THE LIGHTNING SPEED OF BREAKING NEWS - THE INTIMACY WITH ACTUALITY -

SHORT OF BEING THERE, WE’RE CLOSER THAN EVER TO GLOBAL OCCURRENCES

I’ve never felt so connected. So much a part of world news. In need of updates. I’m a news addict. I’m not sure if I need re-hab or not. It’s not really an obsession.....but on the other hand I can hardly wait for tonight’s National. I wonder if there’s a place for all us former reporters and related news hounds to retire with common interest......24 hour news channels, and an in-house press. I’ll be the old fart with the fedora. The one with the “PRESS” card tucked into the rim.

I’m just a kidder. We don’t even have cable here at Birch Hollow. We dumped that in the 1989 economic downturn, and just decided to stick with the old standbys I can get with rabbit ears. I do like to stay up on the news even though it’s slim pickings without 482 channels to hop.

Some people I know play billiards to relax. A few play with electric trains as a hobby. A game of shinny works for others, as does skating on the lake. I’d collect stamps if I didn’t find it complicated and boring. I gave up golf because it only annoyed me. I wish I could read more books but I usually fall asleep by the second chapter. Now news. That’s fulfilling the hungry newsie!

You won’t find many folks who find “news-hounding” a satisfying, relaxing hobby. It drives my wife Suzanne nuts, and it does cut into our romantic moments, but I refuse to miss a news broadcast or a newspaper. I’ve been like this my whole life. My father Ed may be to blame, for at least part of my obsession. He never missed the evening news whether we were at home or on vacation, and always bought the daily newspaper. I don’t remember lengthy conversations about what he learned from the news but until his final days of life, he paid attention to what was going on in the world, and new pretty much was happening on the home front. He was quite impressed when I got my first reporting gig at the Muskoka Lakes-Georgian Bay Beacon, in MacTier. For me it was a natural progression. A profession and a hobby all in one. This then, was the commencement of “me” being the news gatherer for the benefit of others.

Yup, they called me “Scoop,” in MacTier. And when I showed up to manage the local Midget hockey team, they called me “Coach Scoop.” Amongst a lot of other things I won’t repeat. Good times.

I can remember dropping in to the Toronto Star newsroom once, and was blown away by the huge room of writing staff. The orderly chaos of reporter’s paper-askew desks, and a myriad of typewriters, clacking and thumping in the composition of a large daily newspaper. Reporters yelling across the floor, paper flying out of carriages, news and opinion being compiled about events at home and abroad. When I first joined with the staff of Muskoka Publications, also responsible at that time for The Herald-Gazette, in Bracebridge, and The Muskoka Sun, we used typewriters and liquid ink by the gallon. There was something amazing about the sound of these old Underwoods and Smith-Coronas smashing ink onto paper that got into my soul. There is an old industry legend that says once you have printer’s ink in your veins, it will never dissipate. It’s not a real contamination of ink and blood but moreso a spiritual union that can’t be broken. While I don’t work much with ink any more, using this infernal, ever humming computer, I’ve been writing actively since the autumn of 1974. Since 1979 when I started as a cub reporter in West Muskoka, I’ve been involved with news gathering in one form or another ever since......much of it now as a regional historian, updating files with new information. Garnered with some satisfaction, from the relentless digging in long-ignored, musty archives.

As I watched this afternoon, the current chaos in Egypt, and the coverage coming from a wide array of technological devices, I couldn’t help but feel antiquated myself. Thinking back to the era of the land-line and in-person interviews I was asked to do, as an eager stringer for local television and radio. Harvested human interest stories I might have been able to get to air, if lucky, by the late evening news. Now via online sites, the process has been sped-up to near-lightning speed. For what some people argue is a news indifference these days, I believe quite the opposite. Reporters are being made from average folk who happen upon news in the making, and employ technology like the pros. Heck I was using real film in my camera. I remember being at the site of a murder, on Highway 11, at 30 below, and my actual film breaking three times when I had to manually advance it; and my camera having to be warmed up in the car every five minutes to remain operational. What amazing advances today in news gathering for the masses.

As I wrote about in a recent blog, the only thing I’m not sure about, is whether we’re truly ready, as a society, for this barrage of news actuality. I can remember readers calling me, when our paper hit the newstands, terribly unhappy because the paper that week had many accident and fire reports that apparently made it “too negative.” I still hear complaints like that about newspapers. When social media heralds breaking news actuality, of tragedies unfolding, how many folks tune out? More tune in than tune out! While I’m thrilled with the immediacy of news, because I want to be amongst the informed of the world, I bet more than a few folks are starting to feel bombarded with negative news. It’s not just on the evening news or in the daily press anymore. This is coming at you all times of day and night, on a wide variety of media technologies, well beyond the traditional boob-tube in the living room. What has been going on in Egypt, on a minute by minute basis, is both fascinating and unnerving at the same time.....because you can’t help but realize, by exposure to unpleasant realities, this is our shrinking globe. We seem a lot closer to these outbreak situations than ever before. And even when the Egyptian Government shut down the media linkages to the world, they couldn’t stop it all.....or lie about the scope of the expanding, violent protests. The social media’s following is so loyal and huge, and determined to reach into every corner of existence, that regimes wishing to limit access, fail miserably to block the truth from getting out. It is the insurance the world will know about atrocities these dictatorships direct at their citizens. The proverbial genie is out of the bottle, and news gathering, with its host of problems and accesses of course, is now in the hands of technology holders.....not just newsies by profession. And we thought we were so special.

Even sitting here in the snow-laden Ontario hinterland, you can feel comfortably, or uncomfortably intimate with the actions and re-actions of news events thousands of miles distant....... from that easy chair you love to huddle on cold winter nights. Many of us feel a new responsibility to know what is going on in the world, as it might affect us in any of a number of ways. Global warming. Ecological horrors. Natural disasters. Mounting civil unrest.

In Egypt and the Middle East generally, where conflict is always a teetering possibility, the damage such ongoing disruption can cause to world economics, definitely inflicts chagrin for players of the stock market. It may not be great for motorists either, when the price at the pumps jumps well past the dollar-a-litre mark. While most Canadians respect the protest for democratic change in Egypt, we recognize that it will come with a substantial cost, wagered against the much tighter global economy of today. With a fragile recovery from a huge economic calamity, experienced by many of us, over the past three years, what happens in the Middle East is as intimate and nerve-wracking for us, as if we were side by side neighbors. Certainly investors have a keen interest in this same breaking news, as it is very much the cost (attention to detail) of doing business. I have never been a dabbler in the stock market but I’m just guessing that world turmoil, very much influences the decisions to buy and sell. This isn’t really fair to throw back on the Egyptian people. They’re fighting for democracy. We’re looking at our economic well-being. There seems to be an increasing demand for news, wouldn’t you say?

As word spread about the assassinations of American President John F. Kennedy, his brother Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and of course, much later, John Lennon, folks from my vintage flocked to the news sources out of shock, anger and respect for the fallen. When we heard the news, we stopped in our tracks, looked at the reality surrounding us, and knew it would be a memory held for a lifetime.....as other memories we held as significant faded into obscurity. This more intense, intimate and intrusive exposure now, to news and global events, is etching hard upon all who choose to “tune-in.” For those who “tune-out,” well, that’s their choice.....it may also be their undoing.

There are no real safe havens from the collateral damage of all major global events. Whether it is the economic collateral damage, of banking system collapses, natural chaos, caused by floods and drought, hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanoes, food or fuel shortages, the immediate communication of news should mean a greater preparedness for the approaching storm. But there are many, many millions on this planet who are not “connected,” via media technologies, adding even more disparity and disadvantage to their opportunities, of ever catching up to the rest of the mad world.

In Egypt, the technologies possessed by citizenry and visitors, has given the world that intimate look at the truths of rebellion; facts now impossible to dismiss by government as lies and distortions. We are seeing it worts and all, mere moments after the images and events were captured.

I do wonder quite a bit these days, how life at home will be affected by this new and exciting global community, seemingly so much closer at hand, these days, thanks to camera phones and the advances of on-line social networking. As an example, we can no longer dismiss, as a matter of minimal intrusion, the huge gains of on-line shopping, and its toll on traditional retail....... those without an online option can be at a serious disadvantage, in a highly competitive market. Online sales are well into the billions while traditional retail faces a more demanding customer......insisting on better services and prices, and devouring opportunities to get what they want, when they want, from wherever they can. Online parking is a breeze and there are no parking tickets from over-zealous bylaw officers. But I remember when critics said it would never replace mainstreet and mainstream retail. It’s a work in progress.

I do believe we are staring at that storied, feared “Brave New World,” and I don’t think we’re ever going to return to the old ways. We apparently like this new intimacy with the events and options of the shrinking globe. News and events bringing us closer to the hot spots. But what is too intimate? How far do we want it to go? How can we control it? Should we control it? I sort of think controlling technology, and social media advancements, from Face-Book to Twitter, is akin to the kind of ill-fated repression the government of Egypt tried, by shutting down signals when the crisis began. It would be like opting this moment, to face the angry mob, with lethal force.......expecting after the carnage that the blood stained calm will herald “situation normal.” This is a new normal. Like the coming down of the Berlin Wall, times they are a changing.

Putting our heads in the sand today, is not an evasive action for the shy. It is suffocation by intent. I’d much rather face up to the brave new world, and employ its technologies. I’m reminded of the famous descent of Cowboy actor, Slim Pickens, in the movie “Dr. Strangelove,” who jumped aboard an atomic war-head, as a last resort, to guide it from plane to point of impact;....... riding it through the atmosphere like a bucking bronco, hollering all the way to the big bang.

I’d rather embrace this new-age communication technology, and perish with it, if necessary, than disassociate with what I believe to be a valuable tool of all future democracy. Repression? It has no place to hide in an enlightened world.

I tossed my last underwood in the scrap metal pile the other day. I kept it just in case. I’m pretty sure I won’t need it again. I feel liberated from the iron embrace of its hundred pounds of antiquity. I’m a lap-topper now. And I don’t mean dancer.

Maybe I do need to dry-out from all this breaking news stuff. But I’d be too scared of missing something happening, during my self imposed exile. Naw, I’ll just cut the intake to four or five news broadcasts a day. That should level me out. Suzanne is shaking her head.

ADA FLORENCE KINTON PAINTED THE WOODLANDS OF PIONEER MUSKOKA

By Ted Currie

At the moment, I’m staring out my office window, at a typically dull January morning, with a small amount of snow spiraling with the wind, occasionally hitting the pane of glass creating a sort of crystal mosaic. The artist looking for inspiration, as this writer seeks out the words, wouldn’t find too much inspiration from nature today, unless it either soon begins a heavier snowfall or the sun suddenly breaks through the cloud cover. As a matter of some irony, writer / artist Ada Florence Kinton, the biography I’m currently composing, would have found something remarkable, attractive and memorable about this same framed landscape, of a snow-clad Muskoka woodland. Despite what I find dull and uneventful now. She found beauty in nature every day, and it’s what she so poignantly depicted on her paint boards, and wrote in her daily journal, while residing here almost 130 years ago.

The multi-column biography of Ada Florence Kinton, artist, author and Salvation Army missionary, began back in November of 2010, exclusive to Curious; The Tourist Guide. It is dedicated, in her name, to the Gravenhurst Food Bank, operated by the Salvation Army, but it is also in general support of Food Banks throughout our province, which I hope you will continue to support in this tough economic time.

Born and raised in the urban landscape of Victorian England, Ada Kinton arrived in the Canadian wilds with some trepidation, as most visitors and immigrants felt on seeing the vast forests of the dominion. Having spent most of her life in the thick of city existence, and drawing art from the old world standards of architecture and romantic pasture, seeing the thick forest stands of the Ontario hinterland was admittedly frightening at first. Greatly exhausted by the grueling steamship passage across the Atlantic, and long train ordeal from Quebec to Toronto, the traveler must have been absolutely astonished by the boundless snowscape yet to come. Imagine the sleigh passage north through Muskoka in the 1880's, much of it in the evening hours, illuminated by small oil lamps, gyrating from rough travel over perilous frozen trails, the snorting team rising sluggishly up and over rocky hillsides, racing down the ice-shimmering trails into the valley, across half-frozen boglands, the steam of the horses’ breathing making a ghostly passage across the eerie moonglow. She found it a lonely, somewhat threatening passage, as she should have, yet her diary entries make it a work of art....as it is easy to visualize what she had experienced.

After her mother and father’s deaths in England, Ada Kinton was encouraged to visit with her brothers Ed and Mackie, who had emigrated to Canada much earlier, and who were by the 1880's, very much a part of the new economy of pioneer Huntsville, in North Muskoka. In 1907, shortly after her death in Huntsville, after a lengthy illness, her sister Sara Randleson, published Ada’s journal, entitled "Just One Blue Bonnet," containing some of the observations the young artist made, upon taking up painting forays into the woodlands, then so beautifully wreathing the pioneer hamlet. She adored exploring the hinterland, removing herself often, from the warm homestead hearth, for long treks into the largely unexplored forests, not yet fully exploited by the vigorous tree harvest, at the time, which would eventually strip most of the countryside of its natural resources. Ada wrote the following passage after one such spring outing:

"Out painting a fallen hemlock all afternoon, till it commenced to rain and forced me to return. The rain turned to snow, and all the earth is white again. More geese flying north. - signs of warm weather coming....wish it would hurry up. After lunch the air seemed milder and the snow had ceased, so that about four (p.m.) I made an attempt to complete my fallen hemlock but got cramped with cold, so meandered a bit in the pathless tangle of fallen trees and splintered boughs, damp leaves, and sprouting ferns and curious little four-leaved vegetation which is just appearing above the earth, with a few violet leaves - the only signs of spring yet."

On the third of February 1883, while residing temporarily in Huntsville, Ada made the following entry into her journal: "Made an apron for myself - felt proud. Miss the rumbling of carts and carriages in the road. Can’t seem to get used to the silence of the snow. Seems a long way from England. (Feb. 16^th) Concert. Mrs Kinton sang ‘Take Back The Heart.’ Very much struck with the ease and natural grace of some performers. Everyone kept time to the music, either with their hands or their feet, and the interest and excitement was very great. Thaw on! Heard the sound of the rain again. It sounded nice. Masses of loosened snow slip from the roof and fall with a soft crash and thud. Cold wind and glare ice, thawed surface of snow frozen over again. Makes walking difficult. Village very picturesque and quaint in the moonlight, like a lot of miniature toy wooden cottages chucked down anyhow on the uneven ground, covered over with nice snow and just a light here and there to make it look pretty; and then all around a dark bordering of great hills fringed with forest; and through the village, the river coiling and under the wooden bridge to the lake, all steely ice except in the middle, where the current is rapid and strong, a dark inky blue bit of stream shows itself in a fitful, broken sort of way. Wonder where all the water lilies have hid themselves. Been feeding on huckleberry pie, and crabapple jelly and cream, and hot biscuits, and hot home-made currant buns, and tea and toast.....feel dreadfully ashamed of myself."

Already a competent writer, artist and teacher at this point of her young life, having begun both disciplines at home in England, her attention to the detail of the pioneer community of North Muskoka is of critical importance. Even in the 1880's she was aware of how the destruction of the woodlands would impact habitat, and as future journal entries will reveal, Ada was very much in touch with the creatures that would visit her while on sketching adventures, from curious chipmunks, to birds flitting from overhead branch to branch, almost as if they were interested in her depictions of their forest home. As well, what her art panels and descriptions reveal, is a passionate interest in the flora and fauna of the fledgling region, and these are of particular importance to historians, trying to piece together the community’s growth at this time of settlement investment. As many artists lamented, she had a sense of urgency, to paint the forested landscape before the crack of the axe, and rumble of log laden sleighs pushed down these same paths of her paradise.

For the next ten issues of Curious; The Tourist Guide, we will continue to present the biography of an under-known and appreciated artist, author and tireless missionary to the poor and destitute, on behalf of the Salvation Army Food Bank here in Gravenhurst. The finished series will be submitted to both the Art Gallery of Ontario and National Art Gallery Archives, to assist researchers of Canadian artists and their accomplishments.

Please support your local Food Bank.

A TIME OF PROFOUND CHANGE - THERE’S NO GOING BACK

There are folks today, like yesterday, the day before and the year before that, who simply couldn’t care less about world affairs. If it doesn’t intimately involve them, or intrude upon their daily existence, they opt not to quest for information. There are those who argue vehemently that “bad” or “negative” news is burdensome and depressing. All the more reason to tune it out. I know people who refuse to buy a newspaper or listen to news reports, for fear they might be thusly intruded-upon in their respective sanctuaries. It is however, one of those conditions of life, that contrary issues don’t go away because one refuses to acknowledge or deal with them.

I feel sorry for them, but I’m not compelled whatsoever, to force-feed them my opinion on the matter. I can’t command them to read my blog entries, and it isn’t my intention, ever, to hurt any one with my opinion, or my adversarial take on a subject or political situation. While I’ve been reserved about pitching what I believe is a good idea, it’s because I’m shy of being considered a Svengali. I don’t want a following or a band of believers, to join me for an over-throw of government. I don’t want to inspire a revolution but rather spawn the kind of critical thought and open-mindedness, that initiates common sense improvements and resolution to obstacles thwarting our success. Not ones that are only achieved by radical and intrusive overhauls.

I don’t believe there are problems in Gravenhurst that can’t be resolved by understanding and negotiation. We have a good home town. It has survived through many periods of disharmony and crisis. Good neighbors, responsible stewards, have stepped up and pitched in, to make the best of unfortunate situations. I’m an historian by trade, so I know what I’m writing about.

We have a lot of talented folks in our community, who have vast amounts of front-line experience in business and industry, who do know how to make things better in the future. Unfortunately, there has been a reluctance, by some, to accept that in order to improve and correct what has gone wrong in the past, openness and compliance is a necessity. The only way to initiate any kind of improvement, is to prevail with honest criticism and employ whatever is deemed necessary, to make the program adaptable to all new realities. My critics might well argue that this could be revolutionary in character. And although I don’t really expect any of this would involve the kind of disruption to civil obedience, as they are seeing in Egypt, Tunisia and Lebanon, it simplistic to think change of direction, even in our small town, must always be confined to the domain of gentle, polite harmony.

The downtown business community, in Gravenhurst, is in dire need of support. Gravenhurst Council and many, many citizens are finally tuning in, and acknowledge something has to be done to stop the slide, into an even larger vacancy situation for the main street. For quite a few years now, Gravenhurst Council has had an opinion about its representation on the BIA, and it wasn’t much more than a gentle, less than enthusiastic participation......the proverbial pat on the head, to let the frustrated directorship know the cavalry is close by. Ineffective and unarmed but close by! It would be hard for any past BIA members to deny that council hasn’t provided much more than the lowest amount of ongoing guidance they could get away with, and still boast they “support BIA initiatives.” It has never been enough to have a council representative who isn’t prepared to help fix the disharmony that has often prevailed. And if it was the case, that these concerns were brought to council’s attention, and no action followed, well, then we should be happy to have a new council with a more pro-active approach, currently at the helm.

The BIA itself has had internal problems for years. I think it would be impossible for any one here in Gravenhurst, who reads a paper, or listens to the word on the street, to be unaware of the dynamic of the logger-head. The real horns of the proverbial dilemma, is that for so many years, the situation has been worsening, and town hall actually distancing, from its responsibility to foster democratic spirit across the board. They should have intervened a long time ago, and insisted on a re-examination of mission statement, review of constitutional adherence, accountability, compliance, co-operation, and approval within its taxpaying membership. Not to be intrusive for the fun of it, or as make-work but to fix what needs to be fixed. If the BIA didn’t ask for a review, to help it maintain its even keel through stormy seas, then the town representative, over any one of the association’s rough patches, should have demanded of council, it address a friend in need. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

It’s not surprising considering the reality many similar associations find it almost impossible to make all merchants / property owners happy, all of the time. Gravenhurst’s situation isn’t by any mean an exceptional circumstance. And for as long as there has been an obvious stalemate between the membership at large, the inner sanctum of BIA governance, and town hall, it is difficult to understand, why council has, for so many years, opted to bypass the obvious dysfunction. Choosing instead to let the problems continue to manifest into an even greater disharmony. Rather than to employ that idle cavalry to assist a partner needing a hand-up.

I am cautiously optimistic attitudes are changing. The town has most recently made this concern public, by inviting open-forum discussion, at an upcoming meeting, (Feb. 9, Opera House), to foster dialogue about a community-wide issue. How to encourage a new and improved attitude, in order to foster ongoing main street revitalization.

This isn’t just a BIA or Town Hall issue. It is a town matter. It is an important restitution to the well-being of our entire community. We are the cavalry. And we all need to recognize the negative impact we are all facing, as stakeholders in this community, of a failed and deserted main street. While a few might argue we shouldn’t get involved in the business affairs of free enterprise, and respect the rule of survival of the fittest, the majority of residents here do appreciate how important the historic main street is, to our general sense of well being in our own home town.

Hopefully the BIA will see this as a commencement of a new and exciting relationship with the town. A Council that is not figure-heading BIA meetings, to pacify the executive, but participating to offer advice and reliable connectedness to town hall. While there is no way to lay blame squarely on the Town, for the present diminishing of main street business, it is for certain, that over the past two council terms, there has been a growing, public frustration between the BIA and town hall. This and the pre-occupation with other development projects, which held council’s attention for quite some time, added to a widespread negative attitude throughout the mainstreet business community.

It is my faith in the new council, serving this community, that they will see that an improved relationship with the BIA membership generally, and one that sustains through the re-building process for the next ten years, will initiate many new co-operative initiatives and programs. It won’t come easily. Some will continue to toss obstacles in the way, and this must be overcome by the appreciation, as cliche, some things have to get worse before they get better.

There are many solutions to discuss. Encouraging and welcoming dialogue is a huge step toward meaningful, productive change.

Congratulations to the town and BIA representation, for inviting all of us to participate in what will hopefully be a highly productive period of co-operation, from and by, all partners.....

GRAVENHURST - SO WHAT’S COMING IN THE NEXT DECADE - A RENEWED MAIN STREET? WOULDN’T THAT BE GREAT!

Sometime in the late 1990's, I wrote a column, in the Muskoka Advance I think, regarding my adopted hometown’s future....... what I anticipated about Gravenhurst’s coming decade. With some history behind me, and an ever-watchful eye on Muskoka’s municipalities, as a freelance reporter / columnist at that time, I predicted Gravenhurst would be entering a profound period of urban re-development, and building / residential enhancements otherwise. I believed that it would be a difficult decade for council, having to weigh the advantages of development with the disadvantage of having to make some necessary sacrifices. We may not have imagined, at that time, the dimension of the Muskoka Bay / Sagamo Park re-development, or suspected that an entire rock hillside would be levelled to facilitate a large commercial node, at the south end of town.

If my prediction was weak in any area, it was in the re-generation of the main street. Some removals and additions were made, and it certainly appeared a time when renewal interests could claim an even greater number of older main street buildings. While wrecking balls took out some old houses for a new drug store, a fire claimed an historic corner building, housing the White Pine café and gift shop.....the sanctuary I adored and enjoyed on most days. With escalating real estate values and substantial costs associated with such renewal and re-development, projects may have been thwarted as a result. What might have been a huge period of mainstreet refurbishing, was brought down to a limited number of building improvements and character enhancements, which certainly helped create a momentum for more sprucing-up. But it has still been a slow process but welcome none the less. Road work has become a highlight, with new lighting and servicing that will contribute to an improving main street confidence in itself.

I’m satisfied I was better than 50 percent correct. Not good if you’re a gambler but not bad for an armchair critic. There were a lot of circumstances that developed at the same time, and there was a great deal of disagreement burdening the town, from business improvement issues to the sale of Gravenhurst Hydro, on to matters of Wharf development planning.......and the legitimate fear of de-centralization of the business core. As editor of The Herald-Gazette, in Bracebridge, during the Wellington Street plaza debate, and the construction of the Wellington Street Bridge as a bypass / alternate, of the main street, the same arguments surfaced...... as Gravenhurst would have to contend years later......the sprouting of commercial pods.......that while improving the town’s attraction and commercial diversity, did drain an already diminished business income away from what had always been, by history, the meat and potatoes of small town life and times. Those who argued that all this development would benefit Gravenhurst financially, didn’t own main street businesses, or frankly care at all, about whether these small enterprises would sink or swim. In Bracebridge, during their biggest period of commercial expansion, the main street vendors were seen as whiners, complainers, and old farts mired in their own musty history. To this day, it’s still a main street in transition, struggling to compete with the box-store commercial nodes......that in all honesty, haven’t really done much to enhance Manitoba Street enterprises.....as was the belief by council at the time expansion was being pursued. I’ve long believed the turn-over of businesses, on the main street, should be of considerable concern to the town council. We had one of those Manitoba Street businesses, in the late 1980's into the mid 90's, and being on the main street was no great advantage at all, until the summer season. Toward the end of our stay, even that was debatable.

What it comes down to, in Gravenhurst, is to appreciate the great necessity of unification of mission, to improve as many diminishing aspects of our community, areas of mutual concern and disharmony, as possible, over the next decade. I firmly believe the business community that exists now, not just on the main street, but throughout the town, can self-determine and network toward a more mutually beneficial business climate. Council can help inspire this new era of co-operation, by listening and learning, instead of just imposing untutored directives, and ill-timed initiatives that prove a serious disconnect between those who govern and those who dwell beneath their lofty heights. They are outrageously wrong to believe we’ll embrace all their clever insights, when it’s on our dime their spinning.

The change-over of the old town hall is a good example. Not that we begrudge the fire department or community policing a better, larger place to operate, but because the citizens and the business community weren’t part of the solution. When the business owners complained about the shift of town hall, away from the downtown core, and the lesser traffic that would be visiting the new fire hall on a daily basis, their arguments were dismissed as frivolous, and self-serving. While I’ve had my problems with the business improvement network, in philosophy more than anything else, this was clearly an example of dismissal of objection, because it was inconvenient to a pre-determined game plan. It was well thought out in advance.....not exactly an impromtu downfield “Hail Mary,” but something that was well researched before getting to the public domain. It was a force-fed decision based on a mission to accomplish initiative, plain and simple. Get out of our way.....we’re doing this thing, so get over it! They did! But all it served the mainstreet business community, was another heaping plate of contempt and distrust that will take years to overcome.

This is not to suggest for a moment, that local government needs to bend to the will of objectors, each time protest arises. When there is a legitimate concern about government stewardship of our resources, by golly, our officials should recognize that diligence is more inclusive and dynamic than obviously appreciated. At a time when it’s brutally clear, commercial pods and de-centralization are hurting the main street, which was already in peril and in need of greater renewal before the Wharf and South End developments opened, there is no option left for deferral of the issue, to a more convenient date. For the town to ignore the tempest in the proverbial tea pot, can only be seen as negligence.

And although it is necessary for business to innovate and network constantly, to meet the changing demands and economic climate, the town has an incumbent responsibility to pay attention to prevailing shortfalls and hard feelings, especially when these prevailing conditions cause businesses to close and move. While business failures aren’t shocking, within the norm, the routine of failures should be of concern. Reading this week, in a downtown business directory, published in the local press, that a well respected clothing shop is closing, and re-locating to Bracebridge, seems more than a little unfortunate. Not just because the business is closing but that it has chosen another town over ours, as a potentially better place to operate. Why? And can we handle the critique about the disadvantages main street businesses face? And be interested in stemming future closures by being pro-active, instead of “we’ll just wait and see what happens.” Most of us history enthusiasts, and business owners, have a pretty good idea what could happen if trends continue.

Goodwill can go a long way to improve business relations for the entire town, not just particular sectors. I’d recommend that councillors ask the kindly historians who operate the Gravenhurst Archives, at the Public Library, to show councillors some main street photographs from the town’s “hamlet business section” of the 1800's, to its wonderful array of diverse enterprises through the 1900's, including images from the war years, and the Great Depression.......to the dynamic mainstreet of the 1940's and 50's, when mom and pop businesses, and pride of building ownership, was the end-all and it showed. It was a showpiece despite more violent economic realities and intrusions than we’ve experienced in modern history. Can it come back to those days, when the business corridor was a bustling, thriving showplace......that citizens adored because it represented their values of home town life. A main street that town council was proud of, to showcase to the world. This isn’t to suggest the main street today is but a shadow of its former self. Still it would be hard to deny that combined with the prevailing sentiment, from all quarters, and the empty stores, in the visible sense, we’re definitely in need of a resurgence of something positive.......to entice new investment interest. It’s not just a business issue but a deficit of attention, the town must replenish, as general interest toward its traditional, historic main street stakeholders,...... that has been the longstanding postcard image of a really nice town to visit.......and reside in, as a solid, caring hometown. Looking after the mainstreet is a motherhood issue. As it has served us from the 1860's to 2011, we certainly owe it more than just a simple, fleeting debt of gratitude.

The next ten years will be a period of healing, if it’s initiated now by all sides. I’m sure if the main street merchants saw a change of attitude, and a new interest in main street renewal and prosperity, changing attitudes could initiate a new period of restored confidence. As the town did its utmost to facilitate, and promote both the south end development, and The Wharf, they need to focus on the showcase of our town........and that is the main street.....the linkage between the pods.....the street our visitors have long appreciated as representative of Muskoka’s gateway to wonderful vacations. Instead of interpreting the main street businesses as complainers, whiners and trouble-makers, give some honest consideration to what they’ve had stripped away in the past 50 years, as part of the local economic evolution; the losses of historic industry and institutions, and the passing-on of those mom and pop operations, that maintained their businesses and owned their own buildings. This has been a profound change in the past 25 years. This main street artery was our bragging right. It was a great place to operate a business. It can be again. It will require a greater level of participation from town hall, than I think “it” is currently prepared to lend. As well, the business community must agree to bury the proverbial hatchet, and extend the olive branch for a new beginning with a town partnership toward overall renewal.......and “confidence renewal” is the best first step at a better future.

At the end of the next ten years, possibly we will then be able to look at those same old photographs and postcards, and say, by golly, history has repeated......doesn’t our town look great.

AUSTERITY IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE - IN THIS NEW ECONOMIC REALITY

We just got our hydro bill, and while I’m delighted we have managed to maintain a sensible and reduced level of consumption, it’s bloody hard not to be mad about our $80 HST tally for the period. With the added cost of gas, food, regular water-service increases, tax bill (which don’t generally reduce), plus the inflationary pressures of everything else, it’s hard to be overly optimistic about the future drag on economic recovery.

If you follow news around the world, it’s doesn’t stray much from “dire” and “disastrous.” After watching a recent news clip about a municipality in Alabama that has had to suspend its pensions for retired public service employees, from the former Police Chief, retired officers, Fire Chief and clerical staff, (and, appreciating the warning that other towns may soon follow this lead), it’s difficult for me to understand how financial experts can be so optimistic about the upswing of the economy. Whether Wall Street is doing better or not, main street sucks. There’s a widespread economic disaster brewing, in my humble historian’s opinion, and for those folks who believe, even in Canada, that statistics alone indicate the recession is over.......well, they need to investigate for themselves just how bad it is, on the mainstreets of our neighbor’s communities. Some of those contradictions can be found in stories about failed pensions and no financial bail-outs, for hard working citizens, now left in dire straits by the economic tidal wave, released and perpetuated by others. But it is on the micro-scale that you find the information you need to prepare for the very next economic wave to hit this country. We’re awfully smug about our assumed prosperity......yet if you were to look closely, and be prepared to dig into festering realities right now, in our own country, you’d find smugness has no place even amongst the upper strata of personal economy. Many folks are suffering. Too many. Food banks and charity shops are being pummeled by demand and costs. How long can they survive to help the needy. This is in our land of plenty.

The United States is our major trading partner. Although we like to brag about our economic well-being, we’re relying on stats to make this declaration. If you’re tending the less fortunate, working at a homeless shelter, a food bank, employed in social work, or in the repossession or bankruptcy business, you probably have a few sidebars to add, when the financial experts and bank representatives bestow high regards, on our country’s ability to navigate tough economic times. The same disconnect that always prevails between those who have, and those who don’t, and won’t have, even in the distant future, carries on as “mantra” today, for those arses who truly believe that when they speak, the sea opens a path out of respect for command.

So will an election bring these issues into the profile they deserve? Not really. Maybe some of the candidates will pop by a food bank for a photo-op, or appear to care about the homeless at one of the shelters. There are exceptions, and there are quite a few, in each of the parties,.....kind folk who do go out of their way to represent the less fortunate in Canada. There’s just not a hard party commitment to help improve social assistance issues, that will startle any of us into the kind of respect that compells us to vote for change. Poverty seldom is a top election concern. Rather it is one of those “trust us,” issues, that will supposedly get attention down the road by the new government.

As it has proven a tempest in the proverbial teapot, many times throughout history, government’s abuses of the economy, and their citizenry, while living lavishly themselves, is crashing to a new reality. There are many countries wishing to oust their governing bodies, the direct result of increasing poverty, lack of employment, social assistance and the ever escalating costs of living in general. There isn’t a Canadian, provincial, or regional elected official, who can afford to ignore the growing global disharmony, whether in the United States, Egypt, Tunisia, Europe and Asia. The poor are arming themselves with new technologies for communication, and changing how revolutions organize, build co-operation, network and unfurl as powerful fists at abusive, oppressive dictatorships. The genie has been let out of the bottle, and it’s not going back in. So expect much more civil disobedience to herald change. Some of it will be deadly, as we have seen, and it will cause massive governmental imbalances and vulnerabilities around the globe. There’s no escaping the realities of global economic and political carnage in the next five years, that will give us the kind of collateral damage we’ve been boastful, so far, of missing for the most part.

I grew up in a family that had no choice but to be frugal. In the late 1960's and early 70's, we lived in a small apartment building in Bracebridge, where residents shared a common reality. Modest income. We shared a contenting modest life style. Some had a few bucks more, and had a few more luxuries in their quarters but by and large, it was a blue collar, hard working family grouping, all who shared hopes things would improve. For the survivors, well times and economy did improve. We helped one another in those years. If my family was down on its luck, we didn’t have to ask for assistance from our neighbors. Groceries just appeared and offers of transport, when our car was in disrepair, were generous and accommodating. When our luck changed and someone else’s sputtered, for a tad, we returned favors bestowed. We weren’t ashamed of being of lesser economy. My dad grew up in Cabbagetown, in Toronto, and he knew the protocol of living on less, and achieving a contented, hard working, rewarding life. He could whip up a great Johnny Cake, based on his mother’s recipe, and an “Everything Stew,” she used to make from the little she had to work with to feed four strapping boys. The pot simmered all day long, and was added to when more leftovers were garnered from garden, or general kindness of neighbors. Her husband ditched the family to fend for themselves.

When I think about Canadians with huge mortgages and credit card burdens, some more than the cost of our first house, I worry that the horse is already out of the barn......and no matter how much public advisory now, to reduce debt-loads, there’s no way of getting it under control by closing the barn door now. Many young families are only several pay cheques away from requiring a food bank to survive. As our economic talking heads blather on about upturns and growing confidence of Canadian consumers, even a tremor of another economic downturn, and interest rate increase, will create an economic blood-bath. In our credit-generous environment, we have poisoned the well from which we drink.

When it comes down to municipal governments, trying to survive, and provide decent services to their citizenry......theirs is a most daunting challenge, that can only get worse before, sometime in the future, a resurgence can re-build based on sensible proportion.......and not solely on the basis of .....we’ve got credit so let’s spend it before someone else does.

As an historian, the only way I could write an upbeat assessment of economic realities, as it affects average Canadians, is if I employed fiction to complete the story. We’ve been reading and hearing a lot of fiction these days. It hasn’t helped us embrace our pressing limitations.

This blog wasn’t inspired by the pending issue of a federal election, or the HST imposed on my hydro bill. It has been the incessant bombardment of economic realities, at home and abroad, that has impacted most profoundly. The realization that so many good and contributing folks in our world, have become victims of manipulated and contaminated economies......who no longer can contribute to the consumer-based regeneration......the one our economists and politicians look for, to guarantee an eventual recovery. The retired folks I learned about, in that small community in Alabama, who no longer have their pensions, savings, or spending power, are harbingers of dangers to come for all of us, dependent on the global economy’s prosperity..........even though we’ve never believed our welfare depended, in this post World War era, on the well being elsewhere, to protect our economic outlook.......it does, and shall continue to do so until profound changes to the global economy are enacted.

That’s a long way off. Certainly not in my lifetime.

I hate to say it’s “survival of the fittest (economy).” Tell me I’m wrong!

We can’t afford to ignore this.....especially on the ground level, where the heavy footfall of panic, stomps down hardest.......by precedent of history. Panic isn’t the way to go either. Just be careful out there.

AT HOME IN MUSKOKA AND LOVING IT

VACATIONING AT HOME?

Our family has enjoyed everything Muskoka has to offer. For decades. And we keep on finding more things to do, and have no plans to change what has been a fulfilling relationship. It isn’t to suggest that we don’t leave the area, and it’s true our boys, for business purposes, do travel the country, but for mom and pop, the best part of travelling beyond, is coming home......and for us that’s the end of the day. We’re not cheap and anyone who knows us, would acknowledge we like our adventures. We are most definitely sticklers for detail. We won’t return if we’ve been shortchanged. We want good value no matter what we’re spending money on, and that includes our vacation and recreation. We may be accused of having simple, basic demands for our comfort, but we’ve found it for years, as they say, “in our own backyhard.”

Our demands for vacation time are as high as if we were travelling regularly to Europe or Asia, or packing up a recreational vehicle for a tour of the continent. Our goal is to start enjoying ourselves immediately, as our free time begins. Outdoors or indoors, we plan accordingly, and find that home-district holidays are enthralling enough to meet our expectations. Some travellers come home and fear the coming of the mail, when the credit card invoices demand re-payment. We don’t miss this at all.

Suzanne’s family owned and operated the Windermere Marina, on Lake Rosseau, from the late 1960's into the 70's. She worked with her mother Harriet, tending hungry patrons at “The Skipper,” which was the small café on the second floor of the marina. Her summers were spent meting the needs of cottagers, tourists and the local population throughout the summer months. The Stripp family would move to another part of the marina for July and August, so they could rent out both their nearby home, and a cottage (actually a family homestead), and small cabin on Lake Rosseau. It wasn’t necessarily what they wanted to do, but the off-season was a ten month drag on the economy. You needed to make money while you could. While her friends, many of them cottagers, celebrated the good life in Muskoka, in the wonderful lakeland, Suzanne had to work. Although she did take time off, and some of it during the daytime, there was a great deal of sacrifice enabling a seasonal economy to survive year after year.

Suzanne, to this day, is reluctant to put too much emphasis on this, because she also enjoyed working at the Skipper, and it was a wonderful meeting place with a juke box and great milkshakes. Still, there were many opportunities missed as a result. She started to work early in her teens, and when the family sold off the marina, she then worked summers at the Windermere Golf and Country Club. When she wasn’t at university, she was tending the summer visitors to our region. I think if she had the opportunity to re-live those early days, growing up in Windermere as it was then, she wouldn’t hesitate agreeing. It would kind of mess up our marriage and family with this kind of time-reversal but the point is, tending seasonal visitors, as Muskoka has been welcoming since the late 1800's, is part of who we are as long-time Muskokans.

While I didn’t have quite the same demands, and we didn’t have any real estate to rent out, the Currie family was all occupied in the tourist trade. My father’s busiest time of year was the summer months, as a manager at Shier’s Lumber, then Building Trades Centre, in Bracebridge. My mother Merle tended a small tourist cabin business, known as Bamfords. Her responsibility was to run the variety shop on the corner of the property. I grew up across from this in-town tourist accommodation, and it was neat to have the smell of campfires and hear sing-songs, while we were living the urban-apartment lifestyle, less that fifty yards away. We had many friends who came to those cottages every summer, and we often got invited to sit around those same fires, and join in on the singing.

As Suzanne was filling the burger and ice cream needs of our visitors, I was on the road by 5 a.m. twice a week, with Clarke’s Produce, of Bracebridge. Our run was through Lake of Bays up to Mountain Trout House on Lake Kawagama (Dorset). We had several husky lads from the neighborhood working nights at the warehouse, to fill-out orders for the grocery stores and summer camps / resorts. Short of carrying drywall and patio-slabs to cottages, in my late teens, when employed by Building Trades, the produce trade was incredibly taxing to the body. Those bags of spuds, onions, carrots, and beets left our shoulders raw and sore for days. Walking in and out of the coolers, into humid nights, and then back thirty or forty times during a shift, was hard on the body let me tell you. We worked for a buck an hour. We supplemented this with scoffed strawberries which were damn good. I didn’t really like my job but I did enjoy the trips around the lake to drop off supplies. It let me see how our summer guests were being accommodated in the Muskoka hinterland. It was fascinating. The only part I hated, was showing up at breakfast, and having to deliver fruit and vegetables, while the respective camp and resort kitchens were cooking up the breakfast menu. I was always hungry and my boss would have fired me, if I’d ever been caught biting into a ripe peach, or a tomato for lunch. I couldn’t blame him but there was so much temptation sitting within arm’s reach..

It was with this travelling produce show that I truly began to appreciate the differences between us and the tourists. And it did highlight the reality that they had privilege, as a result of money, and I had a job as a result of that same money. Some have said the tourism industry has always set about a master-servant relationship between the so called “them and us,” scenario. Historically speaking, there’s not much I can do, to smooth what has manifested here, in many quarters, since the 1870's onward. The tourism industry has allowed us to survive as a regional economy, at a time when agriculture couldn’t sustain us, and the lumber industry went boom-bust. Manufacturing was successful, for a time, but not a long-time. The industry that has survived, is the one we often see as oppressive......keeping our shoulder to the grindstone at the best times of the year, just to make “their” stay pleasant. Some families have been serving the tourist and cottager clientele, for four to five generations. Can it be that bad then, to embrace the seasonal economy.

Muskoka movers and shakers, back in the mid 1970's, and 1980's, began to believe, as if the result of an oft-chanted new mantra, that the district economy could and would diversify. That by encouraging new industry and development to the region, we could, once and for all, prove the one-trick pony thing was a trait of the past. As a reporter on the municipal beat, and later editor, I sensed that council hubris was bulging like an inner tube out of its tire. It seemed a matter of some importance, to start diversifying the economy for the future. It wasn’t a new idea but there seemed a good quantity of interest, developing pods for stability, such that if, one day, the tourism industry was to collapse, Muskoka would simply put the weight of economy on other industries.

It was a necessary management situation and I don’t blame government representatives for seeking out alternatives, at a time when it seemed a priority. The problem, and it still affects us today, is that in the process of diversifying, and opening our collective arms to development investment, we had also initiated a lengthy period of neglect. Our number one industry, by far, and proven by statistics gathered, was becoming a lesser concern. It was as if local politicians had decided to put tourism in its place, as an equal economic partner to all else. Instead of booming, expansive industry, we got retail and residential development. To say that we were over-retailed in Muskoka is a giant under-statement. What was supposed to be a thriving manufacturing sector didn’t measure up to the grand plan. So on one hand, while we were buying magic beans to grow a self-supporting empire of manufacturing, we turned, in large part, away from tending the garden that had always been fertile and productive. That’s not to say there weren’t economic slow-downs for the entire industry, based on global events and financial depression.

For well more than a decade, at a critical period of “finding ourselves,” we didn’t focus on our number one economic stimulus. Which meant that when we should have been building new tourist accommodations, and recreational opportunities, to suit all walks of visitors, and the second home owners (cottagers), the end-all instead was to prove by advancements otherwise, that we were no longer totally dependent on the tourist industry. It was a hiatus we couldn’t afford and we’re still playing catch-up all these years later. Every now and again I hear the same mantra, from a township council, about a new mission of diversification. There’s nothing wrong with diversification aimed at improving the future economy....just not when it means disregarding the health and welfare of what is actually sustaining our present economy.

As retail plazas and strip malls seemed a great enhancement to the local economy, constructing new hotel / motel units wasn’t a priority at all. While it’s true that there was a lot of controversy at this time, about massive lakefront developments, there would have been little public objection to the construction of smaller, affordable motels, to improve the dynamic of tourist economy generally. Even today, in this supposedly enlightened new era, we’re still not paying as much attention to tourism, as we should, especially in regard to affordable accommodation, especially for day travellers, families on the go, with limited budgets. We’re certainly improving but we need more places to roost for a day, a week or longer.

The problem, for a time, was the very narrow view of what tourism represented. There were few if any district wide examinations, about what industries within the industry could be developed. Local governments, like many before them, didn’t know as much about the tourism and cottage industry as they should have, and counted way too much on what they believed was new de-centralized manufacturing. Manufacturers who would agree to locate in a small town as a result of tax and property incentives, only to close up a tad later, as efficiencies were commanded by lesser budgets, and more centralized association with related industry.

If they had intimately known the tourism industry, as many of us have experienced for generations, then it would have been more clearly understood, that there’s more to this economy than any generalization or overview could simply reveal. Tourism has always been understood in general terms, except if you were employed directly or indirectly by it.....and you realized the industry had a bulging dynamic being ignored. You can call it tourism, and imply there are many resources to harvest from the same tree, but it’s another thing entirely, to appreciate each spin-off relationship, large or small, that now keeps us more fiscally dynamic, even in the traditional shoulder seasons. But these small diversifications have been drawn out by business-interest gold-miners, creative thinkers, and the never-say-never attitude of industry insiders, to more fully understand the true dimension of the behemoth tourism sector. Unafraid of tapping into lucrative pockets of potential income, in an industry with a huge history in our district. Moreso than the ambition and sensibility one finds of political enlightenment and administrative will......which still persists to quest for the elusive investment of unrelated industry, seen as an almost desired unshackling from the old ways of doing business here. Most often at the expense of Muskoka’s primary economic mover and shaker......which still has enormous untapped potential to offer our region, for the next 100 years. If nurtured with the same intensity.......as the time and effort spent otherwise, to build a manufacturing sector city-scape that doesn’t suit the environs.

While Suzanne and I had many moments, as youngsters, when we thought ourselves disadvantaged, simply because we couldn’t chum around with our buddies all the live long day, today we feel fortunate to have had this opportunity. Just as our boys now realize that tourism is a daily reality.....not confined to two to four months each year. If you were to discuss the pros and cons of the tourism industry, with their regular hometown customers, you’d find that a majority still count the traditional tourist economy as part of their annual income potential.

We have a healthy, expanding, 12 month tourism period now, in this exciting new century, and we should be looking at many more ways, to make it function better. We are the stewards of one of the most beautiful places on earth. Keeping paradise is good for business. So to the city builders, I continue to harp, our tourism industry will not be improved by urban sprawl. It will be nurtured and improved by its conserved and healthy hinterland. Those delusional folks who believe that tourists, and cottage owners, flock here for the same urban landscape..... of what they can enjoy or loathe in their respective home regions, have perpetrated a binge of destruction that has caused more harm than advantage to the industry as a whole. Each year the retail cull takes more of what we simply didn’t need....but got anyway. While we have loads of retail opportunities, we don’t have the accommodations even yet, to truly make this area visitor-friendly and affordable for short and long stays for the general population of potential travellers. Box stores? I’ve never met a tourist yet, in many years of interaction, who told me “I came to Muskoka just to shop,” as a destination. While shopping, especially at some special events planned for the industry, has always been a part of the experience, it isn’t that remarkable to overshadow the attributes of the lakeland as a primary draw.

Suzanne and I, and the boys, for the most part, have celebrated our holidays in Muskoka. We adore our region throughout the year, and find very few temptations elsewhere, that could be as wonderful as lounging at this place.....looking out upon this beautiful winterscape, on a cozy hiatus from a winter walk.....settled comfortably by this crackling cedar fire. Maybe it’s true that being denied free time to explore Muskoka, more fully, as young adults, made us jealous about what we were missing. We’re catching up now, on what was missed before.

I think this new recognition of our region, is as much inspired by the tourism industry, as by anything else. Knowing how badly our admirers want to get back to Muskoka, can’t help, over a lifetime, to influence us hometowners, to appreciate more fully, the attraction from the inside out. We don’t have to travel hours, or deal with jammed traffic arteries to get here. We rise to it every morning, and it is magnificent.

Those who know our commitment to Muskoka, will tell you the Curries are loyalists to the region, and winter, summer, spring, or fall, they will vacation where they feel most inspired, most connected to nature, and most relaxed. We don’t criticize those who don’t share our passion, or only part of it, and who need a Mexico or South Seas vacation to renew their lives. But excuse us if we chortle, a wee bit, on our own, when we see that another snowstorm has closed an airport, at vacation time, or that a group of funseekers has been stranded by the collapse of their travel agency or cruise line. When I see lines of traffic backed up, on Highway 11 and 400, in the suffocating heat, and think about the angst to get to a destination, well, we both think about how lucky we are to live in a tourist economy.......a win, win situation in a place we simply call, our home.

Live in Muskoka? Try a vacation here! Truly the best of both worlds!

FEET AND NOSE FROZEN - REMINDS ME OF MY YOUTH

Chilled to the core of my old creaking bones, I’ve just now arrived in the safe haven of a cheerfully bright and warm Birch Hollow.....and while the thermometer tells me with a wink of an oldtimer’s reflection, that it’s only minus fifteen, it has all of a sudden given me a flash of reminiscence. In my middle fifties now, I’m told by my senior cronies that it’s all right to have flashbacks and this teeter-totter of mid-life crazy.......and it’s not the preamble to a stroke or sudden senility. You tell me? If this blog reads a tad nuts, I’m okay; if it makes sense, geez maybe I am in trouble. I’ve often worked in opposites, or so I’m told by my editors over the decades.

It’s been almost a year since my father passed away. A year before he died I wrote a little tribute to Ed, about his unfailing determination to get me to my minor hockey games back in the early 1960's. It was a hit and miss situation from the get-go because nothing in my Burlington days, was within easy walking distance for an eight year old. And our car, a vintage “hit and mostly miss” Austin, was a lover of warm climes, and on so many occasions, wouldn’t start without a push or a boost. Our family didn’t have a lot of money, so paying for a tow-truck was out of the question, and most people we knew hated to see my dad coming through the snowflurries of a January morning......with that look in his eyes of anger, frustration and yet resignation the day wasn’t going to get much better. “Could you give me a boost Fred?” he’d ask. Fred was just one of a dozen names spoken on those occasions of battery failure.

When we did get going, it was usually to the outdoor Kiwanis Rink, and it was bloody cold out there at about 4:00 a.m., in mid-January, the only time our young team could get ice on weekends, in the crammed city league. Poor Ed was frozen and tired before he got to work that day....and all the other days he hauled his goaltender son to and from the rinks. When we moved to Bracebridge, in the winter of 1966, playing hockey was much different, as we had a marvelous old time arena and a modestly chilled playing surface. We also got to play, in what seemed to our family, as prime arena time, coming after eight in the morning on Saturdays. That was, of course, for the practices and the home games. Ed then had to deliver me, and a few team-mates to natural ice arenas, in Port Carling, Bala, MacTier and Baysville. It was a painfully cold experience as I remember, and a lot harsher than today’s minus fifteen.

The car heater seldom worked. Ed had to clean the windshield with a scraper every few miles, our feet would be frozen long before we made it to the rural arenas, and even then, with the exception of a heated lounge and dressing room, the dominating condition was cold and colder. I thought I was one of the first goaltenders ever to have my mask break a puck in two but I later found out this was pretty common on natural ice rinks. True enough. We had pucks break after that, just hitting the boards. I can remember being the back-up goalie on twenty below nights, and crying because of the pain in my toes. Of course, as the coach barked at me, “Currie, stop complaining,” and as I found out at intermission, warming frozen toes is twice as painful as having them nearly frozen. It was quite a scene at the end of the game, having won on the scoreboard but crying with pain in the dressing room, as the red hot stovepipe brought back circulation. Some kids actually burned themselves, putting their frozen toes right on the metal pipe, only to have part of their skin remain when yanked violently back when thawing commenced. Those old stove pipes branded a lot of hockey players back then, as the dressing rooms were not much more than bedroom size, for fifteen to eighteen kids and equipment.

The real crying came on the way home again, when frozen and thawed toes were frozen all over again, and by the time we hit the town limits, the heater had come on for a tad and provided a third thaw in the same night. My dad’s feet were frozen too, as he never seemed to have appropriately warm footwear even up to his last days. He was a tough guy but I know he suffered a lot, taking me to those games in colder than cold arenas. I never heard him complain about personal discomfort, just a few choice cusses when the car wouldn’t start, especially for the trip home. He hated to be late for work.

I don’t know whether he thought I had the right stuff to make the National Hockey League. My parents didn’t push me into hockey and I know they always had a hard time paying for the season’s registration in those days. They could get vocal and a tad critical of my play, especially if I let one of those long drifting slapshots in, that I should have stopped easily. By and large they weren’t crazy parent-fans, and they never approached the coach to beg more ice time for their special child. I appreciated that then, and now, because some parents made fools of themselves, and embarrassed the heck out of the kids, with their in-stand tirades. Ed just sipped at his hot coffee and talked with other fans about pro hockey, how he used to be a rink rat at Maple Leaf Gardens when Connie Smythe was the king of the city, and the big stars of the past he used to drink with at a local watering hole.

It’s funny how one moment, you’re shivering while the dog has its morning constitutional, and something strange, like a childhood recollection of frozen toes, will all of a sudden become the all encompassing state of the union. I could close my eyes and see it all, as if I was at that very moment getting ready to step onto the ice for a minor hockey game, in a tin ceiling arena, which was often said to be colder inside than out. While I didn’t haul a thermometer around with me, I’m pretty sure that analysis was true. God bless the fans who stood out along those rickety boards to support us. Ed watched from the crowded viewing area, in the lobby, having a cigarette or a dozen, running out to start the car every half hour or so, to get a head start on emergency planning before the final buzzer. We usually had two to four players in each car, and it added a more serious responsibility to the task. Ed and I had been stuck all over God’s half acre, and survived to tell the story. But he sure as heck didn’t want to have parents worrying at home, that there had been an accident on the highway. For all those years of minor hockey, Ed didn’t have much time to enjoy the game. I grew up knowing the importance of having plans “B” through “Z”, to employ when the first plan failed as we expected it to.....but never missing a beat to seek the alternative and the one after that. We had a lot of fun out there. But our cars sucked!

The saddest time for Ed was when our car wouldn’t start at home, in Burlington, and by time we called for another ride, everyone had already headed out. In this pre cell phone dark age, there was no other option, considering we didn’t have any loose coins for a taxi. He was always devastated when his backup plan failed. Trundling my equipment back up the stairs was far more of a let-down for him than me......I could stay home watching the Saturday morning funnies while he had to drive for an hour to work, thinking about the way he’d let his son down. I suppose in retrospect, I milked it a little, and on most occasions, he’d leave a few dollars behind so that I could at least buy some hockey cards at the variety store. What I didn’t realize was that he was giving up his lunch money but he didn’t want me to be totally disappointed with the day I’d looked forward to all week.

I have written a number of pieces about my old hockey days, and dear old dad, and it’s funny now to think back on those years, and ponder if he really did think I was N.H.L. bound. As a matter of some irony, many years later, my boss at the time, Roger Crozier, a great former netminder of the Detroit Red Wings.....working then for the American Bank, MBNA, told me that I was considered the next Bracebridge kid to get a shot at the big leagues. We’d been talking, during breakfast, one morning in Wilmington, Delaware, that one of the reasons I’d been given a free week at his Red Wing Hockey School, (late 1960's) in Bracebridge, was due to the reports from my coaches that my future looked pretty bright, if I could change some of my bad habits. I still have a few of those but I’m no longer a goaltender. I remember coming home to Muskoka, and meeting up with my dad, and being so happy to relay the news........that I had been actually considered professional material way back when. He just smiled and said, “Ted, a lot of people thought you had what it required to go on in hockey......coaches, managers, fans. There was only one who disagreed.” “Who was that, Ed,” miffed by anyone then, on this new information, who wouldn’t have seen all my prowess budding forth. “You,” he answered. “You decided to play hockey because you enjoyed it.....not because you had your heart set on a professional career. We wouldn’t have changed a thing. You loved hockey. Pushing would only have frustrated you.....and ruined the fun you were having otherwise.”

When I asked Roger, one day a few months later, whether he would like to be best recognized and remembered, in a biography I was working on, as either an all star hockey player, or as a banker, as he was in the period before his death in the mid-1990's, he responded without any hesitation..... “I’d like to be known as a banker, Ted!” I though this was pretty profound coming from a former professional hockey star, who had achieved acclaim at every level of his minor and junior hockey, up to and including milestones with the Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres and the Washington Capitals. “It was a job,” he said. He often said that he enjoyed the game when it was over, not during. For me then, I think I made the right decision. My first choice of professions was to join the media, of which I’m still a member, and as an antique collector /dealer, an adventure that has run parallel to writing for well more than thirty years.

I owe Ed a lot. He understood me even though I would have argued the opposite. While I think he might have liked to have a pro player as a son, he seemed to like telling folks his offspring was editor of the local newspaper. I hope this was the case. But regardless, I do very much credit his patience and determination with giving me a damn fine childhood.....even though frozen toes are the most poignant memories at this moment of thawing.

BACK TO WORK ON ADA FLORENCE KINTON - DEDICATED TO THE GRAVENHURST SALVATION ARMY FOOD BANK FOR 2011

It used to be I would write at least a dozen feature articles each week, during the winter hiatus of The Muskoka Sun. I’d start working on the summer’s editorial copy in early December for Sun Editor Robert Boyer, and finish up by the end of March, at the latest, with all the backbone copy for about 25 or so issues, stretching from early May to the Christmas special edition. I was a Mr. Mom then, and I wrote for quite a number of years with Mr. Dress-up, The Polka Dot Door, Mr. Rogers, Fred Penner, The Elephant Show and sundry other kiddy shows as a background buzz amidst playtime rock ‘n roll. Coming from a crazy newsroom at the old Herald-Gazette, where reporters threw sandwiches, cookies and wadded paper at each other, out of frustration and in between interviews, and when practical jokes and liquid lunches kept us from going bonkers, opting to be a feature editor, working at home, was the largest contrast I could have handled, short of piloting the space shuttle. My boys were wild until the real, “ number one mom” came home, from her teaching job at Bracebridge High School. She’s now at Gravenhurst High School. Bob Boyer got used to peanut butter and jam smudges on the copy, and occasional bite evidence, if Robert happened to get a hold of the file folder off my desk. He seemed to teethe twice as long as Andrew. He liked dictionaries especially. He’s a hell of a good speller today. Keeps me on my toes as ex-officio editor.

Today I’m left to my own devices. I’m haunted here in this hollow old homestead, to write away the day, but strangely, and pathetically I have kids’ programs playing throughout the morning for old time’s sake. I got so used to the din of a newsroom and then kids at play, that when everyone moved on with their own work and lives, well, I fumbled for that comfortable commonplace to give me peace of mind at the keyboard. While it’s been quite a few years since I was working the Mr. Mom shift, here at Birch Hollow, I’m still the at-home gopher, and have happily served as the boy’s roadie for their music business gigs. They’ve somewhat revitalized my position, and frankly it’s neat, getting driving jobs now and again that pull me away from the “huge calm” that is our home.

When I first started working on the biography of Ada Florence Kinton, I was still holding the fort while the boys, then at school, and tending lunch requirements for wee Robert (now about six feet of humanity), who didn’t like the cafeteria protocol, preferring instead dining at home and sometimes enjoying dad’s legendary “egg drop soup.” So the first real foray into this wonderful woman’s (Ada Kinton) life and times, was done while still working as the stay-at-home parent. Since then I’ve had at least three series published on Ada, in a variety of publications including The Muskoka Sun. “Are you doing a series on Ada Kinton again dad,” asked Robert the other day, when he spotted the re-used file folder that had his nibble marks along the edge, from early forays into my office during teething experimentation. Of course, in my intrusive profession, I never worked on a feature series that the content and its frustrations didn’t vent out onto the rest of the Birch Hollow inmates. My family has always been intimate with my work......and I’ve always used them to critique my ideas and finished copy. I’m pretty sure the lads didn’t know what the hell I was reading them, for approval, but they smiled, nodded their heads, then commenced beating each other up over ownership issues for the lego bits and pieces covering God’s half acre.

I’m not a computer person and even when the first MDT terminals arrived at the Herald-Gazette, replacing our trusted old Underwoods, the service technicians simply couldn’t explain to our frazzled publisher, how I was able to disable them by just daily, routine typing. Well, I never told them about the several coffees that got dumped into the keyboard, that I was able to dry-up before the servicing staff was again dispatched to our news headquarters. When I’d lose copy moments before deadline, the only relief from tossing the bastard out the window, was a hiatus at the Bracebridge Albion, where reporters gathered to roast their respective publishers.....and MDT repair staff. So in this new reality, new era of authordom, I just gave up trying to be anything more than a writer with a basic, detachable keyboard, who has the services of a computer technician.....Robert, who will arrive home soon, and help me post this blog online. I suppose it might be said that I’ve remained true to my profession, as I began it back in the late 1970's.......following the lead of local writing legend Paul Rimstead, (hard writing, harder living) tapping musically at a modern day typewriter that coincidentally has a lit television screen instead of a white sheet of paper.....which I adored as writer’s craft! Back in my early reporter days, some wise guy fashioned an old fedora with a white card tucked into the front band that let everyone know I represented the “PRESS.” “Where’s the fire, Scoop,” they’d yell out. Needless to say it was a gag gift and like most of those, it wound up in a drawer until I had to clean it out when I accepted a new posting with the competition. It’s still around here some place. I only wear it when I want attention from my always busy, on the fly, family.

I have slowed down a wee bit in my elder statesman years, and it’s going to take a lot longer than a week to write the eleven feature columns I’m preparing for “Curious: The Tourist Guide,” the nifty little monthly publication I write for these days. I will need to get Robert’s help to get it all edited, filed, re-filed, revised and finally sent off for publication. He’s been my right hand for many years now, and I’ve told him that he will inherit my reporter’s fedora when I’m gone, and of course my Herald-Gazette Rink Rat hockey sweater, the one that Toronto Sun columnist Paul Rimstead wore, and got stuck in, the night our media hockey team played the CKVR No-Stars at the Bracebridge Arena. What a treasure. It took about a half hour to get the sweater off Rimmer, and that called for a beverage. As additional payment for Robert’s computer assistance, I said I’d even throw in my honorary “Flying Father” hockey club membership certificate, I got from Father Les Costello quite a few years back now, during another fundraising game in Bracebridge. I still have the shaft of the stick Doug Orr (Bobby’s dad) broke-off, with a wicked pass, when I played on his line during another charity game up in Parry Sound. Rob’s a sucker for hockey memorabilia. He’s ticked off that I gave an original Detroit Red Wings jersey, from the 1960's, to Andrew.....payment for another favor in benefit of a cash-strapped father with a lot of memorabilia from my media days to trade for favors.

The story of Ada Florence Kinton is one of my favorites, and this time I have prepared the series as well, to be submitted to the archives of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the National Art Gallery, for future researchers interested in her art and art instruction in Canada, during the late 1800's. Her work with the Salvation Army, and editorial submissions, including drawings to the “War Cry,” are also to be highlighted in this eleven part continuation of parts one and two which began in November and December 2010. They have already been published on this blog-site, as will the coming columns, when completed, which will conclude in December 2011. Of course this all depends on the good humor of my associate, Robert, a good son!

I think Ada would approve very much, of dedicating this series, in support of the Gravenhurst Food Bank, operated so kindly by the Salvation Army. As a worker on the Salvation Army’s behalf, she tended the poor and destitute on the streets of Toronto, and there are many inspiring stories about the lives she helped during her many years of service.......a service which in the end brought about her own sickness and premature death. My wife and I often visit her gravesite in a quiet alcove of a Huntsville cemetery, and thank her for a life well spent. She’s been a part of our family that’s for sure. Hope you will stay tuned for the February column coming soon.

Hope your new year is starting off as well as ours! Cheers.

YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND FOR THE REST OF TIME

This morning I stood for a moment, or possibly two, outside the post office building, gauging the mood of the day. My breath steamed into the air and my finger-tips started to tingle despite the fact I had my mitts comfortably appointed. A cold, damp start to the day but by the legends of Canadian winters, a gentle one in a more than obliging season so far.

I was pondering, for that moment or two, out there on that well known crossroads, at Bay and Muskoka Road, all the history and change that has turned this way or that, since those early days of winding cartways through the woodlands. While it is an inevitable fact of existence..... that time waits for no man, and change, often profound, is anticipated although not always welcome, we like to anchor ourselves in the common-place of the present. There’s certainly a desire, amongst some of us mortals, to find a secure place, away from the risks of fire and storm, unfortunate events and general misadventure, which have etched and shaped our town in the past, and as within the photographer’s frame, they might well choose to remain......if they could.

When I look out onto this street scene, on this beautiful winter morning, I see a bustling, thriving, ambitious community that continues to hum along despite all the dire predictions, and all the naysayers, who fear too much and live too cautiously. I can dress this same town scene in the garb and backdrops of early 1900, or a similar day in the mid 1930's, a January Tuesday from 1963, or 1972, and find the identifiers that characterize Gravenhurst in full regalia. I can take these trundling pedestrians and cloak them in period dress, from top hats to peak caps, Hudsons Bay and Bird’s Woolen Mill coats, to Victorian finery, bustles to bonnets, fur muffs to heavy woolen mitts. Of course there are still today some pretty interesting, trans-history outfits being worn. It’s a Muskoka winter and that trumps all other considerations. One must dress to survive. One must also trundle with ambition from place to place, just as it has always been, and will carry on, as if history does surely repeat.

When we must carry on our task of living, we do so with the profound knowledge of world events. Although we are quite a distance removed from the recent shooting spree in Tucson, Arizona, we are affected by its frightening reality. We don’t have memorials set up in town, to show our deepest sympathy for our American friends, yet we all realize life’s frailties and the potential for disastrous events even within our community. How did our townsfolk react when they heard about the assassination of President Kennedy? What was being talked about when citizens first laid eyes on a parade of German Prisoners of War, marching toward this same crossroads, during the early years of the Second World War? What was the banter when readers consumed the headlines that the Stockmarket had crashed, commencing the Great Depression? How did the citizens rebound from the great fire that destroyed much of the main street architecture? How have we dealt with tragic demise of friends and community leaders, accidents and terrible occurrences that have challenged the will to carry on?

Standing out on this cold but storied cross roads, you can find the answer by simply looking about, and realizing that time waits for no one, and profound change isn’t always scheduled or predicted but is always accepted, no matter how unwillingly or unhappily. What I see, as the historian, is what we all know happens day to day in this mortal coil. While from this corner the watcher has seen a lot, and looked up and down the streets over many decades, the changes seem so much more minute and tidy than they have been in fact. It’s a citizenry that has moved on and on and on, as is the expectation of daily life. It’s only when we dwell on those snapshots the photographer dutifully provided, to capture the moment, that some feel that change has been rigorous and unforgiving.......as one ponders in the mirror day after day, first as a child wishing to age, then in elder years, feeling that the aging process has gone too far and been unkind to hair and skin.

For every historian who stands at this same crossroads, in all the decades from now to then, my presumption is that they will all be able to accommodate the rebirth, aging, and renewal with a sense of progress as it has always been......and look out upon the busy citizenry as the commonplace of community, living in their own history, and the history that makes up the provenance of this crossroads;......to be an eager witness to all the change from pioneer trail to major highway link, through economic prosperity, conflict and protest, fire and storm, winter, summer, spring and fall, to do it all again.....that as we might all pause and feel regret about the misfortune being faced by other communities and countries, we have work to do......and time is ticking.

At this same crossroads, in any given day, the watcher may see a hearse pass with a motorcade of mourners, or see a group of youngsters, hand in hand, walking with a teacher on a wee school outing. There may arrive, at this corner, two contemporaries who trade political rhetoric about the upcoming provincial election....or who ask of one another how respective families are doing. There will be discussions of the weather, future travels, interesting anecdotes and good humor. Over a day, the voyeur could compose a curious little chapter of all the history made that day, on one corner in a good old town......just as it has been since those first settlers opted to make this place look, feel and function like home.

When you appreciate that in the time it has taken to read this, your own history has been notched, a tad, and that the past is only ever a tick of the second hand from being old news,.... it should then be as natural, to look upon the work of the historian as never-ending, impossible to gather entirely, and ridiculously entertaining most of the time.

As an add-on to the previous blog, written January 10th, this is just a cap on the assessment that we all need to recognize the inherent value of our mortal legacy......that defines for me that willpower and passion built our community from a far more adverse condition, than what we face today, in the bid to revitalize......and that it is all possible, when we cherish what we do possess, to make it so much better.

Believe it or not, we historians don’t dwell in the past. We are very contemporary and quite aware of our ever-changing surroundings, and the trends weighing upon it. Our greatest chagrin, if there is one thing in particular we can agree on, is being ignored, and dismissed as having nothing worthwhile to offer. I’ve never met an historian yet, who wasn’t ready to participate, when required, to educate the willing, about the precedents of the past. We can’t promise that our involvement in current affairs will make for a better or more prosperous community economy but we might be able to offer the security and insight, a foundation in fact, that we will survive against the elements, the etchings and jostling of time and aging, to remain as a community.....as a home town. This in spite of the grumbling and predictions by the naysayers that the sky is falling.

HISTORIANS CAN BEFUDDLE THEMSELVES LOOKING TO THE PAST FOR ANSWERS

I don’t regret having had a strong background in history. I sometimes wonder however, if I’ve spent too much time mired in historical pursuits, and research, for my own good. Friends and associates of mine, get frustrated by precedent-citing and event-retelling as a matter of general conversation. As I’ve written about before, historians don’t get invited out much. My boys are hobby music historians but they’re having too much fun to think about the consequences of one-upmanship at social engagements. They have more of a gathering huddled around them, reminiscing about my era of music, than I’d have talking to the same group about attending the actual concerts being discussed. Which proves that my repertoire of stories is told with much less enthusiasm for some reason. Those concerts were just things to do......to fill the void between hockey and school. To my boys, they must have been legendary events, according to the enthusiasm they place upon them......as junior historians speaking to their contemporaries.

History is one of those areas of interest that has led, as well, to a lifetime of antique hunting, which of course has spun-off wildly, and thoroughly, totally influencing my wife and sons.....to my own likeness. Now that’s a scary assessment! Although we have different interests in old stuff generally, they have built lives that feed-off history. For Andrew and Robert it has meant a full immersion in music. The fact their great-grandfather was a violinist when not building homes, and their kin on the other side, were homestead guitarists with considerable talent, is of course part of the equation but certainly only a minor influence, on budding careers in the music industry. The fact I toured with a school band in England, back in 1974, isn’t mentioned......so don’t ask. It seems playing a (brass) baritone wasn’t cool back then or now.

The fact that our whole family lives day-in and day-out in respective museums of our desired composition, with a print archives at our beck and call, does rank us amongst the curious and otherwise strange of civilization. For the most part, we don’t really think about it.....we just live it day to day, until for some reason an issue or project pops up unexpectedly that tickles our fancy to get involved. What we get involved in usually touches, in some way, on a point(s) of heritage. We don’t jump on bandwagons as a rule, because we’ve had our share of unfortunate and unceremonious dismounts, when things didn’t work out the way we had supposed. We aren’t historical purists by any means but we are sticklers none the less!

We tend to see the patina of history even when there’s nothing tangible in sight, other than a visualization of what we might like to see. I can look down the main street of Gravenhurst and rekindle images of an entire community history, and imagine what it may look like in the future. When someone asks me what I’m daydreaming about, heck, a modest explanation simply wouldn’t do. When I hear a lot of criticism about the town, and the main street commercial artery, I can’t help wonder if there was as much negative banter in 1929-30 as there is today, or whether it was a lesser issue in 1914 to 1918, or from 1940 to 1945, during the war years. What was the talk on the main street then? How did merchants get along with each other in those years.....what about in the Victorian years when a South Muskoka village had grown into a town, showing so much promise? Whether there were as many philosophical debates about the local economy or politics back then or not, I see it all as a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme. I think this town is on the verge of a great revival, and no matter how many disagreements I might have with local policy makers, and business movers-and-shakers, I return to the reality that history has shown there has been a lot of talent and ingenuity in this town, just as there is now. And while it’s true we can trip-up on negativity, it’s not to suggest critical assessment is a wasted exercise. It’s the constructive aspect of the critical approach to anything however, that is most beneficial to the history of us all. It’s the hammering together of ideas and objectives. We have run into a strange hiatus however, that at times seems as if we are precariously balanced, on a sort of pinnacle of time, with a nervous feeling of doom that no matter which way we teeter down, toward one direction or another, it won’t be the result of us leaning to that side as a preference. I suppose it’s a case of pre-dooming us to fail. This of course is more of a twinge of expectation about the trials and tribulations of this new-reality economy, than prevailing fact. Whatever strategies allowed us to survive through many other gloomy decades of lesser economy, has a practicality to the present......and an adaptability for the future. If we survived then, we shall survive now. Prosperity is pretty much at our discretion, and of our creation, but will it ever make us the proud and fulfilled community we should be after all these trials yet successes?

Frequently, this historical comparison stuff does get our family into hot water......because we are either ridiculously optimistic, or painfully naive, that a knowledge of history and its precedents will always adjust the balance of things to come. And be gratefully received by others. We most recently had a couple of ideas we wanted to share with a local group, planning a major event. It was a well thought-out, thoroughly critiqued, and bashed about mercilessly, for hours and hours...... to rid it of anything remotely frivolous before we made a presentation. When we heard back from our friends, our idea, awkwardly stuck in the fatty tissue of tradition and history, proved our own blind faith that history should influence the present, was more of a burden and anxiety to others, than a blessing of found prosperity.

Just because we have more than a passive relationship with history, it doesn’t mean we can see through brick walls, or have modern day solutions based on problems experienced in the past. Of course, some experts do possess this capability. What we see in our hometown, is a general distancing and disinterest in the history that put us on the map in the first place. There’s a lot more to town history than architectural landmarks. There’s a social / cultural legacy that has been obscured by a fundamental and continuing failure, to ensure the continuation of local traditions, and the preservation of characteristics that made Gravenhurst different from Bracebridge, Huntsville or any other community in the whole darn world. Some traditions have received so little political interest until frankly, for some, they’re too far gone to save......and you can’t even hear an “Oops, sorry” being uttered from town hall.

When Andrew and Robert opened-up their music business, in the former digs of the Muskoka Theatre, in Gravenhurst, they immediately began researching its history.......providing guests with running commentaries on its former use and the celebrities that used to visit......such as Stomping Tom Connors, who actually played the stage during a former Winter Carnival event. They delight meeting former patrons who used to attend the Theatre and they have enjoyed the parallels of the entertainment / music business with their own eclectic surroundings. The only thing better than running a music shop in an old theatre would be to re-open the Muskoka Theatre, as it was, because we need it! We all need to take a look at those musty old postcards and photographs of the main street from years past, and recognize clearly that if it could flourish over so many decades of world turmoil, war and Depression, it can revive with the same fortitude today.......that any historian knows existed in the citizenry, of once, as it still does today....despite the nagging feeling nothing will ever bring back the glory years. Strangely, one can surmise these same predictions were bandied about in coffee and barber shops, on the post office steps, in the corridors of town hall, and on the mainstreet a century ago, with the same concern about economic survival in the future......if things were to continue this way.

As history enthusiasts one has to be a realist first. It is of course an occupational hazard, to be overly enthusiastic about the possibilities of finding future town builders, who will revitalize and recondition, according to the will of the historical dreamer......possibly even looking at those old time archive photographs and souvenir postcards, in expectation that the past might again collide with the future, in the time-honored pursuit of winning economics.

Whenever we talk about the promotion and re-animation of old traditions in this town, we offer an opening apology.....that as historians generally, we always possess the kind of respect, whether in music or decor, neighborliness or event, business or politics, that neatly maintains one foot in yesteryear, one foot in the present. It is a profoundly silly walk into the future but we’re stalwart believers that some things never change, despite the will of the modernists......who by the way wouldn’t exist in philosophy without a history to feed from.

Some of our friends, it’s true and understandable, find us a tad obsessed. They have become unsure and somewhat afraid of our intrusion, that might set their rigid protocols awry. When we look forward to all the traditions we’d like to renew in this town, well, we recognize mistrust and suspicion might prevail. Afterall, we were originally from Bracebridge. But we also know when to walk away from projects and objectives when we sense a tricky negotiation, and simply try a different approach sometime later. Never though, at the expense of dropping a good idea, simply because a temporary obstacle presents.

For the many good musical mates, the boys have made in this town, we have dozens of future plans and aspirations, we’re itching to launch.......admittedly our failing may be, we’re faithfully committed to that old way of doing things......when a good idea had a head of steam, like an old and trustworthy locomotive that just wouldn’t quit. And there was a cow catcher on the engine for the obstacle in front.