NEVER A FAIR WEATHER FRIEND -

WHEN NOT IN A CANOE, OR ANTIQUING I’M RIGHT HERE - SO CALL

It can be said my blogs are a tad caustic. Like flying down a sandy “acid rain” influenced slide with a bare behind. In retrospect I wouldn’t have it any other way. The feel of grit on the hindy is invigorating after awhile. Aggressive? Hardline? True enough but only because you’re not used to criticism in this town, except on the streets. There’s lots of caustic stuff circulating daily, just not in the press. I worked in the media at a time when caustic was a sort of after-shave. The two newspaper rivalry was immense back in the 1980's, and the reporting staff were like pit bulls on every news source we ferreted out of hiding. Our respective publishers weren’t happy to get “scooped,” and I must admit being very fearful of press day, when we’d find out if the competition nailed us. It was pretty much a fifty-fifty split back then but the point was, you had to keep your teeth sharpened constantly and your will to succeed peaked. Getting that front-page byline, beneath a double-banked, bold faced (above the fold) headline, was better than sex. We didn’t have time for sex anyway. We were young, ambitious, fearless, and well, ruthless when it came to hunting for news. I suppose in some ways, it was an unhealthy obsession. It took me years to come down from that news-week frenzy to fill the paper. I’d easily write a dozen pieces each edition including sports. I even wrote caustic obituaries. “The old bugger lived a good life!”

This is just to footnote my zeal for staying on top of local news.....and at times being a wee bit ahead of the folks who work for the press. I measure them today, fairly or unfairly, by the way I grew into the business, and my apprenticeship with many talented newshounds, who drank hard, played hard and slept little. It sure as hell wasn’t because of the money. We were lucky at the end of the work week to have enough coin left for Friday night beer, at the local watering hole.....which by choice was Bracebridge’s former Albion Hotel, by the tracks, and the Holiday House, where the kindly innkeepers allowed us to keep a tab. A lot of news features got their spark from those late night howling sessions, like wolves, preparing for the next kill. And we’d get our reporting colleagues from the competition press, who often joined us after work, good and tight, and pump them for “off the record” information......which we would then exploit the next issue. So when I remind council hopefuls never to go “off the record,” it’s because there are betrayals as far as the eye can see.....and as the printed word reveals throughout history.

So when we left the table, on those nights, we left them with the bar bill, took their stories, and a few of us found their girlfriends to our liking......leaving with them while the poor bastards fumbled to pay the tab. When I talk about the good old days of reporting, let me tell you, we all lived a little like Paul Rimstead, a Bracebridge lad who made it big as a columnist with the Toronto Sun, in its first years of operation. We even had occasion to drink with Rimmer when he came home to officiate at a Herald-Gazette Rink Rats hockey game. He was our idol. Goes to show how rough we liked it back then.

When Suzanne and I got married, I still carried out the newsie credo. I insisted on booze, news and snooze. A few nights on the porch were spent reflecting on my lifestyle, and how Suzanne wasn’t onside with the excesses, I decided to conform everso slightly. When son Andrew was born, and had only just moved into a newly purchased home, Suzanne was making more money as a teacher, than I was as a lowly reporter, so it was agreed, as nuts as this seems, that I would become a “Mr. Mom.” That’s right. Here’s this irresponsible son-of-a-bitch, columnist, shit-disturber, now a feature editor instead, with a home office and a baby by my side, all the live long day. It was an amazing “no-choice” transition. I used to show up at news conferences and for personal interviews, wearing a snuggly, with a couple of bottles and rattles jammed into my pockets. Gradually my contemporaries stopped calling me for after-work bar socials, and the hockey team I founded in the early eighties, believed my maternal side had sucked the beast from my breast. And I started to turn down outings myself, preferring instead to remain home with Suzanne and Andrew. When second son Robert came along, a few years later, I was already house-broken in parenthood, and found reading story-books aloud was just as neat as tipping the amber brew to the beat of AC /DC, and the gyrations of the stripper, at the local watering refuge for work-weary reporters. I had more time to write and more fun generally. Suzanne didn’t lock me out any more and I stopped drinking out of boredom. It seemed I needed liquid courage more than I knew.

Here it is 2010 and I’m still working from my home office. While it is my third home office, this one now in Gravenhurst, I’m still the on-call Mr. Mom when Suzanne isn’t available. Instead of reading story books, now I’m a band roadie for the boys music business......as well as bringing them various food items from home when their coffers are a little light. When I get all retrospective, I can tell you honestly that marriage and family saved me from perishing like so many other writers, including Rimstead, because of the drink.

Professionally I dedicated myself to feature writing for a wide variety of publications, even in Iceland, where a series of articles I wrote was published in translation, back in the late 1980's. I have become a little gentler in my elder years but not so much that I can’t get caustic now and again when need arises. I’m not out to make headlines.....I’ve had those and felt good about the scoops. Now I pursue antiques mostly, art and antiquarian books and documents, and write what I want, when I want. My favorite book is still “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” and my favorite movie is “A Christmas Carol.” I’m a study in opposites, and an advocate for democracy to the exponent of ten.....and it is still my most vicious pursuit in writing and action.

I have talked to a number of candidates running for this year’s municipal election, here in Gravenhurst, and there are several councillors I really like.....because I see in them, a willingness to learn....a keen interest in enlightenment versus ignorance.....and a potential to help this council infuse logic and critical thought before making decisions that will change our community. I appreciate, more than anything else, that they were willing to discuss matters with an old fuddy-duddy of a bygone era of news reporting. Possibly they sense this old guy must be telling the truth, and not just opining out of boredom. Maybe there’s a wee respect for those who have experience in a quagmire of complexity and entrapments, otherwise known as local politics. I appreciate their wisely honed perception, that they could well be heading into the lion’s den with meat strapped to their thighs. Knowing what the next four years could bring....it’s a good analogy of real potential for disaster......especially, and as I have warned for several years now, the possible closure of South Muskoka Memorial Hospital as we know it. Yea, it’s going to be a tough haul.

The point I’m really trying to make here, is that while I’m too controversial to write in the local press.....and I’d offend advertisers up and down the street with my caustic reality checks, I’m always ready to help friend or foe in a pinch, deal with a local matter sensibly, proportionally, and carefully.....with the experience I possess from many hard years on the front line of local reporting. Arguably I’m more cuddly these days, having been softened as a Mr. Mom for so many years now, I don’t shy away from reaction when it’s required. I don’t sharpen my teeth any more but please don’t take this as a sign I’ve lost my capabilities to gnash onto something that’s not right, affecting my home town or region. I’ve offered folks of all stripes, easy access to a second opinion.....not because I’m an attention-seeker but because I know how a lot of stuff works and becomes dysfunctional, and I stay up on the news of the day, however soft and fluffy it is.....which is far too frequent....especially when there are important stories not being investigated.

Local politicians who find themselves lacking background on some historical issue, or are having a clarity problem with some aspect of government functioning, are always welcome to call or email. No charge. I’m not a fair weather friend. Whether we talk while paddling a canoe, hiking a trail, or sitting coffee in-hand, if you think I can provide some useful information from so many miles traveled, then we should definitely get together. And no I’m not a lobbyist. Unless it involves preserving The Barge, and maintaining the services of Fred Schulz. Then I’m indeed a lobbyist supreme.

Don’t forget to occasionally check my other blog-sites, including my Muskoka and Algonquin Ghosts site......yup, I’m also a ghost hunter. That all started when John Robert Colombo, one of Canada’s revered paranormal story-hunters, suggested my feature stories on Muskoka mysteries would make a great book. Instead of killing trees to publish a book, I’ve used cyber-space instead. On there you will find the story of “the death bed” I bought for my wife. No kidding.