Frank Miller, Mayor's Newsletter, Making It Better

GRAVENHURST - MAYOR'S MINUTE REVIEW - FOR OUR GOOD, OR COUNCIL'S?

I will never poo-poo on efforts by local council to communicate with constituents. In fact, I nag about this all the time. So when I was handed a "first edition" copy of Mayor Donaldson's "Mayor's Minute," newsletter, I was delighted to get something……anything from the folks we elected to captain our ship. I think it is a positive step to a public relations void at town hall, and offers some potential, to actually be a decent conduit of information in the future. But here's the problem. Most of us don't have issues with major town events and celebrations, grants applied for and received, and whether there is sidewalk sweeping or that we have a booth at a flower show; a steamship in the local fleet approaching an anniversary, or a new BIA project co-ordinator. The local news publications seem to be able to provide these insights, without a dime of expense producing a newsletter. Here's what would be useful. Initiating discussion about more pressing issues facing this town, and sparking some substantial feedback, versus not much of "anything" that will actually improve "something." Most of the newsletter is abstract, evasive, non-committal, vague, undefined, such as what "MCTS" and "Star Stuck" means, and why did we need a grant of $36,600 to pay for it? So what is a "Make a Splash Event," and why did we need $28,000 as funding? The Covenco Report is just a teaser, right? What is written in the box of the newsletter, on this subject, is not even mildly interesting to any one who has an appetite for fact, and revelation, because we know there's more to the story than this sprinkling of public notice. Where is information about The Barge? Why is there nary a mention of a very important project, that we have no real idea, if it is complete or still rotting out there in the bay. Why not? I'm sorry to inform the mayor of this, but the work and progress on The Barge, for many of us, trumps having a booth at the Canada Blooms show. If we're going to have a newsletter, from the head of council, here's the thing…….use it to full advantage as an information conduit, not as a "flower in a vase," promotional, "good times were had by all," piece of irrelevance.

Most of us know more than the mayor, if this is any example, because we see and hear what's going on, because it's in our best interest to find out what's happening. So what the wee newsletter does for us, who really, really want to know, is nothing but the ordinary. It is a good news report, when most of us know it isn't as sweet as all that. If council business is brutally tough, and decisions incredible difficult, and drastic measures have to be taken, for God's sake, we can handle it. If you read the newsletter, and then a front pager, detailing a huge council conflict, what are we supposed to think? First of all, transparency isn't all that big a deal. Or so it seems by the nature of the newsletter. As a matter of some unfortunate coincidence, transparency issues are tearing both the provincial and federal governments apart at the seams. What problems with the air ambulance program? What fighter jet miscalculation? So everything's peachy at Gravenhurst Council? No it's not. If it is peachy, something's wrong. There are too many things to be shaping and revamping in this town, for anybody to feel all is well and calm. The mayor's report is nothing more than a thumbnail sketch of nothing in particular that's going to impress ratepayers, that there is an identifiable nitty gritty going on over there, at town hall, beneath that very expensive new roof.

I think a monthly note from the mayor is a positive step but a pointless one, unless it contains some information, more than "alluding to the fact" information exists somewhere, just not in print. It needs to be beefed-up, so that we know there's more going on at town hall, on our behalf, than what these snipits of information contain. Or I'm really going to start wondering what they're up to over there.

Here's a recommendation I made a long time ago, after the last municipal election. I suggested that the mayor make herself available to the press,……not me……but all those paid reporters for local / regional print publications, each month, for a little news sharing scrum, that would allow the press the opportunity as a group, to ask questions before being fed the sanitized answers. The mayor is the head of a multimillion dollar corporation, and needs to recognize that, from time to time, the press…..our conduit to information, will have questions, uncomfortable or not, that need to be answered. A failure to answer means we are left with that transparency thing again. We understand, as ratepayers, that there are council matters that, do to legal constraints, and personnel sensitivities, can not be released casually for public consumption. But much that is withheld, because it may be judged controversial, and troublesome, by some councillors, does fall within the bounds of our right to know. We hear about a lot of these situations, long after the horse has left the barn. I think availing herself to the press, for monthly "Q & A's" is good for council and the press, and inevitably for us, who would like to know more than a newsletter is ever going to provide.

I applaud the mayor for making an attempt to connect with us. It has a future, and I'm glad it asks for input. But honestly, we know how to get a hold of our council members, without the aid of a newsletter. The plan here, should be to make us appreciate what's really going on at town hall, and how we are going to avoid cost over-runs in the future.

I like the mayor, and the fact she is highly visible and active within our community. Council? Haven't got a clue? They could also benefit from a regular sit-down with the press as well, because frankly, we don't know much about a council, we might assume from coverage of council meetings, is even less controversial than the mayor…..despite the fact this was one of the most controversial years in the town's history. We still have an unresolved issue with the Recreation Centre re-fit, that one year ago, put our town on the front page of the Toronto Star…..and for more than one issue. So if you've got this far, in this critique, and been in denial about controversy at town hall, adamantly believing we don't have any, well, that's not quite true is it? In my way of thinking…..and maybe it is very presumptuous, the Town of Gravenhurst, on this anniversary of big, bad headlines, should be working on the citizens' behalf, to demand a follow-up from the Toronto Star……an explanation or an apology, for a story that appears to have become much less important to some……..while many of us still feel insulted the issue was never fully followed-up……unless there's more to come soon. How do you just forget the drubbing we got, and the money and delays of the entire project, caused by this debacle, which I believe, we have to cover as taxpayers? Someone needs to act on our behalf. Remember? That municipal election thing! The oath of office? It was a town issue, and one year later, it is still a town issue. It needs to be addressed, out of respect for the integrity of this town.

There is news we should know about and questions that should be answered. This will take meeting face to face with the press. A newsletter just doesn't cut-it, if all its going to do, is present the overviews in a kind light. Some things just don't look good in a kind light.

ELECTION COLLECTIBLE FROM ANOTHER ERA -

YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO FIND OUT THERE

JUST WANTED TO SHOWCASE A NEAT LITTLE MUSKOKA COLLECTIBLE, I FOUND RECENTLY, AT A LOCAL SECOND HAND SHOP HERE IN GRAVENHURST. IT REMINDED ME OF THE ONLY TIME I WAS A MEMBER OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY. I WAS A HUGE SUPPORTER OF FRANK MILLER, WHO DID BECOME THE PREMIER OF THIS PROVINCE, IF ONLY FOR A SHORT TERM. AS A CUB REPORTER, I HAD TO ACCOMPANY FRANK DURING HIS WEEKEND VISITS TO CONSTITUENTS, FOR ANNIVERSARY AND BIRTHDAY PRESENTATIONS, AND SO MANY OTHER PERSONAL APPEARANCES FOR RIBBON CUTTINGS AND UNVEILINGS, BACK IN THE 1980'S. WE WOULD HAVE LUNCH TOGETHER IN BETWEEN ASSIGNMENTS. HE TREATED THE REPORTERS WHO HAD TO FOLLOW HIM, VERY WELL, AND IT WAS NEVER A CHORE TO ACCOMPANY THIS HARD WORKING MEMBER OF PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT. SO WHEN I CAME UPON A LARGE COLLECTION OF VINTAGE BOTTLES AT THE GRAVENHURST RE-STORE, ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON, I COULDN'T BELIEVE MY GOOD FORTUNE. THERE WAS A BEER BOTTLE IN THE MIDDLE OF SODA BOTTLES, WITH FRANK'S PHOTOGRAPH ON THE LABEL. I REMEMBER THE GIMMICK BOTTLE, WHICH (AS PHOTOGRAPHED) WAS A RE-LABELLED SORT-OF-STUBBY OF "MILLER HIGH LIFE," BEER, WITH FRANK'S FACE ON THE UPPER LABEL, WITH THE RIM BAND READING, "BUILD ON THE STRENGTH OF ONTARIO." I NEVER GOT ONE AT THE TIME BUT I SUPPOSE IT WAS FOR INNER PARTY MEMBERS, CLOSER TO HIM THAN I WAS. ANYWAY, IT'S ONE FOR MY MUSKOKA NOSTALGIA SHELF HERE AT BIRCH HOLLOW. I MIGHT OFFER IT TO HIS SON NORMAN, ALSO A MPP, IF HE HASN'T GOT ONE……ALTHOUGH IT'S LIKELY THE FAMILY HAS A FEW STASHED AWAY AS KEEPSAKES. I HAVE A LOT OF FOND MEMORIES OF THOSE DAYS, WHEN BOTH OF US STOOD FOR HOURS AND HOURS, AT EVENTS ALL OVER THIS HUGE DISTRICT….THE POLITICIAN AND THE PHOTOGRAPHER. I COULD HAVE USED A BEER THEN.

I WORRY ABOUT MORTGAGE DEBT IN THIS COUNTRY - AND THE CAPACITY OF THE FOOD BANKS TO MEET FUTURE CHALLENGES

I'VE NOTED THIS MANY TIMES IN PREVIOUS BLOGS, BUT I DIDN'T BECOME ANY OF MY THREE PROFESSIONS TO GET RICH. I'M NOT A NOVELIST AND I'VE ONLY PUBLISHED SOME REGIONAL HISTORIES IN BOOK FORM, AND MAKING THE BIG BUCKS AS AN HISTORIAN ISN'T IN THE CARDS. I KNEW THAT WHEN I GOT INVOLVED IN EACH, AND WHILE I'D BE LIEING TO YOU IF I SAID MONEY WASN'T IMPORTANT, IT'S CERTAINLY NEVER BEEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN HAVING AN INTERESTING LIFE. I'M EMPLOYING EACH PROFESSION ALMOST EVERY DAY, AND I'VE GOT A BIG MIRROR HERE IN MY OFFICE, BUT I'VE NEVER YET WATCHED MYSELF STARVE TO DEATH. EACH OF MY CAREERS KICKS IN A LITTLE MONEY, SOME OF THE TIME, AND WE HAVE A LOT OF FUN TOGETHER, STILL CHASING THE ELUSIVE FORTUNE THAT ALWAYS SEEMS TO EVADE OUR COLLECTIVE GRASP.

HAVING TO BE RESOURCEFUL IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT. THE FACT MANY YOUNG FOLKS ARE LACKING IN RESOURCEFULNESS THESE DAYS, IS TROUBLESOME TO AN OLD FART LIKE ME, WHO KNOWS THAT IT WILL SOON AGAIN, BE A NECESSARY SURVIVAL SKILL. I DON'T CARE WHAT THE EMPLOYMENT NUMBERS LOOK LIKE, AS BLACK AND WHITE STATS, BECAUSE THE ONLY REALITY I NEED TO KNOW, IS WHAT HAS AND IS CURRENTLY HAPPENING AT STREET LEVEL. HOW ARE WE DOING? HOW ARE OUR BUSINESSES FARING THESE DAYS? ARE INCREASES IN HYDRO, WATER, AND TAXES HURTING THE BOTTOM LINE, OF WHAT'S LEFT AT THE END OF THE MONTH? ARE YOU HAVING A HARD TIME MAKING ENDS MEET, BUYING GROCERIES THAT ARE SOMEWHAT HEALTHY, WITH A FEW BUCKS LEFT FOR GAS TO GET BACK HOME? OR DO YOU EVEN HAVE A CAR ANY MORE? THE PROBLEM IS, YOU SEE, WE'RE NOT SURE OF WHAT THE REAL, DAY TO DAY LIVING REALITIES ARE, FOR THOSE WHO ARE MOST SERIOUSLY AT RISK. SEEING AS THEY HAVEN'T CLOSED ANY FOOD BANKS DUE TO LACK OF INTEREST, IT SEEMS VISITATIONS ARE STILL HALE AND HARDY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.

I HAVE NO FAITH ANY LONGER, THAT THE LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO WATCH KIDS WAKING ON EASTER MORNING, BUT FINDING NARY A CHOCOLATE. AND IF YOU WERE THINKING IT, OF COURSE I AGREE. HOPEFULLY, THE CARE-GIVER WOULD HAVE USED THAT MONEY TO BUY SOMETHING NOURISHING, AND MAKE UP FOR THE SHORTFALL OF CHOCOLATE, BY GETTING OUTSIDE AND ENJOYING WHAT IS FREE AND ABUNDANT. LIFE AND TIMES DON'T HINGE ON EASTER BUNNIES. I'VE LIVED THROUGH MANY TOUGH TIMES IN MY LIFE, BUT AS LONG AS I COULD LATCH ONTO OTHER NEAT THINGS, FRIENDS, FAMILY AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS, I FOUND THE WAY TO MOVE ON. WHEN THE BOYS WERE YOUNG AND WE WERE BROKE, WE NEVER ONCE, LET A DAY GO BY THAT WE DIDN'T EMBRACE THE GOOD GRACES OF HUMAN LIFE. AND WHILE THAT MAY SEEM SICKLY SWEET, IT WAS INFINITELY MORE FULFILLING, AS A FAMILY, NOT TO BE DEFINED BY INCOME, OR SOCIAL STANDING, BUT HOW MUCH NECTAR WE SUCKED OUT OF THE LIVES WE WERE AFFORDED. IF WE HAD TO PORTAGE OUR OLD CANOE ACROSS TOWN, TO GET TO A LAKE, WE'D DO IT, AND PADDLE FOR MOST OF THE DAY. WE GOT THE CANOE FOR FREE, AS IT WAS SUZANNE'S GROWING UP. WE TOOK PICNIC LUNCHES TO ALL THE TOWN PARKS, FROM WEEK TO WEEK, AND SUZANNE MADE US FABULOUS SANDWICHES ON A TIGHT BUDGET OF INGREDIENTS. WE CERTAINLY SURVIVED, IN THOSE DAYS, WHEN OUR HOUSE, AS IF PART OF SOME MAGICIAN'S TRICK, DECREASED $30,000 IN VALUE. IN ONE YEAR ONLY, DURING THE LATE 1980'S REAL ESTATE COLLAPSE. WE MADE OUR BED AND AS THEY SAY…….

What I see today, are a lot of dangerous parallels, to what we experienced of the good, bad and the very ugly, of those days. When I say we lost $30,000, that was on paper only. Like many American homeowners have suffered, we couldn't sell it for any price at that point. The on-paper figure was much better that the actual selling price would have been, if we had been forced to list the house, or return it to the bank. I can remember borrowing just over $100,000 and thinking, it was the most frightening venture I'd ever undertaken. It was. Even though we both had multiple good jobs, and made more than enough money to cover costs, we had know idea how wild a fear of recession could become, even before it was fiscally speaking, a true economic recession. Gads, I went from three jobs to being an antique dealer, and a writer / historian-for-hire. Suzanne was of course the anchor, as a teacher, but we had the debt load that required me to be a professional athlete, or a business magnate. What I'd like to tell young folks today, is that there are no sure-bets when the poop starts hitting the proverbial fan, and what you thought was cast in stone, was actually made of gingerbread. Almost every day, for three years, we were petrified to go to the mail box. We had all the colors of the rainbow, in those "overdue" bills, that were actually so numerous, our postal carrier wrapped them in an elastic band. We'd bring them in the house, and just toss the packet of problems on the table, picking the right time and mood, to removed the elastic. Ours was not an unusual situation at that time. Many of our friends lost their homes and possessions, and in our hole-in-the-wall antique shop, (which allowed us to sell off our stuff) we sold their heirloom pieces, and it was enough to break your heart. It wasn't just young people hurt by this. Many were friends nearing retirement. Some declared bankruptcy. A few killed themselves because the outcome was so bleak. When I read the story this week, about the Greek pensioner, who killed himself recently, because he couldn't face the balance of life scrounging for food, I thought about those difficult times for us……which were a thousands times better, than what some citizens are facing around the world. My point is, resourcefulness is the only way to survive a parallel downturn that isn't so far away.

I remember, in the late 1980's, reading about massive line-ups of buyers, waiting for the opening of sales offices in new city subdivisions, and reading about them selling-out all their properties in a day. Then I remember reading about the thousands of buyers who forfeited their deposits after the real estate collapse. The exact same thing is happening today, in Toronto, and with these auctions on re-sale houses, where asking prices are topped by many thousands of dollars, you have to wonder how long the nonsense can last. How many condos are too many for the available market? Is Canada growing that fast? How will young people be able to live in the city, with these prices continuing to escalate for family homes? How are we going to be hit, here in the hinterland, if the trend shifts northward? Many have already had to sell because of rising expenses and taxes. What's going to happen if the interest rates go up, as they can in a heartbeat? We were suffering with a mere hundred thousand dollar mortgage-debt. Geez that's a tiny one by today's standards. Yet it still has to be paid back, just like ours, and we still have a couple of years to go. There's too much b.s. out there, and vested interest, in oh so many ways, in order for most people to truly understand what the risks are, the economic trend will suddenly downturn without warning. When we bought our first house, in the mid 1980's, the vendor then had a mortgage at 17 percent interest. Now that's a nose-bleed rate, but stuff happens, and lending institutions don't apologize for making money, and getting you to pay-up regardless. With the volatility of fuel prices, and cost of living expenses rising continually, having a three hundred thousand dollar mortgage, to me, is like being written into the plot of a Twilight Zone thriller, because unless you've got that amount stashed aside for an emergency, by golly, you should pray Spain doesn't default, or Iran lob a missile at Israel, because there's nothing like world turmoil to raise costs for one and all.

I'm shocked to read about the large number of mortgage holders who have know idea about penalty clauses, to get out of a fixed term mortgage. Does any one read the paperwork they're signing? Cripes, it's a pretty crappy hit, when you find out you owe fifteen grand in interest, for breaking a mortgage contract. I think there are a lot of home owners who have been foolishly naive, and gotten themselves imbedded in responsibility, they only know in part……which was the part they when they got the keys to new digs. Yup, resourcefulness got my grandparents through the Great Depression, got my parents through the war years and a half dozen recessions, and it got us through a couple of dandies. I often kidded Suzanne about being the head of her class, as a teenager, in the 4-H Club in Windermere, and her years associated with the Women's Institutes, and the Windermere United Church association, that did so much for the community on so few dollars, but employed major league resourcefulness, and togetherness, to pull off what would have seemed impossible tasks. As they say, the price of success is hard work. Suzanne and I both came from similar backgrounds, where money was tough to get, and hang onto, and things had to be stretched to a razor-thin edge by plain necessity. We employed every resource at our disposal, and we overcame a huge deficit by relying on old fashion resourcefulness. Nothing fancy.

We've got young people with huge mortgages who can't cook for themselves, if the microwave oven is on the blink. How the hell did they get a gigantic mortgage? The balance has been tipped, and the collateral damage of a collapse in real estate values, (which to me seems inevitable considering the present nonsense going on), will certainly require many more fundraisers for the local food banks. Greed and insatiable need for more! It killed the American real estate market. And it's going to hurt us real bad, when it finally dawns on buyers, they've fettered themselves to something pretty insecure……that in a mighty wind, will be gone, gone, gone.

I'm not usually this negative, but I've lived through this nonsense before, and I'm sorry so many folks are going to find out they gambled too much over too long a period, in a precarious world that doesn't follow a script.

Thanks for joining today's blog. Happy Easter. Please join me again soon.

I Almost Purchased An Arthur Shilling Original

MISSED OPPORTUNITY - A REPORTER'S WAGE - AND BEING TOO CHEAP TO TAKE A WEE GAMBLE ON IMPORTANT ART

ARTHUR SHILLING PAINTINGS I DIDN'T BUY -

I CAN REMEMBER WALKING INTO A HUGE ROOM IN THE MCMICHEAL GALLERY, IN KLEINBURG, ONTARIO, AND SEEING A MOST INCREDIBLE ARTHUR SHILLING PAINTING MOUNTED HIGH ON AN END WALL. IT WAS, TO ME, A BREATH-TAKING IMAGE, MORESO I SUPPOSE, BECAUSE I HAPPEN TO BE AN ADMIRER OF HIS WORK. SHILLING, OF COURSE, WAS ONE OF OUR HIGHLY ACCOMPLISHED FIRST NATIONS ARTISTS, AND HIS WORK IS EAGERLY SOUGHT AFTER BY ASTUTE ART COLLECTORS. THE ONLY OTHER ORIGINAL ARTHUR SHILLING PAINTING I'VE SEEN, IN RECENT TIMES, WAS IN A SMALL, HOLE-IN-THE-WALL COLLECTIBLE SHOP, IN ORILLIA, AND IT WAS MULTI-THOUSANDS WHEN I TOOK A GANDER AT THE PRICE TAG. DON'T RACE DOWN THERE BECAUSE THE SHOP IS GONE NOW. I HOPE THE SHILLING FOUND A GOOD HOME. I FANCIED FOR A MOMENT, I COULD HAVE UNFURLED ENOUGH BILLS FROM MY IMAGINARY WAD, TO HAVE MADE THAT PANEL MINE. MY WAD WAS MORE LIKE A THIN SANDWICH. I'D HAVE PAID FOR IT WITH OUR VAN, AND GLADLY WALKED HOME TO GRAVENHURST WITH IT TUCKED UNDER MY ARM. I WAS DAYDREAMING, YOU SEE. MY WIFE KNOW WHEN I'M WEIRDING-OUT THIS WAY, IMAGINING THE BIG PURCHASE THAT'S JUST NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. BUT I COULD HAVE OWNED AN ORIGINAL ARTHUR SHILLING ONCE, FOR A FRACTION OF THE COST. MY EXCUSE THEN WAS THE CRAPPY WAGE A REPORTER WAS EXPECTED TO LIVE ON…..WHO MIGHT HAVE ALSO NEEDED A NICE BIT OF CANADIAN ART ON THE WALL OF AN OTHERWISE SPARTAN APARTMENT.

Back in the early 1980's, I was an art lover. I had a very basic understanding of what made an art piece exceptional. I knew all about the Group of Seven, and about sculptor, Henry Moore, and about Canadian painters like Tom Thomson, and A.Y. Jackson, and the work of renegades like Harold Town. I have always wanted a Harold Town original because he used to spend time here in Gravenhurst, with his old artist buddy, Frank Johnston. But even when I didn't have a clue what our aboriginal art constituted, I wanted to own the very first Arthur Shilling panel I saw in a gallery. As an art collector on a strict budget, I'm not likely to buy original paintings from a fancy gallery, or at a sale held by an internationally acclaimed auction house. No, when I pool up my mad money, I have enough to hustle the antique and second hand shops for potentially big finds. I read about one yesterday, in the Toronto Star, about a gent who picked up a piece of nostalgic art by Gertrude Stein, for five bucks, and then found an original Andy Warhol drawing on a folded up piece of paper, tucked in behind. From five bucks to a piece of iconic art now worth several million dollars. What about the lady who found a supposed Jackson Pollock for about the same money, at another yard sale. Makes you want to hustle your behind-off, out on the yard sale hustings. I've made a few decent finds over the years, including some nice George Thomson panels (Tom Thomson's brother), a Thomas Mower-Martin, who was an incredible watercolorist (and painted in Muskoka), amongst others, such as etchings by Canadian artist, Owen Staples, but never an original Warhol.

When I was doing feature and business stories, for Muskoka Publications, back in the halcyon days of the early eighties…..as a writer who was pretty sure there was a Pulitzer with my name on it, I had to visit many artist studios, and galleries to write-up promotional material. That's what the ad folks would do to reporters, if they caught us at loose-ends, lounging about the office. It's why I found some interesting places to hide at the old Herald-Gazette building, on Dominion Street, in Bracebridge. The ad girls wouldn't go into the basement, where we kept all the old newspapers dating back to the turn of the century, because it was a haven for spiders and assorted bandy-legged wee beasties. They'd just stand at the top of the stairs and yell, and all they got back was an echo. "He's not here….." Then they'd find some other poor sod, without a job at hand. One assignment I didn't mind, was when it involved art. In one instance, a local gallery owner, had some art work by Arthur Shilling, and I readily agreed to cover the latest exhibition of his work.

The Rama-area artist had found this small, residential-area gallery appealing, and I suppose they sold some of his art work. It didn't have very good exposure, however, and the work of such a prominent Canadian artist, should have been far more accessible and visible. This was my opinion only. I was just glad to be asked to write an overview.

The gallery didn't last all that long, and I can remember one of two owners, approaching us lads, in the newsroom one day, when she was dropping off a press release about their closing exhibition, that if we had available funds……we should acquire some of Arthur's work that hadn't been bought-up by collectors yet. I can't recall the prices we were quoted, but I do remember thinking they seemed pretty reasonable for original panels. It was just a case, in our reporter's muddled existence, that we had just enough spare change for one dinner, at the uptown cafe, a couple of jugs of beer at the local watering hole, and a few coins left over to top-up the rent we owed, on our modest flats. We didn't have anything more than lint to spare. I couldn't have found a hundred bucks let alone several thousand, but by golly, what a good reason to have gone into hock. I should have done anything, even offering myself for sale (to do odd jobs, and maybe write poetry for your significant other), to scrape up enough for an original Arthur Shilling. I've been kicking my arse repeatedly ever since, as this was probably the greatest "miss" of my collecting and antique career. Have you had opportunities like this……and missed by a smidgeon?

Seeing as I still don't have a massive amount of cash to buy a major Canadian piece of art, unless I find one out on the Saturday morning sale circuit, I have to rely on my eagle eye and picker's wisdom to fill my art ambitions. I'm glad to see a few more yard sale listings every week now, and I'm hopeful we'll have a good season here in Gravenhurst and vicinity, where we do a bulk of our antique hunting these days. I wish someone, other than myself, would organize a weekly "Boot Sale," as are popular in England these days. There is a central park location, where you arrive with the trunk (boot) of the car loaded with salable items, and after getting a nice spot, for maximum exposure, you pop the boot, and set up a table beside with the items you wish to profit from….or just unload generally for a few bucks. These sales are quite effective and require a minimum of management. Moreso, co-operation of the municipality, to allow space for this kind of weekly sale to occur. This can be an easy-to-execute event, that as a minor fete, will attract a good crowd, as open air markets of this type usually do. The municipality doesn't need to provide tables, chairs, electricity or any real servicing at all……just a place to park, and a safe place for shoppers to mingle. There are a lot of folks who would like to have yard sales but they don't have a huge quantity of items to sell. They wouldn't have much to offer alone, but in company of a hundred other vendors, well, it would make sense, and help raise money. A small location fee could be used to help fund the local food bank. A parking fee could help offset advertising costs for such an event.

A Gravennhurst "Boot Sale," could become a significant tourist attraction. An open-air antique show would be good too, and all it takes is some knowledge of what antique pickers need, in servicing, and a park site to use. Major open antique markets throughout North America are huge tourist draws, and there are a lot of dealers like our family, who would take advantage of such an opportunity. But like the newly re-vamped Gravenhurst Winter Carnival, it takes patience and a willingness to learn from mistakes made. Sometimes here, we tend to look everywhere else, for anything else, than what is usually a simple and profitable plan. When there is a street fair here, there should be an ambitious program to attract antique-related folks, because they draw a crowd. Even if there was a portion of street set aside for antique vendors, it would soon become clear to organizers, how many people love old stuff. The Baysville Walk-About is a prime example. While there aren't a lot of antique related booths, there's enough to attract dealers from all over Muskoka, when the gates are opened the morning of the sale. Last year, our collectible finds were awesome, from paintings to vintage guitars and amplifiers. Suzanne and I had a ball looking through the large selection of vintage and nostalgia items, brought to Baysville by out-of-town vendors; some who expect that we'll drop by, and always bring pieces we're interested in. Gravenhurst could easily replicate what Baysville has accomplished with their Walk-About, which started small, but has morphed into a huge tourist attraction, with thousands of people visiting each year. But there was a lot of trial and error involved, and bouts of bad weather. We've been vendors twice now, and have always made a sizable profit for our efforts. Even if I didn't spend any money on antiques and collectibles, I'd still go for the great food from some quality vendors.

It takes a lot of courage to enter into this kind of project, and Gravenhurst has already gone through the trial and error of running street sale events. The problem I see, each year, is that the vendors who would fit in, and make the sale more diversified, aren't participants. It takes a huge effort to seek out these antique pickers, and collectible dealers, but making it open to them, by advertising in trade magazines, will pay for itself quickly, as more and more people look forward to these new opportunities to antique hunt. As a main street improvement issue, this is a dandy place to start, especially this year with celebration of the Segwun's anniversary, and I believe, an anniversary of the town's incorporation. Opportunities abound. Learning from the successes of the Walk-About is a good place to start. Maybe the BIA, the Chamber, and The Segwun could chip in and rent booth space, to promote our summer festivities at the Walk-About. The crowds certainly warrant a more serious look, at what we have been missing all these years. Just an idea.

Happy Easter Folks. Have a safe holiday.

Bill Allen Will Be Missed in Muskoka Newspaper Ranks

BILL ALLEN WAS A GENTLEMAN IN A WICKEDLY STRESSFUL INDUSTRY

HE WAS THE ONLY ADVERTISING SALESMAN I LIKED -

I JUST THIS MOMENT FINISHED READING THE WEEKLY NEWS, THAT BRACEBRIDGE EXAMINER / GRAVENHURST BANNER, REGIONAL GENERAL MANAGER, BILL ALLEN, DIED THIS WEEK. WE FOLKS WITH PRINTER'S INK IN OUR VEINS, TAKE IT HARD WHEN ONE OF OUR NUMBER FALLS. HE WAS ONLY 61 YEARS OF AGE. MUCH OLDER IF YOU CONSIDER HOW MUCH WEIGHT HIS JOB PUT ON THOSE BROAD SHOULDERS. IT IS NO EASY TASK TO BE A NICE GUY, AND A GENERAL MANAGER, AT THE SAME TIME, IN THE SAME OFFICE. FROM EVERYTHING I KNEW OF THIS GENTLEMAN, HE WAS AMICABLE TO A FAULT, ALWAYS GAVE YOU THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT, AND DIDN'T LIKE ANY WORK DAY THAT ENDED ON A BAD NOTE, OR AN UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCE. AT LEAST THIS IS THE BILL ALLEN I KNEW, FROM MANY YEARS AGO. I HAVE FIFTY-FIFTY MEMORIES OF MY NEWSPAPER YEARS. FIFTY PERCENT GOOD, AND FIFTY PERCENT NOT SO GOOD. BILL WAS ON THE GOOD SIDE. HE KNEW THE PITFALLS OF THE BUSINESS, AND WAS TOUGH ENOUGH TO HAVE LASTED IN AN INDUSTRY WELL KNOWN FOR ITS HEAVY TOLL OF CASUALTIES. MANY HAVE HAD TO QUIT BECAUSE OF ITS INTENSITY. HE KNEW HOW TO SURVIVE AT IT, AND ACHIEVE HIS OBJECTIVES, AND THAT MEANT JOBS FOR OTHERS.

THE FAMILY OF THE LATE BILL ALLEN, PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OR READ MY NAME. WHY WOULD THEY? I'VE BEEN WRITING FOR OTHER PUBLICATIONS SINCE THE TURN OF THE PRESENT CENTURY, AROUND THE TIME "THE MUSKOKA ADVANCE," (THE PAPER DELIVERED ON SUNDAY) CEASED OPERATION. AND WHILE BILL AND I DIDN'T SPEND A GREAT DEAL OF TIME TOGETHER, WE BOTH GOT OUR START IN THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY AROUND THE SAME TIME. THE FRONT-PAGE ARTICLE IN THE BANNER, THIS MORNING, NOTED THAT BILL HAD JOINED A PAPER KNOWN AS "THE BEACON," IN 1980. I'M NOT SURE ABOUT THIS. MY FIRST REPORTING JOB WAS AT THE MUSKOKA LAKES-GEORGIAN BAY BEACON, IN JANUARY 1979, AND I REMEMBER BILL COMING ON BOARD THE PAPER, WHEN THE DECISION WAS MADE BY MUSKOKA PUBLICATIONS, TO MOVE THE OPERATION FROM THE VILLAGE OF MACTIER, WHERE I HAD MY OFFICE, TO PARRY SOUND, TO CHALLENGE THE HEAVILY IMBEDDED, HISTORIC NORTH STAR. BY THIS TIME I WAS THE NEWS EDITOR OF THE HERALD-GAZETTE, WHICH WAS PAST 1980 I BELIEVE. POINT IS, I GO BACK A LONG WAY WITH BILL ALLEN IN THE MUSKOKA PUBLICATIONS STRING OF NEWSPAPERS. HE WAS THE ONLY ADVERTISING STAFF MEMBER I GOT ALONG WITH, BECAUSE HE NEVER APPROACHED ME WITHOUT AN OUTSTRETCHED HAND. MAYBE TO TEST WHAT KIND OF MOOD I WAS IN……OR IF I WAS JUST HUNG-OVER, AS I WAS OFTEN IN THOSE HALCYON DAYS. MOST REPORTERS THEN LIVED LIKE PAUL RIMSTEAD, OF THE TORONTO SUN. WE LIVED HARD AND ARGUED BIG. MOST SALES-PEOPLE USED TO SEND NOTES ON THE END OF A LONG STICK, SO THEY WOULDN'T GET HIT BY FLYING NOTEPADS. IF HE HAD A REQUEST, FOR SOME FEATURE STORY OR OTHER, I WOULD MAKE SURE IT GOT DONE. IF IT WAS ANYBODY ELSE, BY JESUS, I'D START SCREAMING LIKE A BANSHEE ON A MOONLIT NIGHT.

The reason Bill and I never became best buddies, was because I had a dreadful track record, getting along with advertising managers. Almost every day, as editor, I found reason to tangle with someone from advertising, who felt the necessity to borrow my reporters, or impose on me to write a story, or take a photograph, of some business they needed to coax into a long-term advertising contract. The advertising staff, always seemed to be able to find me when I tried to hide. Accounting clerks would rat me out. It would always be on a busy press day, that they would decide to impose on my editorial space, to slip in either an ad they just got, or a fluff story about a new gift shop opening God knows where. All our reporters used to hate hearing the light patter of their footsteps, coming up to our offices, in the old Herald-Gazette building, on Bracebridge's Dominion Street, because they always had a favor to ask. In the news department, we hated to be asked any favor by someone in advertising. We were already stressed trying to fill in the white space of the weekly paper, with hard news and spot-news photographs. We just didn't have the will to do another feature story on the rigors of the local five and dime, or on the exciting new butter tarts, at the brand new cafe down the street. On our down days of the week, advertising folks were welcome in our newsroom. It used to drive us crazy, because when we were free to do promotional features, sales staff wouldn't come near us. Raymond Lee was another kind and gentlemanly newsy like us, and socially we were find. I knew his job was intolerably difficult, back in the recessionary days of the early 1980's, but we were just like oil and water at work. Unfortunately, Bill Allen got unfairly lumped into that category, and it wasn't his fault. He was a really good salesman in those days, and because of his prowess on the beat, it kept many of us employed. Without ads, there's no need for news staff.

Bill and I used to pass each other during advertising meetings, and even if I growled at him, it wasn't anything he did…..but rather, the stress we were all under to stay afloat. The writers you see, thought they were above everyone else. Bill never acted as if he was above anyone, and from what I've read in his brief biography this week, it seems he had remained a moderate character, in a sea of eccentrics, bold as brass writer-kind, and ever-buzzing advertising folks who must have reminded him of the hustle of his early days. I can tell you honestly, that of all the people in advertising we saw come and go, over the years at Muskoka Publications, Brant Scott, my ace reporter, (one of the finest writers I've ever known), and I, would have agreed on any day of the week, that Bill Allen was way too kind and gentle to be in such a ruthless business, that often shredded its own for the hell of it. Bill seemed to be able to navigate through one hornet's nest and then another, and if he got stung, he didn't cry out, but just carried on with the resolve that eventually stuff would work out.

Now I didn't have much to do with Bill since the late 1980's, when I walked away from two editorial jobs, to immerse in the antique trade, but from what I have heard from inside sources through those years, Bill was as steady a paddler, as he had always been. It's important to understand, especially for those who don't have printer's ink in their veins, (I'll explain later), that writers are, almost by necessity, ego-maniacs, with incredibly high levels of confidence…..sometimes, when we shouldn't have, for our own goods. Being a general manager, with the howling wolves in the editorial pool, is not an easy or desirable administrative situation, and as far as bumping heads, it can get like a full contact hockey game without benefit of a helmet. The editorial decisions that can sink a newspaper, or create a legal nightmare if a mistake is made, are unceasing through every work week, because news doesn't confine itself to a normal Monday to Friday routine. The stress of being editor of one weekly newspaper was enough for me. Having the weight of so many regional newspapers, and responsibility for a large number of support staff, and then continuing to invigorate the weekly "hunt and gather" of advertisers, to make it all work, few insiders would suggest he had an easy go of it…..in thirty years. Mr. Allen may have found it daunting, and complicated, but he soldiered on, traversing situations that would have caused others managers to wad-up the daily agenda, and walk out the door.

I can remember, in my own first year as a staff writer, talking to a senior pressman in our printing division, at The Herald-Gazette, and being told that I should watch out, or I'd be getting "printer's ink" in my blood. I remember stepping back quickly, thinking that there must be some kind of spray or residue coming off the flying press, pounding out some author's book. "What do you mean, printer's ink, and how is it going to get into my blood?" I asked the printer. "Don't you know it happens to everyone who works for a newspaper. You get exposed to printer's ink in the air….off the pages of the paper, sinking through your skin," he answered. I thought he must be a nutter, and just as I was turning to leave, another staffer stopped me and explained, that what it really meant, was the news business was highly contagious, and once you became imbedded, it would be almost impossible to remove yourself from the excitement, of seeing ideas and words making it to print, on those fresh new pages of brilliant white newsprint. I never forgot this advice. While l may have stepped back, in the 1990's, from day to day work at a newspaper office, I have only had a short half-year hiatus from the writing profession in thirty-five years. So if I was to say, Bill Allen had printer's ink in his veins, it was, to us news-folks, an unspoken honor…..something that kept us in the print industry, no matter how good or bad it was on our mind or body. It isn't a job that you walk away from, at the end of a work week, and feel liberated. There is an unspecified tithe attached. It is a lifestyle you adopt, risks aside, and you just accept that your week will always involve putting yet another paper "to bed;" the rigors, the joy and the stresses, from one press day to another.

I wanted to comment on Bill Allen because, as a reporter, feature editor and associate of the same papers for many years, I could never, ever have found this man objectionable, stubborn, hard to get along with, or reactionary, and of managers I'd worked with in print, this was an uncommon acceptance on my part. I would have liked to work with Bill because he was old school. I like that quality in a general manager.

I would like to extend heartfelt condolences to the Allen family. Bill and I weren't close, and I can't say that we were ever good friends, because on the job we were often at odds….as advertising and editorial are bound to be in conflict over content. But in the industry that we found ourselves employed, I always knew, that even though we were in different, and sometimes opposing departments of the newspaper, we all knew Bill as a kindred spirit. He knew where we were coming from, if in a meeting, editorial staff got in a huff about some new initiative. If we were put into his foursome, during a charity golf tournament, he was the one advertising staffer, we reporters didn't brutalize, or even once, toss his golf ball into the woods to get even. Bill might have even done it to us, but he couldn't keep a straight face, if he had played a practical joke. The newspaper industry in our region and beyond has lost a largely unsung, unassuming, champion of us all, who labored for so long, so steadfastly, to keep our communities informed. Thanks for you conscientiousness, in a truly difficult, and most often thankless industry. You will be missed!

DESPITE ADVERSITY AND ANTAGONISM, BEING EDITOR WAS WHAT I HAD ALWAYS WANTED

SOMETHING DREW ME TO THAT BEAT-UP OLD CARDBOARD BOX, ON AN UPPER SHELF. I MEAN IT WAS JUST SIMPLE, BROWN, SOMEWHAT ASKEW BOX, THAT MAY HAVE HELD A DOZEN "OLYMPIC" COMMEMORATIVE DRINKING GLASSES, OR A SHORT LENGTH OF GARDEN HOSE. MAYBE SOME PET SUPPLIES, ODD DISHES, OR SOME USED DOOR HARDWARE. IT WAS IN THE MIDZONE OF THE GRAVENHURST RE-STORE, AND WELL, IT COULD HAVE HAD ANYTHING IN IT THAT YOU COULD PUT A PRICE ON. BUT SEEING AS I'M NOSEY AND AN ANTIQUE DEALER, WHO LOOKS IN ALL STRANGE AND OFF-KILTER CARDBOARD BOXES, I PULLED THIS ONE OFF THE SHELF TO HAVE A GANDER.

THE NOTE ON ONE FLAP OF THE BOX, NOTED THAT THE IRON LETTERS I FOUND INSIDE, WERE FROM A DOMINION STREET BUSINESS IN BRACEBRIDGE, SPECIFICALLY "NUMBER 27." I STARED AT THAT PENNED INSCRIPTION FOR FIVE MINUTES, BEFORE I STARTED TO EXAMINE THE BIG IRON LETTERS MORE CLOSELY. THEY HAD A DISTINCTIVE OLD ENGLISH DESIGN. I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THIS BUILDING, AND THESE LETTERS SURE LOOKED FAMILIAR. THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN, MY CHIN HIT HARD AT MY CHEST, AND I BLURTED-OUT MY WIFE'S NAME, AS IF ASKING FOR HELP AFTER FALLING DOWN SOME DEEP, DARK WELL, WHERE NO WELL WAS SUPPOSED TO EXIST. AS SOON AS SUZANNE LOOKED AT THE WRITING ON THE LID, SHE SAID, "THOSE ARE THE HERALD-GAZETTE LETTERS." TOOK THE WORDS OUT OF MY MOUTH…..AND THE BOX. WE BOTH JUST STOOD THERE STARING AT THESE IRON LETTERS, WONDERING WHAT TWIST OF FATE HAD BROUGHT US TOGETHER AGAIN. IT WAS A MOST INCREDIBLE, PROVIDENTIAL ACT, THAT RE-UNITED US AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.

THE DAY I TOOK MY FIRST RESUME INTO THE HERALD-GAZETTE OFFICE, CIRCA 1977, AND HANDED IT OVER TO NORMAN TANNER, FILLING-IN AT THE FRONT DESK, (A WONDERFUL ENGLISHMAN, BY THE WAY, WHO BECAME MY UNOFFICIAL EDITOR), I LEFT THE BUILDING AND RECALL TOUCHING THOSE (OUTSIDE) WALL-MOUNTED LETTERS……AS A SYMBOLIC GESTURE, TO VEHEMENTLY REMIND, THAT "WE'LL BE SEEING A LOT OF ONE ANOTHER SOON." IN THE LATE 1970'S, WHEN I WAS HIRED BY MUSKOKA PUBLICATIONS, WHICH OPERATED THE HERALD-GAZETTE, I WAS BEYOND ECSTATIC. WHEN I BECAME THE NEWS EDITOR OF THE HERALD-GAZETTE, I TOUCHED THOSE LETTERS, ON THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING, TWICE A DAY FOR GOOD LUCK. WHEN I LEFT MY NEWSPAPER CAREER BEHIND, IN 1989, MY LAST TRIP OUT THAT DOOR, FOLLOWED BY A NAGGING AND ANNOYING ASSOCIATE EDITOR, I PAUSED IN THE MIDDLE OF A DISAGREEMENT OVER PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY, TO TOUCH THE LETTERS FOR WHAT I KNEW WAS GOING TO BE THE LAST TIME. I DIDN'T LEAVE WITH THE GOOD FEELING I HAD STARTED, BUT I AM NOT MUCH FOR CAPITULATION ANYWAY, WITHOUT A LITTLE HALE AND HARDY HECKLING. I'M SORRY THOSE LETTERS HAD TO HEAR THAT LAST TIRADE. SO I WAS ASTONISHED TO BE HOLDING THESE OLD IRON LETTERS IN MY HANDS. WE COULD MAKE AMENDS FOR TIME APART. YUP, I BOUGHT THEM. I WON'T BE ABLE TO OPEN A NEWSPAPER BY THE SAME NAME, BUT I CAN LOOK AT THEM NOW AND AGAIN, AND WELL, REMINISCE.

THE RECENT PASSING OF MY FORMER COLLEAGUE, BILL ALLEN, GAVE ME REASON TO REMINISCE, AND THERE'S NO ONE TO TALK TO HERE AT BIRCH HOLLOW. SUZANNE KNOWS THAT WHEN I WAX-NOSTALGIC, IT COULD BE A SEVERAL HOUR "CONVERSATIONAL"……..PART DISCUSSION AND PART CONFESSIONAL, ABOUT HOW MUCH I STILL MISS THOSE YEARS, AND THE WONDERFUL FOLKS I HAD A CHANCE TO WORK WITH. NORMAN TANNER WAS ONE OF THE FIRST FRIENDS I MADE AT THE PAPER. HE WAS A BRILLIANT SPELLER AND HIS KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD GRAMMAR WAS PERFECT FOR A FLEDGLING EDITOR…..WHO WOULDN'T ASK FOR HELP, BUT COULDN'T TURN AWAY ADVICE, IF IT CAME IN THE POSITIVE WAY, NORM ALWAYS APPROACHED HIS PROOF-READING. WHEN HE WASN'T TAKING PRINTING ORDERS, AND PROCESSING ACCOUNTS FOR THE PRINT SHOP, HE WORKED WITH TYPESETTER, IDA MIDDELSTADT ON PROOF READING ASSIGNMENTS. IF HE WAS READING SOMETHING I'D WRITTEN, HE'D WAVE ME OVER THE NEXT TIME I AMBLED DOWN TO THE COFFEE MACHINE. NO WRITER ON STAFF, INCLUDING ASSOCIATE BOB BOYER, OBJECTED TO NORMAN HAVING A "GO" AT EDITORIAL STRUCTURE, AND TO FERRET-OUT SPELLING MISTAKES. HE SAVED MY BACON ON HUNDREDS OF OCCASIONS, WHEN HE CAUGHT A GLARING ERROR, AND BROUGHT IT TO MY ATTENTION…..IN ONLY THE MOST POLITE WAY OF COURSE. I WORKED WITH A LOT OF NEAT FOLKS THAT WAY, WHO I GOT TO KNOW AT THE PLACE I WANTED TO WORK.

Although I've noted this in previously blogs, I had the privilege of working with some very talented newspaper folks, including Bill Allen. Writers like Brant Scott, who was working on Parliament Hill, the last time we exchanged emails, Scott McClellan who was working in Australia the last time I heard from him…..who were both exceptional talents as news and feature writers. I've worked with many fine photographers, during my time with the local press, including master photographers like John Black, Tim DuVernet and Harold Wright, who were so amazingly patient with my lackluster skills with a camera. This is only to name a few, of the many co-workers who made life so interesting, week to week, as editor of The Herald-Gazette. Iron letters in a box are one thing. So many memories bouncing about, recalling the excitement and vibrancy of those years, still can't be calmed by relics of once. I'd like to slip back through that door, as if the next day, to the one in the fall of 1989, when I commenced a self-imposed exile from what I had known and loved as a young writer.

The reason Suzanne supported my decision, was because she saw a growing disenchantment in me, with the new way the paper was being handled, from what I had knowN previous to this. I was bringing home more anger each night, and cutting the lawn six times a week to expend nervous energy. She knew that I wasn't handling the job well at all, and pushed me as hard as she could, into the antique business as a diversion. When I was down in the dumps, because I wasn't getting published, as I wanted, she told me to stop whining, and start writing. My writing hiatus was about six months in duration, and it was Suzanne who handed me a copy of Stephen Leacock's "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town," one of my favorites, and suggested I find a way to write about Muskoka as Leacock wrote about Mariposa…..Orillia. It was the little nudge to get back to my life as a writer, and it spawned "Historic Sketches of Bracebridge," a column that I gave to Muskoka Publications, for the Muskoka Advance, free of charge. Best decision my wife ever made for me, and that column has morphed into dozens of other columns and even this blog today. I'm still being published and feel a part of the news enterprise of our region, but I'm not sitting in an office where the stresses run free. I'm not inclined to yell at any one around here…..because with the exception of the cats, that might be startled if I did shout, I work absolutely alone with only the sound of Mozart at my back, and a muse dancing in my mind.

I don't regret my years in the print media. They are forever etched onto my soul. My only regret, is that I stayed too long, struggling and being unresolved, something that has never again been a problem. But, it was still a highlight of my years as a writer, to say, "Yes, I am the Editor of The Herald-Gazette," and "I will write a story about you, whether you like it or not." Ah, good times.

RICHARD KARON BIOGRAPHY IS ON SCHEDULE FOR MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH - VIDEO TRIBUTE NEARING COMPLETION

ON THE WEEKEND, OUR FAMILY TOOK A DRIVE AROUND THE TOWNSHIP OF LAKE OF BAYS, A BEAUTIFUL LAKELAND, WITHIN OUR DISTRICT MUNICIPALITY, AND WE STOPPED OUT OF RESPECT, AT THE SITE OF RICHARD KARON'S FORMER STUDIO, ON HIGHWAY 117, NEAR BAYSVILLE……AND VISITED SOME OF THE VANTAGE POINTS, THE MUSKOKA ARTIST FREQUENTED TO SKETCH. SON ROBERT, WHO IS WORKING ON THE SHORT VIDEO TRIBUTE TO THE LATE ARTIST, BROUGHT HIS CAMERA, AND WE TOOK SOME LANDSCAPE VIDEO OF THE BAYSVILLE DAM, AND THE RIVER SCENE, AS WELL AS CAPTURING SOME OF THE WOODLANDS THAT HAD ALWAYS INSPIRED THE POLISH-CANADIAN PAINTER. ROBERT HAS BEEN WORKING FOR THE PAST THREE WEEKS ON THE MUSICAL COMPONENT OF THE VIDEO, FEATURING HIS GUITAR COMPOSITION, AND SINGER DANI O'CONNOR'S ANGELIC VOICE, WITH IMAGES OF PAINTINGS WE HAVE BEEN SENT BY THE KIND OWNERS OF HIS ORIGINAL ART, IT WILL BE A MOVING PART OF THE BIOGRAPHY…….THE WRITTEN PORTION TO BE PUBLISHED INITIALLY ON THIS BLOG-SITE. HOPE YOU CAN JOIN US ON THE 16TH, AT 8:30 P.M.

A Death in The Neighbourhood, Life of Regret

TWO CHUMS DIED BUT ONE WAS SPARED - THE WRITER, AND THE GUILT HAS NEVER DIMINISHED

THE DIFFERENCE A MOTHER'S INTUITION CAN MAKE ON A YOUNG LIFE

IF THERE WAS ONE EVENT IN LIFE THAT CHANGED MY OWN COURSE OF HISTORY, IT WAS WHEN I FOR ONCE, LISTENED TO MY MOTHER. I WASN'T HABITUALLY INSUBORDINATE, JUST A YOUNG LAD WHO FOUND DISCRETIONARY PRIVILEGE A GOOD WAY OF CREATING LOOPHOLES. AUTHORITY FIGURES HAVE ALWAYS FOUND THIS WITH ME, AND I USED TO DRIVE PUBLISHERS NUTS. IT'S NOT THAT I DON'T RESPECT PROTOCOLS, JUST NOT STUPID ONES. MY MOTHER MERLE WAS A WORRY-WORT UNTIL I GOT MARRIED. IT WAS LIKE SHE FOBBED-OFF RESPONSIBILITY FOR ME ONTO MY YOUNG BRIDE. I BET SHE HAD A TWINKLE IN HER EYE TOO, AS SHE ESTIMATED HOW MANY THOUSAND TIMES I WOULD RAZZLE-DAZZLE SUZANNE, TO GET AND GO WHERE I WANTED TO, AT THAT PRECISE MOMENT. TRUTHFULLY SUZANNE HAS LEARNED ALL MY TRICKS. I MAY HAVE A FEW COVERT SITUATIONS I'M GOING TO KEEP UNDER RAPS FOR NOW, SO PLEASE DON'T SNITCH ON ME.

BUT AS I'VE BEEN WRITING ABOUT ANGELS, GHOSTS AND THE PARANORMAL, LATELY, THERE IS ONE STORY THAT I'VE BRUSHED BY MANY TIMES, AND WRITTEN ABOUT ONLY ONCE OR TWICE IN THE PAST FORTY OR SO YEARS. IT WAS A TRAGIC OCCASION, SOON AFTER OUR FAMILY MOVED TO BRACEBRIDGE, BACK IN 1966. THE REASON IT WAS TRAGIC FOR MY FAMILY, IS THAT I HAD SOME SORT OF INNER SENSE OF DANGER, SUCH THAT WHEN MY MOTHER REFUSED TO LET ME VISIT CHUMS, I WILLINGLY SUCCUMBED TO STAYING HOME THAT DAY. MY MOTHER USED TO CALL ME "HOUDINI," AFTER THE GREAT ESCAPE ARTIST HARRY HOUDINI, AS I COULD SLIP FROM INCARCERATION WITH STEALTH AND GREAT EASE. USUALLY. COMMONLY. BUT NOT ON THIS DAY, AND I CAN STILL RECALL HER HAND DIGGING INTO MY SHOULDER, TO SHOW HER DETERMINATION TO KEEP ME FROM HARM'S WAY.

I WON'T USE ANY FAMILY NAMES BECAUSE EVEN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, THE TRAGEDY STILL RESONATES, BECAUSE IT WAS PREVENTABLE. AND BECAUSE IT COULD HAVE INVOLVED MANY MORE YOUNGSTERS THAT DAY, AND EXTENDED THE PAIN AND SUFFERING THROUGH MORE NEIGHBORHOODS AND MULTI-CHILD FAMILIES.

WHILE ATTENDING BRACEBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOL, I HAD MET A CLASSMATE WHO SHARED MY INTEREST IN MILITARY SET-UPS, SUCH AS CREATING ELABORATE BATTLEFIELDS WITH PLASTIC ARMY-MEN. I WAS ASKED IF I COULD COME OVER TO THIS HOUSE, AFTER SCHOOL, TO HELP SET-UP ONE OF THESE MILITARY CAMPAIGNS, WHICH I BELIEVE HE WAS WORKING ON, IN THE PORCH AREA OF THEIR OLD HOUSE. I DID GO, AND WE PLAYED RIGHT UP TO AND PAST THE DINNER HOUR. HE WAS A SMART LAD BUT WAS SERIOUSLY DEVOTED TO ACCURACY. HE KNEW ABOUT BATTLE-ENGAGEMENTS, AND THE PLACEMENT OF ARTILLERY TO INFLICT THE GREATEST CASUALTIES. I REALLY DIDN'T HAVE CLUE ABOUT THE REALITIES OF WORLD WAR II AT THAT AGE, WHICH MUST HAVE BEEN GRADE SIX. THIS WAS ON A THURSDAY NIGHT IN THE FALL OF THE YEAR, IF MEMORY SERVES. THE NEXT DAY AT SCHOOL, MY NEW CHUM ASKED WHETHER I COULD COME ON SATURDAY, TO A VACANT RAVINE LOT, NEAR THE RAIL LINE, WHICH WAS ABOUT ONE BLOCK FROM BASS ROCK, THE RAPIDS ON THE MUSKOKA RIVER. HE WAS PUTTING FORTH SOME OF THE MILITARY ENTHUSIASM, HE HAD, TO CREATE A LARGER WAR GAMES, WITH OTHER KIDS HE KNEW AT SCHOOL. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A LARGE GROUP, TO TAKE UP SIDES IN HIS PLANNED MILITARY OFFENSIVE. FIRST THERE WAS A JOB TO DO, AND HE ASKED US TO BRING SHOVELS.

I would have had no inkling, none whatsoever, that there was any more danger related to what this friend was concocting, of a modern day battlefront, than my usual play with buddies up on Hunt's Hill, on the other side of the Muskoka River. We'd have great recreational outings in both The Grove and in Bamford's Woods, and then up in the sand pit that Wayne Weber owned, behind the Alice Street apartments. It was in a high corner of the hillside sand pit, that we had carved out a substantial cave, in the exposed bank of the hollowed landscape. My mother watched us playing there and never said a word, other than when lunch or dinner was being served. By the fifth time she called, which was then more of a yodel than a loud voice, I arrived at the door covered in sand. She hated sand, and made me strip to my underwear, because she believed the sand would break her vacuum. It was always the occasion one of the girls in the apartment, would make it to the third floor on a lark, and find Teddy exposed. "Awe Mom," I'd cry-out while scampering for cover. The sand pit is important to understand, as a sort of parallel to what else was happening around town. I can't remember why it was a big deal, or if a television show had planted the idea, but a lot of the local rapscallions were digging tunnels. Including my friend Charles.

I remember that Saturday morning, all excited to be going to help Charles excavate his tunnel. When Merle asked me bluntly where I was going, hat in hand, out the door, I was honest that day….no deceit, no run-around, or fog-of-war tricks to get what I wanted. "I'm going to help Charles dig a tunnel, so we can play war games." A look came across her face, as if just then, God had slapped her. Her eyes got dark, and she scrunched up her face, and grabbed me by the shoulder, saying, "You are staying home. Take your boots and coat off, and find something to do in the apartment." I remember walking back to my room, feeling mildly dejected, but when I looked at the rain hitting the front window, it was the kind of day, well, you wanted to stay indoors. It was rare, let me tell you, that I backed down so easily, without any significant come-back to change her mind. I had a sense of something impending that day, but it wasn't so imposing, that it stopped me from playing with my hockey game, or reading comics on the bed. It was in the early afternoon, that Merle came to me, and suggested we go downtown, and that for my agreement to stay home, she would spot me the treat of my choice. I wanted to go to Waites Bakery that's for sure, because their chelsea buns were spectacular. Their hot chocolate, heavenly, with marshmallows.

I can so clearly recall getting to the bottom of Hunts Hill, just about to cross the bridge, when we heard the loud blare of the main fire siren from the fire hall, on Dominion Street. By time we got to the former Muskoka Trading building, opposite the Downtown Garage, all hell was breaking loose. There were racing police cars, ambulances, and volunteer firemen racing to somewhere in the town. I remember seeing people running along the main street, and hearing yelling off in the distance, much as if there was a major fire raging just beyond our view. By time we made it to Manitoba Street, we saw my father Ed, racing toward us in the car, coming around the corner at Thomas Street. He waved my mother over, and was telling her something, I assumed, about the incident occurring. There was a look of fear on his face I'd never seen before, and as he was an old salt, having served in the North Atlantic, he didn't show emotion very often. When Merle came to me, she was crying, and took a hard grasp of my shoulder, and looking me straight in the eye, asked, "Who else was supposed to be digging that tunnel today Teddy?" I didn't have that many friends who also knew Charles, so I wasn't of much help. My Hunt's Hill cronies didn't even know him. "My God, My God," she kept saying, over and over, as she pulled me back toward home, only saying, 'We've got to go back home right now…..until we find out more about what's going on." She was dragging me home. Finally at the top of Hunt's Hill, and being out of breath, I demanded she tell me why I was being punished for knowing Charles. She stood there, at the crest of the hill, looking down onto the main street, and all the flashing red lights, with the sirens echoing through the hollow, and said, "There's been a cave-in of the tunnel, and there are boys trapped inside."

The circumstances that day, were the same for many young families in Bracebridge. It was at a time of day when lots of kids were on the loose, doing all kinds of crazy adventure stuff. There were at least five to eight more kids that had been invited to help dig the tunnel, on that particular Saturday morning. Only one other mother that I know of, insisted her son not go to the lot, where Charles and a close friend were digging some inter-connecting tunnels. As it turned out, most of the kids who were going there, to engage some mild war games, had simply been distracted by other recreation that morning, and never showed up to dig in the mud. The problem with this, is that when the cave-in was first noticed, and word spread fast around the community, a lot of kids were out and about but couldn't be located easily. So there was unbelievable panic, as parents couldn't find their kids, and the speculation raged, that many more bodies may have been buried in the side of that collapsed hill.

When a neighbor casually glanced over to the vacant lot, where the boys had been digging, all that was visible at that point, were two legs sticking out of the side of the hill. There was no longer a tunnel opening, just a wall of earth and a victim stuck in the middle. There was no way of knowing for sure, how many were in the tunnel when the ground gave way. Neighbors and parents, who couldn't immediately find their kids, could be seen running with shovels, ready to help with the rescue. It was pandemonium. There were greatly exaggerated claims about the number of children buried in the tunnels. There was a pall that dropped over that day, I will never forget. While there was no good news that afternoon, because two young chaps had suffocated in the collapsed tunnel. But many more lives were spared by circumstance. A lot of school mates who didn't show up, just didn't want to dig out in the rain. So they stayed away. A few of us listened to our mothers.

On Sunday, when the tragedy had sunk in, and the potential losses examined, volunteers in numerous neighborhoods, went to other properties they'd heard had similar bunkers, caves and tunnels, and started collapsing them all, including the one we had in the sand bank of the pit behind our apartment. I watched the men pounding their spades into the embankment to remove any overhang that might also have collapsed on us. You know, I've played this over and over in my mind for decades, when at times I pass by the property where the two boys perished. I can't get it out of my mind, how easily, that morning, I surrendered to my mother, who must have thought it odd, her son didn't muster more than the traditional retort, "Awe Mom! It's Saturday!" It's as if there had been another act of divine intervention to spare my young life, because I would have been there, and in that tunnel without question……because I'd been the mastermind of the cave in the sand pit.

When we lived on Harris Crescent in Burlington, I was always defying my mother, and I was three years younger. I'd trundle my way along the shore of Ramble Creek, and make it as far as the deep water, that pooled under the bridge of Lakeshore Blvd, that eventually emptied into Lake Ontario. I was forbidden to go near that bridge. The water of Ramble Creek was quite shallow, but at this point, the water was just over my head. She could tell if I'd made it that far along, because the closer to the lake, the more I smelled like Lake Ontario fish. That's usually how I got busted. Why did I go, when I was warned against? Call it femme fatale, I think it's called. There was a magnificent little creature named Angela, with a porcelain white face, sparkling blue eyes, and soft warm hands, who I was madly in love with, who coincidently, used to invite me to play on the swings in her backyard; which, if I remember correctly, backed onto Ramble Creek, a whisker from the deep water under the Lakeshore bridge. I wasn't old enough to even know what a crush was, but she was a most compelling, lovely, delicate creature, who used to hold my hand as we stood on the bank of the creek, watching water spiders darting on the mirroring surface. She'd cry when I had to leave, and that made me feel wretched, and forced me to return time and again, against my mother's wishes. I was weak when it came to the coaxing of friends and significant others. I was a good friend who would come when asked, even if it meant I was going to get in trouble at home. On the day I was supposed to help Charles, it took only a minor effort, to convince me that it wasn't a good idea…..at least at that time, on that day of my life. Truth is, it was probably the only time I paid attention to my mother's warnings, and it's the reason I'm typing this blog today. God Rest Her Soul.

What really stopped me from out-mustering, and manipulating my mother, that day, as I had on a hundred other occasions, to play where I wanted to, and with whomever I chose? What did Merle know that day, almost instinctively, that she took a major general's rank, and ordered me out of commission? I had a message. I didn't feel like arguing with my mother. I surrendered without a fight. And I lived because of it! My mates weren't so fortunate.

Why was I spared, and not them? I couldn't understand a God that would take two innocent kids just playing around on a school year Saturday. I pondered the negligence of an angel that would allow something like this happen. What I did learn from that experience, was to live my life for those lads as well. You see, many of us kids, wondered silently, into our own adulthood, about the very real possibility, had we been there on that day with our chums, that we could have pulled them free ourselves, saving their lives with a quick response. These are just thoughts. Those haunting "what ifs" we must all deal with in life.

Gravenhurst High, Ghosts, Angels and A Good Story

TAXPAYER CONSENSUS? SHOULD WE BE CLOSING UNDER-ENROLLED SCHOOL?

WILL GRAVENHURST HAVE A HIGH SCHOOL IN THE FUTURE

WHEN I READ THE TORONTO STAR EDITORIAL TODAY (APRIL 2, 2012), I HAD AN AUDIBLE GULP THAT EVEN UNSETTLED THE FAMILY PETS. IT WAS WHAT WE DON'T WANT TO READ HERE IN GRAVENHURST. THE STAR EDITORIAL IS HEADED, "DECLINING ENROLMENT - TIME TO CLOSE SCHOOLS." NOW WHILE IT IS A PERFECTLY SENSIBLE EDITORIAL OVERVIEW, WHICH IS LARGELY ABOUT TORONTO SCHOOLS, I'M SURE A FEW FOLKS IN GRAVENHURST HAD A THOUGHT OR TWO ABOUT OUR OWN HIGH SCHOOL, WHICH IS KNOWN TO BE QUITE CLOSE TO BEING UNDER-ENROLLED THESE DAYS…….OR AT THE VERY LEAST, CLOSE TO THE BOTTOM LINE, WHEN A SCHOOL, AS RELATED TO CAPACITY, IS CONSIDERED UNDER-ENROLLED. IN TORONTO, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS BEING CLOSED. IN GRAVENHURST IT'S A COMMUNITY SCHOOL……AND THERE'S COMMUNITY HISTORY AND FUTURE RIDING ON THIS ISSUE.

I'M NOT SAYING THE TRILLIUM LAKELANDS BOARD OF EDUCATION LIKES THE TORONTO STAR, AS A NEWSPAPER, BUT BY GOLLY, IF THEY'RE INTERESTED IN CLOSING A SINGLE SCHOOL, IT DOESN'T HURT TO HAVE HEAVYWEIGHT EDITORIALS LIKE THIS, TO BOLSTER THE ALWAYS CONTROVERSIAL AND EMOTIONAL SCHOOL-CLOSING PROCESS. IT HELPS WHEN THE PUBLIC IS ONSIDE, AND WHILE I AGREE WITH THE EDITORIAL, WHEN YOU'RE A COMMUNITY SUFFERING FROM DECLINING ENROLLMENT IN PUBLIC AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS, IT'S A LITTLE MORE PRECARIOUS THAN CLOSING A NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOL IN TORONTO. CLOSING THE HIGH SCHOOL MAY NOT BE IMMINENT BUT WHAT SHOULD BE, IS THE CREATION OF A TASK FORCE, OR ACTION COMMITTEE, AT THE TOWN LEVEL, TO START TALKING WITH THE SCHOOL BOARD…….THAT GOT A LOT OF SUPPORT FOR SCHOOL CLOSINGS FROM THE PROVINCE IN LAST WEEK'S BUDGET. A LOT OF PEOPLE MISSED THIS LITTLE BUT DAMNING INCLUSION, THAT FUNDING TO ASSIST UNDER ENROLLED SCHOOLS WOULD BE SUSPENDED IN A YEAR.

THE PROBLEM ISN'T THE BOARD'S FAULT. IT'S NOT THE PROVINCE'S FAULT EITHER. THE ISSUE HERE IS THAT DECLINING ENROLLMENT IS A REALITY FACING MANY SCHOOL BOARDS. SOME AREAS AND NEIGHBORHOODS HAVE TOO MANY STUDENTS FOR THEIR FACILITIES. OTHER SCHOOLS ARE DIMINISHING YEAR AFTER YEAR. WHAT IS A PROBLEM, IS THAT A TOWN'S FUTURE HANGS IN THE BALANCE. IF IT IS EVEN ON THE RADAR, THAT GRAVENHURST HIGH SCHOOL, OR ANY OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE FACING POTENTIAL CLOSURE IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS, THE RESPECTIVE TOWN COUNCILS NEED TO BE MADE AWARE OF THE RISK FACTORS…….AND IT WOULD BE NICE IF THE BOARD ITSELF CONTACTED THE TOWN, BUT NONE THE LESS, I'D EXPECT THE TOWN WILL HAVE TO REQUEST A MEETING TO FIND THE RELEVANT STATISTICS.

HERE'S WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN. AS ENROLLMENT CONTINUES TO DECLINE, HERE AND THERE, AND OTHER SCHOOLS, IN BRACEBRIDGE ARE ALLOWED TO ACCEPT GRAVENHURST STUDENTS, AND THERE ARE MORE OPTIONS FOR COURSES OF STUDY EVERYWHERE ELSE, THERE IS A CLEAR STRANGULATION OCCURRING, THAT I'M SURE STUDENTS ARE DISCOVERING AS WELL AS PARENTS, ESPECIALLY WITH GRADE NINE STUDENTS COMPARING OPTIONS……AND WHETHER TO STAY HERE OR GO TO THE LARGER, BETTER EQUIPPED BRACEBRIDGE AND MUSKOKA LAKES SECONDARY SCHOOL. IF IT'S NOT ENROLLMENT KILLING THE SCHOOL, IT'S THE FACT OTHER SCHOOLS, ALSO IN NEED OF MORE STUDENTS, ARE WILLINGLY (BECAUSE THEY CAN) ACCEPTING REGISTRATIONS FROM OUR CITIZENS…..WHICH, WHILE I CAN'T CALL IT POACHING, IS STILL ROBBING PETER TO PAY PAUL. EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE NOT ACTUALLY RECRUITING AS SUCH, THE CASUALTY FEW WANT TO TALK ABOUT, IS THAT A REALLY NICE SCHOOL, IN A TOWN THAT DOESN'T NEED ANOTHER CRUSHING DEFEAT, IS BEING BEATEN INTO SUBMISSION.

THE BALL IS IN THE HANDS OF GRAVENHURST COUNCIL. UNLESS THEY JUMP ON THIS FAST, AND STICK WITH IT, GRADUALLY THE SCHOOL WILL HIT THE MAGIC NUMBER AND BE CONSIDERED EXPENDABLE. I'M NOT CONFIDENT WHATSOEVER, THAT EVEN THEY HAVE MUCH OF A CHANCE OF STOPPING THE BLEED. I THINK WE NEED TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH OF THIS ISSUE.

HOLLYWOOD GHOSTS AND GOBLINS ALIGN WITH FRIGHT AND HORROR - BUT NOT REALLY THE CASE

FEARING THE UNKNOWN - BECAUSE OF WHAT IS KNOWN - FICTION

YOU KNOW, IT'S A PRETTY FAR STRETCH TO GO FROM COUNCIL CRITIC, GOVERNMENT PAIN IN THE ARSE, HISTORIAN, BIOGRAPHER, TO THE GHOST WHISPERER. MY MOTHER ALWAYS TOLD MY GIRLFRIENDS "TED'S A COMPLICATE GUY." SHE WAS A WOMAN OF FEW WORDS. I DON'T KNOW IF I'M ALL THAT COMPLICATED, BUT I'VE LIVED AN ADVENTUROUS, WIDE-OPEN, GRAB-IT-WHILE IT'S HOT LIFE. AND HERE I AM IN GRAVENHURST, NEARING MY GOLDEN YEARS, WRITING GHOST STORIES. MERLE WOULD HAVE TOLD ME NOT TO RILE THE AFTER-LIFE BY BEING CRITICAL. SO I WON'T BE. HERE GOES……

WHEN I TELL PEOPLE I WAS TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, THEY'LL SAY, "YEA, I WATCHED THAT TELEVISION SHOW TOO." WHEN I REMARK THAT, "YES, I SAW A GHOST," THE PREDICTABLE ANSWER IS, "WERE YOU SCARED?" AND WHEN I SUGGEST IT'S POSSIBLE TO TALK WITH DEAD PEOPLE, THE TYPICAL RESPONSE I'VE COME TO RESPECT, IS "DO THEY TALK BACK." OR "HOW DO YOU OPEN YOUR CONVERSATION?" THEY DON'T NECESSARILY DISBELIEVE THAT I CAN, BUT THEIR MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THE PROTOCOLS OF SUCH A CONVERSATION. GOOD POINT THOUGH. I DO REMIND THEM THAT IT ISN'T NECESSARY TO BE VOCAL ABOUT IT, AND THAT JUST THINKING ABOUT THE DEARLY DEPARTED IS ENOUGH TO START THE PROCESS.

FIRST OF ALL, I AM NOT A MEDIUM OR EVEN MILDLY CLAIRVOYANT. I DON'T DO READINGS, AND IF I WAS GETTING A MESSAGE FROM THE "OTHER SIDE," DIRECTED TO YOU, I'D SCREW IT UP LIKE I DO NORMAL PHONE MESSAGES HERE AT BIRCH HOLLOW. SUZANNE GETS FURIOUS WITH ME JOTTING DOWN THE MESSAGE IMPROPERLY, AND SENDING HER TO THE WRONG PLACE FOR AN APPOINTMENT, USUALLY A DAY EARLY. HECK IF SHE CAN'T TAKE A JOKE!

I DO SUBSCRIBE TO THE WORK OF JOHN EDWARD, OF THE FORMER TELEVISION SHOW, "CROSSING OVER," PRIMARILY BECAUSE HIS VALIDATION OF THOSE WHO HAVE PASSED, IS WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING SINCE CHILDHOOD….BUT I DIDN'T LEARN IT FROM ANYONE IN PARTICULAR. SOME MIGHT SAY, "IT'S BECAUSE YOU'VE NEVER ACCEPTED DEATH AS THE END OF ALL EXISTENCE." THIS IS TRUE. WHEN JOHN EDWARD TELLS HIS AUDIENCES TO "VALIDATE" THOSE WHO HAVE CROSSED OVER, IT MAKES IT ABUNDANTLY MORE ACCEPTABLE PRACTICE, IN MY OPINION, TO CARRY-ON CONVERSATIONS WITH THOSE WHO HAVE DEPARTED THIS MORTAL COIL. I LIKE TO KNOW OTHER PEOPLE FEEL THE SAME AS I DO. BELIEVING THERE IS AN AFTER-LIFE IS IMPORTANT, OF COURSE. THERE ARE OFTEN SIGNIFICANT SIGNS, IF YOU'RE PAYING ATTENTION, THAT COME FROM THOSE COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE SPIRIT-KIND. NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF, OR UNSETTLED BY, IF YOU BELIEVE IT IS POSSIBLE TO INCLUDE THOSE WHO HAVE PASSED IN EVERY DAY LIFE. IN MANY CASES, THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE AFTER-LIFE, DON'T BLOCK THEMSELVES FROM OTHER-WORLDLY EXPERIENCE, AND ARE RECEPTIVE TO EVENTS AND CURIOUS DEVELOPMENTS AROUND THEM. THOSE WHO REFUSE TO BELIEVE IN THESE SPIRITUAL POSSIBILITIES, ARE, I THINK, THE BIGGEST PROJECTS FOR THE DECEASED…..TRYING TO OPEN THEIR MINDS TO POSSIBILITY. YOU CAN CHECK OUT JOHN EDWARD'S SITES AND RECORDED READINGS ONLINE. HE'S A FASCINATING CHAP WITH SOME LIBERATING ADVICE FOR THOSE FOLKS WHO REALLY DO WANT TO EXPAND THEIR HORIZONS…..AND YES, TALK TO DEAD PEOPLE.

As I've written about previously, I had a sick-bed visitation from a "dream angel", when I was very young. I was dreadfully ill, and I on the verge of being hospitalized with what was close to whooping cough…..in violent wrenching, but not labelled as such by old Doc. Proctor. On the night my fever broke, I had an angel-vision (or hallucination) that was so real I could feel it, see it in all its amazing whiteness, smell it, and touch it, and I would say, that with what we know about the final moments after clinical death, I was well on my way to the after-life. I remember my parents hovering about, with ice-packs, and talking, but it was like I was hearing the conversation while under water. I couldn't wake up. I could see their fuzzy images but I couldn't even blink. Rather than repeat the story, you can archive it on this blog site, or through my Muskoka and Algonquin ghost site. The point is, sometime after this, I drifted into this incredible dreamscape, where I had a personal audience with an angel. I have retained the details of this dreamland meeting for fifty years. I can't remember what I did yesterday. But I can remember the details and experiences of this dream. I could feel the cold vapor of her presence, smell a strange sweet perfume, see the brilliant white light of her gown and aura, and sense that I was levitating in her presence. I remember having no ability to speak even though I wanted to do so. It was the ethereal sensation that overcame me, I will never forget, as if I was the newly deceased, being guided through the tunnel. Yet I knew, at that moment, it was not my time…… but never once did the angel do anything more than look upon me with kind eyes. It was the fact she was there, and she was not planning to lead me anywhere, that I knew, even as a child, God needed me to cause some havoc on earth, before giving him problems in heaven.

The strangest aspect of the dream, is that I woke up shortly after this, completely soaked with sweat. I'd come through the fever. I was pretty weak, I do remember that feeling, and I wasn't able to get myself out of the chair. As I had to sit in a recliner chair because of my coughing and vomiting, I was upright and feeling as if some great wave, had spit me out onto a beach. I turned immediately to see my mother sound asleep in the chair beside. As soon as I started to move, she awoke and began talking to me, as if I'd just been returned from death's door. The way she reacted, I wondered if somehow, she'd seen the same angel. I never talked to her about this specifically, but she often remarked through my youth, that I was lucky to be alive. I think that night of fever was the one that would have sent me to the hospital, if it hadn't broken by the morning. I've long believed she had been visited on the same night, by some compassionate messenger, who said, "your son will live…..the little bugger that he is!" Merle was funny this way. She wouldn't talk about certain things, because she was superstitious enough, to believe too much information could jinx a positive outcome. Maybe you had a superstitious parent, or grandparent who believed similarly, that good luck depended on an unspecified amount of loyalty to sources unknown. My mother once awoke, to find her mother sitting on the end of her bed. Her mother had just, hours earlier, passed away. She knew her father had died before she got the phone call, to confirm her fears. She saw the image of Stanley Jackson, her father, some time after his death, also in her bedroom. She didn't like talking about it, but sometimes it slipped out. She had confessed to having a similar encounter as a young woman, still at home with her parents, when her sister Marjory died, a short time after the birth of her second child. Merle didn't describe a visitation as such, but she alluded to as much, while never using the words "ghost," or "spirit." Although she was not a regular church goer, during my life, she had often gone to church three times a day as a child, with a very religious, conservative family. I would say she was "God fearing light." She was always very respectful of God but was bothered by the hypocrisy she saw of the church in modern times.

So here's a family story for you. My grandfather Stan was a builder of some acclaim in the City of Toronto, and has a street named after him, in the Jane and Bloor area. Jackson Avenue if memory serves. He was hired to build a church in that vicinity, in the 1930's I believe, and when it was completed to the church board's satisfaction, they stiffed him on the payment. He vowed to never set foot in church again, because of this misadventure. My grandfather died on the steps of a church in Florida, after a Sunday Service, and left the same church the balance of his substantial estate. My other was speechless for a long time about this strange parental contradiction.

I have often pondered, whether it was this early meeting with the angel-kind, that made me fear less unworldly contacts, such that even with the frights of Hollywood depictions, of ghosts and hobgoblins, I have always been very hard to scare…..unless it was a ghost with a chainsaw that might hurt me. I've had dozens and dozens of paranormal experiences that I wasn't the least bit frightened of, or by, and nothing at all that had anything to do with "haunted houses." I could have a paranormal experience anywhere, at anytime, and has never been restricted to ancient places I've visited, or old houses where I've resided. Friends will inquire if I've been scared by the ghosts I've seen. I won't suggest to you, that they haven't at times, been unsettling, because of the new experiences attached. It's always when my mind is focused on something intense, that I will get a surprise interruption, and come starkly back to reality…..sort of like waking from a deep sleep, and wondering where you are. Just not frightening encounters, and it's why I've always been willing to talk and write about my experiences, which thousands, if not millions of people, have had, with or without knowing it. If my father ever saw a ghost, it wasn't until the last moments of his life, when I watched him raise his arms to the ceiling of the hospital room, while delirious, after I had vocally asked my mother to help him pass, by showing herself to him. That's when he put his arms up. At that point he didn't know me, his grandson Rob, or his lot in life. I never remember my father ever admitting to a paranormal experience. Yet he knew death well. During the war, on his ship the Coaticook, he helped pull hundreds of sailors from the water, after their ships had been hit by U-Boats, and a majority of them died shortly after being brought aboard. He had held some of these oil-soaked men, while they died. But then he was a practical guy, and the only way he would have told me something like this, is if there had been a particularly factual aspect to a visitation…….like an advisory to fix the brakes on the car or die. He kept stuff to himself, and I understood this.

The reason I've taken a wide turn on this story, is that ghosts and paranormal encounters are almost always looked upon as terrible, and frightening experiences, based on Hollywood's traditional depictions. It's our fear and loathing of death, and all that it represents. The ghosts that are depicted in fictional accounts, are almost entirely for malevolent purposes. It's how movie makers earn a living. While seeing a female ghost wearing a Victorian gown, trying to escape a graveyard enclosure, is a pretty typical example of a Hollywood-style ghost sighting, (witnessed once in a Muskoka cemetery), one might also imagine, that a lot of potential ghost encounters don't involve other century fashion. If you ran into a ghost golfer, for example, who played through, and then disappeared, you might say, as a group, "he must have given up on his game and gone back to the clubhouse." So who checks to see if the phantom ghost came back to the clubhouse for a beer and a sandwich. The apparition of a curler who walks through the house, and right through the building, but the games carry on. When encountering such a vision, in the modern backdrop of everyday life and recreation, we may find ourselves simply caught off guard, unable to appreciate the true measure of what may have just happened in our presence. If we met a ghost on a crowed sidewalk, on a city jaunt, how do we know it was an apparition? Looking behind, the person may be missing, but there are 101 reasons that could explain the sudden disappearance. Give us an ominously appointed Victorian house, a dark and stormy night, and some basic recall of great horror flicks we've seen before, and all of a sudden our skin is crawling, and we're peaking for an experience……that most often never occurs.

While I'm lumping ghosts together with the idea of being able to communicate with those who have passed, this is not something I've heard John Edward discuss, but a question I would love to ask him. For me they are in the same spiritual region, and they're sending a little message to an otherwise pre-occupied mind. But in a nutshell, one of the reasons I don't run into malevolent spirits, is that I don't know any…….and that all those I've kept up a running commentary with, for all these years, are all rather amicable folks who send me friendly reminders about this and that……but not chills in the night. I can't even imagine the idea of being closed-minded about this, or that there would ever be anything in my life now, that would take away my sensory appreciation…….. that I have as much access to those who have passed, as I am mortally possible. I have what you have. The capability of wonder? If there has been one thing different in my life, possibly since an angel paid a visit, is my insatiable appetite for discovery, and a sincere desire to know more. I'm not a mountain climber, or skydiver, and I would never set foot in a casino. Not because I'm closed minded about how much fun these activities would be, but because I have made a conscious decision to be adventurous in mind versus body. I have just put my hand on the post of a Victorian spindle bed that was used in a church manse for decades, to accommodate the newly departed. I can't tell you how many bodies were laid out on this bed, for viewings, in the early 1900's, but it's aura is friendly and positive, and if there was any lingering spiritual residue, it certainly isn't upset residing here with us Curries.

Our fear of ghosts and spirits, and possibly communicating with the deceased, is that we have pre-conceived notions keeping us spiritually constipated. I've known many religious folks who refuse to talk about ghosts and the idea that those who have crossed over, can communicate with the living. Yet by their own religious convictions, they are dealing, through unshakable faith, with the Holy Ghost, and many, many references to spirits and angels and pretty much the full range of paranormal infusion. They look at me as if I'm a nutter, because I might have a wee one-sided chat with my old friend Dave Brown, who still helps me find books I need, in my giant collection of texts scattered all over the house. If I'm blasphemous for being honest, or a nutter because I'm contented, then I can say with conviction, I'm an honest-nutter.

There have been reported sightings of a mysterious swinging light, along a section of railway line, near the former village of Falkenburg, north of the urban center of Bracebridge. It is said to be the ghost of a railway worker, carrying the lamp he was swinging the night he was hit by the train he was trying to signal. There are reports from a few uptown strollers, in Bracebridge, that they have met a man in early 1900's attire, who hangs around the top of Chancery Lake in Bracebridge, beside the former Herald-Gazette building, and the former fire hall and town office. The figure is said to be the ghost of George Cyr, who was hung in that courtyard, and buried in a grave nearby, infilled with fast-acting lime, to more quickly dissolve evidence Mr. Cyr had ever been born. Maybe he's looking for his bones. Cyr was defended by Redmond Thomas, who knew he was guilty, and where the gun had been hidden, that had been used in a robbery against members of the Solave family. His ghost isn't looking for a new trial, just for his sorry bones.

I've had many ghost experiences but nothing to write a movie script about. All very plain and somewhat explainable. You can read all about them on my ghost blog-site that you can connect with through this blog, if you'd like to know more.

There are times when I talk with interested folks about ghosts and paranormal experiences, that I can tell, they so badly want to acknowledge they've had encounters as well…..but they simply don't know if they should drop their guard and validate them. You know they are on the outside edge of doubt, and would really like to think it's possible to connect with loved ones who have departed, yet have enough lingering fear about crossing the line, they continue to hold it in…..like the champagne being shaken in a corked bottle. I have been known to ask them simply, what the worst case scenario would be…..if they did actually get a tangible, impossible to deny message, from the other side? The look in their eyes suggests they would be over-joyed but the have to much social conscience to drop their guard. I don't think I ever had a guard to start with, or it was removed early in life, because I've been fascinated and liberated by possibility forever.

When I engage research and writing projects, I always warn whomever I'm working with, that before the work is done, we will be able to add up quite a number of strange occurrences and coincidences that may or may not be the work of intrusive spirit-kind, horning-in on the action. I will never, ever deny an interested spirit, a say in a relevant piece of work. These are the resources we artists can afford, and if they shift us in the right direction, we are, without having to say so, forever grateful. If on the other hand, a spirit was to tell me, I should quit writing and antiquing, to become a golf pro, well then, I'd think them mad. I'm a good golfer mind you….just not that good.

Don't be afraid of any ghosts you happen to meet. Just say hello.

Thanks for joining today's blog. Please visit again soon.

European Folklore, Ghosts in Muskoka

WHY NOT TALK ABOUT GHOSTS? UFO'S AND THINGS THAT WENT BUMP IN THE NIGHT?

THE VERY REAL FEAR OF RIDICULE

EVERY FEW MONTHS, A STUDENT WILL COME UP TO MY PARTNER, SUZANNE, AND ASK HER IF SHE IS THE MRS. CURRIE IN THE GHOST BOOK. SHE HAS A STANDARD RESPONSE, BECAUSE THE QUESTIONS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS THE SAME. "DO YOU MEAN THE STORY OF 'HERBIE,' IN THE GHOST BOOK, BY BARBARA SMITH?" "WHY YES," THEY REPLY, LOOKING AT HER BECAUSE, WELL, THERE'S SOMEONE THEY CAN ACTUALLY TALK TO, WHO CAN HONESTLY CLAIM, "TO HAVE SEEN A GHOST." SO ARDENT ABOUT THIS, THAT SHE AGREED TO HAVE HER STORY PUBLISHED IN A MAJOR COAST TO COAST GHOST ANTHOLOGY. I'M IN THERE TOO, BUT THEN I'M ALSO INCLUDED IN ANOTHER BOOK ON THE PARANORMAL, BY WELL KNOWN GHOST SLEUTH, ROBERT JOHN COLOMBO. SO IT'S PRETTY NORMAL CONVERSATION AROUND HERE, TO TALK ABOUT GHOSTS. THERE'S JUST ONE THING MORE UNUSUAL THAN SEEING GHOSTS, AND THAT'S ADMITTING YOU'RE NOT FRIGHTENED OF THEM. WE'RE AS CURIOUS AS THEY ARE…..AND I CAN SPEAK FOR THEM (THE APPARITIONS); BUT WE DON'T MIND THEIR INTRUSIONS, UNLESS IT COSTS US SLEEP. THE GHOST OF HERBIE, WHICH YOU CAN READ ON THIS BLOGSITE, BY GOING BACK A COUPLE OF MONTHS, WAS THE WAYWARD, EARTHBOUND SPIRIT OF A LOST LAD, OF ABOUT TEN YEARS OF AGE, WHO USED TO VISIT SON ANDREW IN THE WEE HOURS OF THE NIGHT…..HIS FACE APPEARING AT THE WINDOW OF HIS BEDROOM. WHEN HE'D AWAKE, HE COULD LOOK UP AND SEE THE CHILD'S FACE, ILLUMINATED THROUGH THE GLASS. HE MADE ME GO OUTSIDE, ON THESE OCCASIONS, TO FIND HIM. ANDREW BELIEVED IT WAS PETER PAN, AND HE DIDN'T WANT TO GO TO NEVERLAND. SUZANNE EVENTUALLY SAW THIS GHOST TWICE IN THE HOUSE. I HAD ONE EXPERIENCE WITH HERBIE.

IN THE EARLY 1980'S, I UPSET THE NEWSPAPER EXECUTIVES, AT MUSKOKA PUBLICATIONS, IN BRACEBRIDGE, (WHICH HAPPENED EVERY THIRD DAY DURING MY TENURE), WHEN I ANNOUNCED A GREAT UPCOMING FEATURE FOR THE PAPER, ON GHOSTS AND HOBGOBLINS I'D MET IN A MAINSTREET HOUSE. THIS WAS A STORY ABOUT THE MCGIBBON HOUSE IN BRACEBRIDGE, THAT HAD FORMERLY BELONGED TO WELL LOVED MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, AND TOWN DOCTOR, PETER MCGIBBON. EVERYONE WHO LIVED THERE, FROM ABOUT 1977 TO ABOUT 1984, UNDERSTOOD THE RAMBLINGS AND BUMPS IN THE NIGHT, FROM SOME RESIDENT PHENOMENON. IF YOU GO BACK A FEW BLOGS, YOU WILL FIND THE ONE THAT DETAILS MY FIRST WRITER'S LOFT, OVERLOOKING BRACEBRIDGE'S MEMORIAL PARK. I LOVED THE HOUSE, AND ALTHOUGH A TAD UNSETTLING THE FIRST FEW TIMES, THE ALLEGED HAUNTINGS WEREN'T FRIGHTENING, BUT THEY WERE FREQUENT. SO WHEN I DECIDED, AS EDITOR, TO RUN THE FEATURE, WITH THE HELP OF OUTSTANDING PHOTOGRAPHER, HAROLD WRIGHT, MANAGEMENT TRIED A NUMBER OF ARGUMENTS TO TONE IT DOWN…..OR BETTER STILL, SAVE IT FOR THE SUMMER PAPER….THE MUSKOKA SUN. WELL, I WON, AND WE MADE SOME BRACEBRIDGE HISTORY. I HAVE WORKED ON HUNDREDS OF SIMILAR FEATURES, BUT THIS ONE GOT THE BIGGEST RESPONSE OF THEM ALL. IT WAS APPARENT, MY ADMISSION THAT I BELIEVED IN GHOSTS, WAS ENOUGH TO ENCOURAGE OTHERS, WHO HAD EXPERIENCED SIMILAR APPARITIONS IN THEIR HOMES, COTTAGES ETC., TO SHARE THEIR STORIES. THE PROBLEM OF COURSE, IS THAT WHILE WE GOT EXCELLENT RESPONSES, NO ONE WANTED TO ATTACH THEIR NAMES.

I MUST HAVE HAD TWENTY OUTSTANDING GHOST STORIES. I COULDN'T USE ONE OF THEM, BECAUSE I NEEDED THEIR CONSENT, AND IT WAS STILL THAT TIME IN COMMUNITY HISTORY, THAT FOLKS WORRIED TO A FRENZY WHAT OTHERS WOULD THINK OF THEIR CONFESSIONS. I HAD CONVERSATIONS WITH TWO YOUNG LADIES I KNEW, ABOUT GHOSTS AND THEIR KIND, AND THEY WANTED TO HEAR ABOUT ALL MY ENCOUNTERS. I KNEW THE WAY THEY WERE LOOKING AT ME, THAT THEY HAD ALSO SEEN SIMILAR APPARITIONS…..BUT HAD BUILT-UP SUCH A DEFENSE, ABOUT THE ENCOUNTERS THAT I COULDN'T RELAX EITHER ONE OF THEM…..OR ASSURE THEM ADEQUATELY THAT THEIR STORIES WERE SAFE WITH ME. IT'S A PROBLEM OF BEING A WRITER, THAT MOST PEOPLE THINK THAT UNLESS THEY SAY "OFF THE RECORD," EVERY FIVE MINUTES OF CONVERSATION, I WILL BE QUOTING THEM IN MY NEW GHOST BOOK…….THAT BY THE WAY, I'M NOT WRITING. I CAN TELL, WHEN I'M TALKING TO SOMEONE ABOUT GHOSTS, IF THEY'VE ALSO HAD AN EXPERIENCE. IT SHOWS, NO MATTER HOW HARD THEY TRY TO DEFLECT THE FOCUS AWAY FROM THEMSELVES. THEY STILL BELIEVE, THEY WILL BE RIDICULED IN THE COMMUNITY, FOR HAVING BELIEFS IN THE PARANORMAL…..WHICH IS STILL TRUE TO A MINOR EXTENT TODAY….DESPITE THE FACT WRITERS LIKE BARBARA SMITH AND JOHN COLOMBO HAVE MADE IT FAR MORE ACCEPTABLE TO ADMIT TO HAVING SEEN GHOSTS. WHICH I THINK IS A GOOD THING.

John Colombo had even suggested that I put a book together of Muskoka ghost stories, and he helped launch my first full-season series, of local ghost stories, one summer in The Muskoka Sun, in the late 1990's, which was also an enormous success. It's not every fledgling ghost hunter who is endorsed by one of the best known paranormal researchers in Canada. But the problem was a big one. They, my story sources, would spend hours setting up the story, and explaining every detail, and then say, "But you can't use any of this in print." I got to the point that I asked the question before going to the interview, and if they said "no way," to me using the story in print, then I dropped the interview. Some required quite a bit of time and driving to meet with, and at the time I was working free-lance, and simply couldn't justify the expense. So several years ago, I started to compile my own accounts of paranormal encounters, on the Muskoka and Algonquin Ghost blogsite…..containing our family's inventory of strange meetings with those wandering spirits trapped on earth.

The main reason I adore these stories, is the fact we have lost so many cultural beliefs and traditions, and no one has given much attention, to the loss of this important aspect of Muskoka and regional Canadian history. Not just about ghosts, and their mortal / immortal coming together. But the fact, from the beginning of our region's settlement, dating back to the late 1850's, family historians, and historians generally, didn't spend much time recording the cultural attachments that came with European settlers, to the wilderness of the Muskoka woodlands. It wasn't just religious beliefs that came across the ocean with the homesteaders, seeking their free grant land. They brought with them the beliefs and superstitions of the old country, and the rich, ancient traditions from countries like Ireland, Scotland, England, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany. If they had even a smidgeon of belief in the paranormal when they left the cities of Europe, I'm willing to bet that when they arrived in these haunted woods, they were more than wary of what may have been hiding out in the pine shadows, and over the rock cliffs, and through the misty bogs. Was it fair to say our region may have looked frightening to those early pioneers? Could they have imagined new world leprechauns, and banshees, trolls and ogres, ghosts, witches, sundry other hobgoblins and run-of-the-mill ghosts? In the isolation these folks found themselves, I think it's very likely they were particularly watchful for those fanciful creatures that haunted the countrysides in their homelands…..which lived under bridges, and others that carried pots of gold, or frightening old hags that would turn the innocents into wart-covered toads. What about the fairies and Queen Mab, and the fairy circles the children looked for in the mornings, matted down in the enchanted woods, where the midnight revel had been held.

This is very much a part of our culture as Muskokans, but very few historians dating back to the 1860's, bothered to deal with these superstitions, and belief in the paranormal……by simply writing them down for future posterity. Thus we have to rely on the heritage of these settlers, to understand how they looked upon strange occurrences in a new land. And because of the isolation, some fears were exacerbated most definitely, such that even the winds of an approaching storm sounded like banshees howling for blood…..trolls stomping up to homestead windows for a wee peak. A lot of superstition centered around death, and rituals / traditions practiced, depending on the religious and cultural thinking, of the time. Remember the omen of a "bird in the house"? I can so clearly recall a sparrow getting in through our apartment window, once, in the 1970's, and my mother Merle freaking-out because it was a sign that someone in the family was going to die. Merle was a mix of English, and German ancestry, and in her family, her mother Blanche was a keeper of the traditions……the old and dear tales of what to be guarded about in everyday life……..and my mother lived by those traditions, and superstitions for her entire life. She would never, ever walk beneath a ladder, and she hated black cats. If she dumped a salt shaker….or even if I did, I had to toss some sprinkles over my opposite shoulder, to get rid of the curse that apparently went side by side being clumsy. She didn't linger on any 13th day, that happened to be a Friday, and she eagerly scooped the froth off her stirred tea, saying it was "money," if you sipped it first, from a spoon. I broke a mirror once and I thought she was going to hold an exorcism for me. I was informed, "Teddy, you're going to have seven years of bad luck." I think she may have been right on that one, because every girl I went with during those years, gave me the proverbial heave-ho, just when I thought things were going great. Merle was scared of tea leaves, and would never go to a reading, because she feared what revelations they might prevail upon her. She apologized to God for thinking bad of people, but she wouldn't attend church. She thought I should go, but she wouldn't. Yup, she was a contradictory person, who had more bugaboos than I could list in ten blogs. She had a new one, to hit me with, whenever I wanted to do something she felt was risque. I always remember her saying to me, that when I had bad thoughts for a prolonged period, I was wishing that same event on myself. As the years went my, I seldom used my mother as a confidant. And for good reason.

Getting back to gathering stories about ghosts, UFO's, and almost anything else in the paranormal domain; I have received a wealth of information about occurrences here, in the District of Muskoka, but once again, they become an information base for me, but not an omnibus of stories to share with you. John Colombo included some stories about UFO's showing up in the Huntsville area of Muskoka, in a small book he wrote back in the early nineties if memory serves. There have been quite a few sightings here, and from some very credible people. Now it is worth noting, that Muskoka, according to several historians, and other published accounts I have read, have numerous meteor deposits. It is said, of course, that the imprint of Skeleton Lake was made by a meteor strike, and that there was one that hit near the Brackenrig Road, and another that may have landed in Portage Bay, of Lake Rosseau. I was told by a well versed local, of the Portage Bay area, that there is a place where a compass will gyrate wildly, giving improper readings, until the location is bypassed. I can't say that this is true, but it is what I have heard over the years, from a number of sources. I remember a well known writer telling me once, that Muskoka was a spiritually powerful place on earth, and I think part of that came from the meteors that hit here once upon a time. I have met and talked with those who have seen UFO's in Muskoka, and places like Vankoughnet have had a few interesting sightings, although you won't find much in print to support this claim. When, in the 1970's, a UFO was seen in vicinity of Three Mile Lake, in the Raymond area, I believe, it made the city dailies. There were witnesses that night, miles away, who later corroborated everything that the primary witness had observed, yet because they feared being ridiculed, the chap who came forward with the claim, was hounded without mercy, and made to look like a fool for being honest, and forthcoming. For years after this, many folks would talk in hushed tones, admitting they had been outside their homes on the same night, and had experienced something quite out of this world……yet they left this poor chap to take the brunt of the ridicule. What was an important story, with many avenues to investigate, was turned into a circus…..because that's the way the news accounts were written…..with a bias from the get-go. There weren't many scholarly, scientific types, around for these interviews with the witness, and eventually, he just avoided discussing the matter. No one blamed him either. I believed him the first time I heard the story, which was through the grapevine, before I read the first newspaper account. We were a small town with a long, long grapevine with big ears.

I have so many neat stories about ghost hitch-hikers, on the roadsides where accident fatalities had occurred. There are dozens of stories, from motorists, who stopped to give these apparitions a ride, only to find them missing, when they reversed their cars. One other claimed to have given a ride to a ghost, who never once conversed during a ten mile ride between Bracebridge and Gravenhurst, and disappeared out the door, at the end of the journey, without opening it first. There's the story of a Victorian-attired young woman, being seen in the moonlight of a summer night, in the Township of Muskoka Lakes, trying to step over the fence of a small community graveyard. The witnesses, of which there were two, believed she had been, like them, that night, taking a shortcut through the cemetery, but having got her gown caught on the wire of the half-fallen fence. When they went to help her, untangle the fabric, she turned to them and suddenly vanished. There was another specter that would sit on the staircase of an old house in Bracebridge, and cry in the night. She was seen sitting on one of the stairs, about halfway up, always in distress. They could hear the crying and when they'd investigate, she would stare at them for a moment, then vaporize. There was another malevolent little beggar, possibly the ghost of a child, that used to continually open and close doors in a tiny little house in my Bracebridge neighborhood. It was a constant, and although it wasn't seen as a vapor, it would open a door only seconds after the householder would close it……almost as if a game between the living and the dearly departed.

I think it is far more acceptable to admit seeing these paranormal quantities and qualities today, because so many folks have broken trail, admitting their experiences without the same fear many lived with thirty years ago. The stigma has diminished, and I can tell you honestly, we enjoy talking about interesting ghosts we've met through the years. I've presented this theme at Museum lectures, and I've been overwhelmed by the response of the audiences……certainly not indicating their total belief in ghosts, but being interested in hearing different accounts, especially the tales that have been with us, in this region, since the 1850's onward. As an example of this, you can go back a few weeks, in mid-March, when I wrote about the Sheas encounter with Irishman, Pat Lovely, in the pioneer hamlet of Ufford (near Windermere), who it was said, saved a young boy from bleeding to death, by using his mind-only, and from considerable distance. There were many witnesses that day, who swore Pat Lovely had a mysterious power. There are some wonderful stories yet to harvest, but the going is tough. Few thought it important to write them down for posterity. I wish they had.

If you are interested in more stories about the paranormal, you are welcome to archive through my Muskoka and Algonquin Ghost blog-site, by clicking onto http://hauntedmuskoka.blogspot.ca/

Thank you for joining today's blog. Please come and visit again. Fare thee well.