The Great Depression and A Muskoka Lakes Township Mayor; Sorting Sports Trading Cards

HOW IRONIC - I'M READING A BOOK ABOUT THE GREAT DEPRESSION - AND I'VE JUST HEARD ANOTHER STORY ABOUT THE SINKING LOONIE

I KNEW THE AUTHOR WHO WAS ONCE A BOX-CAR RIDING HOBO, AND YUP, HE WAS A FORMER MUSKOKA LAKES TOWNSHIP MAYOR

     You can't turn on the evening news, these days, and not hear about the rapid decline of oil on world markets, and the tragedy of the floundering Canadian dollar. There are frequent reports to sober us Ontarians up, about the increasing unemployment roll in Alberta, and the collateral damage it's causing our entire country; then hearing other news, about business failures in our own region and province. A few years back, our governing politicians, on Parliament Hill, were slapping themselves on the back, thinking, believing, that there would never be a day, in their remaining lifetimes, when oil would slide into the twenties, and the Loonie would once again be in the sixty cent zone. But as a mirror of life itself, stuff happens. Pay cheque to pay cheque citizens, know what risk factors they face, and have a pretty good appreciation how long it would take, from losing a regular gig, to the hour of the day, when they'd have to seek assistance from a food bank. If this number was known today, as a socially relevant statistic, it would be sobering to the exponent of ten. Facing facts, most of us are vulnerable but we hate admitting it, because we've learned some bad habits as an emotional counter-balance; otherwise known as coping mechanisms, putting bad stuff out of mind or buying more stuff that makes us feel better. Would it really surprise anyone that booze consumption is up? Temporary reality softener! It doesn't work, or at least, in my experience it didn't. I just had less money left after a night at the hotel to pay my bills.
     I sat down this week, to read an interesting book about hobos, and the hardships of the Great Depression, just in case there was sage advice, from someone who was there, in the 1930's, who I might be able to quote from, should another catastrophic downturn head our way. I like to be prepared with anecdotes and enlightening quotations, should I be asked to opine, if and when the poop hits the economic fan; when historians are sought for reference purposes. Questions like, "how the hell did we get through the Great Depression here in Muskoka?" I fear we're entering a period of "new normal," and might have to get used to eating less exotic fruit and vegetables. For some others, more tough decisions will have to be made, about paying rent and mortgage payments, or buying groceries instead. This is another statistic we really should know, in order to get a truer perspective, and understanding, just how many at-risk individuals live in our region of Ontario. When the vested interest tosses out "Muskoka Lifestyle," as what their businesses cater to, I always laugh to myself, about how blissfully ignorant they are; because they have little idea, or interest in knowing, the hard core realities, of what constitutes the average "Muskoka lifestyle," as "lived" throughout the entire local population.
    Bob Bennett isn't a household name in this region, and few regional historians have reason to bring up his name or list his accomplishments, with any regularity, as having anything whatsoever to do with present events and developments. And even during his term as Mayor of the Township of Muskoka Lakes, in the late 1970's, there were constituents in his own ward who never picked up a newspaper, to find out how Bob was faring as their council representative. When he resigned, there was a flurry for a couple of weeks, a few newspaper headlines, a couple above the fold, and some rumors about his falling-out with regional politicians over the issue of acid rain. I had a different opinion of Mayor Bob Bennett, and it changed sharply after I read his amazing biography, that was published five years after his departure from the municipal scene.
     I could never have really got to know Bob Bennett, at least in order to understand his unique character, by simply sitting at the press table in the municipal hall, a former school house by the way, in the pleasant Village of Port Carling.
     The mayor of the Township of Muskoka Lakes, in 1979, when I was working as a cub reporter for the Muskoka Lakes-Georgian Bay Beacon, seemed to be in constant agony with the political fence-sitting of members of his council. Whether they were, or not, I couldn't tell, because I was too green to know better. I might have had mild, naive support in those days, for the ilk of "fence sitters." I needed to see opposites at work, so I could decide whether abstaining, or posturing, was better than being assertive in what appeared a rather risky public exercise. I mean, there were at least three reporters covering every meeting, and sometimes the electronic media, if Gar Lewis, of CKCO Television, was having a slow news week.
     I had lots of help from fellow reporters, Lou Specht of the Bracebridge Examiner, and Bill Cole, of the Gravenhurst News, but even they had doubts about Mayor Bennett and his ability to separate his personal agenda, from responsibilities of elected officials, to represent all the township's constituents. Veteran reporters began to sense he wasn't quite up to the challenge of leading the municipality, into what would be a hugely contentious period, between the local constituents and cottager associations, over aggressive new development plans being submitted for lakeshore development.
     I though Mayor Bennett was a cranky fellow, who didn't like the press, and when he did stop for a few moments, to answer questions, it always seemed to be a major imposition. At the head of council, during the public portion of meetings, his facial contortions told the story, beyond the few comments he made. He was frustrated. Seeing as I didn't have much of a background on Bob, or the time he had spent with council prior to my arrival, I just assumed he was the strong silent type, who didn't like roadblocks to getting the job done; or at least the one he set out to accomplish in that particular term. When he did speak, he was commanding, and had no problem handling difficult situations with associate councillors, or unruly constituents, complaining about the condition of township roads, or the inadequacies of local snow plowing. There was more to Bob Bennett than I was seeing at the township hall.
     Bob was very early to respond to the environmental dangers of acid rain, at a time when it was still misunderstood, and before MP Stan Darling got on the bandwagon, once the issue became a popular subject of debate with local government. Bob Bennett wanted the Township of Muskoka Lakes to take action against Inco, in Sudbury, because it was alleged their stacks were emitting the toxins that were creating the phenomenon of acid rain, which was acidifying the Muskoka Lakes; and potentially, by chemical reaction, releasing naturally existing mercury, as a free agent in the water. Why were fish in the local waterways contaminated with mercury?
     Mayor Bennett was spot-on with his questioning, but his position was not supported by the rest of council, sensing it was too early and too risky for a small municipality, to be taking-on a major Canadian industry that employed thousands of labourers. Undaunted, Bob took some shots at Inco, and when he couldn't find support on council, tendered his resignation, which was unanimously accepted. This isn't what he wanted, and this is clear in his 1985 book, "Bindle Stiff." But he accepted his fate, and still kept hammering at Inco, until a court ruling that didn't go in his favor. The emissions from the Inco stacks you see, were not travelling over Muskoka, and thus, could not be contributing to the natural manifestation of acid rain. It wasn't an easy loss to shoulder, but he was a tough guy, and never changed his mind despite the set back; a feeling of anger he maintained to the end of his life.
     When I soon became editor of The Herald-Gazette, in the early 1980's, I met up with Bob a number of times socially, and it was then that I began to appreciate the unique qualities of the fellow. Honestly, after even one heart to heart conversation, I knew Bob could never have been a team player, such as to lead the council through the quagmire of the 1980's. It's not that Bob's leadership skills were inadequate, but his style was one from another era, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to govern as he thought best suited, to the values of the township he knew so well. Change was coming in a profound and aggressive way, as cottage associations became more interested in the day to day operation of the municipality, they were paying high taxes to support. It was the era that heralded a cottager revolt, and the landmark occasion in municipal politics, that saw Cottager Associations presenting slates of candidates they supported for local elections. In a way, Bob's exit was sensible under the circumstances, because the pressure was mounting for municipal change by the early 1980's. Bob got to watch it from a more comfortable seat. At this time, he was also writing "Bindle Stiff."
     I had a particularly insightful conversation with Bob, one day, during an Art Campbell auction, on the property of the Beaumont Farm in Bracebridge; he was just curious about the estate sale, and I was looking to stock-up our antique enterprise with interesting purchases. It was in and around the time of the release of his biography, which was a look back at his younger days, living the existence of a hobo. The book came out in 1985, but I think it was well after this date, when we met at the sale, because Bob was telling me all about some of the book's reviews already registered, to that point, but saying he would be delighted for me to write a critique as well, if I had some time. Bob and I had always got along, as Mayor and reporter, although the circumstances and stresses of office, as he believed they were, strained the relationship with the media generally. He always returned my calls, and seemed relaxed when we chatted, going off the record frequently, to get things of his chest. I read the book sometime later, which is entitled "Bindle Stiff - Autobiography of A Super Hobo." I don't remember writing a review of the book, but if I did, Bob would have sent me back a note, or given me a call, but I have a feeling I didn't get either. In the late 1980's, we had just started a family, and I was working from home, as a Mr. Mom, and I got bumped on a lot of the assignments I had traditionally undertaken at Muskoka Publications. I wasn't happy about the management change at that point, and it would eventually be the reason I switched newspapers, to work as an editor for the competition. This is the only explanation I can come up with, for the reason I didn't connect with Bob Bennett on his book, which by the way, is a fine, well written biography that I have now read four times.
     Bob, in his late youth, decided with a chum of around the same age, to try their luck riding the rails through the United States, as a fledgling partnership with the Hobo Brethern. I have been fascinated by Hobos since childhood, when the lads from the Hunt's Hill gang, in Bracebridge, used to visit the small Hobo Jungle near the Bracebridge train station, sorting through the tidy rubble left behind, and hung in the branches of nearby trees, such as pots and pans, where the railway freeloaders would stop for meal preparation in between trains; and get a little shut-eye in the warm glow of a campfire. The second attraction, was the fact I was a big fan of rail travel, and "Bindle Stiff," contains many references to riding the steam trains of the Depression era, where open box cars might be full of hobos and those poor souls, known as rubber tramps, trying to find Eldorado, after being tossed from their farmsteads, and livelihood by the great dust bowl, that companioned with the Depression in the American mid-west. Like the well known, John Steinbeck novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," Bob Bennett writes, not only of his own hardships trying to find employment, and nourishment, hustling from town to town, but portrayed the severe hardships experienced by others, he encountered along the way; recollections that makes this book exceptional in so many ways. The man "who would be mayor," lays out this emotional story, I'm sure many of his colleagues, beside being shocked at the revelation their former mayor had once been hobo, would have been amazed, that he had witnessed, first hand, so much human suffering; and lived through physical and emotional hardship himself. If the book had been published ten years earlier, I think his council associates would have felt differently about his character, and attitudes, as mayor of the Township of Muskoka Lakes. His experiences were character-building that's for certain. But Bob, by his own admission, wasn't the type to play-politics, yet he certainly knew how to get jobs done at the municipal level. If anything, he was over qualified but with life experiences, more so than political dexterity, and this shortfall cost him his term as mayor.
     There is a passage in the book, that was, to me, the most memorable, because it illustrated what Steinbeck had profiled in his novel, about the cruel realities of those displaced families, forced to head to other locations in the United States, such as California, where, it was rumored, there was an abundance of job opportunities; and food to be eaten fresh off the trees and vines that flourished in the twelve month warmth. To starving people, even the lies, with evil intent (and there were lots of those), made the gamble more appealing, and less risk-filled. Bob was largely the voyeur, but let me tell you this; he may not have been a hall of fame mayor in this region, but he was an exceptional story-teller, and as a book collector, it is a high honor to make my preferred reading list.
      "While I have endeavoured to relate the hobo way of life, and my experiences as a hobo, it is difficult to reflect on these times without including something about 'Rubber Tramps;' (transients who used motor vehicles to flee) the people of the dust bowl who were forced out of states like Texas and Oklahoma and the midwest because of unusually dry, hot weather and ignorance of land husbandry. They were sharecroppers who depended on the land for their living and became refugees of the scorched earth of the 'dirty thirties.' They were called Arkies or Okies or other names depending on their state of origin. Most had little or no money and they left their homes with all their belongings piled on whatever transportation they could afford. Many had broken down trucks and some, large old cars, old hearses, whatever was available that would run and get them to the promised land, better known as California. They heard there was work in this state and along the west coast, and followed the same line of work as the hobos. People eventually grouped them together and described them all as Okies,' a symbolic handle," wrote Bob Bennett.
     "California did not welcome them and considered them a threat to the welfare system which was already strained in that state. The City of Los Angeles became so hostile toward these people that the mayor dispatched officers to the state borders, in order to turn back the Okies and refuse them entry into California. Most of the tramps defied the officers and either stopped at the border, waiting till dark, when they were off duty, or circumvented the main check points to eventually get to the west coast, where they were completely exploited for the cheap labour they supplied. Unlike hobos they had to have gas and food to move, so once they were able to get a job, many of the labour contractors kept them in bondage with low pay and intermittent work, giving them just enough to eke out a living. Many had large families and of course every person in the family had to work to stay alive. Children never went to school and some as young as six and seven years old, worked a full day with their parents in order to augment their income. These people were the most exploited of the Depression. Sometimes whole towns would organize to drive them out and many a pitched battle was fought between the Okies and the Townies. If one of them ever ran afoul of the law, they were severely punished, often receiving twice the sentence in jail, that a local might get for the same offence. There were all types of people who made up this motley force, some good and some bad. Some had deep religious leanings and others were thieves and many of their women were forced into prostitution."
     Bob writes, "One time my friends and I came across a family of Okies who were stranded on the side of the road near a railroad crossing. Their truck had broken down and with no parts or money to buy them with, they couldn't move on. One of the tires had blown out and since the spare had already been used and blown, it looked as though they might never be able to run the truck again. This particular family was from Texas and they were not only broke but hungry as well. They hadn't worked for several weeks and had exhausted their supply of food several days ago. The father was a man of about thirty-five who looked more like fifty-five and was near to tears when  he approached our group and asked if we could please help his kids because they were very hungry. It so happened that were 'steaky' just then and the family was invited to come over and join in with the meal (hobo jungle) which was provided from the grub sacks. Along with the mother and father there were five very young children and they were all so pale and weak that the hobos took pity on them, not only providing a meal but giving them extras from the grub sacks. After eating, two hobos set out for town armed with a few dollars collected from the group and they bought two second-hand tires and a can of gas for the old truck. Before they left, the father, along with his children, three girls and two boys, offered us a coal oil lantern in payment for the food and tires. He said, 'It isn't much but this is about all I have that you might find useful. Maybe you could sell it for something in town and replenish you food supply?' Not one of the hobos wanted to take the lantern and there was a dreadful silence. However, they knew that the proud father would be embarrassed in front of his children if they refused, so finally one of the group said, 'That's a fine lantern. I'm going to visit my family and they will appreciate it very much as they live on a farm without any electricity. The lantern is more than enough to pay for the food, thank you very much.' He took the lantern from the father and placed it carefully beside his grub sack and then continued, 'The rest of my buddies here will get their share when I get a job and pay them back for what they have contributed. Thanks once again, you have more than paid us in full.' The Texan understood the gesture made for the benefit of his children who stood there bug-eyed, and tears came to his eyes. Unable to speak, he was forced to turn and walk away, back to his truck without say anything further. In the morning, when we got up and were cooking breakfast, we saw that the truck had left in the night. When the group packed up and boarded a freight (train), the lantern was left sitting beside the track since it was of absolutely no use to any one of us."
     This wasn't a story most of us, back in the late 1970's, especially the members of the media, who scrutinized him daily, would have expected to find in the biography of the Mayor of the Township of Muskoka Lakes. What a pleasant surprise it was, then, for me to read the book, and realize that he was indeed, as multi-layered, deep and profound, as I had often speculated, residing behind the mask of a once frustrated mayor. When Bob passed away, I remember thinking how unfortunate it was, that so few of his former constituents, knew the real fellow, the genuine article, behind the chain of office. I did, thankfully, which makes the book so much more intimate.






THE PROBLEM WITH SPORTS TRADITING CARDS? YOU NEED TO FILL A DUMPTRUNK JUST TO MAKE FIFTY BUCKS!

THE LEGACY OF A GREEDY TIME!

     Son Robert has his own apartment now. I'm glad for the little (six foot tall) fellow, because he has lived at home until now, in order to keep his costs down, in order to invest in his music business. Now that it's a going-concern, and has had positive growth year after year, for the past half decade, he needed to come home to a place that didn't have his business partners, his parents staring back at him, as they do throughout each business day, at our family run Gravenhurst shop. We were admittedly, getting a little annoyed by one another, being closer than the Waltons ever were, up there on Walton's Mountain (Television show of the 1970's).
    The collateral damage of such a flight of independence, is that it left us with the remains of "his" day. Most parents appreciate the reality, some things, like childhood toys, and school notebooks, (and painted macaroni projects) are left behind as supposed nostalgic keepsakes of a bygone era. Well, when you're a collectable dealer, as Robert and Andrew commenced their present vintage music business, you are most likely to have built-up, in the process of learning the profession, a fair bit of inventory excess, that, in Robert's case, was jammed into his room at Birch Hollow. Thank goodness he hadn't trained to be a blacksmith. When I use the word "jammed" what I really mean to suggest, is that there was open space for breathing, a bed, chair, and television, but not much more to even set down a beverage without fear of contaminating a precious piece of music heritage. It was a sort of signature room, that very much represented his interest in old records, old cowboys, and a few old sporting heroes from his early biography.
     I feared the day the young lad moved out, and would have this regret to share; that he would not be taking the hundred thousand hockey, baseball and football cards with him, to the new digs. Not what we were hoping to here, because between us as a family of collectors, we had several skids of sports cards in that large closet, left over from the early 1990's, when we sold them at our antique shop in Bracebridge. Well, we not only sold them, but the boys also collected them as a hobby, as did their grandfather Ed, who left them his entire collection to split-up when he passed away a few years back. He was a frequent coffee-time visitor to the McDonald's Restaurants in both Gravenhurst and Bracebridge, with my mother Merle, and when they'd have their sport card promotions, he would buy packages of hockey and baseball cards, in an attempt to make complete sets for both his grandsons. I sort of knew what he was up to, but it wasn't until we were cleaning out my parents apartment, that we found his stash, dated as far back as the spring of 1993. After we brought them home, the only room left in the house, was a small space in son Robert's closet, and that's where they have been ever since.
     What happened back in the early 1990's, was what we see in the antique business time and again. I've been doing this antique thing for four decades, so believe me, I've seen the fall of trends many times, and yes, been stuck frequently, holding too much of something that has gone out of favor with the public. Soon after the sports card rush of the late 1980's commenced, even hardcore antique dealers, were offering vintage sports cards in their shop showcases, and even at special antique sales around the countryside. There was some big money changing hands back in those days, for vintage cards, and there was a great new emphasis on contemporary rookies, which was capitalized-on by the card producers of that period. The speculation was that if a Wayne Gretsky rookie card could be worth over a thousand bucks, then a rookier Eric Lindros could do the same in ten to twenty years. It was wild and wooly with almost obscene speculation, and the card companies started to flood the market with reckless abandon, to the point that they killed the market, not only for that time period, but for decades following. It brought about an ugliness to the collectable business, and I knew quite a few speculators who got burned worse than us.
    I remember going to an auction sale and buying a large quantity of my competitor's inventory, from a failed shop, and feeling like a champion for that fleeting moment; as if we had sunk the enemy ship. I remember shaking the fellow's hand after winning the bid for the surplus cards, and suddenly feeling the same dejection he did, losing his business. I had actually paid more for the cards, probably double, than they were worth on the open market. I thought about this the other day, when Suzanne comandered me to sort through the hundred or so boxes jammed with hockey, baseball and football trading cards, to consolidate boxes, and ensure they were safe in their present storage containers. It was then that I realized, just how precarious it is to be in the antique and collectable business. Ninety percent of the cards in the boxes, even the rookies of N.H.L. stars who, by the way, most now retired, are worth a tiny fraction of what was speculated to happen, back in those halcyon days of the early 1990's. In fact, a dump truck load of the lesser significant cards, from companies that produced way, way too much product, wouldn't have got us fifty dollars return on our investment.
     Over two mornings last week, I sat in a chair watching day-time programs, (some real bad ones from what I remember as decent morning shows), sorting through thousands upon thousands of sports cards, including stickers, special sets, collectable plastic discs with players on the front, pogs of all kinds, and related souvenirs, and a few autographed hockey photos we got for the boys at special events. Honestly, I had little idea we had so much sports memorabilia. Sure, there are some "money" cards mixed into the bunch, and a fair number of Roger Crozier cards, because we all used to work for his Childrens Foundation in Muskoka, and I was afterall, curator of the Bracebridge Sports Hall of Fame. I had to beg-out of the exercise on both mornings, because I was starting to hallucinate about being smothered by an avalanche of sports memorabilia. I spent at least ten hours sorting, and fixing up boxes to better store the cards, and we still have the same amount again, bowing the upper shelves, in a closet, that reaches all the way back, I think, to 'Narnia', the magical place created by C.S. Lewis. Suzanne keeps asking when I'm going to be available to help her sort through this mountain of sports ephemera, and as of yet, I haven't given any specific time. You see, there's nothing more horrendous to a hoarder, than to see that he passed the gene on to his children. The problem came in and around 1993, when the bottom simply fell out of the sports card market. Here's a reason, beyond the fact contemporary card producers wouldn't halt their printing presses, and it has to do with that well known issue of "supply and demand." When you have a gold rush, it's natural to expect a proliferation of everything that is associated to the big strike.
     What happened with vintage sports cards, was the realization (something that had definitely not been known prior to the rush), that hundreds of thousands of North American adults had kept the hockey and baseball cards from their childhoods; that were rumored by speculators, as wrong as they were, of having been destroyed in the bicycle spokes and school yard card tosses, of the 1950's, 60's and 70's. Wrong. The kids were more astute back then apparently, because they didn't ruin all their cards, at the time, and when they left home, their parents, like us, kept these relics of youth in closets just like ours for posterity. When the peak arrived, and Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull rookie cards were selling for a literal king's ransom, more and more rookie cards began turning up week by week. Until eventually the large number of these so called rare rookie cards, became available all over the place. These old and well conserved collections were being revealed regularly, and flooding the market with the vintages that once attracted huge prices, and the attention of speculators, all over the continent and beyond. The more publicity that was generated about the value of these old cards, the more oldtimers from the four corners of the world, delved into their storage closets and attics, to uncover vast amounts of what was once considered rare, and almost impossible to find. Thus, the prices began to decline. The new stuff, gosh, it suffered the most. And speculators like us, got to haul the stuff home, because there was no point leaving them in our shops to assist spiders with their web-spinning.
     So here it is, twenty-six years later, from the time we stopped selling sports cards, and the mountain of ephemera I'm sitting under, looking at the closet, wouldn't afford Robert or Andrew, a south seas vacation, of a single day, let alone a week, and if we turned them in for auction, we would likely be carrying most of them back home, due to a general lack of interest. At the time, it's fair to say we did make a fair amount of profit, selling these cards to young and old collectors, mostly speculators, who were then flipping them a special card shows for twice to three times the price we got. When I write about trends in the antique and collectable profession, I find this behemoth collection of near valueless cards, as a good teaching model, for what not to do, or at least, what not to get stuck with, as buyers and sellers of old stuff. It can happen with any type of collectable and nothing is immune from suffering downturns when least expected.
     Economic downturns do not, by themselves, play a big role in the high and low tides of our profession. The sports card peak happened during the recession of the late 1980's and early 1990's, that saw the crash of real estate values in Ontario. In fact, our business, which was new to the main street of Bracebridge in 1989, survived the years of recession, and is still my baby all these years later, through feast and famine. We just learned as a family, not to get carried away with trends that are mostly froth, and bubble, than anything remotely considered stable with a long future. I would have been much better back then, to have purchased good pieces of art, and old books, that have a longstanding reputation of holding and increasing their value, than taking the gamble on sports cards, which I knew was risky business for a fledgling company. Fortunately, we got most of our seed money back, that we had invested in this area of collecting, and one day, possibly when our grandchildren have children, these hundred thousand cards weighing down our house (in case of tornadoes), may be worth something more than nothing; even if they have to be used to make the sound of an engine, clattering in the spokes of a nifty bicycle racing down the avenue.
     Why don't we just recycle them, and benefit from the new open space we'd create in storage? Well folks, to be of our ilk, means we don't commit to stuff like this, preferring, to the end, to suffer with dignity, knowing we never left our post, guarding our nest egg, regardless of its capital value. Sort of like the reason I had a most difficult time, letting go of the ski rope, when I would fall shortly after flying off the dock. Even my guardian angel couldn't figure out why I refused to let go; mistakenly believing that I would eventually, before drowning, be able to regain my above-water position. I can't let go of these cards, just in case, the market should suddenly shift once again, and these boxes become gold-laden for a new breed of sports card collector.
     I'm happy my son has a nice apartment. I just wish he had some extra closet space.