WHAT CHARLIE WILSON TAUGHT ME ABOUT HISTORY - CHALLENGE, CHANGE AND THE CIVIL WAR

I so very much wanted to arrange a meeting between my old historian-friend Charlie Wilson, of Wilmington Delaware, and my historian-buddy, Tom Brooks, of Gravenhurst. Charlie was enthralled by the study of the American Civil War, and I often regaled him with stories about discussions I’d enjoyed with Tom Brooks, a truly dedicated and accomplished Civil War historian, living in our midst here in Gravenhurst. I hold Tom in high esteem, as both a writer and historian, and I would have loved the opportunity to sit in the middle of a conversation between these two “storied” gentleman. Now that would have been “historic” even for an historian like me! As a journalist Charlie had front line experience dealing with many breaking news events, covering a wide range of actuality, from race conflicts to large scale protests, politics and just about anything else a reporter on the beat might find front page material. In his elder statesman years he became a stalwart archivist.....and a good one. And he loved to talk about his latest research projects. I just salivated at the opportunities he was being offered, to go deeper and deeper into his state’s heritage.

Charlie and I got together as researchers, originally on a topic far from the battle for Little Round Top at Gettysburg. In fact, we were pulled together by a mutual friend / employer. It was back in the mid-1990's when I was employed with Charlie to help research a sports biography of Roger Crozier, of Bracebridge, formerly of the Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres and the Washington Capitals. I had written a small feature publication on Roger’s hockey career, back in 1994 or so, and it appealed to the folks where the former all-star goalie was working at the time. Roger invited me to participate on the larger book project. It was being promoted by MBNA, where Roger was a senior executive. Charlie, a well respected former journalist, outstanding researcher, was also put on the project from the Wilmington side. For a couple of years we corresponded three or four times each week, and after the research was completed, we still kept up our calls and emails. When Charlie did come up for a visit, we didn’t have much time to do anything but work, not enough time to pull together a decent social meeting with Tom. I thought Charlie would be a regular visitor up here. Things happen, you see. Unfortunate things that change our plans.

While we were supposed to be working on Roger’s bio, we did borrow a bit of time to talk about history, journalism and particularly the heritage of the Civil War. Suzanne and I have long been smitten by the movie “Gettysburg,” of which Tom played a re-enactment role, on the side of the South (Tom’s soldier character is actually mortally wounded twice in battle .....but that’s Hollywood.) He signed our copy of the video. I’m not an expert on the Civil War but I love listening to historians speak of the battles, and events that changed the direction of the war......and the course of history. One evening I was able to arrange for Tom to speak as part of the lecture series, at the Muskoka Lakes Museum, in Port Carling, and I can honestly say, the audience was spellbound.....learning just how many British subjects, Canadians, had enlisted in the American battle between the North and the South. I love an event, as such, when people appear to be honestly amazed by what they hear, and learn about......miles upon miles from the truth they had long believed about Canadians,......which they had wrongly assumed were only reading about the conflict from afar. Versus being hale and hardy soldiers in the great marches and charges, having participated in so many landmark battles. I’ve never run into Tom that he hasn’t engaged me in some short, meaningful discussion, that I think to myself, when we part, I need to know more. Much more. And if, like my critics argue, I am pompous and arrogant as an historian, he is so much the opposite; so much more accomplished and confident with the vast amount of information he possesses of life and lives past in that Civil War context. It is what any historian should aspire to, and be willing to dedicate to research, and understanding, for any subject of special interest.

Charlie Wilson came into my life, at a time, when I was admittedly at that proverbial crossroads. I realized that I needed to possess the enthusiasm, to invade a subject area, live it, chase it down, devour it. If, that is, I wanted to know my topic in its most intricate and dimensional sense. Not just from one angle or two but from every conceivable vantage point. I had to drop pre-conceived notions. I had to appreciate fully that my understanding of certain historical events could be drastically over-thrown by in-depth, no-holds barred research, time and education. Both Tom, without knowing it, and Charlie, who must have suspected he was actually tutoring me, with all my questions, taught me about the relevance of total immersion,...... in order to truly understand something as amazing and complicated as the battles of the Civil War. A lot of what I had done, to that point, was history by sideline reporting. I was good at pouring through the books and documents. There were so many aspects of history that had to be experienced by standing on the spot, where for example, soldiers fell by the hundreds, and rapid-fire explosions tore open the earth. Places where flags fell and were raised again, drums kept the cadence of the charge, and death and heroics were more often than not, one and the same. I had, you see, been an armchair historian to that point. These two gallant gents, who understood the battle cry, the charge, the fallen, the victors, and the victory, had very much influenced me to become involved in the history I was writing and representing.

I took projects, like the study of artist Tom Thomson, back to the lakes of Algonquin. Traversing the same waters as Thomson did, until his death in July 1917 (Canoe Lake). Hiking the same portages, fishing in the same bodies of water.....even standing on the rocks below the Tea Lake dam, to witness some of the wild splendor he’d experienced in those Algonquin years. I stood on points of land where Thomson had been known to stop and sketch, and I sat out on cold autumn nights watching the Northern Lights, just as he had sketched out in the open, being romanced, haunted by the elements he was trying to capture on his paint boards. I went to the location on the lake where his body was found, and I stood up by the memorial cairn, on Hayhurst Point, at Mowat, where he was known to paint. There was nothing written, researched, or illustrated, that could have been more poignant an experience, than being part of that Algonquin spirit, in order to understand what motivated his creativity.....what stirred his emotion. I would stay out as long as I could, during a legendary Algonquin storm, to feel the fear and trembling awe inspires, when the tumult of black clouds, gale force wind and cauldron whitecaps boiled on the lake. Lightning flashes went crashing deep into the earth.

I know Tom Brooks has stood, like Charlie Wilson did in his life, on some of the most memorable pieces of American landscape, important to the events of the Civil War. If there are such things as ghosts, then these two historians would have known them intimately, as the spirited, poetic remnants of a terrible war. And with their immense knowledge, could hear the distant thunder of a long ago battle.....see the same field strewn with the colors of two armies, the bodies of the fallen, the dead and wounded, and the great vision of catastrophe.....of a hell on earth. It was sharing their knowledge of the Civil War, and War in general, that changed my approach, my opinion, about the responsibilities of an historian to abandon arrogance and stubbornness, to respect, and learn instead from the ongoing discoveries of others.......and to never resign oneself that every shred of information has been revealed. The book must remain a work in progress.

I got a call one day, while writing at this same keyboard. It was another friend from MBNA who told me Charlie had passed away suddenly, the evening before. An important mentor was gone. The meeting I had hoped to instigate could never happen. Of this I was devastated. I wondered later, if this had been selfish of me. It was a meeting for my benefit I supposed, because of my admiration for these two military historians, and the wisdom they possessed. I do think they would have become good friends over time, even though their viewpoints and interpretations may have widely differed. While I’ve been an active Muskoka historian for more than thirty years, I know that in their company, I would have been a mere student.... but an attentive one. Appreciating now just how much I didn’t know......and how deficient I was as a result......and how fettered it made me feel, as an historian, to be so lacking in knowledge of these important world events. The Civil War was a glaring example. I was astonished at how little I knew when I first met these chaps. I was a good local historian but crappy in all places beyond. Muskoka’s history was hinged to all other histories. I had some upgrading to do!

It has taken me quite a few years to write about Charlie Wilson. He died not long after another chum / mentor of mine, Dave Brown......I adjusted to the news of his passing by writing a biography. For Charlie, suffice to say that I have been left with many fond memories. Remembrance of so many in-depth discussions about war and peace. Especially the appreciation of how keen he was to learn more, and see everything he could of life. I have known few visionaries in my life thus far but his fascination for continuous learning, with rare future-mindedness, was a characteristic I have embraced whole-heartedly..

When at times my opinions seem harsh and holier than thou, and my embrace of historic precedents and events seems staunchly entrenched, and unmovable, in respect to my mentors in this field, in reality, I am never beyond correction or re-education on any subject.....and welcome new information about any subject. I would rather embrace truth and reality, no matter how shocking and opinion re-setting, than remain perpetually fettered by ignorance. If I am particularly hard on those I have faith in, to lead and represent us, whether on a municipal council or a particular committee, it comes with good intent. The failure to embrace reality in favor of delusion, is a demon I’ve had to face many times. The way to move forward constructively is to companion with a critical approach......that commands a full appreciation of all sides of an equation, a problem, an initiative, in order to understand its true dynamic. I see this often in public life, when elected officials and civic representatives, prefer to position themselves away from uncomfortable realities, versus confronting them and making corrections based on sensible proportion. It’s the clear result from hearing what they want to hear, seeing things as they prefer, and positioning themselves in a safe zone as a means of self protection. Reality, as time, waits for no one. I’ve never known propaganda to have ever won over the rigors of truth and reality.

I wish for all those officials, who embrace status quo, to appreciate that it is impossible to find safe haven for long, from issues that will define us in the future. While the kind of change I write about, must seem dramatic and almost crazy to some, it seems to me a far greater ill, to refuse to budge when the flood of change arrives at our doorstep......as the first drops now appear.

I’ve spent a lot of time studying this town. I’ve watched a huge change in the home district since we arrived here, as a family in 1966. Some of it has been frightening. Some of it has been welcome, and a boon to the local economy. Other development has adversely changed the landscape for decades and longer. Maybe it is a battle with the future that I see, from my front-line experiences, and what I fear, is that while we should be prepared for development surge, we are still mired in petty squabbles, and fettered ridiculously by hard feelings and a long antiquated status quo.

I have studied for decades as an historian. I am my own harshest critic. I pay attention to those I believe know more, and are better informed. I am a messenger. Not a philosopher. I sometimes see our town as a future battlefield of values......economic, environmental, where there will be many future clashes about the transition of Muskoka into a new suburbia.....a trend, that to some watchers, has already had a twenty year head-start. Huge new urban stresses will challenge political, economic, and environmental will in the coming ten years. The problems of the downtown business sector will pale in comparison, to the behemoth of new investment initiatives that will be coming from the urban jungle. As I’ve written about before, there is no alternative to enlightenment. As Charles Dickens prophetically noted, the new vested interest of the expanding industrial revolution, would change the world forever......and those who opted to remain loyal to the old ways, would die out with them. Time waits for no man!

This may seem a far stretch from an opening discussion of the American Civil War, and the kindnesses bestowed this historian by two knowledgeable chaps.....but it is my own guidepost in ongoing work as a local historian......and while it is not the study of war.....it is the examination of the rigors of change upon us all, that affect our actions and re-actions; our disconnect at times with what can happen when reality is of lesser concern than a protocol respected. Reality needs to be embraced in this town before it’s too late, and an even greater wave of change is forced upon us.......

I don’t expect local politicians and committee executives, to all of a sudden embrace a local historian, and thank them for all the due diligence they’ve performed for all of these decades......the kind of work that ensures we have knowledge of how history has etched and sculpted who we are today, and the character of the town and district in which we dwell. But believe me, one of the most interesting conversations you can have, is with someone who has a passion for knowledge, and has never equated money with the ambition....... to be good at the task of respecting and representing times past. And if you ask them, well, they can predict the future.....based on their knowledge from then to now and beyond.

My lack of respect for certain outdated protocols, my bluntness, and unapologetic high regard for criticism, doesn’t make me a cuddly, “says nice things” member in good standing of any mutual admiration society. Seeing as I’m not the flattering sort, just to make others feel good with pleasant chatter, I don’t get invited to parties.....ever. I’m good with that! Yet every now and again, I will run into a kindred spirit, (also not invited to parties) who knows the allure of the unknown, and the rabid curiosity of discovery. Folks who would like to re-enact history a lot, because they feel bloody short-changed about missing such important world events.......just because they were born too late.