REINCARNATED? IT WOULD CERTAINLY EXPLAIN A LOT - THE WATCHER WHO SEES PHANTOMS ON THE MOOR

I knew as a kid, with a dusty baseball mitt under my arm, and a bat slung back against my shoulder, that I was going to have a different life than those of my contemporaries. It wasn't about sport proficiency, although I was pretty good at most sports I tried. It wasn't about success or money acquired over a lifetime. I felt differently about most things I encountered, and it became obvious, my viewpoints were most often completely opposite to what was professed, on a myriad of subjects and observations, proclaimed with great, youthful hubris by my childhood contemporaries. I didn't have the grounds or risk-interest to challenge any of them, because I realized my appreciation of the world was much, much different, and there was no way of making a sensible counterpoint when my argument was based on what I know today, was a hair's breadth away from what might be considered, dangerous dabbling in the paranormal.

I wasn't born with a particularly psychic capability. At least I don't think so! But I was always keenly aware that while my mates watched a thunderstorm pound down over our ball field, on a hot summer afternoon, I saw the fantastic within that storm, similar to what Washington Irving wrote about the phantoms that dwell within the haunted Hudson River Valley. Long before I knew much about Washington Irving, or that my hometown, Bracebridge, had been named after a book he had written, in 1822, I was a devotee to the realm of enchantments, and the "what ifs" of the world in which I dwelled.

It wasn't something you could talk about on the ball diamond, as a small cloud of dust exploded from the palm of your mitt, catching a second bass toss from the catcher, to tag a sliding runner. I already had enough wedgies to affect my walking for the rest of my life, and that was without uttering a word that wasn't macho-kid inspired. Sports in my day was wimp-free. If I took a slapshot in the throat, which as a goalie was frequent, my coaches wanted to see me bounce back to my feet, and beg for another bruise on some other body part. If I wanted to play with the other reindeer, I had to avoid, at all cost, showing my sensitive side. You wiped the blood away, tried to shake-off the deflection to the groin, and never ever allowing a tear to stain your cheek.

I was more in sync those days, with things that defied gravity than with the obvious. Like a long fly ball to centre field, or a bouncing puck on natural ice. I chose, when not pounding bodies in athletics, to allow myself to wander old dirt trails through pastures and the pine-covered paths of area forests, with a keen eye on the reality of the adventures, yet an open mind about what hobgoblin or fairy-kind might reveal itself around the next bend….., or beyond the fern hollow over the hill in front. I wasn't gay but to some readers being poetic was the same thing. It was the kind of stuff that got you an atomic wedgie, if you dared to write verse instead of a war story for english class.

I was pretty much a wandering poet before I'd ever read a single poem, or even heard of Shakespeare, Burns, Scott or Longfellow. I didn't know what a novelist did because I only read the Saturday funnies, and a few kids' books I took out, pretty much for show, from the school library. Yet I knew my expectations were more intense and burning than those of my chums, and when I studied something, beyond the surface interest, they'd chide me for "daydreaming" and "imagining things!" They were right. I couldn't really tell them I also saw and felt their auras, because, at the time, I had no idea what an aura was. I also had no intention of telling them that "say guys, did you know I had a personal audience with an angel once?" I would have been split in two let me tell you. The fact it was true (story of this is on my Muskoka and Algonquin ghost blogsite), to me, dating back to a serious childhood illness, didn't make it palatable to gents who fired 22's at pop cans over at the hunt camp, or who played tackle football without equipment. We boxed because the pain felt liberating. When we fell off our bikes and skinned our knees and elbows, these were battle wounds well earned. Nothing to cry about. They just weren't sensitive enough to believe in the earthly visitation of a guardian angel. What has been real to me, from an early age, and as clear as even the most profound memories in this old head of mine, would have only inspired ridicule of the long serving variety. I have only begun talking and writing about it in the past few years, as a sort of half-biography for my boys and their future families…..possibly with offspring sharing the semi-psychic gene. Both Andrew and Robert are practical lads who take after their mother, Suzanne's father, and mine, all who were matter-of-fact about life affairs…..and may have even been underwear pullers in their youth. Suzanne's mother and mine shared my interest in the unknown possibilities of the universe. My boys are both realists and happy to be there. Yet they were brought up to expect the unexpected….to be careful about woodland hikes and the ghosts that haunt the moor on cold October nights. When I talk about being visited, while on my sick bed, by an angel, they look at each other with some worry…….on the verge of asking, "Has dad lost the few marbles he had?"

I found a passage written by American author, Washington Irving, that made me feel so much better about the relationship I've had with the "fantastic" over a lifetime. It describes so poignantly, how I feel about the world and the universe in which we dwell as mortals. I think I may have been one of those bards of long ago, who wandered through the misty moors at dusk, looking for lost souls and answers to age-old questions. Here's a sample of how Irving qualified the dreamers and philosophers of this mortal coil:

"I am dwelling too long, perhaps, upon a threadbare subject; yet it brings with it a thousand delicious recollections of those happy days of childhood, when the imperfect knowledge I have since obtained had not yet dawned upon my mind, and when a fairy tale was true history to me. I have often been so transported by the pleasure of these recollections, as almost to wish that I had been born in the days when fictions of poetry were believed. Even now I cannot look upon these fanciful creations of ignorance and credulity, without a lurking regret that they have all passed away. The experience of my early days tells me, that they were sources of exquisite delight; and I sometimes question whether the naturalist who can dissect the flowers of the field, receives half the pleasure from contemplating them, that he did who considered them the abode of elves and fairies. I feel convinced that the true interests and solid happiness of man are promoted by the advancement of truth; yet I cannot but mourn over the pleasant errors which it has trampled down in its progress. The fauns and sylphs, the household sprite, the realms of fairy land, all vanish before the light of true philosophy; but who does not sometimes turn with distaste from the cold realities of morning, and seek to recall the sweet visions of the night."

"By wells and rills in the meadows green, " wrote poet Ben Jonson. "We nightly dance our hey-day guise, and to our fairy king and queen, we shut our moonlight minstrelsies."

I'm seriously contemplating writing children's books. Would I be welcome there? I've got a trillion fantasies stirring in the noggin. I feel almost compelled to inspire youthful imaginations with thoughts of the "fantastic," as the weight of reality is such a ponderous, life-long burden of trailing chain. Mine has always seemed so much lighter and moveable. A kid without a developed imagination is only a kid by definition of age. I can't stand the thought of a wasted imagination.

"It is thus that poetry in England has echoed back every rustic note, softened into perfect melody; it is thus that it has spread its charms over every-day life, displacing nothing, taking things as it found them, but tinting nothing with its own magical hues, until every green hill and fountain head, every fresh meadow, nay, every humble flower, is full of song and story."

I can't wait for the arrival of my grandchildren. What great countryside walks we'll have. Story time? I don't need a book to read from!

LILACS FROM THE HOMESTEAD - I LOOK FORWARD TO THEIR ARRIVAL IN BLOOM

When I was in my fledgling years as a collector, (of all things old) I cut my teeth as more of an archaeologist / collector than historian. Just as I began in trial projects as a poet and fiction writer, only to turn out as a hater of novelists. I couldn't wait to get home from university studies, during the week, to pursue some bottle digs or homestead hunting. I would often spend six to eight hours at digs throughout Muskoka, looking for artifacts but settling for old bottles of every description.

While out at these remote homesteads, and abandoned hamlets, some dating back to the late 1800's, I found a lot of inspiration from the environs. The digging work was hard and dangerous. Not only dodging the bears and wolves but you had to be careful with the contents of some of the old bottles and crocks. There was a large quantity of old chemicals, and various other forms of contamination. Poison and medicine bottles that still maintained contents. Arsenic was a popular contaminate. I always left a site in better condition than I found it, and always had permission of the property owner to sample the homestead dumpsites. But what became a life-long result of that backwoods immersion, was a particular passion for lilacs. It was the way to identify a homestead in the Muskoka hinterland. It was usual for a homestead to be adorned by lilacs, planted as a cheap and colorful way of adding to the character and civility of a rustic home and farmstead. They were easy to grow and given generously from one homestead to another. It was pioneer beautification. You can also find clumps of lilacs still growing where pioneer graves, long grown-over, were set out in simple plots. Yes, it's true. There are likely hundreds if not thousands of unmarked pioneer and First Nations burials sites across our region, that will eventually be unearthed as urban sprawl continues. I fell into one gravesite near the Muskoka River, on one outing, and the depression was rectangular and the expected measurement for a rough box. Many loggers, killed on the job, were buried by necessity, wherever it was convenient. This looked like one of those sites. This is one that didn't have a lilac planted near by, which tells me it was an impromptu burial due to accident.

Suzanne's family homestead, and cottage, in Windermere, on the shore of Lake Rosseau, were both loaded with lilacs and raspberry canes dating back to the first buildings erected on the properties. When we purchased our present home, in Gravenhurst, thinking we would be raising our family and retiring here, we brought loads of lilacs from the Stripp family properties. Later, when Norman, Suzanne's father, sold the cottage, and we knew the property was going to be redeveloped, we dug up another large number of lilacs. After Norm died and the family home was sold, we took some raspberries and lilacs to remind us of the good old days in Windermere. As there were lilacs on all Suzanne's ancestral grounds, the Shea and Veitch farmsteads in Ufford, on nearby Three Mile Lake, we couldn't have been happier, than to have our own homestead, however urban it is, adorned with the spring-blooming plants that have cheered up folks for centuries.

After about five years of bottle digging across the district, I began writing a lengthy series of feature articles for The Muskoka Sun, entitled "Homestead Chronicles," about a family, living on one of these forgotten and overgrown Muskoka acreages. The way it came about, actually, is the feeling I often had, while out on the dig……sensing that someone was watching me work. I never went out that I didn't expect to encounter a ghost or two. I was disturbing their own hallow ground. Not that I was digging up graves but just being there, and breaking open the same soil that was the means of their survival or failure as homesteaders, seemed to awaken resident spirits. As a long time dabbler in paranormal research, this was a bonus situation. I got the bottles and some ghost stories. Homestead Chronicles is about the haunting of these old countryside residences, and the lives invested trying to survive in a heavily forested, rock strewn region of Ontario. Lilacs, as I recall, factored very heavily in each chapter of the feature series. I got into a cleaning frenzy one day, several summers ago, and I recycled about a thousands pounds of old paper. Homestead Chronicles perished, in this act of recycling.

What never left me, other than the precise story-line, was the presence of lilacs. Suzanne and I had this as a common interest, when we got married, and began raising our family. We had to have lots of lilacs on our property. All winter I look forward to the wonderful blooms our ever-expanding lilacs will bring forth, in late May and early June. I can look out at them from my office, here at Birch Hollow, and they really do make a difference in appearance and in heart. I like to think our neighbors forgive our other transgressions and clutter, at this time of the year, sensing that the Curries must be a kindly bunch of traditionalists. If they have these beautiful trees, surely they are gentle and caring folks. As long as we don't talk politics or taxes. I got mad at someone the other day for some perceived protocol betrayal, and I must confess, I sat here in a minor rage, wishing to pen some nasty tome to right the wrong. I made several attempts, and on hiatus, with a typical Currie "chin resting on hands contemplation," it was this garden scene that calmed the beast within. What began as a scathing down-dressing, became a much, much lesser concern, to the point that the whole purpose of the writing jag was lost, because of the uncompromising serenity of lilacs. I'm sure then that my adversaries would like it very much if I could be bathed in lilacs throughout the year.

Today, weighed down with giant blooms, and the morning rain, they form a beautiful arch up the driveway. The perfume is amazing. Whatever bleakness the winter and spring brought in weather, even a rainy day with these lilac blooms, is restorative and invigorating to any diminished soul. They remind all of us Curries, of our ancestors, back in Ufford and Windermere, and those long-lost homesteads across the region, that inspired us to re-introduce lilacs to modern era landscaping. I think about all the grave sites still marked by those unfailing, stalwart, marker-lilacs, reminding us of those who carved out this region from the Canadian wilderness.

Suzanne's grandfather, John Shea, a former clerk in Muskoka Lakes, many decades ago, erected a small picket fence on a small, otherwise unmarked gravesite, on the Dougherty Road, in Ufford…..not far from the formal cemetery where John, and Suzanne's family is buried. He built the fence to acknowledge the deceased members of the Dougherty family, having four family members (we believe), perish in one night, from a contagious disease. The homestead was near the burial site. John felt that after many years of being unmarked, the site needed to be recognized with a border fence. What identified the burial spot then, and now, (the fence has rotted away) are the few remaining lilacs, planted shortly after the burials. There's something very comforting about lilacs, such that they were so frequently placed at graveside, as memorials to the recently deceased. As they were used to beautify rustic homesteads, they were similarly used to instill a little heaven on earth, marking the sites of family burial plots, and rural cemeteries. Many pioneer churches were also adorned with lilacs.

I could never get gloomy looking out at these beautiful lilacs. I do feel connected however, in my own unwritten version of Birch Hollow's "Homestead Chronicles." Each of these lilac stands comes from a different homestead, and were planted with the intent to bring brightness and good cheer to the pine and maple forests of yesteryear. I'm so glad we saved them for yet another generation, to appreciate their extension of history, from then to now. When I heard, last week, of the passing of an old friend, Roger Taverner, I sat in this same chair, looking out this window, down onto the lilac garden. Despite the unfortunate news, and feeling depressed about the loss of more than a few of my childhood chums, in the past few years, I have to tell you, the view from here was unfalteringly inspirational……like a spirited message from beyond, that heaven is a lot like this…..but much more bountiful. I'd like to believe this to be true…..that upon leaving this mortal coil, I will find lilacs wreathing that white light on the walk through those pearly gates.

Suzanne will occasionally wish to trim away the dead branches of our lilacs after the June blooms have fallen into the grass. I must approve each cut, and even then, I try to discourage her from what she knows is good and responsible plant care and general good gardening. I can't help but think about all those graveside and homestead lilacs, still blooming after a century of being left wild. I know this is an urban landscape and a subdivision property, and I do appreciate that the way we keep our property affects our neighbors as well. I'm just over-protective of these heirloom lilacs. My boys know to keep them safe when mom and pop are gone to their eternal reward. It's their family tree…..pretty much, living and thriving beyond the written genealogy Suzanne is so obsessed about. There's a lot of history in our garden. I'm glad to be an historian who can enjoy such an open book, as this, in glorious purple bloom. If only I could write, as powerful and enticing, as these blooms inspire in their spring-time regalia.

I still proudly show up at the kitchen door, anticipatory, with a couple of lilac blooms for Suzanne. She graciously accepts, as part of our spring time tradition, and she puts them in a vase her mother used…..to bring spring into the house……to uplift the winter-weary spirit. It worked then. It works now. If you drive by and think we are lilac-obsessed, well, you'd be right!

IT WAS OUR 70'S SHOW - AND IT WAS A LOT OF FUN

The 1970's in Bracebridge. The halcyon days when a game of road hockey, up on Liddard Street, was great, uncomplicated, uncompromised fun. We all had our love interests, reciprocal feelings or not, and by the mid decade I was dating two girls at once, and they knew about it! Apparently I was a hot item back then, in my post hippy period. Suzanne laughs at this now, staring at my paunch, lack of hair and look of a typical antique dealer / writer……boring! We had some great times in that ten year stretch of our young lives, and few complaints other than not having a date on Friday night.

Inadvertently, and with quite a shock, I heard last night about an old friend of mine, from that 1970's vintage, having passed away this week at the age of 51. Suzanne didn't know who it was but when she mentioned a few related names and a locale, I knew it was Roger Taverner, one of the old Liddard Street gang. He was one of our road hockey team-mates, a keen baseballer in our side-lot games, a capable running back on the neighborhood grid-iron, and well, just a mate. I wrote a book, a number of years ago, about my early years in Bracebridge, and I'm pretty sure Roger was featured in the front cover photograph, with friends Steve Henry, Scott Rintoul, Rod Baldwin, Randy Carswell, Roger Taverner and myself. It was a Christmas vacation and we were home from university, or just home, and we met up for what became the last game of road hockey we'd play as that old gang.

The photograph was taken on the back lane of the hospital, where we used to play when the Henry's driveway was full of cars. Most of the time, we played on their "L" shaped pavement, and adjusted our game strategy accordingly. We used to play football and baseball on the Henry's side yard, which was perfect for a mixed team of girls and guys who were playing for fun……playing for relationships I suppose. Some of the other gals who were part of that 70's gang, included dear friends like Linda Henry, Judy Gray, Nancy Crump, Marian and Linda Dawson. Rick Hillman and Ron Boyer were frequent joiners in our reindeer games. Sure we were kind of a rag-tag mix but you know, while some folks might like to re-write their personal history, or fudge their biographies to exclude some realities, I have always been so thankful to have had such interesting and kind friends back then, including Roger.

Randy Carswell, one of the most likable characters of my nostalgic Bracebridge, died a number of years ago, and it staggered his friends, many who had not known about his out-of-control diabetes. Randy loved road hockey. As he couldn't play organized hockey in the minor leagues, he put all his effort into the game he could excel. He also provided the play by play, as Foster Hewitt. He had an infectious personality and when he died, it was if the good humor in the good old hometown, just evaporated and was never truly replaced. I know it's wrong to think this but for me, it was the way I felt. It took a while, after hearing about Roger's sudden death, before I could reconcile all the sentiments embodied, in so many memories of those innocent, fun-seeking days in such good company. Roger had a kind heart and an easy-going character back then. He was always smiling, and I never once, whether he got a ball in the beak, or whacked in the shins, or flattened by a husky check, saw him show the least bit of anger or frustration. He took winning in stride, and losing was never a big deal. He liked being part of the neighborhood "happening," and we were always glad to see him running down Liddard with hockey stick in hand. We moderated each other. While this was a time of partying, as many of our contemporaries pursued morning, noon and night, our 70's gang held on to some old time values, and maybe we did look ultra conservative. We didn't care what anyone else thought about us….there was strength in numbers.

Then we grew up. We found mates. Got jobs, lost jobs, had kids, moved from dwelling to dwelling, locale to locale, endured set-backs, and suffered from excesses in one form or another, and inevitably, regrettably, we lost touch with one another. I never ran into Roger since those years, without getting a trademark smile……the same one he wore as a keen hockeyist, way back when…….and a handshake that was always validation, our friendship would never end despite the reality we didn't meet often, or live in the same neighborhood, or the same town. I think some times, when we'd accidentally meet, here or there in Muskoka, he'd suspect initially that I hadn't recognized him…..but outstretched his hand regardless. I could never have forgotten the happy kid still represented behind that bashful smile…..that the etching of his adult years couldn't diminish no matter how hard life had been, or how he had felt things could have turned out better. I only know Roger as a playing-mate from a long time ago. Our youngsters crossed paths back at Bracebridge Public School but nothing that put our families together. So it's true I don't know much about Roger at all, except, I never forget acts of kindness no matter what. That is my amalgamated memory of Roger Taverner. And it is a good one.

I have lived a writer's life. I began my profession, in earnest, at around the same time as we played that last game of road hockey, which was probably Christmas 1977. And when, after all these years, I sit in my office here, overlooking the homestead we call Birch Hollow, I know that when I commence my work for the day, I will incorporate, and call upon, all the inspiration I have gathered over a lifetime…..and although it would be difficult to find a direct correlation between the friendships of the 1970's, and today's literary ramblings, believe this old author when I tell you…..it's all there! So losing a friend is profound. I'm glad to have known Roger. I hope he knew that!

The Road To Terra Nova

THE ROAD TO TERRA NOVA BY VAN NEWELL - I DON'T DO BOOK REVIEWS

Back in my newspaper days, I refused to do advertising photographs, cover the Board of Education meetings, and write book reviews. Much

of this was based on boredom, and the fact I fall asleep quickly and awkwardly when confronted by projects I'm not interested in doing. I'd take

the book gladly, and either add it to my own library or I'd give it away to someone who would write a review. Back in those less than halcyon

days working for the advertising manager, moreso than the publisher, we were asked to write reviews of special events, theatre productions,

concerts, businesses and new books. It was assumed however, that you would never, ever write a negative review of anything or anyone that

might represent future ad revenue.
Of course there was freedom of the press. Management had the freedom to ask us to write as they pleased. As editor I was able to block

advertising from having anything to do with actual news copy, and I handed my resignation in every other week to re-inforce this aspect of our

news responsibility. The writing staff, to get around the "good times were had by all" reporting, management found preferable and ad-

generating, we got real good at burying sarcasm and hidden meaning. So instead of bestowing great honor on a business or theatre review, we'd

just out-write what management could comprehend. The inquiring public, appreciating what we were doing, applauded us for our honesty, and

the nice way of making a negative review seem so darn positive. We called it the "Paul Rimstead" approach. As our mentor, the well known

Toronto Sun columnist had a mischevious and cunning way of building in an undercurrent of opinion, that would kick someone in the arse at

the same time as editorially patting them on the back. He was a brilliant wordsmith as far as we were concerned, and we got away with it for

years.
When local author and musician, homesteader and left-over beatnik, Van Newel, asked me to edit through his latest manuscript, I told him

bluntly, from the get-go, that I would be brutally honest, so if he had a low threshold for criticism, he should find an agreeable, "I don't want to

hurt your feelings," editor, who puts kindness above all else. Being kind is an important human attribute but not in the editorial swing of things.
Well, I was only partially brutal and he was only a little bit offended at all the edit marks, which made his copy look like a Harold Town

painting, or on some pages, like Jackson Pollock spilled his whole paint can in one spot. Yet I found something admirable and worthwile in the

expense of ink.....for him and myself. His was an honest and unapologetic half-biography, of a twenty year gig on the farmstead he and his

family have called "Terra Nova," in the ballywick of Bodenville......pretty much the modern day Uffington, in east Bracebridge, Ontario. As a

non-homesteader, who always wanted to be one, I appreciate his family's way of life deep in the hinterland, and I confess to allowing Van to

live his survivor lifestyle, so I don't have to raise a single callous, or fetch even one chunk of wood for the stove. I don't have to worry about the

well going dry, the chickens having an off-month, the crops failing, the bear eating me, or the brutal winter freezing me stiff on the outhouse

pine. I will settle happily for reading and re-reading Van's country journal, while enjoying the comforts of the urban lifestlyle.
Van and I have some interesting parallels.....beginning with our earliest aspirations. We both went ot York University, we both drank hard

and lived large, we both applied to Black Creek Pioneer Village, in Toronto, (he worked there; I quit when they asked me to tote water all the

live long day). We both had degrees that in some way brushed on history and writing, and as it turns out we both had political aspirations; Van

running in the city, and I took two shots at local council in Bracebridge. We both like antiques. His are of the useful kind. Mine sit in my

collection and look pretty. Van writes about Terra Nova, and I write about Birch Hollow and The Bog. Van has a Robinson Caruso type of

lifestyle. Mine is Thoreauesque. I wish to be at Waldon Pond as long as my family brings me frequent and abundant treats, so that I can more

pleasantly survive the outdoor experience. We are both filled to over-flowing with ego-mania but show me a writer who doesn't share this trait.

And my boys, Andrew and Robert perform in his band, The Bodenville Flyers. We're both stubborn bastards and we don't like being told what

to do, when to do it, or that we should stop writing altogether because we suck. We soldier on regardless of our critics. We've got a few things

in common. We're both going to perish, as the odds-makers will tell you, frozen in time over our keyboards, looking for that last adjective or

parting statement, that will tell everyone we lived our lives to the fullest.....and wrote with every molecule of heart and soul.
When Van asked me if I'd be interested in writing the introduction to his book, I thought it would be another case of writing something cute

and positive, in order to flog product. So like the editorial hatchet-job on the manuscript, I wrote an intro that has an undertow attached, that

doesn't perpetuate any kindness to an extreme. I was able to write an honest, no-holds barred review / intro of his homesteading tome and he

agreed to it! I thought he might try to diminish it somehow by adding a footnote or something more subtle, referring to my middle age editorial

flatulence, as the reason for my mutilating criticism. When I got a copy, hot off the press, this past week, I was astonished to find that Van had

the decency to let an intro, as written, go without footnote or explanatory this or that. While admittedly he didn't take all of my suggestions for

editorial improvement, he at least adopted the most important changes.......of drawing in actuality of homesteading, his and family's many

incredible experiences, as the preamble to his little fictional entries he's well known for, having been published for years in the local press

under the familiar heading, "Off The Beaten Path."
I don't do book reviews. It doesn't mean I won't read and cast an opinion now and again, about a book I've enjoyed. Van is a good writer and

the epilogue, for me, reveals the writer I knew he was. It is well composed, and it's what I strongly suggest he embraces if there is another book

in the works. The Road to Terra Nova is both an interesting book, and an adventure story about a modern day homestead family. It is honest

and trustworthy, as any mix of fiction and fact can be, but there is no selling-here. It is not a recruitment book. You don't have to feel that by

reading it, you must join a hinterland cult. Van has a way of spinning a story that I like. And so will you.
You can get a copy of this softcover edition at Andrew Currie's Music and Collectibles, on Muskoka Road, in Gravenhurst, in the old

Muskoka Theatre building across from the Gravenhurst Opera House.
Thanks Van for allowing me this opportunity to be a part of publishing history.......I actually wrote a book review and I sort of liked it!

NEW COMPUTER COMING - I HATE IT IN ADVANCE

I am using Andrew's laptop computer this morning as we await our new desktop device, which is on the way from somewhere over the
rainbow, or so they tell me. Just when I got used to the last unit, the damn think goes up in a technological vapor, swallowing my copy without

even a satisfied burp. This morning my darling bride was to set me up on this infernal contraption, so that I could work on some backed-up

writing projects. She went off to her day job and left me with a laptop that shuts itself off. Seeing as I don't know how to start it back up again,

this is a wee bit of a problem. There are no words to describe my anger. I literally found myself staring out over the end of the earth, trying to

snatch back a few choice words to describe my chagin.......like what the cayote really, really wants to say to the roadrunner.
Now I bet you're saying, well, why doesn't the dumb-ass get trained on computer basics. It is a good point and I suppose there is no choice

now, seeing as my last Smith Corona manual was thrown out two weeks ago (I kept it as a threat to the previous computer, that if it let me

down, I would bring it out of retirement). As a writer I plan out my columns / blogs well in advance of sitting down in front of the keyboard.
This morning I had the bloody thing all prepared, paragraph by paragraph, and then the screen just grinned at me, as much to say, get lost you

jerk. So I stared at it for awhile, touched a few keys, it started to talk to me, and I eventually just left the scene of the unfortunate events, and

writing my column just seemed lustre-free.
So when Robert arrived on-site, he set me up for this short explanation, how a set-in-his-ways writer could not do any more than offer
a pathetic excuse, for not being able to work at the computer. As this is only a temporary computer arrangement, and the other unit is

apparently in the mail, I have made a pact with my numerous personalities, to try a little harder to learn computer technology......or quit writing

altogether. What a way to retire eh?
I loved those old manuals. They never betrayed me. Even without a ribbon it would leave me with an imprint. I could feel it. Now that was

the intimacy of writing the old fashion way!

.

THINKING ABOUT DAYS GONE BY - WOULD LOVE TO HAVE A COFFEE WITH ED

Last year was a blur. With my father getting sick suddenly, and passing away in January 2010, and about a dozen other situations going on in our lives, I made a promise to Ed, my mother Merle, and God. That when all the mourning and organizational (estate) stuff was resolved, I’d have a good and proper time to settle with the new reality. Our family is stalwart and flush with honesty, and we never kid ourselves about anything. As I am repelled by fiction, it’s the way I live. It’s the reason that every time I try to write a short story, or begin a full fledge novel, I quit before it ever sees the light of day. This winter I did a couple that survived to print but I wasn’t happy with the content none the less.

This morning, all of a sudden, I felt like we should be going to Ed’s for coffee, as we did at least twice a week for years. Especially when my mother had to be placed in a nursing home. Ed was pretty tough guy, and didn’t let on he was lonesome, but it was obvious to me then, we should have been spending more time together. He was an old salt, from the former North Atlantic Squadron, and he was fiercely independent. I was a baby boomer with big ideas and a university education.....and he thought I was too big for my britches. He loved our dog, Bosko, and the dog love him dearly. Ed enjoyed setting out the biscuits for Bosko’s arrival. As soon as we let him off the leash, Bosko flew through the Bass Rock Apartment complex, like a lightning flash. He put on quite a performance for Ed. It was important for him....for both of them.....and of course for me.

It’s funny now. I’ve spent a lot of time writing and pondering our relationship, over fifty odd years. We seldom agreed and vehemently disagreed with a lot of stuff.....like the economy and politics. He had been a hit and miss father when I was a kid, and it was always obvious to me he preferred a drink at the tavern with his associates, than playing ball with his needy kid. Kids should have friends their own age he’d argue. He was right. But I sure loved it when he’d come home early and strap on the ball glove for a game of catch.

I don’t get misty eyed any more, and I think Bosko has forgotten grandpa now. I’ve thought about this a lot. If I took Bosko up to the apartment just to see if he’d even wag his tail. On the night that Ed died, to the second, Bosko put his head on Suzanne’s knee and wagged his tail furiously, as if telling her he needed to go out. He didn’t. But the phone rang. Ed was gone.

This morning I’d love to have coffee with that old fart. Just to hear him argue again, would be so pleasant, rekindling our time together in this crazy mortal coil.

I apologize for this digression. I just miss my dad!

I WAS A VEGETABLE DELIVERY GUY - AND FRUIT TOO - IN MUSKOKA

This morning was so bright and fresh out, with sun-sparkling dew and a slight roll of mist wafting through the moor. It reminded me of those crazy mornings I worked for Clarke’s Produce, in Bracebridge.

Jimmy Clarke would have us report for work at 5 a.m., after a wickedly exhausting load-up at the Bracebridge depot the night before. I was a pretty husky and capable kid back then, the late sixties, but loading the fifty pound bags of potatoes was a back breaker. The potatoes came off the supply truck, driven by a tough little French Canadian guy named Gabby, and were removed on skids with an hydraulic lift. When we were re-filling the orders, it was by hand and shoulder. From onions to strawberries, turnips to sweet potatoes, Clarke’s Produce kept resort and camp kitchens, around Muskoka, supplied with fresh vegetables and whatever fruit was desired. Jimmy seemed to be able to get whatever you wanted.

He and his wife Pat, had been in the business a long, long time, and even though he was getting on in years, he was still able to swing a bag of spuds, like they were weightless, over his shoulder, before I could secure a decent grip on my load. He’d clench his stubby cigar, grunt, break wind, and with the poise of a ballet dancer, pivot, walk, pivot, run, and drop with nary a sound of impact, one potato sack upon another. It was indeed, as they say, poetry in motion in the fruit and vegetable game..

I’ve written frequently about Clarke’s Produce, because it was my first serious part-time job. I worked for a dollar an hour and as exercise it was well worth it. My baseball batting averages went way up in those years of minor ball, and my legs were primed and fat free when it was time to start regular goaltending duties for my minor hockey team. The best part of my stint in produce, was the early morning starts, especially in the late spring. Outside of the fact Jim liked to chew the end of his stinking cigar, he didn’t mind me having the window of the truck open, so I could enjoy the view.......through the blue halo of smoke that is! What I saw through that ring of blue smoke was an awakening world, so bright and sun-kissed, and begging for explorers like me to break free of the tithes that bound us. I needed the money. The adventures were in my imagination.

I’ve been writing about Muskoka for decades. This is truly where it began. I saw Muskoka from every angle, and throughout the gentlest seasons of the year. I got to visit some beautiful summer resorts, and children’s camps around the lakes, and my favorite, while outside of Muskoka, was a weekly trip to Mountain Trout House, on Kawagama, near Dorset. After we’d finished loading the order, into the kitchen storage area, and huge coolers, while Jimmy settled the necessary delivery checks with camp staff, I’d find just enough time to wander down to the dock, to gaze out at some of the most amazing scenery in the world. He’d just give me a yell, or I would hear the truck engine start, and although he threatened to leave me a couple of times, I wouldn’t have cared. It was immersion by work but the hard labor was always worth the bonus of a few moments at resorts, and camps my parents could never have afforded to stay or send me for a summer vacation. When you grow up poor, you learn to take advantage of any freebie of something you wanted. Over numerous summers, I figure with accrued time, I got to stay at least one day in total (time spent free-loading after the delivery was made), at each of these picturesque, luxurious locales.

If you’ve ever read the preamble to the book “Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” you will recall the main character’s motorcycle adventure with his son......and the description of the open road, the vista, the cool morning invigoration of the senses, such that everything seemed so much more significant and enticing.......when there is open road in front, and no particular place to go. When I read that passage, for a university humanity’s course, I couldn’t help think about those morning runs around the lake with Jimmy Clarke. I daydreamed for most of those trips, and I’d be so calm and tired from load-up, that I’d frequently wake myself up, slamming my head into the passenger side glass. Now that would get a rise from the rather stoic, unemotional Jim.

This morning, I was standing out in the front yard, studying my emerging lilacs, and enjoying the perfect temperature and bright sun........and all of a sudden, I thought about those vegetable jaunts around Muskoka, so many decades ago. I half expected old Jimmy to pull up in the driveway, at that point, God rest his soul, and wave his chewed cigar at me, with the warning; “Come on kid, or I’m going to leave you here.” I guess, in retrospect, I owe the Clarkes something, for giving me this interesting opportunity to see our region at such a spectacular time of the year. I sometimes hobble these days, on a wonky hip, when it gets particularly damp or humid, and my thumbs and wrists are sore most of the time, and creak when I pick things up. I’m not sure whether that had anything to do with fifty pound bags of potatoes, or if it was from years of goaltending or outfielding. You know what, despite what was a lot of hard work, and did I mention hot and dirty, I’d do it all again knowing what I do today. So many youngsters today, never get a chance to see the region in which they reside. Muskoka is one of the most compelling and beautiful places on the planet, and yet so many restaurant-bound kids, never get beyond the urban boundaries of our communities. This is sad. They’re missing a lot.

I would have become a writer with or without the influences of “smoking, cussing Jimmy Clarke.” It’s on a morning like this, however, that I know for fact those adventures, smelling like cigar and onions, it was a needed spark of enlightenment at the most impressionable time of my young life. I often will inadvertently think about Jim, while working on some landscape piece or other, and I always get a smile and a whiff of cigar, as if he was looking over my shoulder at the computer screen. I imagine he’d be thinking something like, “Hey kid, what do you think of Muskoka now?” Thanks for the memories Jimmy.

A WRITER’S LAMENT

I can remember the din of traffic all day and all night, in central London, and I’ve known the historic peace of a quiet nook in Robin Hood’s (Nottingham’s) Sherwood Forest. I have written in the city, on buses, trains and airplanes. I’ve written in a seaside cabin in Florida, and wrote a journal about our honeymoon in Colonial Williamsburg, in Virginia. I’ve written in a miniaturized manor house, known as “Seven Person’s Cottage,” on the shore of Lake Joseph, a cottage on Lake Muskoka, an old family homestead on Lake Rosseau, at residences ranging from a Toronto apartment, two Bracebridge apartments, and three bungalows including our present abode we call Birch Hollow. I’ve worked in busy newsrooms, and written rough drafts of crime stories while sitting in the midst of court proceedings. I’ve worked with the circumstances I find myself in......whether wild and woolly with noise, or as silent as the morning dew settling on my scraggly front lawn.

At Birch Hollow, however, I must confess to having lost some capability of working with distraction. There was a time in my life that I couldn’t write, without the din or the skirl of bagpipes coming from a partying neighbor’s home. Here it is so quiet most of the time, I have admittedly lost some of my earlier capabilities. When I write here now, the only intrusion is the one that works for me.....the chatter of birds and all natural sounds. I can no longer work with a radio on, and no matter if it’s Mozart or Pink Floyd, I started to find that the music would adversely influence, what I was trying to write. So I had to settle down here in my office with lesser distraction, now mired in my elder years.....and although I still get wildly interested in writing when there’s a storm brewing, or wind singing through the evergreens, I find these days, a purring cat on my lap one of few welcome intrusions.

I hate phone calls that halt me in the middle of a column, and when the earth movers start rumbling away, and the lawnmowers, chainsaws and leaf blowers churn up the solitude, well, I just find something else to do. I don’t ask the world or the neighborhood to conform to my work schedule, or pay any attention to this writer in residence. I will find my time to work, with the sounds of nature, sooner or later in any given day.

Here is another installment of the Ada Kinton biography, being prepared for submission to both the National Art Gallery and Art Gallery of Ontario archives, dedicated to the Gravenhurst Food Bank, operated by the Salvation Army........and yes, I did it during a most precious calm here in urban Gravenhurst. Not a chainsaw buzz within two blocks.

IN THE WORDS OF THE ARTIST - ADA FLORENCE KINTON IN MUSKOKA

By Ted Currie

A chickadee, just this moment, hit the window pane above my desk. I ran out onto the verandah, to see if it had survived the substantial bump. I cradled it in my hands for a few moments, and just when I thought it had succumbed, the wee creature opened its eyes, began to moves its wings, as if to push free of my hand, and when I put it down on a chair cushion, it soon sat upright and stared right at me. I wondered if we had met in some previous life. It was that kind of look. As suddenly as our paths had crossed, the chickadee hopped up onto the verandah railing, fluttered about for a few moments, and took off for parts unknown. I was delighted. I thought it was an appropriate way to commence this months column, on a pioneer artist in our region of Ontario.

In the early months of 1883, Ada Florence Kinton began to explore the narrow lanes and winding country paths, in and around the pioneer settlement of Huntsville, Ontario, in the northern part of the District of Muskoka. Artist, writer, and eventual mission worker, with the Salvation Army, the young Miss Kinton had come to stay with her brothers, Ed and Mackie, both Huntsville businessmen. After the death of her father, and the earlier demise of her mother, family felt it best if their sister left city life in England, for the health and healing benefits of the Canadian wilds. It took awhile before Ada Kinton found much in the way of benefits in the rugged, hardship-laden, pioneer lifestyle.

What makes her work so significant for regional and art historians, is that she made copious and highly detailed notes about what she was painting. Even without seeing her paint-boards, the written descriptions allow us the full pleasure of her creative insight. Ada never thought her journal would be published one day. Her sister, Sara Randleson, crafted the handwritten notes into book-form, in 1907, entitled “Just One Blue Bonnett,” a reference particularly to Ada’s eventual work with the Salvation Army. The artist / missionary had died several years earlier, after moving back to Huntsville to convalesce. We have to go back to a colder season to re-join her journal. The date is March 9th, 1883, Huntsville, Ontario.

“Went into Miss Godolphin’s shanty, an odd, nice little wooden house, having a certain indescribable English air. Took tea, afternoon tea, English fashion. It reminded one so delightfully of home ways. It seemed quite a change to have tiny cups of pink china that felt like egg-shell in comparison, handed to you to sip slowly, and slices of thin bread so delicate and small that they might have been petals of a flower, and baked dough biscuits just a little larger and thicker than a dollar, cut in half and buttered, and passed round on one big plate, to hold between the thumb and finger, and nibble delicately, and dear old Granma Dolphi, at the tea tray with a little brown teapot, asking if you ‘took sugar.’ It seemed so sweet and homey to me, but to Mrs. Kinton (here sister-in-law), the scraps of food seemed aggravation with her Canadian ideas of plenty.”

“March 10th. Snowing heavily. Foddie (a Kinton child) flung her head at mine and broke my glasses a little. Felt worse than a toothache. A settler’s little girl tramped in to get some goose-oil for the baby, sick with bronchitis. Goose-oil is considered very efficacious in such cases. Afternoon, went for a walk to meet Ed, returning from Burk’s Falls. Didn’t meet him and had to return on foot with the children. Boyo (another child) refused to walk and had to be carried. He looked quite picturesque, lying on his back in the snow, in his little crimson wool coat and cap, and scarlet socks, with arms and legs spread so far and wide over the land, with his eyes screwed tight and his cheeks about as red and brilliant as holly berries, causing the forest to ring again with his screams and cries.” It’s quite easy to visualize the scene, as described by Miss Kinton, as she painted with carefully chosen words. It might have compelled her to later sketch the wee lad in his bright winter contrast.

She writes, “There had been quite a heavy fall of snow and it was still coming down steadily, but the air was soft and mild, and the track well covered with nice elastic, sandy dry snow; so walking there was pretty easy. But coming back, the falling snow was just as downy and soft, and light, and warm-looking, as if it were the big blanket Ed speaks of, spread over the old earth to keep it warm - all feathery - or like an ermine mantle, and just lightly spread over every branch and shrub tree. The silence almost appalls one, and if you stand and listen, no sound but the almost silent beat of the tiny myriad flakes, as they fall with their noiseless thud on the trees around you, in a sort of faint musical tinkling, and yet not harsh enough to be a tinkle even.

“You may also hear a gentle tapping perhaps; and if you look, right steadily above, somewhere between earth and sky, among the exquisite Gothic arches, formed by the branches and slender trunks in the forest cathedral, you may hear a woodpecker tapping at the bark for ‘brekbust,’ as Foddie and Boyo say. Or you may hear the jingle of some coming sleigh bells - but that’s all on a day like this. We got home very wet and tired but thankful and hungry. Ed came in soon after, having been immersed in a vast buffalo robe in the cutter.”

The author-painter wrote the following description, on the eleventh of March. “Strong wind, snow drifting and swirling about violently. Slight fall of snow, said to be heavy and strong outside, beyond Toronto. Sat on the lounge in the buffalo robe by the stove all the afternoon, knitting my first sock. Mrs. Kinton and I gossiped steadily, and the babes ate taffy-sugar melted and poured onto a plate of snow. The new houses here look rather nice, about the colour of thick rich cream, little oblong blocks with slanting roofs with a window or two and a door. In the sunshine they get as golden as buttercups, and the pure snow gleams on the roofs. The sunrise and sunset bring out some very pretty colouring (hot buttered biscuit) among the shadows, purple violets, blues and pearly grey, or every tint and hue, but tender and vague in tone.

“The children are so pleased to see their father. He stoops down on the carpet, and they hover around him, fluttering their wings, and twittering like young birds. He brought some big fungi home (from his trip to Burk’s Falls), and the most enchanting was a wee mossy bird’s nest, with about a foot of birch bark attached - white birch.” “The inclement weather became known as ‘Wiggin’s Storm,” she noted in her journal on March 11th, 1883.

I raised my head, from the task at hand, the final edit before sending this tome off to the publisher, and I couldn’t help but notice my wee friend, the chickadee, had returned to the railing. The tiny bird was back at the feeder with a chum, and all appears safe and sound once more. I believe Ada would have found something inspiring about this brief liaison. I can so clearly visualize her cradling the injured creature, and sense her joy, watching it re-awaken, and fly off into the shadows of the leaning old hardwoods, here at Birch Hollow.

The series of feature columns, on the life and art of Ada Florence Kinton, will continue in the next issue. The year-long series is dedicated to the Gravenhurst Food Bank, operated by the Salvation Army, a cause that Ada would have heartily approved. Please consider making a donation to a food bank in your community, to assist those facing unfortunate circumstances.

Looking out at the picturesque Ontario countryside, I think about the young Ada Kinton, on a wagon or leaning from the window of a rail car, making her copious notes, and planning out the sketches she would make, at the conclusion of her journey. Take time to enjoy this amazing time of year in our province.

Thanks for the Green Party

I’M OKAY WITH ELECTION RESULTS - ELIZABETH MAY IS COMING TO THE HILL

This morning, mulling over the huge Tory sweep of seats in the federal election, I must admit feeling a tad uneasy. I didn’t mind a minority government, headed by the Conservative Party but the election had now given them the majority, most folks thought unattainable. I spent some time thinking about my own political stripe....and I just don’t have one! No matter how hard I look, in the old nooks and crannies of middle age, I’m without serious political preference.

For a brief period of time, in the late 1980's, I was a card-carrying Conservative.....but that was because of my tremendous respect for former Ontario Premier, Frank Miller from our Muskoka-Parry Sound Riding. I’ve spent my life believing that whatever party is in power, they will respect and protect the fundamentals of democracy......the fundamentals we have fought to uphold during world wars, and during peace keeping missions, and isolated war-fronts since the Korean War. Some of the actions of the Conservative Party over the past two years, in their minority governance, has made me wonder what might happen in the event they were to secure a majority. Is democracy as we know it being threatened? They would answer “no!” Some would answer with an aggressive “yes!” So forgive me a little story I’d like to relate, and the one shining light I have found, in this most recent, under-attended election. It’s not linked in any way to the federal election, this week, but it’s a reflection of government’s less than respectful history. We often find ourselves frequently disappointed, these days, when our rights and freedoms are of a lesser luster than our pride expects. I think my dad would have approved of the Green Party’s Elizabeth May. Not because he was an environmentalist, or thinking of becoming one, but because he had a strict appreciation of democracy.....and its abuses by governments over many decades.

______________________________________________________________________________

I grew up with a deep respect for my country. I can remember staring at my father’s navy portrait, and wondering what it must have been like for him, a gunner, firing on enemy aircraft, not having time to worry about lurking U-Boats beneath, that might also end a young Canadian’s life.....sink a ship with all souls lost.

I remember him telling me about crewman, from other ships that had been destroyed, and the lasting regrets he had, being forced to leave the survivors in the water......the risk of stopping to rescue the sailors would have put even more ships and crew in peril. To his final days on this mortal coil, he never forgot those events of war he could do nothing about........and he had no privilege whatsoever, of losing those ghostly, haunting images, of sailors about to drown, waving valiantly to fellow Canadians, to carry-on and win over adversity, whatever the cost.

One day I came home from school, flicked the television on, settled down on the sofa with a pop and some left-over chips, and couldn’t help noticing that something was missing from the wall. Ed’s portrait was gone. There was a clear outline where the picture had hung. Clean wall and dirty wall. My mother probably had a fit when she noticed the discoloration. I got up, looked behind the chair to see if it had fallen down, and began a search of the livingroom. It wasn’t in a closet or in storage. I checked all the rooms. Nothing. Maybe it had been stolen. Who would take one personal portrait, when there were other, more valuable, items laying throughout the apartment? I was so worried about it, I called my mother at work. Her answer floored me! “He sold it!” Before I could muster any kind of counter-point, or utter “why” she answered my hesitation with, “He never liked it anyway. When he came back after the war, these photographers were out there trying to make money, doing these portraits of the sailors. He just went along with it, but he did it for his mother as a keepsake. Even she didn’t want it!”

By time the portrait, my heirloom, had been sold-off, I had already found my own national identity, and it didn’t hinge on a black and white portrait of a sailor once.....and I was certainly proud of my father, a gunner and radar operator aboard the Royal Canadian Navy’s ship, “Coaticook.” In conversations with my dad, I knew he was a sailor at heart, and a life-long defender of the Canadian values we cherish today. When he joined the Navy, in the first place, he was a wayward kid, with no job, no prospects, and he, with chums from the neighborhood, were hungry for adventure. As so many recruits then, he didn’t place nationalism or the preservation of democracy, over the immediate need for occupation, regular meals and a wage, however modest. He joined the navy with great hubris and unflinching bravado for the good but admittedly unknown fight ahead.....with the innocence of inexperience, but the desire to be a part of something huge and important. In retrospect, he was impacted severely by the carnage he witnessed, as many veterans suffered through the remainders of their lives. I think he was disappointed, when he arrived back home, and found a welcome, much less than what had been anticipated. I think he felt that appreciation was most deficient at the government level, in general, something many homecoming veterans felt at the time.

I remember one afternoon, at our former antique shop, in Bracebridge, showing a veteran, who also happened to be a militaria collector, a Canadian made, fabric banner, dating from 1945, a “welcome home” sign, to be hung over verandah railings and on store-fronts, to show national pride for our brave enlisted men. The gentlemen, looked me in the eye, stared down at the banner I had unfurled for his viewing, and he very slowly and methodically began folding it up again. When he had completed folding it to a small square, he pushed it back over the counter......and for a thin moment, I thought he was letting me know I should add it to the receipt on my cash register. Then he growled.....and I mean growled; “Ted, I was never welcomed back after the war. This banner is not what we were looking for when we returned. No, we didn’t feel welcomed back at all. As if we hadn’t done anything overseas.” I talked to him at some length about this, and it was clear his longstanding dismay wasn’t about the people of Canada but the general business-as-usual insensitivity of the government of the day.....to the needs of returning men, and what they required from the democracy they had defended, and successfully preserved.

I can’t really parallel the two events,..... this gentleman rejecting a World War II “Welcome Home” banner, and my father’s indifference, selling off an heirloom portrait. I did however, come to feel some added reason to ponder these incidents, over the decades, and with other similar stories I’ve heard and read about since, I think there must be something to this......and unfortunate about it......because it seems to be happening today as well, with soldiers returning home to Canada from tours of duty. You hate to think our Armed Forces’ veterans would ever think of the government, as insensitive or disrespectful, uncaring or unresponsive to their needs. Particularly those suffering from emotional and physical injuries, returning home and having to fight even harder, to find the kind of democracy they thought we had, before enlisting to serve their country. By understanding what these modern-day veterans and soldiers must contend with, from the democracy they have been nurtured, reminds me evermore poignantly what my father and a veteran friend were talking about.......when they agreed, coming home lacked everything their departure seemed to portray, about the dynamic and reliability of democracy. Their period as heroes, was painfully short-lived.

Today when I grapple with my own national values, I am torn between what I want to believe......what those brave veterans saw when leaving port, the fanfare and national pride for the preservation of the Commonwealth, to the actions of a veteran selling off his naval portrait for a few bucks......when in fact, I know, we didn’t need the money.

In the last years of his life, I brought my dad many books on the Royal Canadian Navy, and we sat and talked for hours about his service on the North Atlantic. He seemed genuinely pleased when his grandsons and I, would listen to his stories, sensing our awe, when he described shooting at German aircraft, detecting U-Boat penetration to the convoy, and riding out the monstrous storms on the high seas. He always attended Remembrance Day

Services, at Bracebridge’s Memorial Park, and he had been a Vice President, once, of the local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. He and my mother Merle never once missed voting in federal or provincial elections (I don’t know about municipal elections), and I would say our household was as proudly Canadian as you could get. Point is, it had absolutely nothing to do with the government of the day. Ed would credit his ship-mates, and all the veterans for their actions.....and never once feel compelled to mention any political leader of the day.

While many candidates and parties, in this most recent federal election, believed (with their twenty-something, backroom strategists and mantra spinners) they knew more about national pride, and responsible government, than we did, including many surviving veterans, it made me ever-more determined to follow the same nationalism my father and his friend Al had show me. That being proud of one’s country, isn’t negotiable, debatable or something to be interpreted to meet the need of some vested, timely interest. My national pride will never be hinged or influenced by the will or re-definitions imposed by the sitting government, or the political banner they wish to wave in victory, as the “party” flavor of the half decade. There are many folks like us, who will never surrender our brand of Canadian pride, which has a history, culture, society and citizen based patina we’re comfortable with, and have no desire to water-down or distort because government plans “a re-write” for their own selfish posterity.

I have been looking to find that portrait, of my father, for decades now. I hunt through hundreds of regional church sales, flea markets, estate and garage sales, and every antique shop I come upon, thinking that one day.....that familiar old face will turn up again. What a wonderful reunion that would be. You see, he would never tell me who he sold it too, especially when he found out how determined I was to get it back. Yet, what I didn’t have in a photograph of an “old salt,” I had in personal contact, and so many shared stories that I hold dearly now.

When I was growing up, having been born in 1955, we possessed a clearly proud attitude and appreciation of our Canadian heritage. On my mother’s side, were United Empire Loyalists, some who had fought for Britain in the Revolutionary War, with their offspring fighting again in the War of 1812, loyal to Crown and Country. On my father’s side, he was the offspring of a poor Irish immigrant and a Bernardo girl, and his home street was Toronto’s Cabbagetown. A tougher Canadian home turf, from that Depression era neighborhood, would be hard to find. He was just as proud of his roots, as my mother was of hers. And they shared this with me. Just as my wife, also of pioneer stock in this country, and I, today, honor the family legacy with our two boys. There is no wavering of nationalism. There is however, a deep and profound suspicion, about the tampering of political ambition, and undemocratic actions of our past and present governments. We will never allow our government to define us as Canadians.....no matter how clever or cunning they presume to be! This is a privilege we will defend in perpetuity......which we guarantee will survive longer than any fleeting government term of office.

I have only heard one speech in the past five weeks, of this grating election campaign, that speaks to every value I possess as a Canadian; seeking, like everyone else, good and responsible governance. It came from newly elected Green Party candidate, Elizabeth May, in her election-night acceptance speech. Her keenly felt values of democratic principles, our rights and privileges in the democratic process, the rights and freedoms we are afforded by the constitution, and the privilege to dissent without prejudice, should give us heart that one strong voice, in our new Canadian Parliament....will carry the unyielding, resilient message, that we are prepared to fight, as we have for long and long, to protect what we so dearly adore about our country.

God bless you Elizabeth May, for your perseverance, and stalwart belief that democracy is alive and well. You, and the Green Party, are shining lights, for those of us who had come to believe, partisan governance was the new and unmovable reality of a modern-age democracy. Thank you for your conviction to the contrary. It is a Canadian Government we have elected. I wish Elizabeth well, and look forward to her participation in the very next all-candidates’s debate four years from now!

Thanks for the Green Party

I’M OKAY WITH ELECTION RESULTS - ELIZABETH MAY IS COMING TO THE HILL

This morning, mulling over the huge Tory sweep of seats in the federal election, I must admit feeling a tad uneasy. I didn’t mind a minority government, headed by the Conservative Party but the election had now given them the majority, most folks thought unattainable. I spent some time thinking about my own political stripe....and I just don’t have one! No matter how hard I look, in the old nooks and crannies of middle age, I’m without serious political preference.

For a brief period of time, in the late 1980's, I was a card-carrying Conservative.....but that was because of my tremendous respect for former Ontario Premier, Frank Miller from our Muskoka-Parry Sound Riding. I’ve spent my life believing that whatever party is in power, they will respect and protect the fundamentals of democracy......the fundamentals we have fought to uphold during world wars, and during peace keeping missions, and isolated war-fronts since the Korean War. Some of the actions of the Conservative Party over the past two years, in their minority governance, has made me wonder what might happen in the event they were to secure a majority. Is democracy as we know it being threatened? They would answer “no!” Some would answer with an aggressive “yes!” So forgive me a little story I’d like to relate, and the one shining light I have found, in this most recent, under-attended election. It’s not linked in any way to the federal election, this week, but it’s a reflection of government’s less than respectful history. We often find ourselves frequently disappointed, these days, when our rights and freedoms are of a lesser luster than our pride expects. I think my dad would have approved of the Green Party’s Elizabeth May. Not because he was an environmentalist, or thinking of becoming one, but because he had a strict appreciation of democracy.....and its abuses by governments over many decades.

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I grew up with a deep respect for my country. I can remember staring at my father’s navy portrait, and wondering what it must have been like for him, a gunner, firing on enemy aircraft, not having time to worry about lurking U-Boats beneath, that might also end a young Canadian’s life.....sink a ship with all souls lost.

I remember him telling me about crewman, from other ships that had been destroyed, and the lasting regrets he had, being forced to leave the survivors in the water......the risk of stopping to rescue the sailors would have put even more ships and crew in peril. To his final days on this mortal coil, he never forgot those events of war he could do nothing about........and he had no privilege whatsoever, of losing those ghostly, haunting images, of sailors about to drown, waving valiantly to fellow Canadians, to carry-on and win over adversity, whatever the cost.

One day I came home from school, flicked the television on, settled down on the sofa with a pop and some left-over chips, and couldn’t help noticing that something was missing from the wall. Ed’s portrait was gone. There was a clear outline where the picture had hung. Clean wall and dirty wall. My mother probably had a fit when she noticed the discoloration. I got up, looked behind the chair to see if it had fallen down, and began a search of the livingroom. It wasn’t in a closet or in storage. I checked all the rooms. Nothing. Maybe it had been stolen. Who would take one personal portrait, when there were other, more valuable, items laying throughout the apartment? I was so worried about it, I called my mother at work. Her answer floored me! “He sold it!” Before I could muster any kind of counter-point, or utter “why” she answered my hesitation with, “He never liked it anyway. When he came back after the war, these photographers were out there trying to make money, doing these portraits of the sailors. He just went along with it, but he did it for his mother as a keepsake. Even she didn’t want it!”

By time the portrait, my heirloom, had been sold-off, I had already found my own national identity, and it didn’t hinge on a black and white portrait of a sailor once.....and I was certainly proud of my father, a gunner and radar operator aboard the Royal Canadian Navy’s ship, “Coaticook.” In conversations with my dad, I knew he was a sailor at heart, and a life-long defender of the Canadian values we cherish today. When he joined the Navy, in the first place, he was a wayward kid, with no job, no prospects, and he, with chums from the neighborhood, were hungry for adventure. As so many recruits then, he didn’t place nationalism or the preservation of democracy, over the immediate need for occupation, regular meals and a wage, however modest. He joined the navy with great hubris and unflinching bravado for the good but admittedly unknown fight ahead.....with the innocence of inexperience, but the desire to be a part of something huge and important. In retrospect, he was impacted severely by the carnage he witnessed, as many veterans suffered through the remainders of their lives. I think he was disappointed, when he arrived back home, and found a welcome, much less than what had been anticipated. I think he felt that appreciation was most deficient at the government level, in general, something many homecoming veterans felt at the time.

I remember one afternoon, at our former antique shop, in Bracebridge, showing a veteran, who also happened to be a militaria collector, a Canadian made, fabric banner, dating from 1945, a “welcome home” sign, to be hung over verandah railings and on store-fronts, to show national pride for our brave enlisted men. The gentlemen, looked me in the eye, stared down at the banner I had unfurled for his viewing, and he very slowly and methodically began folding it up again. When he had completed folding it to a small square, he pushed it back over the counter......and for a thin moment, I thought he was letting me know I should add it to the receipt on my cash register. Then he growled.....and I mean growled; “Ted, I was never welcomed back after the war. This banner is not what we were looking for when we returned. No, we didn’t feel welcomed back at all. As if we hadn’t done anything overseas.” I talked to him at some length about this, and it was clear his longstanding dismay wasn’t about the people of Canada but the general business-as-usual insensitivity of the government of the day.....to the needs of returning men, and what they required from the democracy they had defended, and successfully preserved.

I can’t really parallel the two events,..... this gentleman rejecting a World War II “Welcome Home” banner, and my father’s indifference, selling off an heirloom portrait. I did however, come to feel some added reason to ponder these incidents, over the decades, and with other similar stories I’ve heard and read about since, I think there must be something to this......and unfortunate about it......because it seems to be happening today as well, with soldiers returning home to Canada from tours of duty. You hate to think our Armed Forces’ veterans would ever think of the government, as insensitive or disrespectful, uncaring or unresponsive to their needs. Particularly those suffering from emotional and physical injuries, returning home and having to fight even harder, to find the kind of democracy they thought we had, before enlisting to serve their country. By understanding what these modern-day veterans and soldiers must contend with, from the democracy they have been nurtured, reminds me evermore poignantly what my father and a veteran friend were talking about.......when they agreed, coming home lacked everything their departure seemed to portray, about the dynamic and reliability of democracy. Their period as heroes, was painfully short-lived.

Today when I grapple with my own national values, I am torn between what I want to believe......what those brave veterans saw when leaving port, the fanfare and national pride for the preservation of the Commonwealth, to the actions of a veteran selling off his naval portrait for a few bucks......when in fact, I know, we didn’t need the money.

In the last years of his life, I brought my dad many books on the Royal Canadian Navy, and we sat and talked for hours about his service on the North Atlantic. He seemed genuinely pleased when his grandsons and I, would listen to his stories, sensing our awe, when he described shooting at German aircraft, detecting U-Boat penetration to the convoy, and riding out the monstrous storms on the high seas. He always attended Remembrance Day

Services, at Bracebridge’s Memorial Park, and he had been a Vice President, once, of the local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. He and my mother Merle never once missed voting in federal or provincial elections (I don’t know about municipal elections), and I would say our household was as proudly Canadian as you could get. Point is, it had absolutely nothing to do with the government of the day. Ed would credit his ship-mates, and all the veterans for their actions.....and never once feel compelled to mention any political leader of the day.

While many candidates and parties, in this most recent federal election, believed (with their twenty-something, backroom strategists and mantra spinners) they knew more about national pride, and responsible government, than we did, including many surviving veterans, it made me ever-more determined to follow the same nationalism my father and his friend Al had show me. That being proud of one’s country, isn’t negotiable, debatable or something to be interpreted to meet the need of some vested, timely interest. My national pride will never be hinged or influenced by the will or re-definitions imposed by the sitting government, or the political banner they wish to wave in victory, as the “party” flavor of the half decade. There are many folks like us, who will never surrender our brand of Canadian pride, which has a history, culture, society and citizen based patina we’re comfortable with, and have no desire to water-down or distort because government plans “a re-write” for their own selfish posterity.

I have been looking to find that portrait, of my father, for decades now. I hunt through hundreds of regional church sales, flea markets, estate and garage sales, and every antique shop I come upon, thinking that one day.....that familiar old face will turn up again. What a wonderful reunion that would be. You see, he would never tell me who he sold it too, especially when he found out how determined I was to get it back. Yet, what I didn’t have in a photograph of an “old salt,” I had in personal contact, and so many shared stories that I hold dearly now.

When I was growing up, having been born in 1955, we possessed a clearly proud attitude and appreciation of our Canadian heritage. On my mother’s side, were United Empire Loyalists, some who had fought for Britain in the Revolutionary War, with their offspring fighting again in the War of 1812, loyal to Crown and Country. On my father’s side, he was the offspring of a poor Irish immigrant and a Bernardo girl, and his home street was Toronto’s Cabbagetown. A tougher Canadian home turf, from that Depression era neighborhood, would be hard to find. He was just as proud of his roots, as my mother was of hers. And they shared this with me. Just as my wife, also of pioneer stock in this country, and I, today, honor the family legacy with our two boys. There is no wavering of nationalism. There is however, a deep and profound suspicion, about the tampering of political ambition, and undemocratic actions of our past and present governments. We will never allow our government to define us as Canadians.....no matter how clever or cunning they presume to be! This is a privilege we will defend in perpetuity......which we guarantee will survive longer than any fleeting government term of office.

I have only heard one speech in the past five weeks, of this grating election campaign, that speaks to every value I possess as a Canadian; seeking, like everyone else, good and responsible governance. It came from newly elected Green Party candidate, Elizabeth May, in her election-night acceptance speech. Her keenly felt values of democratic principles, our rights and privileges in the democratic process, the rights and freedoms we are afforded by the constitution, and the privilege to dissent without prejudice, should give us heart that one strong voice, in our new Canadian Parliament....will carry the unyielding, resilient message, that we are prepared to fight, as we have for long and long, to protect what we so dearly adore about our country.

God bless you Elizabeth May, for your perseverance, and stalwart belief that democracy is alive and well. You, and the Green Party, are shining lights, for those of us who had come to believe, partisan governance was the new and unmovable reality of a modern-age democracy. Thank you for your conviction to the contrary. It is a Canadian Government we have elected. I wish Elizabeth well, and look forward to her participation in the very next all-candidates’s debate four years from now!

A Last Proverbial Kick at the Can

TROUBLE-AHEAD? DEPENDS WHO YOU TALK TO - OR WHAT OPINION YOU READ

- WE WANT WHAT IS BEST FOR GRAVENHURST

If you want to test a locale’s sensitivity to its ever-evolving reputation, there’s no better time than to information gather, when stuff is hitting the proverbial fan. You know what it’s like in good times. What about when knee-deep in bad times. I’ve studied Gravenhurst closely, even as a regional historian, when I was living elsewhere. It has a fascinating history and when we moved to town in the late 1980's, we immersed ourselves in all that made Gravenhurst tick. We wanted to know as much about our new hometown as possible. It wasn’t to gain any particular advantage but we most certainly wanted to let the local citizenry know.....we weren’t taking their accomplishments lightly....or with any indifference whatsoever. While I am a transplant from Burlington, in 1966 to Bracebridge, my wife and sons, as I have noted previously, are Muskokans, born and raised. I’m proud to say that and they are proud to live it! Still, when we moved here, we felt it necessary to make this a social / cultural immersion, not just a matter of economics. We do have three businesses between us. If we wanted to be part of this community, we still had work to do, and understandably so. It was well worth the effort.

I am not interested in politics. I’ve noted this before as well. The problem for me, is that my background as an editor with the local press, has often over-ridden my own sensible proportion. Covering three of six municipalities for the local press, Muskoka Lakes, Bracebridge, and Gravenhurst, I vowed once liberated, to stay as far away from local politics as humanly possible. What sucked me back into the municipal vortex, was when Gravenhurst Council decided to screw around with The Bog here in the Calydor Subdisision, thinking of the wetland as a decent money maker for big town projects in the works. I went from pacifist to activist in the span of about three minutes, the time it took to scan a front page article in the local press. Like other council handiwork I had seen in the past, from the three towns I was familiar, I had no choice but to react accordingly to the importance of the issue. When I tell you about chaining oneself to a tree, to stop desecration to a lowland, it was only one tenth of what was about to transpire. It wasn’t a threat. I have never resorted to threats to move forward on matters important to me, my family and my hometown.

When we arrived in Gravenhurst, and I was put to work as an assistant editor of The Banner (circa 1989-90), one of my early opinion pieces was about the infighting of the local BIA, and how the negativity was profoundly imprinting on the town’s character.....as perceived by residents of the town and everybody else who cared to pick-up a copy of the local news. This is 2011 folks, and I’m thinking there’s no real end in sight. Has it had a long-term negative impact? Most would offer a resounding “yes!” It‘s rooted in history. It has become normal practice. Such that if the perpetual disagreements and bickering weren’t in evidence, any longer, we’d say “what the hell’s wrong with everybody.” Getting along without blow-ups would then be the new normal. It would take some getting used to. Then it would be up to the historians and pundits to argue whether dissension makes for better productivity than congenial relations.

In this latest foray into negative connotation, with expenses at the newly refurbished recreation centre, a majority of this town’s population hopes for a speedy resolution. They wish like me, it had never become an issue because this was to be a happy period of our town’s history.....seeing a new pool and a larger recreation facility. While even the harshest critic sounds off about over-spending and high taxes, like the ever-blathering “me,” most of us watchers in the woods planned to be there, on opening day, none the less. It is afterall, our home inspired accomplishment, as a community, province and a national investment. There has been an excitement building, and although we don’t like to show our cards in advance, we felt positive about this kind of urban change for the future. When the news broke, most recently, that an investigation was to be called, a lot of citizens got a shock of reality right in the kisser. On the heals of other unfortunate incidents, such as a mainstreet fire, it was a knee-jerk reaction for many, who wanted heads to roll even before any inquiry could commence. Hard to fault over-reaction when reading about allegations of wrong-doing in your hometown, on the front page of one of Canada’s largest newspapers. Our pride got poked in the eye.

Earlier this year I had offered my services, as a volunteer, to assist the mayor’s outreach into the community. I noted that my blog would be suspended, during my time in this capacity, and that I would swear any oath of confidentiality required. I volunteer for a lot of projects, and I really wanted to contribute to a new administration, and a new citizen-friendly council attitude. I had stressed my interest in creating a better understanding of local heritage, as I believe we have some members of present council who are not up to snuff on historic details, as they should be......in order to represent the full integrity of this town which wasn’t founded in 2010. Well, I didn’t fit the requirement, or quality of advisor, the mayor’s office wanted at the time. I was a little bummed out that I didn’t get an interview but hey........you get pretty used to rejection in my line of work. Point is, I’m assuming there were other, better suited, candidates to choose from. But I was happy to give it a go none the less, because I want to help my hometown. That won’t change. Of course, being opinionated to the exponent of ten, can intimidate folks. I understand my bluster has teeth. I will always make time for my hometown. Those who know are family commitments, and volunteer work, realize this isn’t a hollow offering.

I have offered some advice via these most recent blogs, about the importance of council being transparent with citizens of this community; profoundly so, considering the rampant roll of hearsay and outrageous speculation lately. There has been some sharing of information by the mayor, and that’s a start. There needs to be much more to satisfy the raging curiosity.

It’s not my place to adjudicate on this troubling situation, making unfounded accusations and contributing to dangerous speculation. If there is anything I have tried to advance, from the first front page expose, over a week ago, it has been to encourage council to meet the public face-on, or with newspaper interviews and releases, to keep speculation quelled. I have heard some incredible rhetoric and embellishments in the past week, many that I have taken upon myself to debunk.......while council itself seems more interested in house cleaning and new directions, than pulling their boots from the quagmire they currently find themselves stuck. If they’re stuck, so are we. Just because there is an investigation going on, doesn’t negate council from providing information...... than can be safely shared, with a very worried constituency......this is also a “due diligence” of the job they were elected to perform, to the best of their ability. If this is the best of their ability.....well, they’ve got a rough four years to traverse with a severely pissed off electorate.

I have many projects backed-up and overwhelming me today, and I won’t be squaring off with council regularly this spring and summer. Hopefully I’ve made my point. Transparency is a tool of pro-active representation. We asked for it! Council hopefuls promised us it would be a long-term characteristic of the new administration. In my own humble opinion today, I would not use the word “transparency” to describe the actions and reactions of the present Gravenhurst Council. It will come back to haunt council many times in the coming months and year, because the citizens weren’t kidding when they demanded transparency during the election campaign of 2010. It shouldn’t be of any great surprise, that resignations are demanded, if the public continues to feel poorly informed and bypassed, during this time when we’re all feeling a little threatened here by really bad news.

I hope it all goes away. But them I’ve always been a dreamer!