Just One Blue Bonnet," Ada pens the following description of the scene she witnessed in this poor section of London.

"Once long ago, in this writer’s earlier days, a trifling incident chanced that was fated to leave my senses, ever keenly on the alert, to the presence of evil abounding in the child-world. In one of the poorest streets, of London, a little way past the archway’s entrance to a slum, so bad and vile that it was known to all the neighborhood around as ‘Little Hell,’ there suddenly appeared a small half-clad urchin, shoeless and with a pale face, who came painfully limping along, for a careless step on some shattered fragments of glass (maybe a drunkard’s bottle) had gashed the poor little foot, cut through the coating of dust till it left an open wound." Ada writes, "Then as I watched, I saw the trail went down toward ‘Little Hell,’ and there vanished away. But the memory remained, and from that day the thought of the small, blood-stained footstep, trodden in vivid brightness on the dull, cold, grey of the stone-paved streets, haunted and followed me until it conjured up a vision; and troubled fancy dwelt long amongst a multitude of neglected children, whose feet run to and fro, the streets of every town and city and leave no trace or sign to tell the tale."

Even in the 1870's the young Ada Kinton had made her turn toward charity, and the ceaseless mission to help the poor. Even though she had a promising career as an artist herself, and was in demand in England, and later in Canada, as an art teacher, she could not devote herself to either, when in her mind, there was so much suffering around her. A trip to Canada in the 1880's, and then several years later, after her father died in England, gave her a good opinion about new opportunities closer to family, who at the time were amongst the earliest pioneers of Huntsville, Ontario. When she was not working on behalf of the Salvation Army, on missions abroad, working on the streets of Toronto helping the poor, she found solace wandering the countryside trails in Huntsville, writing and sketching.

But admittedly, she was most content, helping at the soup kitchens, with a particular sensitivity to the underfed, under-clothed children without home or sustenance in the cruel winter climate. When she began writing, some years later, for the Salvation Army "War Cry," she penned a particularly poignant piece, that as a biographer, has always allowed me to visualize this tiny, warm soul, reaching out to the desperate, to offer if nothing else, a warming embrace of compassion. By lamplight she wrote the following passage, a memory of once, a child saved from the cold.

"On the last night of the three days we passed down Yonge Street, two or three people stood round a tiny news-boy, who was gasping out sharp sobs. ‘Can’t keep himself warm? Then let him die,’ was the surly comment of a man with him. But we could not ‘let him die.’ So grasping the swollen purple hand, we ran him along so fast as the stiffened child could move, past the gathering crowd on the Temple steps, standing, shivering, waiting for the door to open, and down through the back door into the warmth of the fragrant, coffee-scented soup kitchen. No wonder he could not ‘keep himself warm.’ There had been a slight thaw at noon but as the sun went down, the frost renewed its power, and the wet snow that soaked his boots, was beginning to freeze them to his feet, in the stinging, biting wind, and only with considerable hot coffee and rubbing would the circulation be persuaded to move again. ‘It’s all ready now,’ said the superintendent of the coffee-tins.

"Withdrawing ourselves into as small a space as possible, on top of a biscuit-barrel, with our little charge, now quivering and panting with the reaction of returning warmth, we watched from our vantage while doors were opened, and six hundred people jammed down those steps in one solid human lump, so terrified were they that there would not be enough for all. It was a scene never to be forgotten; we were powerless to move to help, though in the crowd we saw, among many things, a white-haired old woman, with her old clothes, half torn from her, and a basin of hot coffee poured down her bent back, and a child half crushed, when a pair of strong arms seized him and uplifted him above the seething mass of heads. In an incredibly short space of time the abundant supply of food, crackers and loaves, and coffee, had vanished, and the crowd moved out wiping their mouths and laughing. ‘Me and my children must have starved but for this,’ said a woman as she edged past our barrel, with a bonnet knocked sideways over a grateful face. ‘Shan’t I owe the Army a lot when I do get work again,’ said a tall man quietly. A man came hurrying down the steps with his eyes on the coffee tins. ‘Too late, my boy, your coffee’s all gone."

The man had walked the cold snowy streets for hours to get to this sanctuary, only to find there was nothing left. It was this evidence of constant need that kept Ada Kinton on the job, even when it was obvious her own health was being sacrificed in the charity of helping others. The need was always there, the cases dire but Ada Kinton, as so many others, devoted themselves to doing the best they could, despite the circumstances, the shortfalls, and the necessity that seemed to increase weekly.

As the ghost of Dickens’ Jacob Marley bellowed angrily at Scrooge, when commended for having been a good man of business in life, reminding the covetous old sinner that "Mankind was (is) our business," one might pause momentarily and imagine Ada Florence Kinton, hovering faithfully over the poor and destitute, hoping against hope to save one more life.

For many years Ada Kinton was a familiar face on the streets of Toronto, and in the mission, where the hungry and cold found sanctuary. Her story is but a tiny fragment of the triumphs of human spirit, and fortitude, we see and hear about so frequently..... the generosity of folks like you, willing to share with the less fortunate.

From our family here at Birch Hollow, sons Andrew, Robert, my wife Suzanne and myself, with of course greetings from our seven rescued cats, so pleasantly huddled by the cracking fireplace, and dog Bosko, at my feet, have a wonderful Christmas holiday and a celebratory New Year. Drive safely while traveling throughout the region, and if you drop into the shops, antique malls, bed and breakfasts, and restaurants noted in this publication, please let them know you read about their business in Curious; The Tourist Guide.

Merry Christmas. See you next year with more on Ada Florence Kinton.

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THE CONCERT FOR THE COMMUNITY, BY THE COMMUNITY - IN THE BEGINNING

When Andrew and Robert Currie planned their first fundraiser, shortly after opening their main street Gravenhurst music business, the plan was a simple one. Bring together musicians with widely diverse backgrounds, to play side-by-side with their fledgling music students. It was thought, and rightly so, that experiences would be shared between them. While they didn’t necessarily join each other on stage, backstage, and over a slice of pizza, before the show, the mentorship occurred like magic. The senior musicians saddled up to the rookies, and any stage-fright was quickly evaporated by bolstered confidence. And if you ask the veteran players about experiences at our fundraisers, they’ll admit to being quite inspired by the courage of the young talents to face the audience, and perform for a good cause no matter how bad the jitters.

There were a few musicians who thought the lads were nuts to attempt to mix junior capabilities with the accomplished performers, who would surely get bored with the pace and mistakes of their juniors. Admittedly, there was room for doubt, such an intermingling of abilities would take its toll on the audience and the cast itself. Funny thing though but all the perceived and actual dysfunctions of such a variety show worked out as “improv” entertainment......and if there was chagrin out there, well it didn’t stop any one of the shows from carrying on......sometimes with a wee limp, but always to a rousing ovation after the final group finale. And when a performer did complain, well, we just thanked them for their help for the particular fundraiser, and refrained from bothering them again. Funny how these things go, that some of the musicians not satisfied with the event, were first to sign for the very next variety show.

Part of the success of the event is the Opera House itself. There is no question that it is the Opera House, in Gravenhurst, that is most accommodating for a large Christmas-time production.....and there’s something about the patina of the place that makes it important and necessary to let it have a roll in our hometown Christmas celebration......as it has had for so many decades. While we have had a very difficult time covering the rental costs of the facility, as have many other events at the historic venue, by not selling tickets, and having to pay an extra percentage onto the rental amount, we can save enough from donations-at-the-door, and sponsorships, to provide the Salvation Army Food Bank with a larger donation. It requires a little more leg-work and sponsorship solicitation, from our dear business friends but the event runs without financial burden. But they’ve been determined to use this great entertainment venue regardless of the paperwork and hustling for donations, and hope to have many more similar events throughout the year.

The event isn’t highly polished. It isn’t supposed to be. What it is however, is a good neighbor event, that is more about kindred spirits and charitable hearts, than entertainment efficiency. It will have its flaws but it will have its successes.......and the reality that at the end of the night, old musicians and young will heartily pat each other on the back, the audience will leave feeling Christmas has been duly celebrated, and the next day food will be trucked over to the Food Bank as a result. Now that’s a good feeling in a good hometown!

We are pleased to have so many friends in the entertainment business who willingly give up their time to help Andrew and Robert stage this annual Christmas Variety Show.....Saturday, Decemeber 18th, at the Opera House.....beginning at 7 p.m. (Donation by cash or non perishable food item....seats are on a first come basis). If you wish to be recognized as a sponsor of the Night Before Christmas show, please let the boys know.....you can drop into Andrew Currie’s Music and Collectibles, (in the former Muskoka Theatre building, opposite the Opera House).....and you can drop off, in advance, any non perishable food items you wish to donate to help the Salvation Army.

As complicated as it can get for organizers, including mom and pop working behind the scenes, it’s still the same simple plan we began with quite a number of events ago. Good neighbor musicians and good neighbor patrons make a wonderful and inspiring partnership. It’s about neighbors helping neighbors afterall. Not just at Christmas but throughout the rolling year, as Charles Dickens might have penned, of what warm spirits can achieve in a short span of time.

Merry Christmas folks. See you at the concert.

GRAVENHURST CHRISTMAS VARIETY SHOW FOR FOOD BANK

In the spirit of goodwill, neighborliness and community pride, local entertainers, musicians and dancers, will once again reunite, as is becoming a Gravenhurst Christmas tradition, to stage a special variety show, at the Opera House, Saturday, December 18th. The fundraiser is for the Salvation Army.

With a longstanding commitment to assisting the Salvation Army Food Bank, to help its clients throughout the year, Andrew and Robert Currie, have been bringing together a talented array of local performers, to fill the Opera House with Christmas merriment. The annual December get-together will once again be directed by Master of Ceremonies, Fred Schulz, who will treat guests with a reading of “The Night Before Christmas.”

There will be special performances offered by the “Just 4 Kicks Dance Studio,” of Gravenhurst, and music students of Andrew and Robert Currie, plus traditional Christmas-time appearances by well known performer Ginger Graham, with a special medley of Christmas songs, and his memorable commentary of which the audience adores, plus talented guitarists / singers, Ray Parsons, Mark Wigston and Jon O’Connor.

There is no admission cost to the event. The hosts ask instead for donations of non perishable food items, a cash donation, or both at the door, the evening of the event. If you can’t offer either, that’s okay. You’re welcome to attend regardless, courtesy the event sponsors, which include Peter’s Players, Just 4 Kicks Dance Studio, Andrew Currie’s Music and Collectibles, Robert Currie’s Music, Gravenhurst Classic Car Wash, Birch Hollow Antiques, and the Probus Club of Gravenhurst.

The Opera House will open at 6:15 p.m. and the show commences at 7 p.m.

For more information about the event you can drop in to Andrew’s Music on Muskoka Road, opposite the Opera House, or call either 644-0804, or 644-2192. If you can’t attend the variety night but wish to donate to the event regardless, you can drop off items at their main street business.

Please help support the kind work of the Salvation Army and their Food Bank volunteers, who have benefitted our community for so many years, in so many ways!

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